The Beginning of the End of a Nightmare...
Blindness doesn’t have to come from darkness. Creatures of darkness often tend to overlook the fact. So do those of us who live in the light.
I had been slowly building up my Tats. After all, I didn’t have a lot else to work on. My Weapons tended to build themselves up, after all. My Tats had to be carved onto my Soul to work properly, which meant I could take them with me.
I had never pulled out my Arakne Arms, because I hadn’t needed them. Still didn’t, to be totally honest.
But every one of these bastards I killed this time was one that wouldn’t threaten my lads. I didn’t care about kill-stealing today, I wasn’t smithing behind the lines while I ran the fight, only coming out to champion-hunt.
Today, I was killing everything.
My finger never left Fall’s trigger. Unending numbers of force-quarrels poured out, every half-second, inserting themselves in uncomfortable places like eyes, throats, ears, noses, mouths, and occasionally slumming to drive into hearts and livers.
Tremble was blazing in full Demonbane Mode, and I was moving from one press to the next in barreling runs of slaughter and spreading body parts.
Fido and Shirley raged into the middle of a pack of lesser Lintzko fire demons, Fido tanking their attacks deftly, invulnerable to fire, while Shirley hellrimed them to death. Then they led a raging attack on the Crosmos ice-skinned frozen demons, switching roles while he baked them in hellfire.
The lines of men whirled and spun as I played the game of march and movement with more Focus than I ever had before. Ranks of shining Spears drove dozens of demons off sheer cliffs, sometimes tearing off those climbing up as they all failed to fly.
Kill-teams separated as the larger demons beat their way into the lines, and came together with Axes and Swords to kill them from all sides with amazing coordination and teamwork.
Archers focus-fired, and gleaming shafts brought down ranged attackers time after time as I emptied the wagons of all our reserves.
Today was the last day. There was no need to save anything. Potions were disseminated, and sometimes whole lines erupted in Growth, and shoved hundreds of demons to their dooms, rampaging over the uncaring stone as for one final time, they were giants once more.
It was a dance of war, and today EVERYONE was dancing.
The Healers were on duty up close now, working the lines, getting everyone up who fell, moving with the lines as we advanced. Healing Potions were used without care, Wands were emptied, and the men who fell and managed to not die were soon up and back to the fight, madder and more heartened than ever.
Our opponents were demons, the best of the worst kind of fighters. They were savage, unrelenting, totally uncaring if they died, living for the moment and the chance to fight and claw at something weaker.
We had nearly two thousand Evilborn Baneskulls, the boys collected the things. They were all in use now.
Tremble never got tired of Singing. Courage blazed through the Marktells on top of my Warlord bonus, for +5 to hit, damage, AC, and saves.
I shredded a line of bulle’ri, who might have been able to take the charge of the +I Valorous Lances that smashed into them if I hadn’t. My knights and lancers ripped through them like cheese with x4 charge damage, wheeling to avoid scampering ape-demons racing over to leap on them... who promptly found themselves jumping right into the middle of a falling arrow volley that would have hit the cavalry if they hadn’t spun and raced away.
There was magic here and there, but never for long, as the most skilled archers were happy to pick out the Casters and hatrack them.
Sparkie flitted around me with his Baneskull, shooting out rays of solid light replete with Banefire, finishing off wounded demons, especially those pawing at a bolt from Fall in their eye sockets. His Skull had a very minor enchantment that allowed it to speak gleefully in time with Stand’s beat, and he was using it to shout “Score!” “That’s another one!” “What a moron!” “Bam! Got ’em!” and other quips relentlessly in Demonic.
I was doing mass Intimidate checks all the time as I slaughtered the lesser Demons, and these savage bastards were all having severe cases of stage fright when it came time to stare down little ol’ Sama. The fear spread with telepathic speed, and let’s just say the morale of these demons, savage or not, was getting a big fat vivic check as they looked at us.
Tremble had literally thousands of stanzas for our Song by now, and the lads were more than ready to sing along with their favorite ones. Singing while fighting something is very demoralizing to the other party, because it means you have the lungpower and attention to spare to do so. If you look the other party in the eye and butcher them while wiping the tears from your eyes and giving the negative emovores no fear or hatred to feed on while you gut them, well, that makes it even better!
Sneer, while singing “Tremble, oh oooo oh, tremble, we come...”
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It was the last, most desperate defense of the Curse.
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All was quiet.
The remaining lads drew up behind me in formation.
Most of them were alive this time, more than any battle we’d ever fought together.
Fido and Shirley limped up to me, covered with wounds, healed at least three times over during the course of the fight. I pulled out two Potions from my Vest for each of them, pouring them down their throats to get them back out of pain range.
No reason to save the things, after all. It wasn’t like they could follow me to reality.
I stroked their ears, Tremble hovering above my shoulder, Doc back in Stand for the moment. Cold and hot muzzles rubbed my face and licked me all over, the saliva steaming and misting off of me one last time.
“Bring it out. You’ve got one last shot. Let’s see what you put together to stop me.”
The air went still, as the mists boiled at the far end of the landscape, now covered with heaps of burning demons going vivic.
Ahead of me, right in front of that crack emitting light too real for Dream, the ground began to crack and fracture with puke yellow-green demonfire.
“Back,” I said quietly to the hellpuppies, and they growled and retreated obediently. They could feel what was coming, and knew they would be of little to no help.
I felt this Nightmare warp as a powerful influence intruded into it, wondered what favors in the profound realms were traded to make this happen. Did my Hagmom actually know what was going on, but this was the only thing she could try to stop me?
The stone blew skywards, and he rose from the depths to block my way, blazing with the demonfire rising from his skin. His howl was like a furnace of burning souls letting loose in their doom and despair.
Blackened skin, deepest crimson. Major horns. Bat wings. Fangs around the jaws with a veritable furnace burning inside. Eyes more like holes to the fire within. Humanoid form, subtly wrong, connecting at wrong angles, not quite symmetric, slabbed with muscle without lacking grace and speed, clawed feet and hands, copious battle scars.
Flaming Sword and Whip. Mmmm. Gee, I wonder what this is...
His Presence expanded out, shaking Nightmare with the full Chaos and Evil of his presence, demanding that this place accept him as lord and master –
And it crashed to a hard halt against my Null.
The ground in front of me shattered into the air as his influence was rebuffed and tore at the area of Dream he commanded. It sort-of bowed around me a bit, but didn’t get very far, limiting his power over the area sharply.
That, of course, got his attention. Naturally, being at the level of power he was, he recognized what I was, and bellowed out at me.
“You can stop the telepathic bullshit, I can’t hear it,” I informed him in conversational Demonic, which actually shut him up for a second.
“DIE!” he roared, and a wave of blackness spread out, converged on me with the force of a thousand damned souls...
... And faded into nothing against my Null. I crossed my arms, turned up my nose. “Next!”
He swept his clawed hand, and hundreds of chopped-up rocks and stones hurtled towards me in a crushing river.
The first one hit the edge of my Null, the kinetic energy granted it by the telekinesis faded, the magic dissipated, and the whole line of stones fell gently to the ground as one, barely tumbling as they stopped.
Enraged, he stretched out his massive clawed hand, clutched it tight.
Massive gravitational forces gathered around me, sucking in pebbles and dust and...
... and hit my Null and faded into nothing, dust and pebbles falling back to the ground softly.
I rubbed the side of my nose, kind of looking at the balor. “If you’re going to bring in help, you best do it right now.”
Dark wings flapped, burning eyes regarded me. I stared back, completely unmoved.
His free hand rose, fingers wove in the air. A circle of fire was etched on the ground, an imbalanced five-point star scribed itself in demonfire across the cracked ground, and up rose his help, vomited forth into the dreamscape.
I blinked. “No way! You brought in your lover!” I pointed and laughed at the pair of them, who just stared at me in disbelief as I mocked them.
It was a lilitu succubus! Long tail ended in a pulsing red mace-like tip; a smooth eyeless face; long red hair in wild stylish fashion around curling non-symmetrical horns; killer figure in tight white leathers that might be made from angel skin; cloven feet like all succubi, clawed hands that even Hags would respect, and lips that made up for the lack of eyes somehow. Fast, otherworldly graceful, and already trying to do the charm thing on my head, which I was totally ignoring.
I put my foot down.
The balor was just barely crouching, about to take flight, when my Interdiction went off.
His control over Dream was smashed backwards, ripping past him in a backwash of solidifying dimensions as I rent his control. He actually held up his arms in a defensive posture as the pulse blew past them and locked them down. The lilitu stumbled back, and if not for her superior agility, would have fallen flat on her ass.
“This... is MY Nightmare, demons. You... should not have come here... but I am oh so glad that you did.”
Come, enjoy an Intimidation check at 55...
The demons, one fifteen feet tall, the other a model-esque six foot, looked at one another. The balor tugged free the flaming Whip at his side, and leapt, the burning Weapon uncoiling as if it were a living snake to his touch-teke.
His wings beat strongly, and... he crashed to the ground ten feet in front of where he’d started. All thems’s feets tall makes one pretty heavy. And humanoids is not built for weight conservation, like birds.
Aw, poor demons no fly now.
I pulled out Tremble. My Arakne Arms folded out, and Stand and Fall were ready to go.
He crouched down, opened his maw, and vomited a big ol’ cone of demonfire at me.
It blew over me, obscuring me from their sight, and lasted a whole six seconds of Topped-out, flesh and soul-obliterating 120 points of 20d6 puke yellow-green destruction before fading away.
I moved the teapot away from the edge of my Null, poured myself a cup, and took a sip. Around me, the ground was a melted and fused mess, the slag twisted into unholy runes and the shapes of screaming madness, right up to my Null... where it stopped as if cut by a knife, and even the flames to either side of me faded away faster than they should have, like I’d drafted for Reality to deny any further progress.
“Thanks. Hadn’t had time to make tea today. Missed it at lunchtime.” I finished my cup, smacked my lips, and dropped both cup and pot to the ground, where they shattered and hot water steamed out from the fine clay.
Tremble lit up, and the demons, who had been about to advance, paused again.
Gold Soulflame. Harder, sharper gold Soulflames. Red-black Banefire to Evilborn. Electrum-chromatic Enmity to Evil. Pulsing, ready Bane of Legends.
White vivic flame...
+X ‘You’re Going To Die Forever’ stamped itself onto their eyeballs.
“Tremble, oh oooh oh, Tremble, She comes...”
The Song rose, and the twenty-five hundred of my Ironblood who’d survived their last fight for me took up the chant.
And I was off.