Hi there. Sorry for the late update. I will be faster in the future if you
wish for me to continue.
There may be a thing or two which may seem strange in this chapter. The
'mystery' if any should be explained in the subsequent chapters, which may
upgrade the rating to R.
Disclaimer: Only characters that are mine are Steve, Tristan and maybe Rayna. Everything else is Blizzard's. I don't own anything. I used to own myself but a group of warlike girls from campus ensnared me. Now I am forced to sit in front of a pc writing fanfics in my underwear to please my dark mistresses. sob
On with the story! :)
"Fallen ones indeed! I am Rayna and my sister-in-arms here is called Amplissa. As you may already have guessed, we are both sisters from the Order of the Sightless Eye," the taller of the two offered. "I'm Steve," Steve replied surprised at the fact he can finally recall his name. Amplissa blushed. Rayna looked at Steve's crotch while licking her lips. Steve had some vague idea that something wasn't quite right.
"Please, we will be glad if you will follow us back to our dwellings. I must admit it's not much but it's at least better than here," Amplissa said breaking the awkward moment. Steve warily accepted the offer. In his experience, women were far more dangerous than demons. Well, at least male demons anyway. There was that time with the succubus.... Steve shuddered. Some things were best left forgotten.
The three of them then made their way out of the cavern and into the surface world. From there, they began their journey back to the rogues' camp. Somewhere along the way, Steve had managed to acquire an edible looking mushroom. Feeling hungry, Steve took a bite. It was surprisingly delicious. 'Hmm... That's some weird aftertaste...' was Steve's last thought before he collapsed to the ground. (The mushroom eaten by Steve was called 'knockout' by the locals for a good reason)
The rogues oblivious to the plight of their new comrade continued on believing that he was behind them all the time....
"How did you manage to lose the man?! Did some demon hit you so hard on the head that you have lost all your wits?!" Akara cast her furious gaze at Rayna. "You Amplissa, have you somehow misplaced your eyes while fighting the demons?!" Akara gave a scathing look to Amplissa.
"Be that as it may, there is naught for us to do about it now. There are still many adventurers about in our camp. Your task is to gather all of them and assemble them outside my tent on the morrow at dawn. Dismissed." Akara ordered. Rayna and Amplissa gave a curt nod and quickly escaped from Akara's tent.
"You are all gathered here to be made aware of ill tidings. Kasha's scouts have reported that Blood Raven, our once celebrated captain has arisen again as a minion of evil and even now gathers her undead armies to strike at us. At the height of her strength, this encampment will surely fall. We have but one hope, and that is to assassinate her now while she is still weak." At this there were sounds of protests from those around her. However, before Akara can speak again...
"To arms! To arms! The camp is under attack!!" The cry was taken up by several others. In a moment, all the inhabitants; rogues, adventurers and mercenaries alike have gathered outside the entrance of the encampment. Even the staunchest hearts amongst them quailed at the sight before them. Several legions of undead were advancing menacingly towards them. Were it just the decaying zombies, they may yet hope to prevail. Alas, it was not so for overtaking the ranks of zombies were numerous hordes of malicious skeletons wielding maces, swords, axes and even bows.
The hundred or so defenders have the advantage of range but are outnumbered at least twenty to one. And still the undead continued to pour forth from the horizon. The humans knew that the battle is over before it has even begun. A lone rogue tried to run away into the wilderness to save herself. She was struck down by a hail of arrows before she had taken but ten strides. Death was but a certainty for the beleaguered defenders.
Steve woke up to find himself to an extremely unpleasant situation. First, he was thoroughly soaked in mud, but he never was a vain man so it was but a minor complain. Secondly, he had no idea where he was, but this was a common occurrence for him so he had gotten used to it. Finally, he seems to be in the midst of an endless sea of undead horrors. Strangely, they had not attacked him as yet.
The zombies trudged on, ignoring what they had assumed to be an oddly- shaped log but a log nonetheless and therefore inedible. The skeletons charged on, the red light in their eye sockets gleaming maniacally in anticipation of the carnage to come, ignoring the "log". And so it came to pass that the entire undead army did not notice Steve in his armor of mud....
The leader of the army however was more observant and recognized Steve for what he was. "Join my army of the dead!" Blood Raven howled in glee. Steve, realizing that he had been found, sprang forth from his place of hiding and confronted the fearsome creature. He then said "Look behind you. A flying pig!"
Blood Raven turned her head to look behind and discovered nothing amiss. Realizing the ruse played upon her, she unleashed a volley of arrows towards the fleeing man. In his haste, Steve had stumbled upon a rock and crashed into the ground. An arrow wheezed past where he was but a moment ago. In desperation, Steve hurled the amulet he found at the face of the abomination. The undead captain still had the reflexes she possess in life and easily avoided the poorly aimed missile. The amulet landed silently behind her.
Instead of lying still, as it should, the amulet began to vibrate and amazingly, was sucking in the earth around it. Rivers of soil continued to rally to the amulet until the amulet itself was no longer visible. Ever faster the mound grew until in the space of a heartbeat, it has grown to 7 feet tall and had assumed a somewhat humanoid shaped.
It moved.
"There's something moving behind you!" Steve shouted, too amazed to take his eyes off the creature to look at the arrow aimed at his heart. Besides, he had stared defiantly in the face of Death countless times before (read as: had sprinted off while looking back occasionally to make sure that Death is not catching up on him.)
"Do you take me for a fool?! Die insolent one!" Black Raven bellowed. Before she could release the arrow, she noticed a great shadow dwarfing her own. She stole a glance over her shoulders out of curiosity. She saw a mighty fist made of clay rapidly enlarging to encompass her view. Then she saw no more...
Steve stood fascinated as he saw the clay humanoid pound the former undead leader into the ground even though it was obvious that she was a dead undead. Not even an undead can take that much abuse. Without warning, the mangled body of Blood Raven convulsed and brilliant arcs of energy lanced forth in all directions from her body...
The battle was fast in danger of becoming a rout for the inhabitants of the camp. Tristan Truefaith had little hope of seeing the next sunrise. It was true that they had beaten back this wave with no casualties but a mere glance told him that they could not last long. The wooden palisade has been breached. The sea of undead had become an ocean. They may well be sandcastles erected to stop a tsunami.
Tristan shook himself vigorously off of such thoughts. He was a Paladin of Travincal, the City Of Light, of the Truefaith house. Were he to die, he shall make the enemy pay dearly for his life. With that thought in his mind, he did not wait for the abominations, but instead charged valiantly forward, with his shield held high and his spirits higher still.
Seeing his example, those around him grew bold and followed his lead. (Even the rogues, for though their skill in archery was almost unsurpassed, their supply of arrows had long been depleted.)
The impact of his momentum caused the head of a skeleton to be severed from its body without preamble. Not wanting to lose the initiative, Tristan managed to stun another skeleton with his shield before following up with an overhead chop of his broadsword that caused his adversary's bony head to split in half. Before a mace-wielding skeleton could enter the fray, Tristan summoned his life energy and with his will shaped it into a bolt of pure faith.... The skeleton perished upon contact with the shining globe of energy. Finding himself out of opponents temporarily, Tristan paused to survey the tide of battle..... except that the battle had become a skirmish! The majority of the undead had fallen, disintegrated by wayward arcs of lightning that coursed through the ground. There was yet hope for the humans seemed unaffected by them! With renewed vigour, Tristan joined his comrades to finish off the remaining threat.
A great shout of victory resounded in the camp. The victory was made even sweeter by the incredulous fact that the humans did not suffer even a single casualty. There were several that were gravely injured including the young rogue that had tried to escape at the start of battle, but they should recover in time.
None of them had any idea of where the strange surge of energy that had allowed them to prevail had come from. Also, there still remains the threat of Blood Raven sending an even greater army to eradicate them in her wrath. These two thoughts weighed heavily on the mind of Kasha, martial leader of the rogues.
"Akara, we must heal the wounded quickly and erect defenses for the threat that is Blood Raven still looms. We must....," the words died in her mouth. When Akara looked askance at her, she could only point her finger to the entrance of the camp. By now, several others had seen the pair and these quickly urged those nearest to look upon them. Soon, the entire camp was watching with guarded interest the pair of humanoids made of the earth itself.
Both of the creatures seemed to be made of mud, soil, rocks and such things as can be found in the Earth. The only difference was that one was human sized whereas the other was gigantic and was holding what seemed to be a corpse in its arms.
The smaller of the two stepped forward and said........ or rather tried to say something, for at that moment, the thin mud covering its feet made it lose balance and hence, Steve made a hero's grand entrance by falling flat on his face. The clay golem faithfully followed his master's example, thinking that it must be a form of greeting amongst humans....
There. I hope you enjoyed it. It's my school holidays and I've got a bit of time to spare. I intend to write about twenty or so chapters if I know that people are reading my work. Have a nice day.
Disclaimer: Only characters that are mine are Steve, Tristan and maybe Rayna. Everything else is Blizzard's. I don't own anything. I used to own myself but a group of warlike girls from campus ensnared me. Now I am forced to sit in front of a pc writing fanfics in my underwear to please my dark mistresses. sob
On with the story! :)
"Fallen ones indeed! I am Rayna and my sister-in-arms here is called Amplissa. As you may already have guessed, we are both sisters from the Order of the Sightless Eye," the taller of the two offered. "I'm Steve," Steve replied surprised at the fact he can finally recall his name. Amplissa blushed. Rayna looked at Steve's crotch while licking her lips. Steve had some vague idea that something wasn't quite right.
"Please, we will be glad if you will follow us back to our dwellings. I must admit it's not much but it's at least better than here," Amplissa said breaking the awkward moment. Steve warily accepted the offer. In his experience, women were far more dangerous than demons. Well, at least male demons anyway. There was that time with the succubus.... Steve shuddered. Some things were best left forgotten.
The three of them then made their way out of the cavern and into the surface world. From there, they began their journey back to the rogues' camp. Somewhere along the way, Steve had managed to acquire an edible looking mushroom. Feeling hungry, Steve took a bite. It was surprisingly delicious. 'Hmm... That's some weird aftertaste...' was Steve's last thought before he collapsed to the ground. (The mushroom eaten by Steve was called 'knockout' by the locals for a good reason)
The rogues oblivious to the plight of their new comrade continued on believing that he was behind them all the time....
"How did you manage to lose the man?! Did some demon hit you so hard on the head that you have lost all your wits?!" Akara cast her furious gaze at Rayna. "You Amplissa, have you somehow misplaced your eyes while fighting the demons?!" Akara gave a scathing look to Amplissa.
"Be that as it may, there is naught for us to do about it now. There are still many adventurers about in our camp. Your task is to gather all of them and assemble them outside my tent on the morrow at dawn. Dismissed." Akara ordered. Rayna and Amplissa gave a curt nod and quickly escaped from Akara's tent.
"You are all gathered here to be made aware of ill tidings. Kasha's scouts have reported that Blood Raven, our once celebrated captain has arisen again as a minion of evil and even now gathers her undead armies to strike at us. At the height of her strength, this encampment will surely fall. We have but one hope, and that is to assassinate her now while she is still weak." At this there were sounds of protests from those around her. However, before Akara can speak again...
"To arms! To arms! The camp is under attack!!" The cry was taken up by several others. In a moment, all the inhabitants; rogues, adventurers and mercenaries alike have gathered outside the entrance of the encampment. Even the staunchest hearts amongst them quailed at the sight before them. Several legions of undead were advancing menacingly towards them. Were it just the decaying zombies, they may yet hope to prevail. Alas, it was not so for overtaking the ranks of zombies were numerous hordes of malicious skeletons wielding maces, swords, axes and even bows.
The hundred or so defenders have the advantage of range but are outnumbered at least twenty to one. And still the undead continued to pour forth from the horizon. The humans knew that the battle is over before it has even begun. A lone rogue tried to run away into the wilderness to save herself. She was struck down by a hail of arrows before she had taken but ten strides. Death was but a certainty for the beleaguered defenders.
Steve woke up to find himself to an extremely unpleasant situation. First, he was thoroughly soaked in mud, but he never was a vain man so it was but a minor complain. Secondly, he had no idea where he was, but this was a common occurrence for him so he had gotten used to it. Finally, he seems to be in the midst of an endless sea of undead horrors. Strangely, they had not attacked him as yet.
The zombies trudged on, ignoring what they had assumed to be an oddly- shaped log but a log nonetheless and therefore inedible. The skeletons charged on, the red light in their eye sockets gleaming maniacally in anticipation of the carnage to come, ignoring the "log". And so it came to pass that the entire undead army did not notice Steve in his armor of mud....
The leader of the army however was more observant and recognized Steve for what he was. "Join my army of the dead!" Blood Raven howled in glee. Steve, realizing that he had been found, sprang forth from his place of hiding and confronted the fearsome creature. He then said "Look behind you. A flying pig!"
Blood Raven turned her head to look behind and discovered nothing amiss. Realizing the ruse played upon her, she unleashed a volley of arrows towards the fleeing man. In his haste, Steve had stumbled upon a rock and crashed into the ground. An arrow wheezed past where he was but a moment ago. In desperation, Steve hurled the amulet he found at the face of the abomination. The undead captain still had the reflexes she possess in life and easily avoided the poorly aimed missile. The amulet landed silently behind her.
Instead of lying still, as it should, the amulet began to vibrate and amazingly, was sucking in the earth around it. Rivers of soil continued to rally to the amulet until the amulet itself was no longer visible. Ever faster the mound grew until in the space of a heartbeat, it has grown to 7 feet tall and had assumed a somewhat humanoid shaped.
It moved.
"There's something moving behind you!" Steve shouted, too amazed to take his eyes off the creature to look at the arrow aimed at his heart. Besides, he had stared defiantly in the face of Death countless times before (read as: had sprinted off while looking back occasionally to make sure that Death is not catching up on him.)
"Do you take me for a fool?! Die insolent one!" Black Raven bellowed. Before she could release the arrow, she noticed a great shadow dwarfing her own. She stole a glance over her shoulders out of curiosity. She saw a mighty fist made of clay rapidly enlarging to encompass her view. Then she saw no more...
Steve stood fascinated as he saw the clay humanoid pound the former undead leader into the ground even though it was obvious that she was a dead undead. Not even an undead can take that much abuse. Without warning, the mangled body of Blood Raven convulsed and brilliant arcs of energy lanced forth in all directions from her body...
The battle was fast in danger of becoming a rout for the inhabitants of the camp. Tristan Truefaith had little hope of seeing the next sunrise. It was true that they had beaten back this wave with no casualties but a mere glance told him that they could not last long. The wooden palisade has been breached. The sea of undead had become an ocean. They may well be sandcastles erected to stop a tsunami.
Tristan shook himself vigorously off of such thoughts. He was a Paladin of Travincal, the City Of Light, of the Truefaith house. Were he to die, he shall make the enemy pay dearly for his life. With that thought in his mind, he did not wait for the abominations, but instead charged valiantly forward, with his shield held high and his spirits higher still.
Seeing his example, those around him grew bold and followed his lead. (Even the rogues, for though their skill in archery was almost unsurpassed, their supply of arrows had long been depleted.)
The impact of his momentum caused the head of a skeleton to be severed from its body without preamble. Not wanting to lose the initiative, Tristan managed to stun another skeleton with his shield before following up with an overhead chop of his broadsword that caused his adversary's bony head to split in half. Before a mace-wielding skeleton could enter the fray, Tristan summoned his life energy and with his will shaped it into a bolt of pure faith.... The skeleton perished upon contact with the shining globe of energy. Finding himself out of opponents temporarily, Tristan paused to survey the tide of battle..... except that the battle had become a skirmish! The majority of the undead had fallen, disintegrated by wayward arcs of lightning that coursed through the ground. There was yet hope for the humans seemed unaffected by them! With renewed vigour, Tristan joined his comrades to finish off the remaining threat.
A great shout of victory resounded in the camp. The victory was made even sweeter by the incredulous fact that the humans did not suffer even a single casualty. There were several that were gravely injured including the young rogue that had tried to escape at the start of battle, but they should recover in time.
None of them had any idea of where the strange surge of energy that had allowed them to prevail had come from. Also, there still remains the threat of Blood Raven sending an even greater army to eradicate them in her wrath. These two thoughts weighed heavily on the mind of Kasha, martial leader of the rogues.
"Akara, we must heal the wounded quickly and erect defenses for the threat that is Blood Raven still looms. We must....," the words died in her mouth. When Akara looked askance at her, she could only point her finger to the entrance of the camp. By now, several others had seen the pair and these quickly urged those nearest to look upon them. Soon, the entire camp was watching with guarded interest the pair of humanoids made of the earth itself.
Both of the creatures seemed to be made of mud, soil, rocks and such things as can be found in the Earth. The only difference was that one was human sized whereas the other was gigantic and was holding what seemed to be a corpse in its arms.
The smaller of the two stepped forward and said........ or rather tried to say something, for at that moment, the thin mud covering its feet made it lose balance and hence, Steve made a hero's grand entrance by falling flat on his face. The clay golem faithfully followed his master's example, thinking that it must be a form of greeting amongst humans....
There. I hope you enjoyed it. It's my school holidays and I've got a bit of time to spare. I intend to write about twenty or so chapters if I know that people are reading my work. Have a nice day.