Twenty Years Prior

Tristan knelt next to a dozen dead bodies soaking in a pool of blood. The faces of each contorted in horror, each missing at least one limb; one unlucky fellow had none attached. Twenty feet to the left, a large wheel with eighteen spokes and on each spoke a hand and foot attached to a wheel that still slowly rolled around. As the wheel rolled over the bodies on the ground, the wheel turned, and a hand or foot, as it came down, would hit, kick, slap, or tear at the bodies under it.

Tristan focused briefly on tightening the rope that held her shield to her arm, the straps long broken, the cracked and chipped shield. Battered, but was better than nothing, like herself and the men behind her.

Fifty feet behind the wheel, a giant demon sat on a throne made of living people. With one hand pointing out, he directed the wheel back and forth across the battlefield.

Tristan and the dozen warriors behind her watched the scene for several seconds. Behind her, the sound of someone wretching rose above the slight under the resonance of agony.

“Marcus and Thera, stop the wheel. The rest of you are with me.” Tristan said before she ran to the demon.

She crossed the battlefield quickly, ignoring the crunching sounds and sometimes the squishes that occurred. She resolved to heal anyone still alive, but healing would only prolong suffering until that demon was dead.

The demon looked at her and only raised an eyebrow at her charge. With a wave of their hand, they directed the wheel in her direction. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw it rolling and bounding to her.

A net flew out from behind Tristan and wrapped around part of the wheel. Weights tied to the ends of the net wrapped around the spokes and limbs, tangling itself in the contraption of suffering.

The demon stood up from the chair and flexed its massive wings, blocking the sun and making the world feel dimmer. With its left arm, an absurdly long arm that dangled almost to its feet, it reached down and picked up its chair. Groans of pain and cries emanated from the furniture as the demon lifted it up to use as a weapon.

Tristan lept the last dozen feet, her magical boots and leggings helping her jump up to eye level with the demon. With her shield in her right arm, hammer in her left, and faith in her heart, she swung at the creature's face.

THUMP! AAaahh, the cluster of living beings slammed into Tristan’s shield, the impact throwing her thirty feet to the side. She landed hard on her left hip and skidded through blood-soaked dirt. Her shield hand numb, she could not keep a hold of the shield, not that it would have helped much. The strike had broken what remained of the shield; bits of hair, flesh, and bone stuck to the jagged metal.

A grey blur flew by as one of her comrades was thrown from another strike. Several new screams of agony rose above the normal dim of battle. As Tristan focused on the demon, she noticed the club was crafted from living beings and had a new lump attached. The grey robes of her order fluttered as the demon swung their weapon around.

“Nameless one, bless us and give us all strength to defeat this demonic creature,” Tristan shouted before slamming her numb hand to the ground and raising her hammer in the other.

Power surged through her as little lightning bolts spread out from her across the ground, each seeking one of her cohorts and friends. One bolt even leaped up and hit the poor soul stuck to the creature’s cruel weapon.

Standing she checked to see how Marcus and Thera were doing, it looked like they had dismanted the wheel and were working on circling flanking the demon. The creature uttered a cruel high pitched cackle as it reached a hand casually to its club of living creatures, easily tearing off an arm of someone stuck in it. It waved the arm in a circle, the blood magically hanging in midair as it cast a spell. Upon completion, the severed arm exploded, scattering blood across the ground in a fifty-foot cone.

Several of the soldiers that were preparing to attack got some of the blood on them. They paused and frantically tried to brush the blood off as if it was some acid, but when nothing burned or happened, they regained their composure and closed on on the demon.

The ground where the blood sprayed started quivering. Torn limbs and several body parts began moving as if given a mind of their own. Five hands and a foot attacked Thera. She batted the first couple away quickly, but soon, a hand leaped onto her armor before crawling toward her head.

Tristan ran to her friend, winding up her hammer when she got close, swinging and hitting the hand right as it got to Thera’s shoulder. The hand went flying off into the distance.

Several other soldiers kicked, stabbed, and stomped on the various animated body parts while the others closed in and took exploratory strikes against the demon.

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As the demon swung its living club, Tristan rushed in to get close to the creature. Swinging her hammer up, she scored a hit in the creature’s armpit, rewarding her with a loud crack. The impact was like hitting stone, but she managed to hold onto her hammer as she tried to move away from a backhand response.

The creature did spin around, however instead of hitting Tristan with it’s open hand it swung the living club around.

The large mass of tortured people swung around at Tristan, level with her face. She was still twisted from her last strike and knew if she dropped down, the club would simply crush her against the ground. The tortured screams of people stuck to it filled her ears. Knowing it may be her last prayer, she raised a hand and simply asked the Nameless god to bless the poor people trapped on that demonic weapon.

The club slammed into her hand, but instead of crushing her or knocking her back, white light filled the air and created a barrier between her and the club. Suddenly, the masses trapped on the weapon also glowed with a white light. Thier wounds healing as the blessing of a god covered, comforted, and healed them.

A wave of glowing light travelled down the club as it stretched to cover all the victims attached to it. As the light reached the Demons hand, the creature screamed in pain and it dropped the weapon.

Above the battlefield, in the darkest hour, light filled the air. Thick clouds hung high in the sky, but another light filled the horizon, turning the whole battlefield into a bright day. The sound of something snapping and then wobbling echoed, then popped.

A new chorus of pain and agony filled the air, but this came from the demons and devils. The demons before Tristan fell to a knee and raised a hand up, trying to block the light out from its eyes. A shadow covered the demon's hand, then started growing until it almost covered the whole demon. The creature looked up in time to see a body falling.

Thump! A sizeable armored figure fell from the sky and landed upon the demon, crushing the demonic face with the chest plate. The impact caused the person to bounce after flattening the demon. The figure was left sprawled on the ground face up, but the helmet and chestplate were deformed and flattened.

Tristan figured the fallen figure was dead, as the fall would have killed anyone else, so she ran to the freed people from the club. She carefully checked to make sure they could move, in one case a person with a missing foot, she handed them a spear from a nearby corpse to use as a cruch. She pointed away from the battlefront, where she knew medics were waiting. Several of the people started hobbling off, and four stayed. They looked around for weapons and started looking for another demon to attack.

“Good hunting,” Tristan said as she turned to look at the fallen figure. At least she could pray over the corpse to make sure they are welcomed into the arms of the Nameless God for their sacrifice.

The landing had deformed the armor, giving Tristan trouble locating straps to unhook it. She turned the figure over, and saw the backplate had two holes for wings in it, as well as two bloody stubs of wings twitching. An angel, she gasped as she located a large crack in the armor, but no seam or strap to remove it.

“Marcus, can you help me remove this armor?” She called out as she tried to get a grip on it, straining to rip the armor apart with her bare hands. She prayed for strenght, but knew that physical strenght was not something her god provided.

Marcus stepped up, one hand holding his glasses, the other using a small piece of cloth to clean it. He put his glasses on then stared at the fallen figure.

“I can’t save them if you can’t,” Marcus said.

“I don’t have the ability to heal them, but I can ease their suffering and pray they get to the nameless’s realm. It’s the least I can do after they saved us.”

Marcus nodded and reached out to the armor. He placed a small golden circle on the armor and drew some runes and symbols around the edge of the circle. A moment later, the runes and the circle glowed and then went dark. Marcus plucked the ring and made it disappear within his robes.

The metal armor sagged on the figure. Tristan grabbed two parts of it and pulled, the metal stretched like taffy, before tearing and was cast off the body. Tristan rolled the figure over to see the eyes open and a slight smile on the mans face.

“By the nameless one true name,” Tristan said as she placed a hand to cover her mouth and one over her heart. “Have we lost? Is there no hope?” Tears started welling in Tristan’s eyes.

Marcus blinked several times as he looked upon the face of the Nameless god.

The figure shook its head and briefly it’s whole body glowed. The color of its skin slowly changed from a light gray to something more light brown. With a cough that contained probably more blood than air, the figure pushed itself up to an arm but fell back down.

“I closed,” the figure paused as thier whole body tensed up before relaxing a little. “The veil.”

Tristan quickly pulled out a bottle of holy water and started sprinkling it around the figure, but the other body, blood, and body parts made the task difficult. She tried clearing some space for the circle.

"Sit up, I can't draw a good circle around you lying down." Tristan pulled their god’s shoulder, trying to move them upward. She had a quarter of a circle drawn in the blood-soaked dirt. The deity shivered and strained but was unable to sit up. Echoes of the dying and injured fill the silence of death. "Heal yourself enough to sit up, and I'll take it from there."

A wave of power, refreshing energy filled the cleric, the sound of agony around them dimmed as healing energy premerated the air, healing everyone, except the fallen god.

"why didn't you heal yourself?" Tristan said as energy filled her.

"Others suffering,” the Nameless god said.

"More are going to suffer if you don't sit up; we can't have you die on us. If you die, who will look after us?"

"You," the Nameless god said, taking a deep breath and smiling. Peace filled his face. A wave of power erupted from the corpse. Several soldiers who were injured and even missing some limbs healed and regrew toes and fingers. Across the battlefield, demonic screams replaced the wailing and suffering. Even as those wails faded, a new sound echoed across the battlefield—the sound of victory.

“It’s over,” Marcus said as he looked around. No demonic forces joined the fight; somehow, the seal had been closed. “I’ll have to find a new profession.”

“What teach? That’d be hilarious, Marcus the Professor.” Tristan said as she wiped tears from her eyes. The corpse of her god had turned to ash and was starting to drift away. She tried to grab a speck, but it danced around her hand.

“I don’t understand how we won,” Marcus, the Professor, said.

“Not sure we did,” Tristan said