Sorry if that last one was a bit sappy for any of you, but I try hard to
include the many aspects of a story into my writing. Besides, Durag
Lithin'thuar has, (as many of his type,) been instructed to never give into
the distractions of human emotion, In my mind it would be forbidden in so
ominous an order as the preists of Rathma. Anyway, It's pretty much all
action from here onwards, and lots of epic, earth-shattering battles, so
hold on tight, buckle up, and here we go. . .
-J. Diabolico-
The sun rose crimson red over the horizon, and no thing with life made a sound. The town was silent and seemingly deserted. The shadows of the dread morning stretched out along the dark streets, agonized, twisted shades falling upon the few maggots and creatures daring or stupid enough to stray out of doors. The silent, ominous howling of the wind carried then, softly, impossibly quiet, a sound, muffled and drowned by the hate in the air. A thud of sole upon the cold, unliving earth. Then more, louder, and the shades fell and scattered back in horror in their terror. Three figures, cloaked in heavenly, unpreceived light appeared in the desolate place, rays of unabashed hope in the cold, red dawn. They made their way towards the west, even now walking away from the blood red horror that was the moring sun. Into the darkness they went, towards the unhly and hopeless place were evil resided, went to meet their fates.
The forests, being now quite clear, were passed by these three fateful men, the Preist, the Knight and the Sorcerer, walking steadily in the drab and shadowy day, the day that was really a night, spreading light into the very corners of the deepest and most uninhabited caves they found along the way. They were as a candle, lit for the last hope of the beseiged town and the land even, cast into darkness, to stand it's tests and return, triumphant, as a blazing beacon of good over evil. This is how they came from the forest into the plains beyond, into the thickening dark and gathering evil. The first test had begun.
"Cover the right side! Watch for the arrows!" bellowed the Paladin over the din of battle gear in the midday darkness. The darkest spire of the cathedral of York cut jagged and evil into the cloudy sky. A vast army of Darkness had come to meet them just before it's gates across the once beautiful plains of Corthumar, now defiled and nasty in the smothering air.
"Arath' Illiuar!" exclaimed the braced and armored Necromancer, the thick darkness clinging to his form, horrible and fully mailed from head to foot was he, a nightmarish sight to the most hateful of foes. . .He held out a hand and it glowed expectantly in the semidarkness, ready for the test of will before him.
The smaller, stockier form of the holy preist stepped proudly beside this menacing form, and drew back the fated bowstring to fire, releasing a holy bolt of heavenly fire upon his enemies. He knew now neither fear nor reluctance to face his fate this dreadful morn.
The Knight, proud and brave, loudly recited the prayers and wishes to is mighty cause, holy and righteous as he drew his sword, the metal singing a deadly song as it slid easily from it's sheath, glittering brightly on the black plain, and forcing the shudder of condemnation down the spines of all who faced him now.
A massive darkness faced them now, a gigantic congregation of hideous demons and tortured human forms; twisted and malformed in such agony and hate by the magic of some malignant and hateful being. They growled inhumanely in expectancy of the battle, but they, amoung the hundreds of beasts and dead warriors amassed here, were not in the mind to realice the danger they were not subject to; and so they trembled not, and stodd arrogantly in their detested columns and prepared to charge the beings of light in front of them. . .
"Arath' Iluathar, Yendel O' Belincuar!" came a terrifying voice from the shadow, and a blazing fire leapt up around a column of evil troops, burning and scalding the foul beasts. Arrows flew into the crowded black hordes, passing through the wall of fire and landing, burning into the huddled bodies of the terrified dark ones, many fell. . .More terror bore down upon the black and twisted men in the army of darkness; for the sword of Athos had been unsheathed, and it tasted the blood of the sinful once more, cutting bravely through the confused masses of enemy, driving them irresistably into oblivion, it's weilder screaming those hated, beautiful holy words, the light burning and scatterng the dark ones in it's wake. The attackers were being attacked themselves, and the shadow glided quickly across the short space and through the wall of flame, passing through without a flinch the scorching and hellbourne tounges of fire to met his enemies in the face of battle. The Necromancer's hands tightened upon his black war hammer, enchanted as it was with his twisted and horrid power, the amulet blazing brightly from around his neck, he swung a mighty blow at the advancing line of demons, and the foremost creatures were knocked far and wide, flying over the fray and landing, faces smashed hideously inwards, among their comrades, who looked upon their dead bodies in horror. Spears of cruel, cold bone sped from the black gloved palms of the Sorcerer and tore their way viciously through the crowded mass. Many fell before it's merciless glare.
The heavenly warrior, meanwhile, crusaded quickly through the other side of the feild, his truthful sword shining in undimmed light and glowing in holy white fire in it's heavenly fury, slicing burning through the trembling flesh of the corrupted men who dared stand in his way. One soldier of hell stepped up in arrogant courage, the leader of the group, and held his sword to that fated blade of the angels, and the Paladin, braver and more pure than the snows of the most sacred mountain, interchanged blows with this unworthy adversary from the ranks of the Dark Lord himself. Tall and black the evil warrior stood, pride and arrogance had aligned in this malignant creature, whose long years of corrupted and vile existance had sheilded him from fear of any man living. This horrible and fell man, now more of a devil than a human, stood in the way of the blazing sword of Athos, and the courageous man weilding it with such skill.
"Your hour has come, Holy man; for no man do I fear, and many of your order have fallen under this very blade. Join them! Join the destryed hopes of your foolish comrades! Your Holy God is helpless and tame in my master's hate!" The creature exclaimed, a dreadful circle of men surrounding the pair as they circeld eachother warily.
"Thy evil blade shall taste the blood of no more innocents beyond this instant, thou evil miscreation of Hell! Burn you shall along with your despichable master in his defiled hellish realm!" the light sage spoke, his proud and brave voice breaking through the dark around him. The lights of heaven opened up to shine down upon him, lighting the scene aglow; the men leapt back in horror, and the vile lord felt his cold heart tremble in fear, and he turned then and ran from the light; terrified. Then lines broke, and forward charged the brave knight to end his enemy's unjust and tortured existence.
The Sorcerer was fighting still as he say the scene; watching the fleeing demon lord and the brave knight following him into the dark gates of the beseiged city, crying his holy and righteous alms as he hewwed the few men who remained to stand in his way.
"Bometh, brave archer, set your holy bow upon the far columns of the demons to our right!" the arrows flew out imeadiatly in reply, cutting through the dark lines without reserve. The shadow stepped up, surrounded by his glowing and deadly assasin skeletons, mercilessly hacking through the falling prey, and the nightmare Necromancer swung his heavy enchanted hammer over the frray, sending the terrified creatures in all directions and summoning the darkest curses of his religion to his aide now; the demons felt the stregnth and power leave the width of their arms as the tall shade advanced upon them, and the harder they fought, the more they fell, it seemed.
"Akathroir, Nemdraku." Came a dark voice and the shadow turned in the dim light to the source. A dark creature of Hell stood crouched in the fray nearby. A massive flaming limb tore out of the shadow and scattered a skeletal warrior nearby it, the glowing bones flying in every direction.
"Janbar! Sukoso, tu' aire!" replied the Sorcerer in the forgotten language of his people. He had turned to the new enemy and hefted his hammer heavily into the air. The beastly Demon Lord lashed out violently, slashing dark claws at the enchanted weapon and sending it swirling from the hand of the Necromancer.
"Now I shall taste the blood of one of my order!" spat the deadly apparation. It stepped silently from the crowd of demons around him. His imposing height coming into being seemingly from nowhere, the mage of the Rathma order advanced, hellish black flames springing from his form as he drew two dreadful black swords. The Necromancer smiled grimly and removed his helm slowly and tossed it into the group of awed dark ones watching. "I knew the fates had condemned you, Altruar, but to be used thusly. . ." he said sadly to the mage. The Sorceress in her dark tower at the top of the cathedral smiled in her concentration. The being also smiled as she did.
"You are not fooled by your former master's spirit, Necromancer?" the being asked. The Necromancer mage's corpse speaking the words of it's controller, the Sorceress. It's swords whirled over it's head as it peered down haughtily at the Sorcerer before him. Bometh meanwhile fended off the few demons still advancing upon him, arrows flying impossibly fast from his bow and finding their targets flawlessly.
"You are no more my master than you are the power you claim to be." The Necromancer replied to the reanimated mage. "The man whose spirit you comand here was truly once a man of might, but you have defiled his remains and befouled his spirit with your evil actions." He brought up his hands and held them before the powerful creature before him as the mage spirit attacked him. A vicious spectral claw scraped through a slit in the Necromancer's armor as he spun away quickly. Warm blood creeped slowly from the wound, the demon circle laughed and began to clap happily.
"You shall pay for that with your head, vile demoness!" the Durag whsipered, and his body was suddenly enveloped in a greenish, evil glow as his eyes ignited in dark fire. The war of the magicians was about to be fought. The mage reincarnation stepped bodly into the glimmering circle of luminescence.
"Halt wretched coward!" cried Damathodor loudly upon racing past a wrecked, burning house, following the fleeing trail of the retreating Demon Lord. "Face your fate, cursed one! Fly not from the Holy judgement!" He ran headlong around the near corner, coming into the cathedral's courtyard suddenly, and, seeing the hateful shade slip quickly under the archway of the second yard, the Knight gritted his teeth and pressed on, increasing his speed. . .
-J. Diabolico-
The sun rose crimson red over the horizon, and no thing with life made a sound. The town was silent and seemingly deserted. The shadows of the dread morning stretched out along the dark streets, agonized, twisted shades falling upon the few maggots and creatures daring or stupid enough to stray out of doors. The silent, ominous howling of the wind carried then, softly, impossibly quiet, a sound, muffled and drowned by the hate in the air. A thud of sole upon the cold, unliving earth. Then more, louder, and the shades fell and scattered back in horror in their terror. Three figures, cloaked in heavenly, unpreceived light appeared in the desolate place, rays of unabashed hope in the cold, red dawn. They made their way towards the west, even now walking away from the blood red horror that was the moring sun. Into the darkness they went, towards the unhly and hopeless place were evil resided, went to meet their fates.
The forests, being now quite clear, were passed by these three fateful men, the Preist, the Knight and the Sorcerer, walking steadily in the drab and shadowy day, the day that was really a night, spreading light into the very corners of the deepest and most uninhabited caves they found along the way. They were as a candle, lit for the last hope of the beseiged town and the land even, cast into darkness, to stand it's tests and return, triumphant, as a blazing beacon of good over evil. This is how they came from the forest into the plains beyond, into the thickening dark and gathering evil. The first test had begun.
"Cover the right side! Watch for the arrows!" bellowed the Paladin over the din of battle gear in the midday darkness. The darkest spire of the cathedral of York cut jagged and evil into the cloudy sky. A vast army of Darkness had come to meet them just before it's gates across the once beautiful plains of Corthumar, now defiled and nasty in the smothering air.
"Arath' Illiuar!" exclaimed the braced and armored Necromancer, the thick darkness clinging to his form, horrible and fully mailed from head to foot was he, a nightmarish sight to the most hateful of foes. . .He held out a hand and it glowed expectantly in the semidarkness, ready for the test of will before him.
The smaller, stockier form of the holy preist stepped proudly beside this menacing form, and drew back the fated bowstring to fire, releasing a holy bolt of heavenly fire upon his enemies. He knew now neither fear nor reluctance to face his fate this dreadful morn.
The Knight, proud and brave, loudly recited the prayers and wishes to is mighty cause, holy and righteous as he drew his sword, the metal singing a deadly song as it slid easily from it's sheath, glittering brightly on the black plain, and forcing the shudder of condemnation down the spines of all who faced him now.
A massive darkness faced them now, a gigantic congregation of hideous demons and tortured human forms; twisted and malformed in such agony and hate by the magic of some malignant and hateful being. They growled inhumanely in expectancy of the battle, but they, amoung the hundreds of beasts and dead warriors amassed here, were not in the mind to realice the danger they were not subject to; and so they trembled not, and stodd arrogantly in their detested columns and prepared to charge the beings of light in front of them. . .
"Arath' Iluathar, Yendel O' Belincuar!" came a terrifying voice from the shadow, and a blazing fire leapt up around a column of evil troops, burning and scalding the foul beasts. Arrows flew into the crowded black hordes, passing through the wall of fire and landing, burning into the huddled bodies of the terrified dark ones, many fell. . .More terror bore down upon the black and twisted men in the army of darkness; for the sword of Athos had been unsheathed, and it tasted the blood of the sinful once more, cutting bravely through the confused masses of enemy, driving them irresistably into oblivion, it's weilder screaming those hated, beautiful holy words, the light burning and scatterng the dark ones in it's wake. The attackers were being attacked themselves, and the shadow glided quickly across the short space and through the wall of flame, passing through without a flinch the scorching and hellbourne tounges of fire to met his enemies in the face of battle. The Necromancer's hands tightened upon his black war hammer, enchanted as it was with his twisted and horrid power, the amulet blazing brightly from around his neck, he swung a mighty blow at the advancing line of demons, and the foremost creatures were knocked far and wide, flying over the fray and landing, faces smashed hideously inwards, among their comrades, who looked upon their dead bodies in horror. Spears of cruel, cold bone sped from the black gloved palms of the Sorcerer and tore their way viciously through the crowded mass. Many fell before it's merciless glare.
The heavenly warrior, meanwhile, crusaded quickly through the other side of the feild, his truthful sword shining in undimmed light and glowing in holy white fire in it's heavenly fury, slicing burning through the trembling flesh of the corrupted men who dared stand in his way. One soldier of hell stepped up in arrogant courage, the leader of the group, and held his sword to that fated blade of the angels, and the Paladin, braver and more pure than the snows of the most sacred mountain, interchanged blows with this unworthy adversary from the ranks of the Dark Lord himself. Tall and black the evil warrior stood, pride and arrogance had aligned in this malignant creature, whose long years of corrupted and vile existance had sheilded him from fear of any man living. This horrible and fell man, now more of a devil than a human, stood in the way of the blazing sword of Athos, and the courageous man weilding it with such skill.
"Your hour has come, Holy man; for no man do I fear, and many of your order have fallen under this very blade. Join them! Join the destryed hopes of your foolish comrades! Your Holy God is helpless and tame in my master's hate!" The creature exclaimed, a dreadful circle of men surrounding the pair as they circeld eachother warily.
"Thy evil blade shall taste the blood of no more innocents beyond this instant, thou evil miscreation of Hell! Burn you shall along with your despichable master in his defiled hellish realm!" the light sage spoke, his proud and brave voice breaking through the dark around him. The lights of heaven opened up to shine down upon him, lighting the scene aglow; the men leapt back in horror, and the vile lord felt his cold heart tremble in fear, and he turned then and ran from the light; terrified. Then lines broke, and forward charged the brave knight to end his enemy's unjust and tortured existence.
The Sorcerer was fighting still as he say the scene; watching the fleeing demon lord and the brave knight following him into the dark gates of the beseiged city, crying his holy and righteous alms as he hewwed the few men who remained to stand in his way.
"Bometh, brave archer, set your holy bow upon the far columns of the demons to our right!" the arrows flew out imeadiatly in reply, cutting through the dark lines without reserve. The shadow stepped up, surrounded by his glowing and deadly assasin skeletons, mercilessly hacking through the falling prey, and the nightmare Necromancer swung his heavy enchanted hammer over the frray, sending the terrified creatures in all directions and summoning the darkest curses of his religion to his aide now; the demons felt the stregnth and power leave the width of their arms as the tall shade advanced upon them, and the harder they fought, the more they fell, it seemed.
"Akathroir, Nemdraku." Came a dark voice and the shadow turned in the dim light to the source. A dark creature of Hell stood crouched in the fray nearby. A massive flaming limb tore out of the shadow and scattered a skeletal warrior nearby it, the glowing bones flying in every direction.
"Janbar! Sukoso, tu' aire!" replied the Sorcerer in the forgotten language of his people. He had turned to the new enemy and hefted his hammer heavily into the air. The beastly Demon Lord lashed out violently, slashing dark claws at the enchanted weapon and sending it swirling from the hand of the Necromancer.
"Now I shall taste the blood of one of my order!" spat the deadly apparation. It stepped silently from the crowd of demons around him. His imposing height coming into being seemingly from nowhere, the mage of the Rathma order advanced, hellish black flames springing from his form as he drew two dreadful black swords. The Necromancer smiled grimly and removed his helm slowly and tossed it into the group of awed dark ones watching. "I knew the fates had condemned you, Altruar, but to be used thusly. . ." he said sadly to the mage. The Sorceress in her dark tower at the top of the cathedral smiled in her concentration. The being also smiled as she did.
"You are not fooled by your former master's spirit, Necromancer?" the being asked. The Necromancer mage's corpse speaking the words of it's controller, the Sorceress. It's swords whirled over it's head as it peered down haughtily at the Sorcerer before him. Bometh meanwhile fended off the few demons still advancing upon him, arrows flying impossibly fast from his bow and finding their targets flawlessly.
"You are no more my master than you are the power you claim to be." The Necromancer replied to the reanimated mage. "The man whose spirit you comand here was truly once a man of might, but you have defiled his remains and befouled his spirit with your evil actions." He brought up his hands and held them before the powerful creature before him as the mage spirit attacked him. A vicious spectral claw scraped through a slit in the Necromancer's armor as he spun away quickly. Warm blood creeped slowly from the wound, the demon circle laughed and began to clap happily.
"You shall pay for that with your head, vile demoness!" the Durag whsipered, and his body was suddenly enveloped in a greenish, evil glow as his eyes ignited in dark fire. The war of the magicians was about to be fought. The mage reincarnation stepped bodly into the glimmering circle of luminescence.
"Halt wretched coward!" cried Damathodor loudly upon racing past a wrecked, burning house, following the fleeing trail of the retreating Demon Lord. "Face your fate, cursed one! Fly not from the Holy judgement!" He ran headlong around the near corner, coming into the cathedral's courtyard suddenly, and, seeing the hateful shade slip quickly under the archway of the second yard, the Knight gritted his teeth and pressed on, increasing his speed. . .