You return to Canord to see to the preparations of your cult. The few remaining thralls who have not been trained for war are taught by Duthrax, and they join the ranks of the archers. In total, you have 200 hundred Spear-Thralls, 103 Sword-Thralls, and 114 Archer-Thralls, a potent force, and more than enough to take a typical town. However, you are uncertain if they would be enough to slaughter this army, who will probably be superior equipment and magical support. But you have plenty of plans on how to even the score…
The first step is to have every thrall not otherwise engaged laboring in between the thorn wall and the moat, digging pit traps and setting tripwires, scattering caltrops and hiding spikes beneath the ground so that any charging soldiers will find a killing field. The work goes well – some cultists manage to take sections from the thorn wall to make particularly deadly traps, and careful placement of both the traps and the dirt from making that creates subtle channels which might guide enemy troops into specific killing fields. The artisans labor day and night, making equipment for these traps, and giant armor plates for an unknown purpose.
The Weaver of Nightmares, the Doom-Seers, and the Doom-Seekers prepare for war as well. All are taught the hellflame spell, and then they work to reanimate as many undead as they can. You expect relatively little from them, but they surprise you, as a small army of skeletons rises up from the pit of bones, joining the ranks of your growing horde.
Meanwhile, every slave who still remains is called back from the mines. They stand at attention, their eyes glazed, their minds broken. But as you bring out Desecrator, and begin to slash and bite and rip, flaying what little remains of their souls just as you flay their bodies, they begin to scream and writhe in helpless, horrid agony. And as Desecrator takes their lives, filling them with vile plagues, they rise once more. Now your undead army stands at 17 wisp wights, 372 zombies, 194 skeletons, 50 wisp wretches, 87 weeping sores, and 18 specters – a force perhaps more potent than your mortal servants, for they will never break and never flee and never tire.
16 slaves remain. They paid no attention to the tortures you inflicted upon their brethren, instead simply watching with blank eyes. With a dismissive wave of your hand, you merge them into 8 brutes, their bodies swelling and reforming, two becoming one. You have a total of 10 brutes, and your artisans rush to drive spikes through their flesh and encase them in steel. Kreth stalks among them, using his power to hold the monsters still despite the agony they endure. Your followers apparently guessed what the armor was for, and added dozens of vicious spikes to the gauntlets, making them even more effective – they are strong enough to punch straight through plate armor with these spikes. Kreth adds a contribution of his own to two of the brutes, enchanting their armor, tracing dark sigils on it which grant them a limited form of regeneration – the more gore they soak themselves in, the faster they heal. You smile faintly, recalling how an ancient foe of yours once used creatures like these.
Your final preparations focus on the wards. Both you and Kreth put no small effort into them, and they are notably enhanced. However, you are careful not to spend too much power, so that you will be ready for when the army comes.
Most of your seducers lay low, simply listening for information – and they hear quite a lot of it. The Iron Confederacy is supposedly lending support to the western rebellion, despite equally troubling reports of unnatural abominations rising up to fight, although no one is sure who they fight for. The Spears of Cavana and several allied orders are crying for a holy crusade, although again no one is certain who the target is. And the dwarves have risen in rebellion again, splitting the empire’s attention. The prophecy spoken on the day Andora was built is in every heart, if not every tongue. Your high seducer does more than listen. She spreads information of her own, suggesting that the Spears are the ones responsible for the deaths of the priest, that the Spears are coming to cleanse the town…it comes close to a riot when they arrive, and the Spears are forced to stay outside the town. They have little provisions now, and as they go hungry, the leader vows vengeance.
It is better to focus on that then on the disturbing rumors they heard…or the even more disturbing nightmares they have been suffering, nightmares that suggest their efforts here will be for nothing, as more and more minions of necromancers slip from hidden strongholds like those in the desert to join their great war in the west.
Such talk is frowned upon, their priests and officers stamping it out wherever it appears. But they too wonder…and keep wondering even as they approach the town they came to cleanse, protect, or avenge.
“What do you make of it Sir?” The young knight asks his grey-bearded commander, who cocks his head.” It seems the town was definitely burned, and severely depopulated. That much of the rumor is true at least. They claim of a giant moat and evil thorn wall that hungers for souls seems to have been...exaggerated.” The young knight nods – all he can see is a low stone wall and a narrow moat his horse could probably jump across. The spikes atop the wall might look like thorns if one is poetically inclined, he supposes.
The commander frowns, as he recognizes a faint series of depressions and piles.” Order the infantry to advance first, in loose order formation.” He says, and the troops rearrange, smoothly maneuvering as they march. A few feel a faint tingle or see a heat shimmer as they approach, but nothing seems truly out of the ordinary. The gates open, and out pour a small army. A hundred or so soldiers, a few zombies, led by one wizard in black robes with purple fire gathering in his palms. “Men!” He cries. “There stand some interloping fools! Kill them, and we shall be on our way, to join our masters in glory!” The knight commander smirks. The last warpriest, hurrying forwards to join the battle line, senses something with his third eye, and pulls. And all around them, the air shimmers. Before them, the narrow ditch and low wall turns into a massive stone edifice and a yawning maw in the earth. Behind them, a wall of shifting thorns dripping with venom and reaching for them appears. The commander murmurs an oath, and orders a charge.
Archers fit arrows to bows, pull back, and fire. Before the first arrows have reached their apex, they have fired again. The tips slice through the air, but find themselves striking some sort of invisible barrier thrusting out from the wall. And from the open gate pour more soldiers, and huge, horrible things with lolling heads encased in studded steel. Some of them have bows, and their own arrow fire, not as fast or accurate as the faithful who have come to destroy them, but men still cry out in pain as arrows find flesh. They concentrate on the infantry, and several fall dead, or retreat backwards wounded. The priests suffer just as badly, but they form a wall and raise their shields and trust to faith and steel and the knights.
The knights, so fierce and so brave, on their proud steeds with gleaming lances and armor carved with prayers, charge forwards, forming into thin columns at their commander’s orders and avoiding the slightly lower ground, so as to avoid traps. They seem successful, but then skeletal creatures burst from the ground on either side of the columns, stabbing up with spears clutched in bony hands or slashing with great two-handed swords dripping with ichor. Horses scream, men shout. Some manage to avoid the gauntlet and continue their charge, the fire from the necromancer surging around them harmlessly. But then another dozen pop up from behind their walls, and they combine their blasts, striking at the ground in front of them. The horses rear, the knights fall, and the soldiers move forwards in careful ranks. They surround the fallen knights as the warpriests, warriors, and surviving knights regroup, harried all the while by hordes of moaning zombies and clattering skeletons. The knights die, cooked alive in their army or stabbed to death by howling cultists.
The archers continue their fire, aiming for the zombies and skeletons now, and each shot finds its mark, undead dropping with every arrow, but from the gate come yet more horrors, and the warriors, their bravery pressed to its limit, begin to retreat. A few get close to the fence. Tendrils snatch out from it, and drag them to a screaming death as spiked vines drive through their flesh from a thousand directions. The soldiers retreat forwards, but they are caught between the fence and the new threat – nearly 80 of some sort of hideous dead with ever-decaying flesh covered with open sores and swollen boils. The arches aim for them, and the arrows just punch through, rotting to nothing by the time they hit the ground while the wounds fill with pus. A few drop dead seconds later, the blessing of the arrow overcoming whatever foul magic animates them, but only a few. And their bodies explode into puffs of stinking fluids, what few plants remain – most of which already look on the verge of rotting – die where the fluid touches.
At this point you reveal yourself, unfolding to your full height, towering over the wall, Desecrator growing with you as you loom over your followers and the remaining Spears of Cavana, reduced from four hundred proud warriors to perhaps two hundred and forty battered and desperate fighters. All of their knights have been dehorsed, and every weapon still raised trembles. You decide to make an announcement…
[]”Surrender or Die.”
[]”Kill them all.”
[]”Take them alive.”
[]”I shall slaughter these fools myself.”
[] Something else
Full status Current StatusName: Klx-Dryklfx
Time: 5.75 months
Physical Might: 72+6 (-4 wards, +15 worship, + 3 slaughter, - 8 brutes)
Mental Might: ] 69+6 (-4 wards, +17 worship, + 3 slaughter, - 8 brutes)
Followers13 Boneys, 24 thralls, 403 soldiers, 8 seducers, 69 peasants, 2 guards, 10 Hunters, 1 High Seducer, 14 Doom-Seekers, 2 Doom-Seers
Servants17 wisp wights, 8 armored brutes, 2 special armored brutes, 349 zombies, 67 skeletons, 50 wisp wretches, 84 weeping sores, 18 specters
CultsThe Broken
Members: 13 Boneys, 417 soldiers, 15 Doom-Seekers, 2 Doom-Seers
Resources: 47(-15 traps,- 20 armor for brutes +5/week demonic crops, +5/week iron mines )
Power: 22 (5 spent worshipping you, 4 spent on training, 8 spent on construction, 2 spent forging 5 spent gathering resources)
The Ceaseless Consumption
Members: 8 seducers and 24 thralls, and 37 peasants split among 8 locations, 1 high seducer, 32 peasants, and 2 soldiers
Resources: 0
Power: 10 (3 spent worshipping you, 1 spent recruiting, 3 spent gathering and spreading information)
Fortresses Canord
Strong walls (45), Deep moat (25), Thorn Wall (25), Weak wards(15), Traps(15) Demonic crops, plentiful mines, Strong aura of domination
ChampionsKreth Woemaker
Physical might: 12
Mental might: 12
Other: Magic Cloak
Duthrax Soul-Render, First of the Thrall-Herds
Physical might: 5 + 1
Mental might: 3 + 1
Other: Duelist, skilled commander, Herald
Lurrothel, Weaver of Nightmares
Physical might: 1
Mental might: 6
Other: Necromancer, skilled at wards and dream magic
Author
Topic: The Rise of a Demon (Number of ritual wedding duels: 1) (Read 52436 times)