Tiktik understands that the horde is ahead, so she sends the rodents, vermin, and fuzzy buddies onwards ahead of me. I barely maintain my grasp on reality as I struggle forward, maintaining my wrath at an even keel. It’s only a handful of minutes yet until we clash. Is there any last shred of hope, any possible asset I’ve missed? The aches and burns of my body scream for my attention, making it difficult to focus and recall. I stop struggling to contain my wrath and lightning. The force of the power exuding from me literally lifts me off the ground, sending me careening into the sky in the direction of my foes. That works, I guess.
The rodents actually manage to harry, harass, and take down several of these Felgre creatures. They’re massive humanoids, all muscle and fur and blackened eyesockets with slick, visceral orbs planted within. Spikes of blackened bone protrude from each of them at odd angles. Quite a number of them appear to be alight, either internally, or externally. Fires emanate from various orifices. Some usual, some unusual. It’s as if they have extra mouths with which to exude hellish flame. They don’t seem immune to one anothers’ flames though. Or even their own. The hellish, ogreish creatures appear to be in pain as they wash over the plains with hatred and seething fury. I think they’re chanting something, but I can’t make it out.
Hellspit and Fel fires, the wave of this horde extends back for miles! Wait. Go back a tick. Felgres? Fel-ogres? Oh hell. These are literally the ogreish hordes of Hel. Gorrammit. Is this some universal cosmic scale joke at my expense? Because I picked up on Jarrah Bettergrove’s common curse and assimilated it into my lexicon? Huff, of course not Reggie. That’s not how the universe works.
Despite the intense pain, I attempt to center myself and still my breathing as the power flowing forth from me sends me sailing ever closer to the front of this horde. It seems they’ve snuffed out the lives of all the creatures we sent to the fore, and are simply trampling over the bodies of their fallen comrades. Several of the larger ones scoop chunks of flesh from their fallen compatriots as they pass by. Some of them eat this flesh in a gruesome, gory display, others lob the flesh at me like meat missiles. I spin to the side slightly to avoid the volley while I finalize the direction of my descent. I toss the bottle of eversmoke towards the lake, hoping to provide cover for any Autumn Brook resident fleeing by boat.
Giving myself over to both my danger wrap senses, and my wrath, I come crashing down right behind the front line of Felgre foes. A massive cascade of lightning blasts forth from me in a one hundred eighty degree arc as I slam down. Several of the creatures explode, showering me in gore, but one of the larger ones simply steps through the torrent of lightning, and catches me off-guard with its immense power and speed. It rocks me sideways with a right-armed haymaker that launches me to the south. Barely maintaining consciousness from the concussion, I flip in the air to allow myself to skid to a halt. Running north along the line of foes, back towards the beast that dealt me such a blow, I begin twirling my thunder stick, calling down lightning to channel it into the lines of foes. Dozens fall as lightning arcs from me to the nearest Felgres, and from them, to the next nearest, spiderwebbing out across the horde, but it’s not even a dent in their forces. Hell, it just provides the others with grotesque, gory, meat missiles.
Their voices begin to carry an unholy hiss through the air that sends a splitting headache through my skull. I crumple to my knees for a moment, and I’m surrounded, leapt upon from all directions. The, their language, it, it hurts so much to hear it. They’re trying to batter and rend me. I, I can’t. It’s too early to die. Between the painful cacophony of the hellish hordes' language, me going overboard with electrokinesis and channeling, and just my own wrath and my personal nature, I feel like my personality is fracturing, splintering. I, I can barely keep it together. If, if something doesn’t happen, I’m either going to die, or lose myself to wrath in a way I don’t think I can come back from.
Fire rains forth from the heavens in a titanic wave as Tiktik unleashes her first, biggest spell, saving me, and destroying an enormous swath of the foes, leaving them as nothing more than ash upon the breeze. Attagirl Tiktik. Thank you. Wrath strugles to overtake my senses, and to control me entirely. I nearly submit my entirety to it, but I strive to remain residing at the surface of my own thoughts.
The hordes, seeing me standing amidst the ashes of their forward force, all seem to converge on me. Perfect. Let’s effing do this. Tiktik seems to have taken up a spot somewhere amidst the smoke caused by the bottle I’d tossed by the wayside to provide cover. Good. To the enemy forces, it just looks like I explode with fireballs and rain down fire and lightning. Heh, that’s not far from the truth, but it means they don’t suspect, and won’t go after Tiktik.
Some of these beastly things look like porcine humanoids, or ogreish apes, but others look like elephantine warthogs. Even those ones have disparate appearances, like some only have two limbs, their legs, others have four legs, or two legs and two arms. They’re all just a mishmash of monstrous proportions. I’d try to talk things out, but they’re leaving only destruction in their wake, and fast approaching Autumn Brook. No time for diplomacy Reggie. Plus, they’re probably literally creatures of Hel here to drag everyone to the depths below. Or maybe they’re from Hell. It’s hard to tell which. Jarrah muttered things about the nine realms, stuff from Norse mythology in my memories. Yet his angelic nature and other celestial things are similar to mythology from, well, western contemporary religions from Fakeworld, Earth.
I don’t want to have to, but I should save enough S P for the Steely Body spell. It will be my last attempt at a fighting retreat. If everything else has failed, it will guarantee me at least another minute, perhaps another hour of survival as I struggle away from the horde. Ugh, we never got a chance for a smith to work the metals that we wanted. Do I risk losing the enchantment on my Valkyrie equipment to assume the form of the metal it’s comprised of? I could always grab a spare suit from Teuila, or summon one from my inventory.
Wait. Speaking about being able to summon from my inventory, I didn’t lay it on the table. I can summon my powers from Can’Z’aas. I’ll pass out in a puddle of blood afterwards, but, but the amount of damage I could do to an opposing force. I can destroy thousands of square feet of area at once, maybe several square miles if I give it my all. I’ll, I’ll keep it in mind. Though I’ll have to decide eight minutes in advance of when I want to unleash it, so I can’t wait til the very last second.
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Tiktik’s raining hell down on me each time I get fully swarmed, thank spoot for this amazing little sorceress. I, I truly couldn’t do this alone. Thank you Bud, thank you Tiktik. Whatever you two do, please, please pull through this. Too many good people have died already. Please don’t join them. Oof! Okay, I can’t afford to get distracted or sentimen—. Gurgle, grlp, ow. This one’s crushing my throat. Huff, huff, and now it’s ash. Thank you Tiktik.
That’s four fireballs and six lightning bolts from Tiktik. Her lightning wand could become defunct if she spends its last charge. It needs mana to maintain the runes that allow it to naturally siphon ambient mana to recharge. There might be enough residual charge left over, but if she’s unlucky, the next bolt will be its last. The same with her fireball wand if she launches three more.
I struggle against the hellish hissing voices, and roar my challenge to the approaching foes. Moments of dodging and weathering blows go by, and Tiktik destroys slews more foes while I work at keeping their attention and ending a few in simple melee combat. W-, w-, what the hell is that!? It’s like a hillside approaching! It's dropping off more forces as it rapidly closes in on me! Is that thing creating more Felgres? Tiktik, all of your firepower, on that th— Oof!
Its reach is enormous, its arms have to be a hundred meters long or more. I can feel my bones collapsing as I’m still connected to its incredibly deadly sideways swipe. Even the air feels like a brick wall with how hard I’m being rammed sideways against this thing’s fist. Crap, I, I. I was, was really hoping not to have to use this this early. I hastily craft the runes for Steely Body, giving up my Valkyrie dagger for it. I can tell the spell takes nearly the entire blade, leaving little more than a jagged stub that remains in the sheathe that forms my belt buckle. I suddenly sink out of the air off the massive creature’s fist as I become incredibly dense.
Not the time for jokes Bud. Oh this is so nice. Several Felgres shatter their hands attempting to claw at or smash me. We’ve only been fighting for a few minutes, and we’re burning through resources like crazy, while it seems like the Felgre horde is actually growing in size. Come on, come on, re-ignite. Please. I spin my thunder stick again trying to call down lightning once more, and I rush heavily towards the monstrous mountain’s extended arm. I scale its limb while crackling with lightning, channeling the deadly voltage to burn spiderwebs of scars into this creature’s arm, destroying its nerves and muscles. I’m hoping to debilitate it, to set it up for a killing blow, and thankfully it seems to be working.
I was right about this massive beast bringing forth more of the horde. It’s as if there are portals to Hell along this thing’s back that briefly open in some sort of rhythm with its breathing. It’s definitely bringing more forces. Worse, there’s more of these monstrously enormous things in the distance. No wonder Gran Vista was overrun. It’s as if the infinite abyss itself is spilling forth to drag the entirety of Rayileklia into the world of the damned.
Maybe, maybe the horde was smaller before Gran Vista? Should I send a message back in time to the point when I met Tiktik, to tell us to make haste past Noirdivinhoz to Gran Vista? I, I can’t think straight. The, the wrath and the lightning. I. I can’t. It’s. It’s hard to think. To concentrate. It, it hurts. My eyelids are sinking.
I’m almost at the enormous creature’s face when I misstep, losing my footing. I tumble off of the thing’s arm, likely over a hundred feet off the ground. The increased mass of this metal form is going to work against me. I might collapse in on myself upon im…pact? Tiktik’s feather floating token! That little rascal. She said she snuck one onto me somewhere in her list of assets. I’m descending a little too gently. I’m an easy target at the moment. While I may have debilitated one arm of the monstrosity, its other, equally deadly, hundred plus meter arm reaches out to snag me from the sky. It plucks me out of the sky easily and tosses me into its mouth. Well, this is certainly dreadfully familiar.
How many things have I had to kill from inside their mouths or throats? Nearly the Cragbeast Queen, definitely the kraken, definitely Kozzurth, now some Felgre portalspawn. If we stood any chance of killing Leviathan, we would have taken it while we were in his mouth. Oh well. Let’s get creative while we’re in here. Ah crap, there goes my Steely Body. Already? Frickin’ heck. Why does its tongue have mouths and razor teeth!? This thing is utterly horrifying in here as much as or worse than outside!
Its breath is putrid, acrid, acidic. Thank all the spoots for the neckchain of the ever breathing. Focus Reggie. Let wrath subside for a moment. Calm down. Breathe air, and clear your head. There are several of these things, and unless we end all of them, they could overrun the entire world with an endless horde of Fel beasts. Wait, wait, there was a clue, you missed it. What was it. Their souls? I don’t think I’ve seen any with my aura sight. That’s not it though.
Rayileklia is dark, that’s a given, permanent acidic cloudcover will do that to a planet, but the luma tulipa provide sun-like light. The luma tulipa were being snuffed out in advance of the horde, as if they were purposely destroying them before coming into contact with the light. Hell’s bells! If, if we could clear the sky! That could buy us most of the day if they’re afraid of the sun!
The, the weather spell! I don’t know any of the runes. I’d need Tiktik’s help. Tiktik, I hope you’re riding my thought train. Stay safe out there, okay? I’m going to need you in a little while. Or at least when we’re out of our other resources. Save some S P to try a ritual with me. In fact, save your firepower for a bit so you don’t draw attention to your hiding place. I’m going to hollow this thing out from the inside. Or, wait. Just how hard is it for lightning to pass through a less than pleasantly conductive material? Maybe I can blow it apart.
I adopt a wicked grin as I focus on my thunder stick, calling all lightning in the region to my location, inside this stupid creature’s face. That’s right nimrod, eat Reggie Shellcracker, see what nutrition that gets you. Spinning the staff, I can feel thrum as the energy coalesces in the air, preparing to strike me. The electricity is set to ignore anything in its path. Alright, let’s —.
Argh, motherloving piece of monkey crap. One of this hideous beast’s grotesque razor-toothed mouths on its tongue has my ankle. I’m glad I didn’t sacrifice my Valkyrie armor outfit yet. Still, I’m stuck in place at the moment. Well, not for long you horrific beast.
I end my staff’s spinning and conjure all the electricity to converge on me. The staff’s power might even possibly be including electricity firing along the neurons of this thing’s brain. That might have been overdoing it though. As I slam the staff down to engage channeling the energy, the cranium is blown clean off of this creature as a massive bolt of lightning strikes the staff, and me with it. The staff shatters into millions of pieces, but every last splinter that’s fired outwards from the explosion seems to reverse course, as if magnetically attracted to one point. Me.