Monster Party
Book 1: I hunt, therefore I am!
Final Chapter: Brave men long way from home, few are the chosen ones, sent to the sky to die!
The march back to Markov's estate took a while longer than the panicked flight from it had. Akanga was far from a stickler for speed since he wanted to give his rag tag broken one army a night to sleep before battle anyway.
James ended up working with the select group of Akanga's cat based broken ones to help start the necessary fires (and establish a fire break to make sure they didn't get out of control) that would clear the field for the next days battle.
The others made what preparations they could, Mirri waiting patiently by her coffin for his return.
Cal counted bullets, and reflected on what few potions he still had left while Devi helped him and the pair compared their potions and artifacts wondering which might prove useful.
Florence called forth another wooden quarterstaff from the jungle to arm herself with, then she started growing vines and flowers from the trees, gently plucking/pulling them and distributing them among the broken ones. The coming battle would be hard enough on its own, best to make sure they didn't end up to mistaking broken one who served Akanga for those who served Markov or vice versa.
Alexander for his part gazed out into the darkness and contemplated where exactly Markov might have hidden Wolf Claw, and what he'd do to the Darklord once he got it back.
XXX XXX XXX
"Diosamblet your ruination is at hand! Surrender and I will spare even your most faithful followers, resist, and all who hail your name shall perish beneath my claws!" Roared Akanga as he stood less than twenty feet from the palisade which still surrounded Markov's estate.
To the surprise of his half a dozen companions Frantisek Markov chose to answer the taunt in person, opening up the door to his foyer and lumbering out.
He had cast aside the outfit he wore when they had first met him on the beach, instead only a simple butcher's apron adorned his body.
"Do you truly think that you can defeat the one who created you Akanga? You and pitiful army, you might as well bark at the moon for you will hurt it sooner than me! Your every slight will be repaid a thousand fold, and before this day is through you shall see just how invincible I truly am!" The Darklord bellowed in rage.
"This is yours isn't it Markov?" Alexander interjected, as from a pocket of his black outfit he pulled out the scalpel that had been jammed into his shoulder.
He saw the Darklord's eyes focus on it for a moment, and then he acted.
An instrument designed to heal turned to the purpose of giving pain shattered beneath his hands and fell in pieces.
He needed no further words.
Markov likewise now seemed quite fed up with posturing.
"Rise up true sons and daughters of Markovia! Rise up and crush these fools who would dare to stand against your god!" He screamed in rage.
A moment later his voice was echoed by others.
A huge force of broken ones that had somehow managed to conceal itself within the ashes left behind from last night's infernos rose up and immediately fell upon Akanga's followers.
"Tell me 'Lion King', what will you do now?" Chortled the Darklord with wicked glee.
"The army you brought with you to attack is itself attacked while the man you hate above all others stands before you. Will you try and force your way to me an achieve your vengeance or will you forgo what you have desired for so long to help your pathetic rabble before they become truly broken?" Frantisek Markov demanded.
"Neither." Akanga answered abruptly.
BLAM!
It was a near perfect shot, Phoenix's bullet took Markov squarely in the throat, and as blood splattered the porch he fell back against his estate.
As he did so however his body began to twist and transform passing between gorilla, ape, monkey, and various other near human forms. As it did so the wound Cal's rifle had dealt him faded away until he eventually returned to gorilla with only the nearby blood splatter hinting how his body had been torn.
"Fools, I am Diosamblet, I am eternal, no assassin's bolt can strike me down!" Markov boasted.
"So long as he's free to change shape he can probably heal faster can I hurt him..." Cal muttered dourly as he worked Phoenix's bolt to reload the weapon.
"So be it, he will perish upon my claws yet. False God, I will show you how a true king protects his pride!" Akanga vowed, and then he turned his back on the estate and started racing back towards his followers.
"We need to retreat this isn't a battle it's a massacre!" Florence prompted as she managed to barely keep pace with the enraged lion broken one.
"Right now my pride is massacred, but massacres itself in turn. To bare our back to the enemy would only make things worse." Akanga insisted.
As they raced forward three large broken ones of gorilla stock rose up to challenge them.
Akanga would not be deterred by the odds or the greater size of his foe. He leaped through the air and barreled into one of them, using momentum in place of mass to knock his foe to the ground all the same.
His clawed hands and feet alike raked at the gorilla's flesh as he sought to rip and tear until there was nothing left. The second and third members of the group moved forward to try and free their companion, but Alexander was there to shield Akanga from one of them.
As the huge hairy arm came down to seize hold of Akanga's fury form a simply human one rose up to challenge it. The broken one was shocked to discover that within his seemingly human frame Alexander Diamondclaw held the raw strength to oppose its.
Before the gorilla could turn itself fully to the purpose of attacking Alexander he jumped into the air, while still holding onto the beast's arm with one hand. He used that grip as a focusing point to help him spin about in midair and deliver a most decisive kick to the side of broken one's head. Its skull shattered beneath the force of Alexander's blow and its body slumped in death.
As for the final one, Devi's flail managed to temporarily immobilize one of its arms, James' knives sliced at the other while Mirri jumped on its back, all so that it would hold steady enough for Cal Wright to line up another shot.
BLAM!
That trio of foes dealt with they pressed on.
Up ahead of them now was a swirling mindless melee that was less a battle and more of an oversized brawl.
Some of Akanga's followers had swords or other weapons but many were forced to make do with nothing but their claws and teeth, while Markov's minions were similarly armed. Neither strength nor skill played much part in determining who would die and who would live, broken one after broken one was dispatched in the process of slaying one foe, and the dispatcher was frequently slain shortly after as well.
"We need to retreat." Florence insisted yet again.
"My pride is no human army. If I order a retreat it will become a route. Only a miracle could keep them from being slaughtered. If they must die then let them sell their lives a dearly as possible. Retreat is not an option!" Akanga growled.
"Order them to fall back and you will have your miracle." Florence promised.
Akanga was about to snarl something at the dryad, then he looked deeply into the her eyes.
By the time he looked away he had made up his mind.
"Members of my pride to me, we will fight through them and back to shelter of the forest!" Akanga roared.
Then he threw himself into the battle with unmatched ferocity. Alexander, James, Mirri and Devi also did what they could to try and establish even temporarily some distance between those broken ones wearing flowers or vines and those without.
Cal Wright though was only too happy to give the battle as large a berth as possible, letting loose with the occasional round whenever a target presented itself.
Slowly but surely Akanga's followers were pushed back and one after another they began to take flight. Eventually just as their leader had predicted the retreat became a full fledged route as Akanga, Alexander Diamondclaw, Cal Wright, James Firecat, Mirri Catwarrior, and Devi Skye joined them in fleeing into what remained of the lush jungle.
Only Florence Bastien stayed behind, standing just inside the shade of the section of trees too far away from the palisade to have been burnt.
One lone woman stood between Markov's army of broken ones and those they intended to pursue to complete and utter destruction.
"You are going to stop this and surrender to me right now." She spoke as if she was addressing a group of disobedient school children.
The bear broken one who was leading the charge disagreed and drove his sword through Florence's stomach.
The dryad fell to the ground, practically pinned in place in place by the blade. A thick golden substance leaked from the wound itself and also from the corner of her mouth.
The broken one did not even bother to retrieve its weapon, it just proceeded to step over Florence, intent on continuing the pursuit of Akanga's seemly shattered army.
Except that as it moved forward suddenly something grabbed one of its legs.
"Still... so human..." Florence gasped.
There was a soft, almost soothing sound, easy to miss among the roars of broken ones, the screams of the dying and the general cacophony of the battlefield. With every passing second the sound grew louder however, the gentle yet inescapable rustle of moving vegetation.
A green vine that a moment ago had lain passively upon a tree suddenly lashed, wrapping itself around the blade buried in Florence's belly. One quick tug promptly pulled it free.
"You chose to gamble with your life... but the house always wins." Florence insisted as she rose to her feet once more.
The vine which had removed the sword now plunged itself into Florence's chest and in somehow... became part of her.
The wound in her chest remained still open, but no more fluid came forth. Instead, to look into the hole in her body was to look into a mass of vines which twisted and writhed within her like a pile of snakes.
"Nature, always, wins." She told the broken one as a storm of thorny vines suddenly burst from her stomach.
They wrapped around her fists like spiked gauntlets and in one smooth motion her hands seized the broken one's head. Her fingers began to lengthen and twist as they grew harder and sharper.
She let go scant seconds later and the bear broken one now had a quite thoroughly skull perforated.
"I am not this paltry thing of twigs and and sap which stands before you. I am an avatar of the Green itself!" She warned the other broken ones who had been momentarily halted by her transformation.
After being unmanned for a moment they continued to press forward all the same and Florence's arms began to extend outwards loosing all semblance of humanity in the process.
Each of what had once been her fingers lashed out transforming into a living lasso that sought to ensnare a broken one and strangle the life from it if thorns alone did not end them first.
The broken ones would not fall back and rushing into battle was all they knew of tactics. Whatever foe they faced they had numbers on their side, didn't they?
They didn't.
Florence Bastien was a dryad, Florence Bastien was a worshiper of nature, Florence Bastien was a forest unto herself.
One after another broken ones found themselves being tripped upon twisting vines that suddenly littered the forest's floor, a fall would seem to be a certain death sentence either impaling themselves upon the newly grown thorns or being crushed by the vines themselves. Those who moved more slowly or were more sure footed did little better, strands of animate vegetation now seemed to drape every tree, readily following their movements, and reaching out to end them.
"It brings me no joy to do this. Know that Mother Gaia still loves you. Know that your sisters the trees still love you..." Florence declared as she swung an arm like a living whip coated with razor sharp blades.
It latched around the throat of an unfortunate creature that might have once been some kind of horse.
"Just as I know deep down you still love them." She stated even as her thorns inflicted countless cuts and pulverized the creature's neck.
"Your split blood will be drunk by their roots. Your decomposing flesh will nurture their soil." She announced in a voice devoid of both malice and pity.
A moment later a monkey broken one that had somehow avoided the attention of both her and her arboreal assistants dropped from the canopy overhead.
It had a knife gripped tightly in both hands and plunged it into the back of Florence's head before yanking it out to stab again.
That was a mistake.
Almost as soon as the blade was withdrawn still more vines erupted from the wound and like living lances they pieced the broken one's skin and grew longer and longer until they slammed it against the trunk of a nearby tree.
"You can't kill a vegetable by stabbing it in the head." Florence informed her foe as another vine plunged straight through the skull of the monkey broken one.
"Too many mistake their sadism, their hatred, for strength. They confuse being vicious with being ruthless. They believe that because they can inflict pain without need that they perch unshakably atop the food chain.
They forget that the chain binds them all the same, and no creature alive or undead can ever be more amoral than nature itself.
I am the chaff, I am the wheat, I am the harvest, you will reap what you have sown." Florence promised.
XXX XXX XXX
The second phase of the battle did not last long after that.
XXX XXX XXX
Alexander casually crushed the head of an already dead broken one beneath his boot.
"Florence Bastien, you are just so wonderfully full of miracles." He declared with a smile.
Florence pressed one hand against the wound in her stomach and another against the one on the back of her head and slowly both began to close over.
"I'm simply doing what I can to speak for nature. At this particular moment its telling me that the time has come for vigorous applications of your feet to Frantisek Markov's body. Preferably until his colon has been emptied by the process." She informed him.
Alexander knelt before her and gently kissed the back of her right hand.
"Only you can make a request to kick the s**t out of someone sound quite so noble. Don't worry, Markov will never get a chance to create another broken one once I'm done with him." Alexander vowed.
"I guarantee it..." Akanga rumbled.
When it had turned out that no force of Markov's supporters were still following them the lion broken one had manged to rally most of his army, and they were ready to have another go at the darklord's estate. In fact, given that he had stopped to converse with Alexander and Florence some of them had managed to get ahead of them.
Not that they were having much luck.
Florence might have broken the back (along with the moral, and the spines...) of the force that Markov had committed offensively, but he still had a fair sized force of broken ones clustered about the palisade walls which surrounded his estate.
The walls were weakest/most likely to be breached at the gate which was designed be easily opened after all, but it was defended by Markov's two greatest creations.
For once Orson's eyes wide open and he was towered over the battlefield like a titan.
"For Diosamblet! Those who would dare stand against all that is holy should know Diosamblet shall have no mercy on your souls, nor I for you bodies! Diosamblet shall be victorious this day! Diosamblet shall never fall!" He bellowed as he'd already managed to grab and crush the life out of half a dozen broken ones who had foolishly come near him.
It seemed as though nothing could phase him, he'd already been shot twice by Cal, but in his righteous rage did not notice the wounds. Felix helped support his fellow servant by tossing out a series of knives which seemed to have been coated with some kind of deadly poison.
At least that was how it was going until Akanga and Alexander emerged from the woods. When the lion lord made his presence visible once more the battle took another unexpected turn.
THAWCK!
THWACK!
"FOR DIOSAMBLET... for... dios... amblet..." Orson's mighty voice began to wavier as deadly poison spread through his veins from the pair of daggers suddenly buried in his back.
"For Akanga, you stupid brainless bear!" Felix hissed.
Orson gazed up at his killer through eyes that simply could not comprehend what had been done to him. He struggled to bring his arms up to throttle Felix as one last act of defiance but the red clad 'man' kicked his former companion hard in the stomach and Orson collapsed, his own body ironically supplying the force needed to push gate open, clearing the way for Akanga's invading army.
Felix promptly dropped to one knee and remaining silent and unmoving as broken ones raced past him.
He took no further actions until Alexander and Akanga joined the steadily swelling force that was funneling through the breach in Markov's defenses.
"I am as ever your faithful servant Lion King." He declared reverently.
Akanga simply laughed however.
"For your actions today, you shall be my duke, but never forget, I know your true nature far better than the False God." Akanga promised.
Florence having no wish for further needless suffering took the time to call forth and twist a vine around Felix's head to mark his support for Akanga.
Now it was the turn for those broken ones who served Markov to suffer retreat bordering upon route.
With the gate to palisade thrown wide open those who defended from behind its walls had no choice but to try and seek shelter inside estate proper lest they be encircled and cut off from one another. The well manicured lawn of Markov's home was soon soaked red in many places as Akanga's followers offered no more in the way of quarter than they had been shown earlier that day.
Some of Diosamblet's followers managed to regroup inside the foyer itself, hiding behind its barred door and firing crossbows out through newly made murder holes.
"Florence I hate to request your talents again so soon but..." Alexander left his comment hang uncompleted and the dryad nodded.
"My sisters in sap will not have their death's so cruelly mocked." She promised.
Florence carefully approached the door diagonally so as not to open herself up to crossbow fire while Cal blasted away at the door from behind the palisade doing what he could to force the broken ones to keep their heads down. Then she pressed a hand against one section of Markov's estate.
"Forgive me..." She half whispered half whimpered as black tendrils began to race out from her fingers.
They shot through the wood just as surely as poison had raced through Orson's veins mere minutes before. Their effect was no less dramatic, wherever the black veins went wood that once been strong and firm twisted and warped with truly astonishing speed. Cracks formed and splintered as wood turned into mulch in the blink of an eye.
The door itself fell apart under its own weight revealing its defenders. They raised newly loaded crossbows and drew a bead on the dryad.
"I am done compromising, let us rot before slavery in the service of evil!" Florence exclaimed, and the crossbows promptly exploded their owners hands wicked splinters blinding eyes and piercing skin.
With the barrier broken a wave of Akanga's followers rushed forward weapons or paws held high.
No matter how unusual the combatants in this battle, if there is one iron clad rule of warfare it is this; when the besiegers have breached their foe's walls and secured a foothold on the other side of them... slaughter is the inevitable result.
With the fall of the foyer door Akanga's army now poured into Markov's home itself. All within who did not bear the newly devised symbol of loyalty to the Lion King were put to the sword, claw, or jaw.
Only one thing was able to hold them at bay, the metal door to Frantisek Markov's laboratory.
Not just the door itself was metal either, Markov has constructed the walls around the laboratory of the same material as well. Truly if the estate was a castle, then they his laboratory was its innermost keep.
Alexander glowered at the door, Wolf Claw probably could have made short work of it but for now other steps would have to be taken.
"Florence, help our new friends find or make a batter ram. Mirri, go pay our host a visit and see if you can't keep him company for a while." He instructed.
Mirri nodded and slowly ran a gloved hand along the metal door searching for the tiny gap that she new had to be there.
"Wish me luck Kitten, something tells me he's not going to be in a painting kind of mood." The vampiress muttered and then her body began to fade away into a cloud of white mist that gently flowered through the countless tiny air holes in the door.
XXX XXX XXX
"Betrayal, always betrayal!" Screamed Frantisek Markov as the mist began to flow in his laboratory.
"Ludmilla, Akanga, Felix, Delphi, and now you Miriam, betrayal is ever to be my fate, and those who reject divinity must suffer my wrath!" He boasted.
Then however his voice backed away from ranting madness and instead he spoke with a terrible sincerity.
"Why do you join the ranks of those who seek to undermine me Miriam? You could have been my queen." He practically whispered.
"A queen? You could have made me a queen?" Mirri scoffed as she walked through the laboratory.
"I was Miriam Kantrar, first daughter of a noble house. I could have been have been a 'queen' a ruler of men while I still alive. It didn't agree with me then, and it doesn't agree with me now, do you now why?" Before Markov got a chance to answer Mirri kept right on going.
"The problem with being a queen is that your prestige is directly tied to how many servants you have, your beauty to how many maids, your power to how large your army. You may give the orders, but the problem is that other people need to be there for you to give them to orders to.
Even worse, you have to at least pretend to care about them. You see Markov, I could never really get the hang of caring about others. I HATE the idea needing others to define myself.
You want to know what's better than being a queen? Being a monster!" To prove her point she slammed a clenched fist into one of Markov's operating tables, striking with enough force to leave a noticeable crack in it.
"All this power, and it's all mine and no one else's! Leave me skyclad and alone in the middle of some new domain and I am still a force to be reckoned with. My power is no longer defined by others, it is my own!
For hundreds of years I was able to move from one town to another, sating my hunger and then departing before the fools had any clue as to the shape of the one who preyed upon them. I am the boogiewoman, here one day, gone the next, and only a trail of crimson droplets to mark my passage.
Why should I let myself be bound to one place? Why should I be forced to accept obligations that come with rulership? I will take my 'tax' of blood and give them nothing but the dust stirred by my passing!" Mirri decreed.
Markov began to flex his large powerful fingers as he measured up his opponent.
"Bah if you will not be my queen then you shall be my next patient. It will be... interesting to see what I can do with a subject like you..." He promised her.
The raven haired vampire just flashed him an insolent smile in response to his words.
"It's cute that you think I'm here to fight you..." A moment later it felt like almost the entire room shook as a battering ram was slammed into the metal door.
"There are so many who have a much more personal claim to your head Markov, I'm just here for what is mine. Besides... I can't stand the taste of animal blood." Thus with a wicked gleam in her blood red eyes Mirri delivered a verbal coup de grâce that sure enough reduced Frantisek Markov to mindlessly spluttering with rage.
By the time he regained any measure of self control his guest already had all she wanted having snatched up a simple object he'd hung on the wall of his laboratory.
"To think, if you hadn't turned on us I might have even let you keep this..." She admitted before transforming into wisps of alabaster mist carrying off the painting of an albino lioness with her.
XXX XXX XXX
The doors to the laboratory flew off their hinges, finally succumbing to the fallen tree turned battering ram.
"Blind beasts, I am Diosamblet, I am the Bringer of Pain, I am the God who walks!" Fransitek Markov bellowed at the group of adventures and broken ones who stood before him.
"Surround yourself with empty titles all you wish. Your army has been scattered, your most trusted followers have been suborned or slain, your sanctuary has been breached. There is only one step left to this hunt, the kill." Akanga announced fangs gleaming.
"Fools. Broken pathetic fools. You think that you have driven me here? I have lured you to this place, and now you will see just how truly powerful I am, for I AM MARKOVIA!" As Markov spoke countless bodies in various stages of dissection which littered his lab began to twitch and wriggle about.
They started to flow forward in an undulating horrifying wave of human and animal flesh. These things were not zombies, they were pure animated flesh, severed hands skittered forward like some sort of bizarre insect and intestines wriggled along the ground like sickly snakes.
Akanga's followers let loose with a collection of animal cries in horror unable to stand in the face of a sight that would have unmanned many proper soldiers let alone still half wild broken ones. The wave of living flesh was not the only thing to answer Markov's call either.
From behind them Orson staggered into battle once more, either he had somehow managed to overcome the venom of Felix's blade or under the touch of Markov's foul power even death could not end his service. He tossed aside retreating broken ones with ease, and hurled himself atop Alexander, as Akanga found himself fighting tooth and claw against Markov's animated leftovers that were often little more than teeth and claws.
With the revolution's two leaders temporarily subdued and his wave of revolting reanimated remnants Markov seemed safe and certain to drive the opposing broken ones from his laboratory if not his entire estate.
Except that if there was ever one lesson to take to heart in Markovia, it was that appearances were deceiving.
From amid the ranks of Akanga and Alexander's followers came a crimson blur.
In one single bound it sought to catapult itself over the rolling of wave of ferocious flesh. One poor creature's small intestine attempted to restrain this new arrival by acting like a macabre lasso, but claws flashed and it was cut to ribbons.
A ruby red creature that was neither man nor beast had cleared the moat of living flesh that Markov had erected as his final defense.
"I heard you like to vivisect cats and people..." Growled James Firecat.
The words were warped and awkward as always, but Markovia was no stranger to those who spoke language of humans with the mouths of a beasts.
"How would you like it... if a catperson vivisected you...?" James hissed raising his front legs off the ground.
They were not true claws at the end of his fingers, certainly they seemed to be all but grafted in place and quite unretractable. On the other paw, it was unlikely that James had much intention of retracting his them any time soon.
"Foul felines, you vex me at ever turn!" Markov bellowed beating his hands on his chest like an actual enraged gorilla.
"They claim that one must have silver to do away with werebeasts, but I imagine that ripping your head from your scrawny neck will do the job all the same." The Darklord decided before wadding forward into battle, not even bothering to try and wield any of the surgical instruments that lay scattered around the room.
Both combatants were forgoing any sort of tool, determined to instead do resolve their dispute with only their own bodies.
Once again such appearances were deceiving however, as Markov aimed a bone breaking blow at James, the werecat skillfully slid to the side, and had taken care to position himself in front of the Table of Life. Fransitek's fist slammed full force into the artifact which he had bolted to the ground and his animal ferocity did no more to harm the table than Alexander's blade.
In fact there was an audible sound of... well something going wrong in the Darklord's fist as a result of the impact.
A moment later James rushed forward and leaped over the distracted Darklord and lashed out with his claws as he sailed past. Markov's simian fur granted him some resilience against those claws, but not enough, James Firecat's claws had dealt wicked wounds to men in full platemail in the past.
For the moment Markov's sheer size did more to (comparatively) limit the damage dealt by the werecat's attacks than anything else. Screaming in rage he grabbed the Table of Life and heaved. The bolts popped loose as he ripped the ancient artifact up off the floor and turned to toss it at his feline foe.
James Firecat figured that two could play that particular game, though his weapon of choice was a a single small glass jar he scooped up off of a table holding many that looked just like it.
The Table of Life whistled through the air and James tossed the jar upwards. A moment later his form contorted and shrunk with unnatural quickness, as he became only a large housecat, and Markov's projectile passed by without scratching a whisker.
Impressively James reverted back to his far more deadly hybrid form in time not only to catch the jar, but also turn its falling momentum to his advantage as after one wild windmill motion he let it fly straight at its owner's chest.
Unable to modify his form as quickly as James could, and too enraged to properly fear such a small thing James' weapon struck home and shattered against the darklord's chest.
"Hey Markov... do those rags smell like ether to you?" James uttered with the closest thing to whimsical delight a a bestial mix of cat and man could produce.
From underneath Orson's bulk it was possible to hear Alexander Diamondclaw growling in discontent, though seemingly more at his companion's sense of humor than any physical distress.
Sure enough, wads of ether soaked cotton now clung to Markov's furry chest, the brain deadening chemical coating them wafting up into Fransitek's face. This drew forth another inarticulate cry of rage as Markov began to grab and toss aside the rags as quickly as he could not caring where they ended up.
James danced in claws raised ready to do battle once more.
Markov took a wild swing at Jame but despite his best efforts he was still somewhat woozy from having the ether fumes waft up into his face, and James caught the darklord's arm in a both of his own before executing a prompt over the shoulder flip and that tossed Markov clear across the room.
XXX XXX XXX
As he landed in a disheveled heap Markov's body began to wither and shrink, he'd had enough of this fight.
Discretion was the better part of valor, at heart he was a man of science not the battlefield after all. Luckily being a man of science he'd taken time to make preparations for an event like this one.
He had a carefully constructed bolt hole build into his laboratory, all he needed to was scuttle through it and he'd emerge outside just beyond the edges of the fallen palisade, from there he could turn into an eagle, owl or some other flight capable creature and none of these fools would be able to catch him then!
All Fransitek Markov needed to do to be certain of getting away was retreat through the mouse-hole sized opening that was luckily located all but directly behind him! His body promptly began to transform into a rat with a to scale human head.
He did an abrupt about face and scuttled for the rat hole. Before he was completely through it a huge paw came down and pinned his tail to the ground.
Well no matter, the rest of his body was already inside the hole. All he had to do was transform into something with no tail and he'd home free...
Except in hybrid form James Firecat's "paws" still possessed enough human dexterity to close around a rat's tail... and tug.
Markov was dragged from his escape tunnel squeaking with fear and found himself being dangled in the air gazing into a pair of pitiless brown eyes.
"Sic, semper, rattus..." A voice so like that of his broken ones, and yet filled to the brim with hatred instead of awe.
He was being held close enough the creature's teeth that its breath fell upon him with a terrible warmth.
WHAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!
James Firecat's arm descended with the finality of a guillotine's blade.
CRACK!
Like so many rodents before him Frantisek Markov's spine was shattered by the strength of the werecat's paws. The darklord's body went limp and James stood up transforming back to his fully human form, taking a moment to straighten the hat that only now came back into being.
"Heh, hehehehehehehe ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" James clutched his sides suddenly struck by a fit of laughter that brought him to his knees in convulsions.
"Mirri, look, I finally did it! I finally caught a rat on this stupid island fair and square!" He wheezed.
Mirri Catwarrior was far from the only one present who buried her face in the nearest appendage she could find.
End Chapter
Chapter 14/Final Chapter Author Notes: Oh boy oh boy do I have a lot to say about this chapter. So lets break it down.
First the "Final" in Final Chapter is a bit of a lie, there will be an epilogue to this book just like to all other Monster Party books which will wrap up the situation/show how our protagonists head off to their next adventure. Also, hey if you hadn't figured it out yet now you finally know what happened to that poor rat in the very first chapter! Foreshadowing!
Second, I would get tired of using Sabaton lyrics for these chapter opening titles, but given that our protagonists are just about one and all estranged from their own homelands for various reasons and now fighting in Akanga's war/revolution the use of their song Aces In Exile (a song about the non British airmen who fought to defend England during the Battle of Britain) fit as perfectly as anything else I could possibly think of. Also, last time I checked there are no Ravenloft modules that involve dog fighting on dragon/griffin/pegasi back so I doubt I'm going to find another situation where the song is more applicable.
Third of all lets talk about how I'm going to be handling Darklords and other Big Bad Evil Guys in this story. I know it's a well worn staple of D&D that the end of an adventure typically involves 4-6 characters fighting against one much more powerful character, and Ravenloft is no exception to this rule. That works fine in a RPG where it allows everyone to pitch in and if you fought multiple enemies of power similar to your own how the fight resolved might be entirely decided by who could focus their attacks more effectively and knock out one member at a time rather spreading damage around. Also which group is smart enough to gank the mage.
So that kind of set up makes perfect sense in a RPG, but it's really, really hard (okay I find it really really hard) to write a fight scene where six people gang up on one person of similar size and make it interesting. So yes, Darklord fights will frequently be resolved one on one with their minions/powers keeping the rest of the group from getting involved. It's more dramatic that way, and it makes for less cluttered final fight scenes.
So yes James just defeated a Darklord in a one on one fight, but keep in mind Markov is not one of those Darklords who is supposed to be a combat monster who can thrash the entire party, he's Josef Mengele not Otto Skorzeny.
Also in the back of my head I keep thinking there was some Ravenloft material that said Frantisek Markov was a commoner, if so well write your own housecat versus commoner joke, they're all good.
Also for those of you who were wondering about James dodging the Table of Life by transforming, then doing it again in order to catch the ether bottle there's a perfectly in system explanation. Transforming is normally a standard action for a lycanthrope, but James took five levels of Warshaper thus gaining the Flashmorph ability reduces it to a move equivalent action followed by taking Quick Change feat (or he took Quick Change first no real difference) which reduces how long it takes again, making it a free action. This is very silly (and very cinematic) but its by no means a game or story breaking power, especially compared to what I'm about to talk about next...
Now that we have that out of the way, it should be noted that unlike Alexander turning into a wolf creature, you really should not be surprised by Florence going all Swamp Thing (Swamp Thing, you are amazing!) on the Broken Ones. She's a druid in in D&D, she has special abilities that are more powerful than some people's entire classes!
In this particular case, after being stabbed and taking some damage she used wild shape (being a dryad all of Florence's wild shapes are going to be plant based, or you can just assume she's at least 12th level when druids get the ability to wild shape into plants anyway) which healed one point of damage per level and turned her into... okay in this case her transformation wasn't so much a D&D monster as "Monster of God" Alexander Anderson from Hellsing (a mass of thorns/vines in a vaguely human shape) which doesn't really have a D&D equivalent (lets assume shambling mound, though I'm letting her keep speaking for cinematic effect though it's hardly surprising/unreasonable to think Florence would have a Pearl of Speech).
Then she started laying down entangle (first level spell), briar web (second level), kelpstrand (second level), spike growth (third level for a druid), and wall of thorns (fifth level) to make getting close to her/moving about to all a very difficult and painful experience and whip of thorns (second level) to attack at range (or you can assume she started laying down all those AOE restraint spells behind her as soon as the others got clear). Granted while the others were actually fighting (IE while they were killing the Gorillas) that she was probably hitting herself with a "Freedom of Movement" (4th level) which let her move freely about the areas being overrun with vines while everyone else who have to make reflex save to move at even half speed, and then an air walk which would let her move about the area she cast spiked growth in without actually damaging herself, thus insuring she could rope a dope the f**k out of the broken ones (lets see you made one reflex save so you're not grabbed by the vines, but you're still at half speed, also you just failed the second reflex save so you're now at one quarter speed from walking over nature's caltrops, well enjoy trying to catch me, also don't forget you'll be taking1d4 damage for every five feet you move!).
Also, all of the above is vastly more complicated than it needs to be, she could have just gone Gandalf on their a**es with Fire Seeds and exploding acorns, but I felt this set up nicely captured the thematic sensation of how hopeless it should quickly become trying to fight a druid in the middle of a forest when you abruptly discover that in point of fact, you are trying to fight the entire forest.
Having turned herself into a plant based form of life (I'd say "creature" but is that really applicable in this case?) she's immune to critical hits and thus having a dagger driven into her skull fails to hurt more than having one in her elbow or shoulder.
This is pretty much all standard druid stuff though in theory I gave her some sort of AOE/multi-attack thorn whip to represent each of her finger becoming a whip (on the other hand that could just have been kelpstrand, and once they were grabbed by the kelpstrand the penalties being grappled brought with it (yes I know in RAW being grappled doesn't give you a reflex save penalty shut up house rules exist of situations like this) ensured they next got grabbed by the briar web effect which is in point of fact a blanket AOE damage each round to anyone who gets grabbed and fails to break free or remain perfectly still), and keep in mind she didn't even use/have an animal companion.
If she had one, it would probably be a treent (that's not by the core book legal but I'm pretty sure there are optional rules in some splatbook or other for having plant companions and then that treent would animate some extra trees as well (and that's how you turn one companion into three!) at which point Florence just wins at the action economy so very, very hard.
She broke down the door with a CGI intensive warp wood (second level) spell and then used another to take care of those crossbows. With rules as written you can't use warp wood to make wooden weapons splinter in such a way as to become dangerous to those who hold them of course. That said, given how little difference it makes in the grand scheme of things (once the door was mulched those guarding it were about to become very broken broken ones) why not make it a little showier than it would have been in "real life"?
So yeah Florence Bastien took Natural Spell (probably Greenbound Summoning if you can get that feat in Ravenloft), she knows how to win at being a druid, and that makes her a horrifying foe to face in combat, especially in a non urban environment. If this was tabletop it would be laughable just how much more powerful she was than the other five, in a more narrative driven setting she's just the best at AOEing multiple weak foes out of existence by turning terrain against them.
Next up, it's worth noting that Mirri's speech to Markov while accurate of how she sees herself is not necessarily accurate about anything else (when a chaotic evil character speaks truth is rarely on the menu, it is as true for our protagonists as anyone else)
Also, as for why she didn't end up becoming a Darklord herself prior to meeting the group, I have a firm belief that the Dark Powers take a "vampires gonna vamp" approach to vampires (and most other intelligent 'monsters' when it comes to Dark Powers checks. So stuff like feeding (which is normally going to be assault either unprovoked or grievous based on how much of their blood a vampire takes/how weak it leaves them) don't ping the meter.
To make a vampire take a dark powers check, they need to do something really REALLY nasty (basically act of ultimate darkness level evil or go home) like betraying your family or drinking blood from people and then spitting it out on the ground just cause you wanted them to die of exsanguination when you literally could not drink another drop.
I'm not making excuses for Mirri's behavior pre (and to a lesser degree post) meeting James, this is to me the only internally consistent way that Dark Powers could work without every vampire turning into a Darklord before they ceased to be a fledgling (seriously lets mathhammer this out, assume the vampire is feeding from strangers, so its only a 1% dark powers check, that's still a 1% powers check every day, with a 365 day long year they should fail three of them every year, even being generous they should be ready to become darklord's before they've spent ten years as a vampire from feeding alone. That's also leaving aside all the murder premeditated they commit by feeding on people till they die of exsanguination, (and it'd be assault grievous if they get drop to 0 or lower from feeding) if vampires rolled Dark Powers checks like humans they'd all be Darklords!), likewise lycanthropes need to do something worse than hunting and eating people for food (that will make them chaotic evil, or lawful evil in the case of wererats) but won't actually cause dark powers checks.
The above is the only reason I can explain why Richemulot and Verbrek haven't produced a pile of Darklords just from werecreatures gonna were.
That said, one of the fascinating thing about Mirri is that while there are a lot of characters like Elena Faith-Hold, Miko Miyazaki, Lord Soth (sorry I keep picking Paladins, they just make it so easy) or Gregory Zolnik or even Yagno Petrovna (there broke the pattern) who have seen themselves as much more heroic than they really are, as long as she is with James, Mirri is seeing herself as much more villainous than she really is, and not in an agnsty 'This is the skin of a killer!' kind of way.
Instead it's more like she's still a happy dues paying members of the guild of evil intelligent undead (local 296 non Darkon chapter, currently considering merger with Flesh Golems local 301 non Lamordian chapter) but would only be confused bordering on insulted if a Death Knight pointed out she hasn't killed anyone of the good alignment this entire quarter.
The villain who claims to by a hero (or used to be a hero and never realized when they crossed over) is a pretty well worn trope by this point. Mirri is the opposite, effectively hero who used to be a villain and has no idea that she's unintentionally crossed over to the side of the angels (she's still pings evil on the alignment meter, but hey so would Alucard from Hellsing that doesn't mean he isn't fighting people even wore than him) in action if not in mindset.
Finally lets talk about Felix. Yes his betrayal was not that heavily foreshadowed, but its also not that heavily foreshadowed in the book proper either. There was one major clue I left you guys though, throughout Alexander's entire interrogation/being prepped for "surgery" scene by Markov, the darklord never once comments on James being a werecat (and gee you think a guy who is interested in blending of human and animal might find that a promising topic of conversation) yet Akanga knew that Alexander had a cat themed shape-shifter among their ranks.
It's almost like if James showed off his hybrid form to Felix having caught a deer, and then brought the remains of that deer back to the estate with him Felix would be able to put two and two together, then he decided to tell his "Master' but not Markov... DUN DUN DUNNN!