Finally the deed was done though, and not a moment too soon. Neither Emohka nor Oresus were emanating an alarming amount of pain, but he was getting a lot of demonling anxiety and anger from nearby. The rest of the company was definitely awake, and close. He rearmed and emerged to find them.
As it turned out quite a few of them were gathered outside the grappler’s pen. Apparently, being awakened in the middle of the night and hearing the sounds of conflict coming from their leader’s quarters had confused them. Maybe they needed basic paradigm orders in order to function with even marginal discretion, or perhaps they had full confidence in the grappler’s combat abilities and were just waiting for its victory. Either way they were not happy to see Gloe emerge instead. In the face of such an immediate threat they required no instructions, and they roared their outrage as they charged him.
Which was great. There were a lot of them, but they were all basics and vets. As long as he stayed mobile he really didn’t have to be concerned, and he would much rather have them chasing him than swarming in after Emokha or Oresus. He leapt over their charge, cutting down a few as he flew overhead, then dashed away for his usual game of hit and run.
It wasn’t as if he didn’t have to take care, but this sort of fight had become fairly routine, so he was able to unobtrusively check in on the others. Emokha seemed to still be going strong. Rage was absolutely boiling off of her but he was eating most of it so she wasn’t acting recklessly. The corpses in or right outside the doorway were all facing inward, so apparently some reinforcements had tried to join the fight and succeeded just long enough to die.
Oresus was having a bit harder of a time. He clearly hadn’t been able to hold down his target pen so he had fallen back to a corner, placing portions of the exterior wall to hold both his flanks. Vets and basics were pressing him hard, but his homegrown spear seemed to be working for him. He was able to keep it spinning, beating back his assailants while managing the occasional deadly riposte. He’d probably be fine, at least for a couple more minutes.
Now where was that company commander? Gloe knew there was one here somewhere. Ah. Clever.
Breaking into a sprint he accelerated towards Oresus. Leaping over the surrounding demonlings he flipped, impacting the wall above his target feet first. The company commander saw what was happening and hastily tipped his burden over the wall edge, but he was too late. Gloe scooped Oresus up by both arms and pushed off the wall, rocketing the pair away as the pile of bricks rained down on their previous location and demonlings alike.
“That was c-close. Thanks.”
“We might need to work on your situational awareness at some point. Hop on, we should take the fight to him before the others catch up.”
“R-right.” The pair rocketed up the stairs to the walltop. Oresus dropped on one side of the company commander and Gloe picked up speed to charge right into him. There was a frighteningly quick exchange of blows and Gloe fell back.
“Well, good news and bad news. The good news is there’s a slight chance we can take him if we work together and he trips up before the demonlings get here. The bad news is he’s more powerful than both of us combined.” He stopped to wipe away leakage from one of his dozen bleeding wounds.
“Are y-you okay?”
“Nothing debilitating, just losing a lot of blood. I’ll heal. You fight defensively, take a shot when you can but don’t expose yourself to do it, and don’t fall into a pattern. I’ll try to get creative.”
“Art thou done conspiring decadent spawn of pollution? Prepared to face thy rightful subjugation?” The company commander was pointing his still-dripping scimitar at them, contempt in his eyes.
“Almost, thanks.” Gloe turned his back again. “Sound good?”
“S-sure.” Oresus seemed uncertain, but he gamely raised his spear.
“Thattaboy.” He whipped back around and grinned. “Now we’re good. Thanks for waiting. Here we come, ready or not.” He charged the crenellations to the commander’s left, then kicked off to cannon back towards him. Three quick stabs, all easily parried, then he rolled right.
The commander reached back to riposte against Oresus’ strike, but the latter had been playing it safe and feinting. Gloe tried to plant a dagger in the kidney but the commander was able to reach back across himself and parry it. He was fast.
The scimitar twisted into a complex spiral and emerged headed for Gloe’s throat. It bounced off the parry like it was pre-planned, angling down for the femoral artery. Gloe parried that with his other dagger, but the commander wouldn’t stop. The slashes in rapid succession- stomach, wrist, thigh again, groin, throat, arm muscles- each parried or dodged attack seemingly effortlessly chained into the next. Where an attack was only partially neutralized more bloody wounds dripped.
The onslaught paused as the commander spun to counter Oresus’ attempted stab. Gloe took the brief respite to check their situation, and smiled. They had more time than he thought. Emokha had noticed their peril and taken the stairs. The demonlings wanted to get past her, but the way was too narrow so they couldn’t go around. The pile of corpses in front of her suggested that going through her wasn’t working too well either. Until they split to use various staircases simultaneously the demonlings were out of the fight up here.
Relieved Gloe charged forward to take the pressure off of Oresus. He couldn’t go toe to toe with the commander but he was enough of a threat that the commander had to at least face him. There was another exchange of blows and Gloe dodged backwards, bleeding heavily. The commander was powerful yes, but also skilled. His control over his body and weapon were extremely impressive, as was his ability to read the fight. He must have trained extensively.
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Fair enough. Gloe wasn’t going to win a conventional confrontation with him. But then, come to think of it, had Gloe ever won a conventional confrontation? Well…technically against some of the lesser demonlings once he had massively out-leveled them. Perhaps that wasn’t relevant right now though. It was time for something unpredictable. He charged again.
The commander read his movements and stepped into the attack, ready for another series of devastating strikes. Just before he arrived in range Gloe imbued the ground, connecting it to the ball of just one foot. Effectively tripping himself without any betraying body language.
Before slamming face first into the ground he released, his remaining forward momentum sending him sliding forward. He took a hasty downward cut on his left humerus. The scimitar was clearly magic and it cut through his shroud, but not easily. As he’d twisted he’d focused shroud on the side facing upwards, so although the arm was heavily damaged it wasn’t severed.
Awkwardly wriggling to one side Gloe scrambled to his feet. He was alive but unarmed. The damage to one arm had caused him to involuntarily drop one dagger. Fortunately the commander couldn’t immediately capitalize because the other dagger was still driven through his foot, pinning it to the walltop.
Not that he was beaten. Not by a long shot. Oresus moved to the commander’s back and began stabbing from outside scimitar range. The commander deftly switched his scimitar to his left hand and parried blindly, using his right hand to extract the dagger. He looked at it for a moment, then sneered and threw it over the wall. After a moment the second dagger followed.
Limping a bit (but less than one would have expected,) he rounded to face Oresus. Even wounded he was more than a match for him and Oresus was driven back continuously. This could end badly.
Gloe needed to get back into the fight, and for that a weapon would be required. Preferably one that only required one fully functional arm. His gaze alit on one of the bricks the commander had spilled in his failed attempt to crush Oresus. Good enough.
The commander was keeping an eye on him and quickly noticed what he was up to. Apparently he was less than impressed. At least that’s how Gloe interpreted his contemptuous and deliberate return to attacking Oresus. Well then.
An arm didn’t have to be working all that well to hold a few bricks. Gloe began charging forward, hurling bricks at irregular intervals. He tried to vary his targeting to conceal his true objective, but to his surprise that wound up being somewhat irrelevant. The commander saw Gloe coming but openly chose to ignore him for some reason, instead aggressively trying to pin down Oresus.
Perhaps he didn’t see the bricks as a threat, although that was confusing. Certainly they weren’t traditional weapons but they were solid, heavy projectiles, and Gloe was throwing them with a force and accuracy that exceeded human norms. That was just the way he was since leveling up, and as a higher-level aberration the commander should have anticipated that. He had to be an aberration, right? A reaver would have used his ability, and most likely would have run his mouth more too.
It was almost as if the commander didn’t expect the bricks to be able to penetrate shroud. Gloe was lower level, but not by that much. His imbue would allow the bricks to hold together under greater stresses, so he could throw it harder than would have been possible otherwise. On top of that imbue would allow the projectile to hold up better to an impact with shroud, and force that wasn’t used up shattering the brick would have to be absorbed by shroud. Or by what was underneath.
The first brick struck the back, inflicting some damage if the amount of pain emitted was any indication. The second glanced off a shoulder as the commander whipped around in shock. The third slammed against a knee. Of his good leg. The commander was tough but even he had difficulty staying steady on two injured limbs. He wavered, trying to keep his balance.
Oresus stepped into a two-handed stab, driving his spear into the commander’s back. Unimbued it couldn’t really punch shroud much, so the actual degree of penetration was minimal but it still inflicted some damage. It also destroyed any hard-earned equilibrium. The commander began to fall forward.
A brick was there, in Gloe’s hand. He ducked under an off-balance scimitar swing and smashed the brick into the commander’s face. Again shroud mitigated the damage, but although the commander had more shroud than a grappler he lacked the latter’s tough skin and dense musculature. The relatively delicate organs of the face couldn’t absorb the left-over force readily.
The commander fell to the ground, trying to crawl to his feet in a half-daze. His scimitar skittered across the stone as Oresus flicked it away and Gloe brought the brick down for another blow. Given the opening the commander rolled to one side, smashing a fist into the gaping cut on Gloe’s arm. The experienced fighter had feigned weakness and Gloe had fallen for it.
So the fight went on. The commander was tough and the better brawler. Gloe wasn’t staggered by pain and had two functioning legs. They traded a dozen blows. The commander was landing three for every one of Gloe’s, and he hit harder. Gloe was healing though, however slowly. It was a stalemate, at least for the moment.
Until Oresus returned to the fight. His spear hadn’t been cutting it, literally it seemed. So he’d found something that did. The expropriated scimitar fared much better against shroud, opening a large dripping cut on the commander’s back.
That was the beginning of the end, and they all knew it. The commander spat and growled. “Curse you to the trackless wastes, you aberrant cowards. All for my lords!” He drew a thin knife from his belt and drove it into his heart.
Or at least tried. The moment he gave his little speech Gloe was on high alert. When the hand reached towards the belt Gloe lashed out. He didn’t know what was going on, he just knew nothing good was going to come of it. He didn’t have a strength advantage so he couldn’t stop the hand, but he could deflect it, so the knife came in hilt first.
Only a momentary diversion, but it bought enough time for Oresus to sweep the scimitar in. The commander wasn’t defending, and Oresus’ blow struck true. Gloe found himself in sole possession of the knife as the commander’s head rolled along the walltop.
The inflow of life energy was substantial. Gloe guessed he was getting less than half, but it was still quite a bit. Based on the way Oresus staggered he’d gotten more, and compared to his lower starting position it was proportionally even more significant. His shroud increased and thickened notably.
They took a moment to regain their equilibrium. Then, without needing a discussion they both ran to relieve Emokha. She was still holding the stairs but the strain was clearly beginning to build. She willingly stepped aside to let their charge hit home. In fact, she did so literally, stepping off the stairs into the air.
The demonlings gaped at her, then her wings sprang up behind her and she began to hover accompanied by a buzzing thrum. Moving back in from the side she was able to harass and kill many demonlings as they tried to hold the stairs. Faced by an assault on two sides the demonlings eventually broke and fled.
But there was nowhere in the fortress for them to go. They weren’t fast enough to evade, and there were no good hiding places. The gate was locked, and they couldn’t survive a drop from the walls. All they could do vainly struggle as they were hunted down and wiped out. Every last one of them.