East of Osiris
1:21 PM
The final Orc fell dead to the ground. Tantalus raised his head and surveyed the scene for the first time since he had split off from the two Knights to engage with the single Orc. Tantalus had finished off his Orc a few seconds after Mozaic had finished his second orc. Mozaic held his saber in his off hand, and a bloody scar had appeared on his right wrist.
“You’ve gotten slow in your old age, Tantalus,” Mozaic joked.
“I’m not the one who got wounded,” Tantalus retorted with a smile.
“Goblins at the entrance in ten seconds!” Ashcroft shouted as he drew his revolver.
“Thank you, Future Sight!” Mozaic called out before putting his own revolver on target.
Tantalus wordlessly reloaded his 1911 and aimed it at the entrance to the office building. The three Revenants took cover behind whatever was near them. Tantalus hid behind a cubicle, Mozaic hid behind a stone pillar, and Ashcroft hid behind a water cooler.
This cover was entirely unnecessary. Exactly on cue, about a dozen Goblins wielding rifles and shotguns came into view. They died messily as three expert marksmen gunned them down. For a moment, the entrance was adorned with a kaleidoscope of splattered blood. This blood fizzled and turned into a colorless gas a few seconds after it left its hosts. The Goblins didn’t even have time to raise their rifles before they fell to the ground and began to transform into undifferentiated ash. It was the kind of massacre inevitably brought about by narrow entrances and overlapping fire lines. If any of the men present were of a less sober disposition, the massacre may have unsettled them.
Another squad of ten Goblins followed close behind the first. This second squad did not make the same mistake as the first. They took cover behind the walls in front of the entrance. Two Goblins foolishly peeked out and lost their heads before the rest learned to stay in cover.
The three Revenants slowly walked closer to the entrance while continuing to aim at the target. Ashcroft had switched back to his rifle, and he was quietly using a stripper clip to reload five rounds of .30-06 back into his bolt-action.
Tantalus wordlessly got the other two Revenants attention and made an advanced battle-cant sign with his left hand. Clock hadn't mentioned this sign earlier, but Tantalus was sure that Mozaic and Ashcroft would know the sign. The sign was made by making a fist and flicking the index finger forward as if you were pulling the pin from a grenade.
Frag?
Ashcroft saw the sign and responded by pointing a finger at Tantalus and then giving a thumbs up.
Yes, you do it.
Tantalus turned to Mozaic to make sure that he knew the plan. Mozaic gave a thumbs up. Tantalus holstered his pistol and fumbled around through his satchel. He reached around until he felt a heavy spherical object. Slowly, Tantalus extracted the frag grenade as Ashcroft and Mozaic covered the door with high-caliber firearms.
“Frag out! Get down!” Tantalus shouted as loud as he could. He didn’t know where Clock and Dan were, and he wanted to make sure that they knew explosives were about to be used. Tantalus took his index finger and used it to tear out the pin out of the frag grenade.
Tantalus stood up from his cover behind a cubicle in a pitcher’s stance. Instead of a baseball, however, he held a device which could kill or maim any creature within fifty feet of itself. He saw the large open entrance to the office building. Tantalus could not see any Deluvians, but he knew at least a dozen were hiding near the entrance.
As he had done a thousand times in Ninth Oasis, Tantalus threw the hand grenade to the exact spot he wanted. He threw it like an underpowered fastball. He went through the same motions as a pitcher, but he made sure to not throw it with full force. The hand grenade only needed to travel about thirty feet.
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The grenade left Tantalus’s hand and traveled in an arc that ended just a few feet in front of the building’s front door, ejecting its plunger as it flew. From there, it bounced a few more feet before stopping just outside the door.
Tantalus dove back into cover a second before the grenade exploded. Upon diving down, he saw Ashcroft and Mozaic flat on the ground doing the same.
Bang.
The sound of the frag grenade exploding was about as loud as a gunshot from their rifles, but it reverberated throughout the building. Mixed in with the sound of the bang was the sharper sound of one or two shards of fragmentation flying overhead. The three Revenants were still within the danger radius of the explosion, but their preparation lowered the likelihood of them being hit by fragmentation to a negligible amount.
Two seconds after the explosion shook the building, the three Revenants hopped out of cover and began moving forward toward the entrance. As they moved forward, they organized themselves in a stack formation with Tantalus in front, Ashcroft second, and Trismegistus third. This formation was usually utilized when clearing houses, but the three experienced soldiers instinctively knew that the stack formation would be most effective here.
They reached the entrance without resistance. Tantalus picked up his dropped shotgun and quickly loaded five shells of buckshot into the magazine tube.
“Get away from the entrance!” Ashcroft shouted with real panic in his voice. He broke from the formation and began to sprint backward.
Needing no explanation, Mozaic and Tantalus sprinted away from the entrance. Tantalus had vaulted a desk and taken cover behind a cubicle when he heard the unmistakable sound of a woman’s voice come from the direction of the approaching Deluvians.
“Fulgur nexum!”
Suddenly, the entrance exploded with a crack of thunder. Tantalus was looking at the entrance when the blast came, and the flash burned actinic lights into his corneas. Multiple tons of concrete was torn away from the building as the walls near the entrance were completely destroyed. The narrow, ten-foot-wide entrance was instantaneously turned into a thirty-foot-wide hole.
Through the hole blown into the side of the building, the three Revenants could now see all that remained of the host of Deluvians that they had come into contact with.
Only eight remained. Two were Ogres standing at more than fifteen feet tall. Now that they were close, the Revenants could fully comprehend their size. They were more than twice the height of any other creature present, and they clearly weighed several thousand pounds. One of the two Ogres had been significantly injured by the frag grenade. It barely seemed like it was still standing.
One was an Orc Captain wearing chainmail and a visorless war helmet. Tantalus couldn’t remember the name of that type of helmet. It was either a barbute, a spangenhelm, or a coppergate. Either way, the helmet covered the sides of the orcs head, but the eyes and nose were still exposed. In its hands, the orc captain held a bolt-action rifle. On its belt, it wore a hand axe.
Four of the surviving Deluvians were basic Goblins. They were all that remained of the more than eighty Goblins they had started with. FullDan and Clock had apparently done a number on the goblins while the three Revenants had fought on the ground level. At a glance, Tantalus could tell that two had already sustained fatal injuries. They would be dead within an hour without medical treatment.
The remaining Deluvian was a humanoid entity with antlers growing out of its head. It had a body like a human woman, and it wore a mask on its face to make it look like it had the skull of a deer. It was a Wendigo. On its humanoid body, the Wendigo wore a black lace dress that covered most of its form.
Tantalus could feel a terrible power exuding from the Wendigo's form. It was in a different league compared to all of the other Deluvians present. If they made a mistake here, Tantalus knew, they could very easily end up dead.
Character Sheet
Name Magic Deluvian (I) Level 30 Blood Points 100/100 Mana Points 190/280 Race Deluvian Fortitude 10 Strength 10 Agility 12 Wisdom 25
Attribute Modifier: Enhanced Mana Pool (200)
The Wendigo was floating about ten feet off the ground, and lightning arced between its body and the ground below. The other Deluvians gave the Wendigo a wide berth in order to avoid the arcing lightning.
The two parties stared at each other for a long second. Then, like a flint striking steel, the barrels of eight firearms were raised, and a song of war played for whoever would listen.