Vraxious—The Forsaken Lands
The nyad’s silhouette reeled backwards slightly in astonishment. “You fool, you would dare to fight me here in my place of power?” She gestured towards her pond, and ribbons of water wound their way upward, pulling apart drop by drop and forming into a swirling cloud of sleet. The dew across the evening ground changed into tiny glimmering crystals of ice as she flexed her will over this place. Unnatural hoarfrost crept outward from the edges of her water, smothering the ethereal flames cast by Cuddles. Her smirking, distorted expression froze as she finally saw the Dreadfeast languidly looking into her waters from inches away.
Vrax swept his malevolent helm across the cold but idyllic scene before him. “Your place of power looks a lot like fertilizer to me.” Vrax closed his fist tight, summoning his garden. The effect was immediate and horrible. Rot crept outwards from him like hungering veins as the fey magic faltered against the inevitability of the cycle. Wildflowers burst into rainbow hues of fire moments before rotting away; the moss whispered for mercy as it dripped its black, foul remains into the nyad's pristine waters.
The Silhouette before him faltered, the wave of rot rending the wings and eyes from the Fey-hummingbirds, sending them splattering across and into the pond and the puddles of gathering muck. Sweetness glided free to angrily perch on a nearby branch next to Cuddles. Everything stilled for a moment. Vrax stood in a blackened circle that encompassed almost a third of the glade, frost slowly seeping into the puddles he had created. A solitary cascading dandelion slowly released its payload into the breeze.
Duchess looked alarmed and was slowly backing away from the dirty pond, her tongues flickering into the air madly. She looked at Vrax, trying to convey something moments before he heard it. First, the rage-filled scream of something from deep below the surface of the water. The second was the clink of weapons in the hands of running men, followed by low shouts. “Over this way! I saw some green flash of light. Wait, look, those match the description; it might be him!” Vrax flinched, looking at his dandelion seeds trailing away from the glade like a river.
Oh fuck, this is about to get fun. What's the play? She's dangerous; I assume they are too. If I can get everyone involved in this mess, that's my best shot instead of them watching me fight and waltzing in to finish me off. Duchess seemed to have the same idea, fading into the shadows of the nearby trees, readying herself to ambush.
Vrax did the same, sprinting away from the frosted patch and slamming behind the nearest tree. He took a gamble on who it was in the woods that would be chasing after the glowing green light. “Hey! It's the Paladin. He dived into the pond!” Vrax shouted deceptively. The effect was a bit ruined by the voice-altering effect of the armor, but he hoped it would be enough. That was not the smoothest of lies…
What the fuck is that fey doing…? Nearly a minute passed with nothing other than fast-approaching shouts from the forest line. Finally, as the yellow light of lanterns cut into the frosty storm clouds hovering in the clearing, Vrax realized what the nyad had been doing. The sky at tree height around the clearing shimmered as a lantern scoured the area. Hundreds, no thousands, of needle-like shards of ice hung ominously in the gloom just out of the reach of the light cast off by the few remaining hummingbirds. The party of men broke into the edges of the clearing in a rough U-shaped formation.
There were four of them, and they looked haggard, with green cloaks with dull gold trim torn to hell and back and various cuts and scrapes across every surface of flesh and cloth. One of the men was limping so badly on a mangled leg Vrax was certain they would have to amputate it without a high-level healer's intervention. Vrax Cursed quietly as he identified the men, Three warriors of Rembrand, each above level thirty, and a fucking Honest to Gods paladin. The man in the center with a golden, sheened plate peeking through his tattered clothes [Ibrim Pulis Tier-1](lvl60) [Paladin Of Rembrand]. No thanks, I choose life.Vrax was feeling clever about his misdirection and escape when suddenly he peeked around the next tree and saw the glade directly in front of him again. Motherfucking Fae Labyrinth Bullshit!I guess no one's leaving until that thing dies…
The paladin had stepped forward, a ray of purifying golden light washing from his outstretched palm, searing the very air as it disintegrated the clusters of dandelion seeds that dived towards them. “This place reeks of fae magic,” he stated resolutely from inside a full helm. His gaze swept around like he was dissecting the glade rock by rock, slowing as he glanced upward into the sea of icy needles. “He is here...also he is in league with the fae. Burn the glade.” He said it so simply and so certainly it was chilling. The hummingbirds froze at his words, and all hell broke loose.
Vrax flattened his back against the nearest tree, ducking down as far as he could go. The swarm of needles screamed as they all moved as one, shooting downward like the sky was falling. The paladin held his shield high; a wave of golden force concussed upwards, clearing a massive gap through the falling sky. The glade was covered in tiny quivering needles embedded into every inch of anything exposed except for an untouched circle around the paladin and his men. Vrax looked down at his foot with wide eyes; a handful of needles had punched straight through his armor and foot and out the other side. Holy shit...I, uhh, I might be screwed.
The nyad exploded straight up from her pond, riding a pillar of water shaped like a sharp-toothed horse that dripped brackish foam from its constantly wavering form with each step. The nyad herself was a horrific thing—the body of a beautiful woman if it was left to rot in putrid waters, with a mouth slightly too wide with teeth too sharp. Her eyes were dead, cold things like a deep-sea fish, and she trailed an unrecognizable slime behind her with every stride of her conjured mount. Vrax made eye contact with duchess for a moment; she was hiding a few trees over from him. Both of them hid tighter against their cover.
The paladin charged her straight on as the warriors began warding off swarms of hummingbirds that streaked at them like icy comets. Each of his footfalls seared the glade below him in bright golden flashes of ash and smoke. As she streamed to meet his charge in a whirling crash of water and ice, the ground behind her bloomed madly. Curled fronds of pure green sprouted and froze faster than the eye could track. Mana coursed around her as two hovering lances of ice ripped off from the form of her mount and thundered ahead of her, one after the other, right and then left at the paladin. The ground beneath the cascading missiles flash-froze as they boomed forwards, seeming to become sharper with every stride they traveled.
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The paladin Huffed loud enough to be heard over the din of battle, never slowing his indomitable charge towards the Nyad, He didn’t try and dodge the massive lances of ice, nor did he block. Instead, he dropped his shield, holding out both hands in front of himself as he ran. Puffs of steam rose now from his footfalls, and the glade seemed to go silent a moment before he met the inevitable course of the lances.
A golden ray of hateful energy shot from his hands in a cone; the lances melted so violently the steam exploded outward, cratering the nearby ground. The ray didn’t stop; it burned forward, then narrowed, cutting a rivet into the glade and finally flaring across the form of the nyad and her mount. She crashed into the ground in a steaming splatter as her horse was cleaved in twain by the rays of light. The paladin never slowed his charge, simply adjusting his aim so the ray washed over the horse once again, scattering its watery body as it tried to reform, and then he was upon the nyad before she could react.
A hand closed around her throat, lifting her from where she knelt. The paladin heaved with his legs and then his torso, lifting her up and slamming her down in a sharp arc into the soft loam in an explosion of dirt and muddy water with such force it splattered the tree Vrax hid behind.
The Paladin held her there. Raining his bloody armored fist down into her pinned form over and over, Vrax looked away from the harsh dull thuds towards the warriors; they were faring far worse. The hummingbirds froze the men bit by bit wherever they touched. They were fighting back valiantly; each flicker and twirl of a blade cut down a swath of the birds, and a flash of light reduced nearly twenty at once to nothing more than ash, but they just kept coming, forming by the dozens from raindrops that fell upwards from the nearby pond.
The moment the momentum truly shifted, however, was when one of the warriors mid-swing was impaled by three of the reinforcing blue hummingbirds from behind at once. He bled from the back of his neck briefly before the frost overcame him, his head snapping sideways farther than it ever should as he tried to dodge away. He tumbled to the ground, his top half crumbling into chunks of ice, freeing many of the hummingbirds to help their battered master.
The Nyad squirmed from his grasp, her face a half-mushed pulp, as he was forced to sear a swarm of them from the sky as they dived down on his form. A pillar of ice shot from a nearby puddle, spearing through his legs with a spurt of blood. He roared before stepping forward, shattering the spear and swinging his blade wildly at the slippery form right in front of him. Holy shit, I need to make sure they both die, or whoever is left is going to eat me alive when they aren’t distracted.
Vrax gulped nervously; it was now or never. He had no faith that he would be able to escape whoever was left. He quietly called out to duchess “Go eat the religious popsicles,” and gestured towards the struggling men. She huffed at him as if to say, “Are you insane?”
Vrax pulled out all the jars of adapted smelter moss he had in his bag; it was only three, but they packed a punch, and he quickly tied them together with a strip of his cloak. Oh fuck my life. Vrax slid from behind the safety of the tree and into the maelstrom of violence.
He approached from behind the paladin; he was fending off whirling spears of ice that formed around him at random and throwing out searing blasts that rocked the clearing with superheated steam. The nyad was barely standing; half her form was now a gently hissing, burned mound of flesh. Vrax didn’t give them a chance to notice his approach. He got within ten strides of the skirmish and threw the three gently glowing jars.
The Nyad's eyes widened in panic as she saw them descending. Ha, that fucker knows what those are! The paladin used her momentary distraction; he exploded forward, digging furrows into the ground with his feet. His blade found its way through her chest, impaling her with the crunch of metal through bone, and then he ripped the blade upward, cutting her torso in half from the chest up through the head in an explosion of gore and slime. The jars continued their descent directly towards him; somehow he noticed and spun on his back foot to face the descending threat. Are you shitting me?
The paladin raised his hand, and a ray of hateful fire shot out, intercepting the jars just before they hit him. The green fire that shot out from the ensuing explosion rocked the clearing, setting some of the low tree branches on fire and decimating the bits of greenery still left intact. The paladin had been thrown into a smoldering heap nearly into the pond. He rose his armor and flesh charred by hellish green flames. He had a dozen wounds from icy spears, burns across his entire body, and wounds from his trek through the forsaken lands, and he still raised his sword into a ready position.
A pained voice spoke in short bursts from the paladin, “Ah, at last, you show yourself, foul heretic, consorting with fey and dungeons, blaspheming our lord. Did you think we would let this stand?” He started slowly walking towards Vrax.
Vrax shouted back in a mix of fear and frustration. “I just wanted to garden in peace with pets, you fucking assholes!” Vrax slowly angled around him, circling as they closed to make sure he was in a patch that still had greenery.
“Are you ready?” The paladin asked as his stance changed to a more aggressive high blade position, primed to charge forwards.
“Man, honestly no, but they are.” Vrax summoned sunshine directly under the Paladin just as the Conductors unleashed hell upon him. The ghastly images of long-clawed demonic humanoids crawled from the shadows underneath rocks all around him. Sunshine lifted him off the ground with the force of its emergence, having two tendrils worming their way hungrily under his armpits before he could even strike back. The paladin released a blast of light downward straight through Sunshine as ethereal demons crawled up Sunshine's body to reach the paladin.
He ignored sunshine's thorns and mouths ravaging his flesh for a moment to scatter demons before their grasping claws could reach him. “The Order of Rembrand will not be broken!” He roared, sweeping the ray of fire across the forms of the climbing demons, scattering them to shadow. Sunshine got all six tendrils attached to him and pulled, trying to wrench him down into its maw from where the paladin stood on its face.
Blood poured down Sunshine in streams as the paladin resisted cutting massive rents through Daisy's face. “Die, abomination!” The paladin's voice was strained, and he was starting to noticeably slow.
“Uh, oh. Looks like you are getting tired! Whatever you do, don’t get afraid; it makes her stronger!” Vrax gestured over to duchess She had two of his comrades, half frozen, hanging impaled upon her tail.
He hesitated for just a moment upon seeing all his comrades had died. The conductors' shadowed demons sprung back to reality, far more tangible than before, swarming over Sunshine's writhing form and onto the paladin. He fought them tooth and nail, scattering them one at a time over and over as sunshine held him in place, eating him slowly. It continued for nearly a minute, the shades growing stronger with each passing second until finally Vrax saw his legs give out, and his body was violently yanked into Sunshine's mangled face.
Holy shit...that guy was only level sixty. What the fuck are the paladin commanders like?
The wave of essence hit him like a tsunami; he felt it roll through him, filling his sanctuary to the brim, and then overflowing as the excess was lost to the void. Duchess staggered next to him for a moment as she got her share of the power. Sunshine...sunshine began changing before Vrax’s eyes. Oh holy shit, maybe all that bullshit was worth it.