The next few minutes were all frantic action and screams as they raced through the town. Vivi saw massive hounds darting out of alleys and leaping down from rooftops. The great gray beasts had crimson eyes, gleaming with malice and cruel cunning, and she saw at least one deliberately toying with a man it had pinned to the ground, a twisted approximation of a smile on its face as it tore off one of the man’s arms. A small part of her felt personally offended that these twisted things had taken the form of dogs, as if they’d chosen to impersonate the typically kind and loyal creatures specifically to torment her - but most of her was too busy trying to form a plan to care.
The town was doomed. She knew that. Devourers were storybook horrors of the worst kind. These hounds were just their scouts. The twisted things that commanded them would be here within the hour, and the town would burn. She couldn’t save the town… but the people? How many could she save, out of the hundreds who called Westwind home? How could she buy them time? She needed time and a clear head to form a proper plan, she needed a way out, she needed -
The inn. If Andrew had listened to her, there should be an escape tunnel under the inn! He’d laughed when she’d suggested it, but he’d never ignored her advice before, no matter how absurd it sounded. If she could get people to the inn, they’d at least have a chance. Besides, she wasn’t able to fight properly without her weapons, which were back in her room.
She felt herself panicking as she narrowly evaded the jaws of one hound only to have another slam into her side. She toppled to the ground, the air knocked from her lungs, and tried to roll to her feet even as she struggled to breathe. Lucas’ glaive came down on the neck of the beast that had struck her, decapitating it in one smooth motion even as the other hound darted behind the massive man. It darted in to nip at his legs, but a sudden gout of flame consumed it, pouring from a small nozzle attached to Damaia’s glove. It howled in pain and twisted towards the felblood, but by that point Vivi had caught her breath.
The stone she threw wasn’t very large - barely more than a pebble, really - but the shimmering force around it more than made up for that. If she was being honest, she wasn’t entirely sure it would work. Even as it left her hand, she felt the magic empowering the stone flicker and fade… but it lasted just long enough to touch the hound. There was a sound like distant thunder as the stone shattered, and the foul creature was hurled back as if struck by a giant. It slammed into the side of a nearby market stall, which promptly collapsed on top of it, pinning the already dead beast to the ground. Vivi only knew a handful of stories about the Devourers, but each and every tale agreed on at least one thing; their proclivity for necromancy. The wrecked stall wouldn’t prevent them from raising the beast, but it should stop the thing from being able to do much afterward.
Seeing this sudden demonstration of strength, the rest of the hounds cleared out, presumably hunting easier prey until their masters arrived. She reached out towards the fallen bodies of their victims, calling upon her magic to stem the flow of blood - but nothing happened. You can’t heal a corpse, she reminded herself. All she could do was move on, leaving their broken bodies behind as she raced to save those she still could.
A hand grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her up short. She spun to face her attacker, hands clenched into fists … to find Damaia staring at her. “My job,” she said excitedly. “The one I was supposed to do today! For the mayor! It was to fix the emergency alarm!” Vivi stared dumbly at her for a moment, not sure what her young friend’s point was. The emergency was already here!
Damaia sighed. “The alarm would be set up to be heard from any point in town! If I can patch in a way for us to speak through that system we can tell everyone to run, or have them gather in one place and work together! These Devourer things are tough, but if we team up-”
“Those aren’t Devourers,” Vivi interrupted. “Those are Carrion Hounds - they keep them as pets. Best case scenario, these ones are trained scouts. Worst case, all of this…” she gestured towards the dead bodies littering the streets, “Is just them letting those things play. We have to run, save as many as we can while we head for the inn. Once the real Devourers get here, we’re as good as dead.”
The felblood’s lilac skin paled for a moment as the implications of what she’d heard sank in. Then, with visible effort, she pushed down the terror threatening to overwhelm her and straightened her back as best she could. “All the more reason to fix the alarm. I’ll get as many people to the inn as possible!” She turned towards the largest building in town and began to sprint. Dread welled up in Vivi’s chest as the well meaning girl charged towards almost certain death, but she steeled herself to do what she must.
“Meet me at the inn!” She shouted as she turned to run towards their best hope of escape. “Jubel, with me! Lucas, cover her!” She’d suspected since first meeting him that Lucas had military experience, and that suspicion grew deeper as she saw him silently move to follow her orders without hesitation. She desperately hoped she hadn’t just sent two people to their deaths as she sprinted towards the inn with Jubel trailing just behind her.
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“ANDREW!” She screamed as she slammed the door open. “Tunnel! NOW!”
“What’s happening?” the ruddy faced innkeeper asked as he leapt to his feet.
“Devourers.”
Andrew’s eyes narrowed, and his nostrils flared. “How many?” He asked through clenched teeth.
“Too many to fight,” Vivi said as she raced towards the stairs. She paused as she reached the first step, spinning to face her oldest friend. “Don’t try it, Andrew. I hate this as much as you do, if not more, but if we want to live, we have to run, and soon.”
“Don’t lecture me,” He grumbled. “Go! Get your equipment. We leave as soon as you're ready.”
“We leave when Damaia and Lucas get back,” she corrected as she raced up the stairs. “I won’t be ready until I see them safe and-”
She stopped abruptly as she heard the radio downstairs roar to life.
“If you can hear this, head to the Honeyed Respite inn!” Damaia’s voice shouted over the static. “Grab what you can and meet us there! This message will now repeat! If you can hear this-”
Vivi didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or scream as she heard the young woman’s voice repeat the message time and time again. She wasn’t sure exactly how the young engineer had done that, but it didn’t matter. The looping message now echoing through the town gave hope to the panicking hordes of Westwind, and with that hope came a second wind.
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Jubel had lost count of how many Carrion Hounds he’d taken down since the fighting started. They smashed through the windows, trying desperately to make their way to the women and children now huddled in the cellar, but his arms moved almost on their own, pointing at the foul creatures as words sprang unbidden to his lips. “Feed the void,” he hissed in a language he’d never learned, no longer surprised at his ability to understand it.
A stream of energy that looked like the night sky leapt from his hand, lancing through the beast closest to the cellar door. It collapsed without making a sound, its body crumbling into dust as it fell. He spun around and swung his sickle, which was once more shimmering with barely contained power. There was a muffled burst of sound as it buried itself in the spine of a second beast, the creature’s body rippling and twitching as if the power around the blade had just exploded within them - which, judging from what Jubel had seen of his new abilities so far, it probably had. He looked around wildly, hoping to buy more time for the townsfolk fleeing towards the tunnel, but it seemed they’d finally managed to buy a bit of space.
Viv had been fighting much the same way, magic shimmering around the thin estoc she held in one hand as she swiftly slew hound after hound. She seemed to be breathing heavily as she fell back to the bar, sheathing her blade.
“What are you doing?” Jubel asked through his own labored breaths. He hadn’t realized just how exhausting using magic was, but now that he had a moment to think, he realized his legs were about to give out. He could hear the distant howls of yet more hounds as the elven beauty opened an oddly shaped case… and took out a violin.
She turned towards him as she brought the instrument to her chin, the bow held tightly in her other hand.
“Dancing with Death,” She answered, her words echoing throughout the room in a way that felt unnatural. Then, the hounds arrived. Jubel raised his now chipped sickle, ready to go down fighting, but to his confusion, all of the creatures seemed focused exclusively on Vivi.
Vivi didn’t consider herself to be powerful. True, she had a gift for magic, but that was little more than luck, really. If anything, she thought of herself as weaker than most people. She wasn’t particularly clever, and even with an extra four hours to study each day, she was never a match for the strategists she’d met during her brief time in the Fortissian military. She might seem graceful by human standards, but she knew any full blooded elf would’ve called her a clutz at best. Indeed, Vivi didn’t think highly of herself at all - with one distinct exception.
Music.
As she deftly dodged around the vicious hounds to the beat of a drum only she could hear, she began to play on the weathered violin she held, accompanied by a voice long silenced. At one point, a hound managed to catch her, tearing a chunk out of her arm. She calmly healed herself without saying a word, and struck back. Coating her bow in the same shimmering field of sound and pressure that she’d used so many times before, she swiftly struck the beast in the ribs, the small explosion more than enough to send it flying into one of its comrades.
Each note from the violin drove the hounds further and further into their frenzy, and as the song grew steadily faster and faster, so too did her magic writhe and twist more violently around them. She lost herself in her passion, giving herself over to the music as she focused only on the sound and feeling of the songs she knew so well as another half dozen hounds burst through the door.
It wasn’t enough, though. Even as she drained away their life, her magic striking them down one by one, she could feel her own strength fading. She was no battle mage, and alone she would fall long before the last hound. But she was not alone, and the sound of her song was punctuated by whispers of magic and the sharp crunch of metal striking bone as the young half elf she’d met just that morning tore into the hounds with all his might.
Then, she slipped. It was only for a moment, an unexpected rest in her song as one foot slid out from under her, but it was enough. She lost the rhythm she’d been following as a hound latched onto her misplaced leg, pulling her from her feet. Her vision dimmed as the remaining beasts fell upon her, and pain rippled through her body as their fangs ripped through her armor and into her flesh. She felt a smile grace her lips as the world grew dark.
Would she be proud of me? She wondered as she heard a distant scream. Strange… for a moment she could’ve sworn they were calling her name.