Pelanna's giant wall conjuration slammed into place blocking off the whole of the slanted and terraced tunnel right at the stairs. While a magical conjuration the wall sure did make a god awful mess of the bodies of orcs and goblins hanging about the ledges and piled about the stairs.
There was single loud blast of sound like a fog horn, a whole lot of demented clown giggling that came with a lot of orc screaming after, what sounded like a horde of chickens, squeaky hammers, and then enough sprays of confetti that actually made it over the thin space at the top of the wall with a few brightly colored balloons. Micheal braced himself beside Vivian for the possibility of an explosion. She had her hands over her ears already so hopefully she didn't hear the insane laughter of what sounded like half a dozen giant clowns or anything else from the other side.
Finally it came after the sound of a single party horn. At least one loud thump of an explosion and some wisps of flame and no small spray of burnt feathers before the short lived, but extremely durable wall dissipated and faded into white and blue mist.
Below was a bloodbath, but there were a good number of orcs and the pig ogre things still up. They were dazed and a single two headed chicken with twin long tail streamer feathers ran around bloodied and disoriented on one side of the hall somehow mostly unharmed.
The orcs all roared and screamed as they came up the stairs in staggering and reckless charges, but arrows and spells crashed into them once again. Eva hit one of the pig things in the eye with one of her conjured daggers and as the dagger melted away thick red blood sprayed out of its face and over its hands as it tried to plug the wound, but it slipped and fell into one of the pools on the terrace before it could continue to climb. Lindsey worked her wand as she made a slow track to Micheal's side near the stairs on his right as the first were about to close on him coming up the stairs. Micheal was about to push her back when Vivian grabbed his arm pulling him back before covering her ears again.
The mob of orcs would be on them in a moment. Micheal wasn't sure he could hold them back. His limbs and arms burned, but his heart pounded with defiance. Still he let Vivian pull him back, his gaze drawn to Lindsey as the air crackled about her, undeniable yet invisible power gathering about her.
Micheal remembered what he had been told but never saw Lindsey do. She had an unstopped potion in her hand and she was mouthing words silently; unseen energy at the edge of sight crackling around her like the feeling of a storm on the horizon. Her wand cackled with bright blue energy as the orcs came into line with her as they charged up the stairs in a double shambling file forced by the stairs more than any sort of discipline.
“The storms call, and the heavens break and I cast from my wand a single spark of the greater storm; Lightning Bolt!” Lindsey said calmly her words ringing with power as she raised her wand at them. An unseen wind rose about her and all went still for a tiny impossible moment before the room filled with incredible light and sound.
Micheal felt the hair on his head inside his helm and his armor itself lift and want to lean toward Lindsey. The sound that came off the lightning bolt was incredible, like a cannon firing, and was made all the worse for being in doors.
Lindsey meanwhile held onto her hat with a few fingers of her hand with the potion ready to drink after her bolt of lightning shot from her wand in a brilliant silver blue flash like a gunshot. It was just another moment for his new friend to show how much of a badass spell caster she was even if she was considered sub par by her peers.
There was nothing Micheal had seen so far that compared with the raw power that poured out of Lindsey right then; it shook the stones and the crack of thunder rolled through his chest and body again and again as the sound crashed off the wall. When he looked back he saw that orcs and pig ogres in the order of dozens had fallen dead on the spot with a blackened hole through the middle of their chests, limbs, and armor, whatever got in the way. Lindsey calmly downed the potion and waved Micheal over to deal with the orcs still coming up the stairs after they recovered from their shock and started muscling their way past the bodies in their path up the stairs.
They shoved and wrenched them aside without so much as a care stumbling as they did, only doing so much as to be able to climb over their fellows. It was madness. They should have backed down, they should have been afraid, but they were literally foaming at the mouth, and glad for their chance at the next fight. Monsters. Micheal had to remember that. They were nothing but monsters.
Micheal charged forward and caught the first orcs weapon with his sword staff leaving him open for Vivian to take in the neck and then hacked at the next and the one after that with great sweeping strikes that stung his hands as they struck. He didn't care. There was a resolve in him now that he was in the fight that was controlled a little unlike before. He would kill these things and right the wrongs he had put into his own writing even if he had to do so chopping away like a farmer working a scythe at harvest or a lumberjack in the woods. A bloodied pig ogre thing rushed after those two and he thought it was as good a time as any to use his thrust attack ability.
He stepped back and then thrust out with his blade. Flashing light consumed the end of his spear until it punched through the pig ogre's sternum with ease punching through the beast to the crossguard and likely sticking out the back of the thing. Blood fountain-ed from its mouth, but it still pawed at the shaft and for him. Vivian slashed across its face with her spear and took out its eyes and crystal dagger took it in the jaw just above that critical artery in the neck, but it was still going and screaming and forcing Micheal back as the cross guard met with its stinking flesh.
“There's more coming. Way more than seventy down here.” Dexter said loudly above him as he fired an arrow into its forehead with practiced ease.
That finally did it and the thing toppled backward with a little help from Micheal shoving it back over onto its comrades behind, but there was another one right behind it that pushed forward against the weight of the tumbling corpse. One was even clambering up the front of the terrace to flank them before Jack tore at its face.
Micheal felt strong, stronger than he ever been in fact, but he was fighting with everything he had and could feel the toll it was taking on him. The battle was chaos, his mighty blows felling them, his training as short as it was shining through, but there were just so many of them. Mike for that matter was caught up fighting a heavily armored orc one on one on the far stairs looking ragged and tired.
Before he could think to help his friend Leah's hammer took the next pig ogre thing in the side of the head sending it tumbling to the side with a badly dented skull before it fell back and its corpse along with the others littered the way for the rest of the orcs to push forward.
“Return!” Leah shouted, her hammer flying to meet with her mail mitten covered hands.
Then there was a loud crack as she spun and clubbed another pig ogre off the terrace beside Micheal with a punishing golf swing that bent its mangled head backward. They were all making the most of having the orcs fight them uphill, but they just would not stop. They knew the adventurers were tiring and each that fell seemed just as eager as the next to try them.
Everyone was panting except Leah who was bouncing her hammer in her hands waiting for her chance to strike again. Lindsey blasted the next orc Mike was dueling with an ice lance and Dexter killed the next after that with an arrow that went three quarters of the shaft deep past its exposed collar bone and deep into its rib cage in a fountain of blood. The creature pawed at its impaled shoulder, blood and foam spraying from its mouth as it died. Julia was screaming as much as growling on the next terrace to their right, the sound of her fists magically battering her foes down into bloodied heaps coming back and into focus as the ringing in his ears faded. Eva and Forgen were right beside her with Pelanna and Luna holding the back line and watching their backs for now.
Micheal looked back not knowing why he did at first, but saw a soaking wet James running first to Pelanna and then pulling Forgen from the melee line. Noise at the bottom of the hall brought more orcs and goblins with bows. They fired at anyone they could see with their small little arrows and the fight at range began again.
“They found a way behind us, but as far as we know the army is still occupied.” Forgen announced. “Leah hold the back with the boys.”
“Right!” Leah said, pulling back and jogging up the stairs. She gave Micheal a worried glance as she passed from under the solid steel mask of her heavy helm.
“Fucking suicide mission.” He heard Dexter growl somehow in midst of the storm of battle as he calmly dodged arrows and contemptuously fired back focusing on the climbing orcs instead of the goblins left below tasked with felling him and Lindsey beside him.
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Julia tried another mystery box that exploded with a shower of green harmless snakes, but after a number of reinforcing goblins with arrows had died from bites from the first they did run and scatter from them before they puffed into smoke. The orcs below them were trying to use shields to cover the others as they pulled the considerable number of bodies off the stairs that were blocking their path, but they didn't have an easy time of it. There were a good many more arrows flying than spells compared to before, but everyone who could was picking targets and putting down an orc or goblin that showed itself.
“Think I should use some of that mana you've been giving me.” Vivian said, stepping forward with her spear in hand.
The elegant elven weapon was already circulating wind around it and it only grew more fierce as she stepped forward out of cover of the terrace and thrust out. She stepped forward, wind all around her, and howling as though the chamber was open to the angry gales of a storm. She thrust out and released a howling column of wind tore down the stairs before her and into the formation of climbing enemies.
Micheal rose to hack at the head of an armored orc that was being pushed up onto the terrace from below and managed to gouge out its neck after a few strikes making him miss the effect of Vivian's magical attack. The ogres dead bodies blocked their approach in the middle of the hall so he quickly made his way to relieve Mike as Vivian let out a chilling laugh of satisfaction at the apparent ruin she had wrought below. Eva let out a cheer of a kind that was mostly consumed in a witch-like cackle filled with mirth.
Mike was panting behind his helmet and when Micheal stood to take his place he nodded and backed away, already trying to free a hand to down a stamina potion. Lindsey caught him as he stumbled and dug a little yellow tinged vial from her robes and tipped it into his waiting mouth once he got his plate helm open after spotting her coming to him. Poor Mike's face was slicked with sweat and a few trickles of blood, but he was otherwise fine, his armor a little battered and beaten about, but his body whole.
Micheal used his weight and height on the thin outside stairs to push back orcs one by one as they recklessly pushed forward on this side. When he got an opening he stuck with his back swing ranged attack and actually opened up the head of one orc just with that. Vivian's spear howled and she fired another blast of wind into a clump of orcs with shields raised from the middle. Arms, hands, and fingers went flying and Vivian though looking a bit worn she smiled and fired off another one into a dense group. She laughed a delighted and wild laugh looking for the world to be a goddess of battle in mortal form. By the Gods she might just be the prettiest thing he had ever seen.
Then the first thunderous crack of Leah's hammer struck up above echoing down with a sharp gurgling cry before a body came sliding down the center ramp turning the otherwise clean water muddy and red with its passing until it joined with its fellows.
“They're coming, but it's just one or--” Another thunderous blow and a little grunt cut off her words. “Or two at a time. No worries up here.” There was another crash of metal and she giggled loudly up there as they continued below.
Lindsey and Mike next to Micheal were giving each other worried glances, but Micheal was too busy to consider as he slew one orc after another until his stairs too were clogged with bodies. Being able to strike with full swings and use the spike of his cross guard like a pickaxe was doing wonders against the orcs that had no concept of dealing with a weapon like his. Once an orc tried to grab at the haft, but Micheal kicked him flat in the face and sent him down into his fellows with a broken nose providing an example case of why one always wore their helmet in battle for his own memory if nothing else.
Eventually a call came from the other orcs below and they slowly backed off. They even gave up the room leaving them with the stinking mess of all the bodies laying in ornamental ponds and shallow pools of murky water. A shaman or other leader had finally seen through the battle lust to see that this meat grinder would just keep grinding them if they were going to put their bodies into it. The hail of magic and the advantage of position was too much for them to endure even with their battle lust, but then again maybe they just realized all the pig ogre things were dead. As they shut the door to the hall below the light coming from that end with all the howling cries of the spirit here cut off. It brought to mind how dark and dank this place was and how they had been more or less creeping in the gray dark all day. One by one lights winked in in the dark as the group lit torches or called light. Lindsey made a floating orb of light that hung just above her wide brimmed hat, and Luna got out her magical lantern that did much the same.
“Recover.” Forgen called. “Any wounded?”
One man on the side with Julia raised his arm holding the other to his chest. Pelanna went to him, her staff giving off a soft light that filled the area around her for about twenty yards without an apparent source. The soft chimes of her staff seemed soothing, even in this place.
“Leah how's it going back there?” Forgen yelled over his shoulder.
“I think they learned not to come through, but they cut our rope.” Was her distant answer.
Dexter cursed.
“They've got another way around if they found a way to have us surrounded, but we have to move.” Micheal said to Dexter who looked at him with an angry face, before he sighed and nodded.
“What about that spirit or whatever? What the hell are they doing to it?”
“Trying to turn it.” Lindsey said, sitting Mike down to rest against the wall as the stamina potion kicked in.
He was still panting and holding tight to his shield which was bent and beaten to hell. Mike didn't have the size or reach advantages Micheal had. Their eyes met and the father to be gave Micheal a big thumbs up after a long moment. He was twitching and blinking a little as the potent high grade stamina potion kicked in.
“There's two or three of their shamans inside trying to get it done by what I can feel. We should push hard before they manage to get reinforcements in or worse take that thing over.”
Forgen came up to the terrace above beside Dexter and nodded as he looked down the hall and at the piles of bodies of orcs down there. A pillar near the door had been blown apart by one of Julia's mystery boxes and dirt rained from the ceiling. Micheal's ears were still ringing faintly from that. Or maybe that was just the lightning bolt.
“You're both right.” Forgen said coming to the terrace above them with his sword sheathed. “Dexter go retrieve what arrows you can.” He said putting a hand to Dexter's back companionably.
“Right.” Dexter half growled, but went down the stairs to start ripping arrows from corpses.
“Micheal keep a level head next time. No matter how badly you hate them don't do anything reckless like charging forward like that again.” Forgen said in a commanding, but still somehow gentle tone.
“It worked out this time, but that kind of move can get yourself or others killed. Wait for the command next time.”
Micheal hung his head nodding. The anger in him died a little bit at that. He hadn't realized how much he had wanted to strike back at the orcs for what had been done to him. His hands were shaking and trembling with rage and anxiety, and fear, possibly a little terror. He knew part of him wanted control back, to win back something over the fear he still felt, but even striking and killing as many as he did he was still afraid. Vivian was at his side and then suddenly so was Lindsey. Both women folded him in a hug.
“Other than that crazy leap down the terrace your fighting was pretty good.” Lindsey said.
“That's what you say.” Vivian laughed. “You're not next to him. He got pretty wild there.”
Micheal looked to Vivian as she carefully pushed the cross guard of his sword spear out of the way with one finger. Her pointed look said a lot. He sighed and murmured an apology she accepted with just a softening of her eyes.
“How do we go about stopping the spirit if it's turned?” Mike asked from where he sat.
Forgen above him watched the Brazen Boys and Dexter as they retrieved and shared arrows between each other returning Dexter's thicker shafts to him, when they could pull them from a corpse at least, all of them wary of the door. Dexter's quiver was almost full by the time they formed up on the stairs watching the door below.
“There's a core in the center of the temple ahead that we should be able to break. It will kill the spirit as a last resort. Otherwise if we clear the tampering orcs out the spirit should aid us in escape and finishing off who's left.” Forgen said.
“And if it's turned?” Dexter said from below.
Forgen hopped down the terrace and then down the next leading everyone on.
“Leah are there any more coming?” He shouted back ignoring the question.
There was a long pause and a shout came.
“No. I think they're waiting for me to leave.”
“Can you break those doors down and put them over the hole?” Forgen yelled to her.
There was another pause and Leah went to the doors. She swung them half open looking at the large bronze hinges and raised her hammer. Sparks flew and there were a great few more crashes to blend in with the noise above and then a loud boom as the ancient stone door fell.
Micheal and Lindsey were up there by the time she fell the door and helped the tiny, incredibly strong girl mostly drag the incredibly heavy stone door over the hole. Leah wanted to put the other one over it too, but already it would likely drown however came through to check. And they didn't really have the time to mess around.
They came back down to the sound of the men at the bottom of the hall trying to open the door.
“It's barred.” Dexter called them.
Leah giggled and lifted her hammer as she clambered over the piled up dead pig ogre things and came to the bottom of the hall.
“Not for long. Look out!” She said in her sweetest voice as she checked her path to the door and stepped around a few bodies interrupting her slide down the ramps as she jogged over and struck the stone with a single great blow.
The door shuddered and the bits of the broken column fell at the strike around them. Micheal directed everyone away from the weakened area as Leah lifted her hammer back and began working it like a woodcutter's axe. He barely got down there in time to join the others at the door when Leah's hammer first struck. His heart started pounding again.
Dexter stood close as they backed away together.
“Hey I know this is a lot to ask, but you're a Binder like they say.” He half whispered. It was much too loud with the running water and Leah breaking down the door for much else.
“If things go bad can you bind or hold up that thing? I'll go for the core if you do.”
Vivian beside him was listening and nodded, holding up her spear as she watched Leah smash the door. The bar on the other side might have been metal, but it was giving way. Every time she hit it the doors popped open and the yell of goblins and orcs on the other side rose before they had the door shut again pressing into it with their bodies.
“Get ready. I'm going to break it open this time.” Leah said sounding way too happy about it and near to a dozen bows drew and spells were held charged and ready. Mike, Forgen, and Micheal stood with Leah ready to strike and cover her. Vivian was with the others in the back with her spear throwing off violent currents of air.