At this point hours had passed since the start of the battle.
The defenders had spread out in multiple directions to pursue Tumam as well as to engage his undead coming from the north and so when Tumam raised Fell Zombies the defenders were cut off from one another and surrounded from all sides.
The fell Zombies were in devastated bodies, but this was balanced somewhat by the fact that their new powers and intelligence gave them overwhelming strength and agility.
Another downside as the battle continued though were that the fell zombies were filled with such hate and rage that they rarely killed dwarves quickly. They'd grab a dwarf by his limbs and pull each one out of its socket slowly to cause most agony. This slowing down usually gave other dwarves opportunities to kill the zombies.
Finally, at this point having hours passed every single defender was exhausted and one could see them haphazardly swinging their weapons or fists as exhaustion neared.
Tumam had never fought so hard in his life and he imagined this was a worse battle than the siege that originally destroyed his tower. At this point there was no dirt to stand on, but only the broken bones of countless dead bodies with a layer of blood and viscera beneath that. Every one was coated in gore.
Swing, swing, swing and the crunching of bones and squelching of brains as his morningstar struck out again and again. He fought the urge to swing wildly and desperately as he sought to preserve enough of the enemy bodies to raise as zombies, but even then after so many hours of combat most of the defenders had some broken bones somewhere or another. Many of them were useless after death even with his careful killing.
His fell zombie trick would not work on the dead defenders. He had already raised one by mistake and had to kill it quickly after it was able to jam a fist through Tumam's breastplate.
A child might ask "How many punches to the face does it take before someone's face explodes?" and one would normally consider this ridiculous, but here in this field this question was explored many times as repeated blows caused parts of the defenders to entirely break or bend out of place.
Finally, the laughing goblin spearwoman lost her weapon. She'd die very soon without an ability to defend herself.
Tumam was distracted watching her take that hit and didn't notice as the crowd of dwarves around him took advantage.
Another rain of countless blows like earlier flew at him. Again Tumam dodged like no other day in his life, but without a shield he was significantly more vulnerable and he was hit many times over. His spine was damaged as well as his arm causing him to drop the morningstar and fall to the ground unable to stand.
This was a deathknell as he was surrounded and had no way to defend himself now. Tumam knew there was no way out, and so summoned all his powers and rage and let loose one final burst of necrotic power raising more fell zombies as well as reanimating every severed body part from the smallest hand to the largest severed head to fight. This included everything inside the main building were the exhausted defenders were huddled trying to keep safe.
Tumam rolled out of the way of one dwarf's stomping foot and would've fallen off the edge of the hill, but his flapping wings saved him. Despite his earlier fears his wing was in good enough condition to carry him and so the bird lifted off and up to gain height advantage on his hated foes.
Utter carnage had ensued. The main building had become a charnel house as weakened defenders could not hold back the mob of fell zombies and were being massacred.
Outside the tide shifted to Tumam: Defenders were collapsing in exhaustion to be killed by the undead and the only defenders surviving were those who were close enough to others to form some united defense. Small islands of life in this sea of bones.
Despite being only made of bones the fell zombies who had been reanimated a second time had evolved further. More muscular might be how some described them: Bones thickened and grew into plate-like forms as necrotic energy seemed to form a sinewy like flowing muscle shape around their forms. They looked nothing like their original skeletons now.
Tumam's rage would not allow him to stay out of the fight. He flew in and would kick and bite his opponents. He tore out and stomped in several throats dooming these people.
His rage blinded him though and a macedwarf struck his unprotected head. Tumam fell to the ground unconscious. Concussive knockouts typically only last less than a minute, but Tumam did not have that long.
Within seconds he was swarmed and the defenders stomped and smashed his head. One dwarf stabbed him in chest over and over, but it was the repeated blows to his head that caused it to be smashed into a bloody pulp.
The first necromancer had finally fallen.
The defenders cheered for the salvation of the world and vengeance against a hated foe, but the tide of death continued.
The last defenders of dwarf and goblin kind fought heroically in one of the greatest battles of Adelaathira's history, but despite saving the world they could not stop what was left of Tumam's army and as the dawn came and the sun rose almost every single one died.
The last defenders outside the main building, for all inside were dead now, bought time for a few dwarves to run including the dwarf who had killed Tumam herself!
Dwarven civilization has ended, but despite his best efforts and maximum power Tumam was not able to destroy the entire species. Heroes of the greatest legend were made in the last battle as the death toll reached several hundred at bare minimum with some reports saying over a thousand deaths total.
OOC:
Dang that's a lot of bodies, pretty amazing that you managed to survive that whole ordeal.
I was waiting until this post to respond to that lol
Man I am so thankful this battle is just over including writing it. Actually playing this battle took multiple irl weeks as each movement took minutes. Anytime I rose an undead the game would freeze for about ten minutes.
UGH! Still most epic thing I have ever done in adventure mode. Still brainstorming how exactly I am gonna finish off the dwarves. I see why no one else has really done a story like this where they try to reach fairy tales.
Also the list of kills above isn't anywhere near a comprehensive list.
I screenshot weapons that I could see and their kill count, but many dwarves and goblins were killing using their feet, fists, or teeth. Or clothing items, or pieces of armor.
My legendary zombies aren't listed either, but legends is now coated with entries of legendary zombies.
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Topic: In Search of Fairy Tales - Adelaathira - The End of Dwarfdom (Read 37273 times)