Yelena
The scent of burning flesh filled the air.
Every slash she made against the horde of darkness coated her blade in their corruption, and upon its return to the inside of her protective circle, it washed itself clean again.
Story of my life…
Amara called out targets that came from above – specters detatching themselves from the onslaught of the wave crashing through the houses and throwing themselves at them from above, dive bombing into the sphere of light like moths enticed by a burning candle in the dark.
Searing Strike: Activ-
“No!” Amara called, tossing two fireballs into the air. They found their marks and blasted clean through two aerial darklings gliding on screeching wings.
“Save your Glance!” she shouted.
Yelena nodded. The girl was right. She was a full, pureblooded Pyromancer. She had the capacity to keep up her cloak and fire her offensive projectiles both.
Whereas she…
GLACNE: 12/20
…was running out of time.
“Push forward!” she shouted above the din of each crashing wave. “Towards the palace!”
She could see it in the distance – it’s golden dome glimmering against the onset of the dark ones. She could almost feel the eyes of the Don on them all as their slowly dwindling resistance fell apart at its seams.
Is this what you want? she asked the spire of the tallest dome. Chaos? Death? An end to your miserable life?
Nothing but more animal screams answered her – Gnolls who struck at the reaching talons of the darkness at their flank were being pulled by the ends of their polearms and spears out of the light and consumed. The rest of their companions could only watch as they sank beneath the blackened sands, their screams ringing out before they, too, joined the wailing of the waves.
“Don’t let up!” Mendax kept shouting, keeping his Elder held close. “Follow Yelena!”
She grit her teeth as she thrust through an oncoming wall of liquid ooze, and saw the faces of the dead wail at her as she pushed passed them. She knew it was the trick of the Don. She knew all this could just be a way to demoralize her. Yet, the creeping spector beneath her own heart started to add its own whispers to her increasingly numb mind.
This is the lot of those who use what they cannot control, it said. You were meant to contain me, Yelena. Only you.
“Shut up!” she screamed, cutting through another section of the oncoming waves.
She paid no heed to the strange look Amara flashed her way from beside her.
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They forced their way on, watching the city die around them, watching its previous citizens throw themselves against their every move, their dark, malformed eyes looking for any weaknesses they could find.
GLANCE: 8/20
All the while she saw her own inadequacy. She couldn’t keep up this fighting and her aura.
“Yelena,” a hoarse voice whispered. “T-take…my hand.”
She looked back to see the Gnoll Elder gripping her shoulder even as she was already allowing her energies to flow into her young Lightbringer.
“No,” Yelena said. “I will make it. I have to m-“
“Oh, just take her hand, Argent!” Amara shouted.
She whirled on the girl but saw, at the same moment, the desperation in her eyes. It wasn’t fury that was motivating her screaming demand.
“You would make demands of me, then, Glancer?”
“This ain’t the time for infightin’!” Mendax roared, swinging his Greataxe one-handed to make a fiery cleave through a descending flood of darkness from above. “If our Elder decrees it, then…damnit! It’s her wish!”
Yelena met the Elder’s eyes as the group began descending to the first gilded walkway next to the Oasis. The Palace rose above them in the distance.
As well as the greatest wave yet.
It streamed down the palace windows, from its spires, and out every gold-encrusted doorway and hallway to form before them a wall that blocked out the sun itself. And every soul within screamed their fury at the charging party.
GLANCE: 5/20
There was, by Yelena’s count, around sixty Gnolls left…
“Take my hand, Yelena.”
She watched the wave as it came crashing towards them, destroying all the block-houses in its path.
“You may not trust us,” the Elder said. “You may still believe your Argents’ teachings of the Everloft contained at least some truth. But look at me as a person, Yelena, not as a denizen of this abyss you hate. Would you trust me?”
She gulped back her hesitation.
“You’ll die,” she said.
“The hour comes for us all,” The Gnoll replied with a smile through her veil. “I have had the privilege of choosing mine.”
Yelena looked at the outstretched hand offered to her as her Seninel’s Aura began to flicker and dim.
The wave made impact with the sphere and poured in, the maws of a thousand dead souls opening to chew them apart.
She took the Gnoll’s hand.
GLANCE Restoration: Activated
GLANCE: 20/20
GLANCE: 35/20
GLANCE: 50/20
Yelena’s eyes gleamed as she felt the strength of the Gnoll flow over her, entering her veins and filling them with more power than she’d ever felt flowing in her arms. She tightened her grip on her sword and, brandishing her shield, let the power coursing through her release.
[SYNERGY UNLOCKED: SEARING REBUKE]
[Shield Bash + Searing Strike]
Effect: Repulsion 30ft + LIGH DMG 25pts
GLANCE cost: 30
The wave fell away from her strike, coupled with Amara’s gouts of flame flaring from both her palms. Slowly the souls returned to the depths of the oasis where they remained, and the dwindling army of the resistance charged forwards.
“Hang on!” Mendax yelled. “Elder, you can make it.”
The old Gnoll’s eyes flickered as her breath began to fail her.
“I…will…I will…see…the corpse…of the…Blackbird…before…before…”
Yelena was focused on the approaching steps of the palace and thus did not pay attention to the fact the Elder collapsed behind them, Mendax resorting to carrying her upon his shoulder.
“Gnolls of the Sands!” he cried. “The hour of our victory dawns. Will you heed your Elder’s wish!”
The roared as conquerors should, each one closing ranks and scything through the last vestiges of the flood as it slowly faded away, and the golden door of the palace came within their sights.
“Just a little further,” Amara whispered from just behind Yelena’s heaving shoulder. “Just a little…”
Her final statement stopped in her throat as the golden doors were thrown open, and a line of Tigran Guards, armed and armored, assembled in perfect rank and file before them.
“It can’t ever be simple,” Yelena wheezed, turning to face the equally exhausted Glancer beside her. “Are you with me?”
Amara’s grimace lasted only a second as she nodded, and a new flame pulsed into the palm of her hand.
“These won’t be the first cats I’ve burned.”