Devils and Angels
Leyen Aristeia was crouching behind a bush, wrapped in her green cloak. Motionless, the elf was practically invisible.
He touched a footprint on the ground. It was a hollow imprint of a barefoot, almost similar to that left by an eight-year-old human child, had it not been the claw marks. The footprint was brittle and had not been scrambled by the morning dew.
His eyes left the ground to inspect the banks, looking for 'aerial signs'. He touched a broken branch... the sap had not had time to dry.
He nodded and then turned to his companion.
"Six demi-humans, measuring between 1.20 meters and 1.40 meters, without armor. Four hours ago."
Khalid Deez stood up to look across the bushes. The two men stood on a wooded hill overlooking a steep landscape. In a split valley, a river swirled, skimming in eddies and rapids. Beyond, the eye could see only green. A succession of hills covered by forest and clumps of tangled bushes...
The wind carried the smell of burnt wood. The mist that stagnated on one of the nearby hills had nothing natural. It was smoke coming out of cracks in the ground.
"The Smoking Hill..."
He turned to Leyen.
"They must be on patrol. They seem to be returning to their lair, we must follow their footprints."
The elf ranger nodded... he was a man of very few worlds.
Together they turned back to find their other two companions.
They had crossed the valley thanks to a fallen tree that served as a bridge.
First arrived on the other bank, Leyen had crouched to look at the footprints on the ground... even for a tracker as talented as the elf, the traces were blurred. Many humanoids had passed this place since the last rains.
"Hurry up, our enemies are not far away."
A path of dried mud led to the foot of the hill. There too, the ground kept the footprints of many bare feet. At about fifty meters, between two bushes appeared a double door. It was a rudimentary construction made of thick oak planks.
Nervous, Altiria Siina Verteil squeezed her shield and mace while looking around.
"Why is there no guard?"
Busy searching the area, Leyen replied anyway.
"The Kobolds sleep by day..."
"Oh, I see..."
Seeing the two lovers smiling at each over, Antilene sighed, her face tense with disgust... she hated the elves...
"Well, we came to kill these kobolds. What are we waiting for?"
As she lifted her Glaive, ready to rush to the door, Khalid interposed arms extended before him in a gesture of prohibition.
"Wait... wait... Leyen what can you tell us about the kobolds inside?"
The ranger stood up.
"They must be at least three hundred, armed males, but also females and children. Not everyone should live in the caves behind this door. There must be another access."
Khalid frowned, turning his head without seeing anything but trees, bushes, and a pond fed by a spring that filtered between two rocks.
"How do you know?"
The elf stood up and pushed the ferns away with one hand revealing another path that was heading south. Here too footprints were visible in the hardened mud.
"Good job Leyen..." Khalid thought for a few moments, and then added "I always prefer to go through the back door... especially when I want to make a surprise."
Altiria lifted her mace.
"I agree."
The ranger nodded to confirm that he thought it was a good strategy.
Certain Death pouted... she was bored and her patience was running out... it had been several days that she had not had the opportunity to 'play' with some careless demi-humans. Without saying a word she crossed her arms over her chest. Antilene's attitude clearly showed that she did not agree, but that she submitted to the decision of the majority.
They were four, their skin was red and they were dressed in a coarse tunic tightened at the waist by a belt. Their arms and legs were bare. Their armament consisted of a short iron sword and a square shield made of roughly assembled boards.
They would have looked like children, if they had not had a head too big; a prognathic jaw with very developed canines; large, globose eyes of a toad, and several horns slightly curved on their bald heads.
Uneasy in the light of day, they advanced groaning and protecting their eyes. Even in the shadows of the undergrowth, the light blinded them.
Suddenly, the Kobold who was advancing in front of the patrol stopped and briefly flapped arms before falling backward like an oak under the axe of the lumberjack... a crossbow's bolt stuck in the middle of his forehead, just between the two eyes.
The next moment, an arrow pierced the chest of the humanoid in the second position.
The two survivors began to chirp and fled in the direction they came... but Antilene cut them off.
Her Glaive spun so fast in her hands that it turned into a blurry wheel as she ran towards them. Like thrown into the propeller of an airplane, the two humanoids were cut into pieces...
"How weak they are," says the Heterochomia Girl by way of a funeral oration.
It took half an hour to go around the hill. During this trip, they encountered two other patrols that they eliminated just as easily.
Finally, the trail stopped in front of a wooden door installed in a natural rock wall... an entrance exactly similar to the first. The only difference was that fewer footprints were entering and leaving this exit.
"This time... can I go?"
Leyen turned to Antilene - who had just spoken- then to Khalid. The latter showed his empty hands in a gesture that meant he had no opinion.
"Yes," the elf replied.
"Thank you for the permission," commented tauntingly Antilene Heran Fouche.
The Gothic Harlequin focused before using one of her Martial Arts skills.
"Steeled Arm Strike!"
Rushing towards the door, she struck it with Herculean force, her Glaive radiating a blue light. As if smashed by a battering ram wielded by ten men, the wooden planks broke while the beam that closed the door was cut in half.
Without waiting for her allies, Antilene rushed into the darkness. Immediately, screams of fright and sounds of combat were heard... but only for a brief moment.
Framed by Leyen and Khalid (their shields raised and their weapons in hand), Altiria refrained from vomiting while discovering the carnage in the guarded cave just behind the broken door. In the dim light of two torches attached to the walls, a dozen corpses lay on the ground in a pool of blood.
The result of Antilene Heran Fouche's 'civilized' way of fighting...
Looking away, the elf princess followed Leyen as he ran down the natural corridor that led further inside the hill.
Avoiding venturing into the secondary galleries, they entered into a long, irregularly shaped cave with numerous stalactites and stalagmites. Torches lit up the bare rock and... a huge throne was carved into the rock... a stone armchair of staggering dimensions, designed for a giant, the backrest rising more than two meters high.
Antilene had arrived a little before them and was examining the various corridors that left this throne room. Only, her arrival in force had not been particularly discreet, and cries of anger were heard...
Suddenly, a stream of fighters dressed in leather armor and armed with swords, axes, bows, slings, or spears came to the throne room. They must have been about 60.
Antilene showed no surprise, no hesitation. On the contrary, a fierce smile of joy formed on her lips as her eyes shone with excitement.
"Double Air Slash!"
Her Glaive for whipped the air in front of her and two arcs of circle made of blue light came out of the weapon... these guillotines mowed down the four kobolds in the first row, cutting them into pieces. The humanoids who came behind them collided with the corpses or were blinded by the blood... they stumbled on each other and a cluster of about ten bodies blocked the exit.
Even before the kobolds could react, the Extra Seat of the Black Scripture called for another Martial Art Skill.
"Flow Acceleration!"
Leaving behind an after-image blurred... Antilene reappeared near the kobolds on the left and... she attacked, using the 'Rapid Thrusts' combo... it was as if she had ten arms, and each of them held a Glaive. She pierced the attackers, turning them into skimmers, and then, using her Glaive as a jumping pole, leaped over the humanoids.
With a kick, Certain Death smashed the skull of a Kobold leader who was trying to reorganize his panicked warriors, and then...
She jumped again, raising her weapon high. The Gothic Harlequin fell with the violence of a cannonball, cutting in half the kobold she aimed... the weapon was not even stopped by the rocky floor, sinking deep into the ground and throwing in all directions a buckshot discharge consisting of broken pieces of stone. Pierced by these shrapnels, several kobolds collapsed, wounded, or killed.
The Heterochromia Girl was now surrounded by the numerous demi-humans, but they were frozen in terror. A cruel smile appeared on the lips of the Extra Seat of the Black Scripture.
"Greater Slash Strike!"
Charged with bluish energy, the Glaive struck in a horizontal slash, cutting the kobolds' bodies in a circular movement, mowing down a dozen warriors.
The confrontation lasted less than thirty seconds...
The few survivors were running away screaming while the Gothic Girl... covered in blood from head to toe... relied on her Glaive to sigh.
"They are weak, it is not fun to play with them, they do not even fight back... when will I finally meet a powerful male able to defeat me and force me to follow him to his bedroom?"
Did I say she had weird tastes?
The first wave of opponents had been repulsed, but war cries and calls were heard in the natural tunnels that stretched beneath the Smoking Hill.
Most of the caves inhabited by kobolds were in the western part of the cave system. Nevertheless, the first reinforcements arrived from the east.
Four corridors led to the throne room. Three of them (two to the west, one to the north) had nothing remarkable. They had been dug by erosion in the soft limestone of this karst region. The fourth exit - the closest to the throne- was to the east and masked by a coarse tapestry woven by the females of the tribe.
A hand opened the curtain and a dozen guards came out of the room.
Taller than the other kobolds they were dressed in chainmail and their weapons were of better quality. They surrounded an even larger kobold clad in an orange dress decorated with the design of a skull and a fur cape. The kobold chief even had a shapeless copper crown on his forehead.
Antilene smiled as the newcomers immediately turned to her, recognizing that the Heterochromia Girl was the biggest threat, completely neglecting the other members of her group.
"Yipee! More toys!"
She rushed forward.
"Greater Wind Stride!"
Her pace accelerated, she was like an avalanche descending a mountain. Wielding her weapon with incredible dexterity, she struck the kobolds all around her, cutting them into pieces or stabbing them so fast that one could only see a blurred swirl.
"Klang!"
The sound resounded throughout the cave, while a violent shock wave made the stalactites and the ground vibrate.
With one hand the Kobold leader had just stopped the attack intended to behead him.
The Gothic Girl's face showed surprise and then anger. She pushed with all her strength and the ground began to crack under the feet of the kobold chief.
With an almost playful gesture, the great kobold pushed Antilene away. She fell nimbly on her feet and straightened herself.
And all of a sudden her attitude changed dramatically. The Gothic Harlequin now seemed as calm as collected, studying her enemy with a critical eye.
"You're not a kobold."
It was not a question and the pseudo-kobold smiled examining his hand and the abrasions he had received by stopping the attack on Sudden Death.
"No... that's true. Besides, I don't see the point of keeping this shape any longer. I can't fight at full power in this weak body."
A violet smoke enveloped the 'kobold' its shape distorted... lengthened. Suddenly a being more than three meters high stood in the middle of the huge cave.
He was humanoid, dressed in a black silk dress embroidered with gold. His belt was made of gold plates decorated with rubies, and a wide gold and leather breastplate necklace with several rows covered his shoulders. In his hands gloved with black leather, he held a two-handed Japanese sword... But the most impressive was his head. The face was red and grimacing with long and pointed canines, the hair was white and shaggy with two long horns that came out of the forehead... a demon!
"Greater Ability Boost!"
A green light briefly surrounded Antilene as she whispered the name of another Martial Art Skill.
"Greater Reinforce Defense!"
The horned demon leaped and his sword struck where Antilene stood, but she blocked without much difficulty, counterattacking immediately. The two opponents moved very quickly, attacking, blocking, and whirling like dancers.
But the demon was not limited to wielding the sword, he raised a hand, palm pointed in the direction of Antilene.
"Lightning!"
Lightning - a 3rd Tier spell- struck the Gothic Harlequin. Wrapped in electricity she screamed in pain, staggering. The demon smiled and raised his sword to finish her off, certain that the half-elf was temporarily paralyzed.
"Instant Counter!"
The Extra Seat of the Black Scripture blocked the attack and counterattacked... a long trail of blood appeared on the arm of the demon that retreated... obliviously furious.
He raised his hand.
"Magic Arrow!"
Except Antilene had more than one trick in her sleeve.
"Escape!"
The magical attack pierced a hole in the ground where the Heterochromia Girl once stood, but already the demon was returning to attack.
"Cone of Cold!"
This time, the Devil used a 5th-tier spell, a magic inaccessible to most mortal wizards. It was also the demon's most powerful magical attack. A whirlwind formed in the palm of the colossus... a cone of winds as cold as those blowing at the poles.
But Antilene was still smiling.
"Greater Evasion!"
The young woman seemed to disappear and reappeared five meters away... having moved so quickly that she seemed to teleport. The only concrete result of the attack was the cold that condensed the breaths, the ground transformed into an ice rink in the spell's AoE, and the stone pillars covered with frost.
"You finally got to show everyone who the Big Bad Guy is..." She pretended to shiver." Whoa... that's breathtaking... I guess you're happy now? Good! Now... my turn."
She lifted her Glaive above her head.
"Blessing."
A column of pure white light enveloped her. It was a miracle of Cleric... for Antilene was multi-classified. She continued her preparation with another miracle.
"Blessed Weapon."
She imbued divine power into her Glaive, and the weapon began to radiate white light.
The next moment, Antilene jumps forward and...
"Flow Acceleration!"
... disappeared leaving behind only an afterimage.
... before reappearing in mid-air, right in front of the demon's chest. The huge monster seemed to move in slow motion... in fact, it was the opposite, the flow of time had accelerated for the Gothic Harlequin.
"Greater Piercing!"
And she struck the devil with all her might.
Stunned, Altiria, Leyen, and Khalid had watched the fight without fully understanding what was happening. Both opponents moved so fast that their movements were blurry.
Suddenly, Antilene was gone and...
... the next moment the demon was thrown across the throne room, breaking several stalagmites before hitting a wall and bouncing!
The creature with the long horns slowly stood up with one hand on his chest. Blood was flowing between his fingers.
Normally, the demon was invulnerable to non-magic weapons, but the Martial Skill of the Extra Seat allowed her to amplify the strength of her blows, moreover, the Glaive had received a blessing that allowed it to harm evil creatures and undead.. Nevertheless, the wound had been slight. The demon was far too strong to die in a single attack.
Nevertheless, the devil stood up looking at his enemy with concern.
Who was she, anyway?
How could a mere mortal put him in so much trouble? He was a major demon!
Suddenly, in a clatter of war cries, the reinforcements made their way into the fight. At least two hundred kobolds poured into the room.
The horned colossus smiled.
Oh, he didn't think the kobolds could defeat Antilene... but he wasn't the only demon who took the appearance of a kobold to lead this tribe.
"Taunt!"
Khalid raised his war-door shield while using his Martial Art to draw the attention of the kobolds. As a perfect 'Tank', he was able to endure the attacks without faltering... much more than the Cleric of their party.
At his side, Leyen struck the attackers who approached, cutting off the heads, smashing the shields, and piercing the chests. His attacks were precise, his gestures controlled. The ranger saved his stamina. This fight promised to be a test of endurance. They were leaning against one of the natural walls of the great cave, surrounded by dozens of kobolds... while others were still arriving.
Altiria raised her mace, calling upon them the blessing of the elven god of light.
"Canticle!"
An angel appeared briefly, spreading its wings while singing. The white light enveloped the three fighters, this buff increased their defense.
She used it just after another miracle.
"Strength of one!"
This power allowed giving to all the physical strength of the strongest member of the group... in their case: Antilene.
The three fighters were strong... following the norm of the New World... but they were only three against a horde. They could last a little while, but against so many opponents, they had no chance of winning.
Seeing that Antilene had turned her head to look at the situation of her allies, the demon burst out laughing.
"Why don't you go rescue your friends?"
The Heterochromia Girl looked at the horned monster but did not respond. She would have barely walked away to rescue these three idiots that her opponent attacked her... in the back. 'Fairplay' was not a word that appeared in demons' lexicon.
Fortunately, she did not have to move to help Khalid.
Antilene Heran Fouche held up her Glaive.
"Undead!" (1)
The horned colossus began swearing as the dead kobolds rose all over the room to hesitantly take steps towards the living kobolds... holding out their hands forward as all zombies did.
Some of the half-humans were Clerics who immediately used the miracle "Turn Undead" to repel or exorcise the zombies... except that they had no success. The undead were under Antilene's control... and she was far more powerful than them.
As the Extra Seat of the Black Scripture turned to him, the demon again used his magic.
"Invisibility!"
The large horned humanoid became blurred, then translucent before disappearing completely.
It was the Gothic Girl's turn to be in a bad mood. As she looked around frowning, a Fireball exploded in the middle of the zombies, instantly charring a dozen of them.
In a flap of wings, three Imps had just appeared, twirling between the stalactites... Suddenly things had become much more complicated.
Fighting Imps was rather difficult, these demons were flying and they remained flush with the ceiling, hiding between the stalactites. Moreover, the first demon was still there. Antilene felt that he was looking at her, waiting for the opportunity to attack her.
Simultaneously, the three little demons emerged from their hiding place, their hands raised to cast a spell.
"Acid Arrow!"
"Fireball!"
"Magic Arrow!"
But the Extra Seat of the Black Scripture was not taken by surprise...
"Greater Evasion!"
The three magical attacks struck where Certain Death had stood... she reappeared amid the Kobolds and immediately began to slaughter them.
Her sinister smile reflected her joy at slaughtering her enemies but also... her joy at having interposed a human shield between her and the Imps.
Now they could no longer use their magic against her and, once the Heterochromia Girl had massacred all the kobolds, she would have won since the demons would no longer have an army to attack the villages in the area.
Except that...
Suddenly, violently struck by a priest who held a mummified head with one hand, Antilene retreated.
The Gothic Girl frowned while wiping the blood from her forehead.
"You're not a kobold, are you? You're a demon..."
The creature did not respond but returned to his original form.
In front of the Extra Seat of the Black Scripture stood now a monster that seemed made of wood. He had two arms, a thin torso, and two legs but his headless body was as if made of withered vine branches. One of these branches came out of the back and rose more than a meter above the body and held the parched head of a kobold.
This creature was a Dead Tree demon, exactly a Circlet Demon.
Antilene smiled with wild joy.
One more demon... if she counted their leader who remained invisible and the three Imps who massacred the zombies she controlled, that made five opponents... it was starting to be interesting. The Gothic Harlequin did not remember the last time she had so much fun.
Finally, toys that did not break at first use!
Maybe she could fight seriously this time... well a little bit; it would be a shame to break too quickly her new toys.
"Einherjar!"
A ball of light appeared in front of Antilene Heran Fouche, it remained motionless for a few seconds before metamorphosis into a human silhouette... a perfect double of Certain Death armed and dressed like her.
Except that this double was monochrome, entirely made of white light!
The Extra Seat of the Black Scripture was the only human in the New World who managed to become a Valkyrie, a feat that would have been considered very difficult if she had received the help of a Player... and which was even more so because no one had helped Antilene. She had succeeded through her own efforts, without a guide, without anyone to give her advice.
Nevertheless, she was only a Lesser Valkyrie. Not only did this Einherjar not have received the magical powers of its summoner (like all Eiherjars, for that matter) but this magical creation was not as strong as its summoner... not that the golem would really need to be so strong to face this kind of 'small fry'.
While her enemies hesitated on the attitude to adopt, the Gothic Girl raised her hand above her head.
" Summon 4th Tier Angel!"
A Principality Observation appeared next to Antilene, he was a humanoid with four wings and dressed in a plate armor (shaped like a monk's robe) with a halo similar to a golden metal ring. On his left arm, he had a circular shield with a blazon representing the sun. In his right hand, he held an oversized white metal mace.
"Einherjar, you take the weird tree, I'll take the Imps."
The angel's presence reinforced the defenses of the Heterochromia Girl and he would automatically defend her if the invisible demon attacked.
Understanding the battle was lost, the surviving kobolds fled in all directions...
The flying carpet was a fast-moving point that crossed the blue sky dotted with white clouds.
Miriel looked towards the ground, seeing nothing but tree-covered hills. The landscape was a succession of hills that formed waves that abruptly broke south to turn into a barrier of white limestone cliffs.
"At Smoking Hill... this must be seen from afar a Smoking Hill!"
Two hours earlier, she had arrived in Targos to discover that the other members of their party had left the besieged city to help the villagers attacked by kobolds... and another more powerful creature (probably a demon summoned by Jadalbaoth).
Sitting next to the half-elf, Diolaine Gisle Kure was much more relaxed.
"They're with Antilene, I doubt even a demon can beat her."
"I'm not worried about Antilene."
The thief shrugged.
"Yeah... but they're with her so they're safe."
"This is what you have not understood. Antilene is not with them... Antilene is with Antilene."
"Uh?"
Miriel sighed.
"What will happen if Antilene sees a powerful enemy among the Kobolds?"
"She will attack immediately."
"And?" insisted the Summoner.
Diolaine suddenly blushed and looked away.
"Um... she'll leave them alone against an army of kobolds."
Scratching her cheek, the thief had a small embarrassed laugh.
"You look to the left, I look to the right."
The girl with pink hair had just said that an explosion was heard. The two women turned their heads, discovering a column of black smoke rising from a hill to the east.
"Antilene?"
Miriel rubbed her forehead with an exasperated face.
"A massive attack, with no worries about discretion... or the presence of allies nearby, if not Certain Death, it is well imitated."
Author's note: Antilene is multiclassed... but her character-building is completely absurd. Judge for yourself:
She is Fighter (level 10), Berserker (10), Master Fighter (10), Lesser Valkyrie (5), Weapon Master (7), Rogue (1), Assassin (5), Executioner (10), Cleric (10), High Cleric (10), and Inquisitor (10).
I guess it's the result of her temperament. She is like a small child with no patience. Because of that, Certain Death is not able to stay focused on the same career for very long. Some of her choices (Rogue level 1) even seem to have been an ephemeral whim.
Anyone who has played a pen-and-paper RPG knows that to disperse between so many jobs is to dilute the player's strength... after all, none of the jobs on Antilene's list have a level higher than 10. Normally, this would mean that she has no High-level skill... except that Antilene circumvented certain requirements.
In fact, as she acquired a large number of very varied skills, Antilene managed to combine them in a sometimes strange but often very effective way to create something unique.
It makes me think of what some DnD players (3.0 or 3.5 edition) succeed in doing by choosing rare careers and weird skills...
(1) This is normally a necromancer spell, but as a High Cleric of Surshanna (the God of Death, one of the Six Great Gods) Antilene has certain necromancer powers, such as raising the dead, or controlling them.