However could you take back provinces without forts without PD without armies to defend them reliably? :p I'll be happier when I get more forts out of you, not to mention the mage armadas.
Grigory, the trustee of the Committee, spent the night rolling in his bed, without a hint of rest. His skin was slick with sweat, the beat of blood deafening in his ears. How long had it been, since the ogres of Rumia had destroyed all he held dear? Tomorrow would be his birthday, his twentieth. The close-cropped, brown hair, and the crooked, toothy smile, his green eyes came to him again and again, only to be pulped at the expedience of the gods, the necessity of war. Bones destroyed with a sickening snap, the bruising purple and black as death. It was instant, they promised. Scattered shards of teeth in the blood- and shit-smeared mud, the carnal stink of a battlefield. Weeping, pleading, begging and the hot winds. Again and again. Darkness had come to the province of Ravnina pri Sveta, and Grigory feared it would have him as well. Again and again.
Fenric stirred in his sleep.
The following morning, the town militia went out on patrol. Unrest had long since claimed the surrounding provinces as the contrasting powers of hot and cold, Abysia and Caelum, had persisted in their bitter war. It was for the sake of the nervous folk at home, who thought that these patrols could stop opportunistic bandits and worse from molesting them. While it was good exercise, especially for the untried youths, Grigory knew that they could not stop anyone. It would not be bandits that would come, but death itself. The clink of heavy armor behind him, Grigory tried to make the most of this futile routine -- after all, Fenric was here with him. Moments later the softest crunch of sandals on snow announced the arrival of a god from the skies.
His azure robes flowed like a buttered river, synthesizing form and motion into one terrifying octogenarian. Power boomed through the harsh, empty field as the bureaucrat called his power. The winds picked up as they rushed to him, turning from whispers of doom into a bellowing promise of certain death. Archers loosed panicked arrows, and they landed all around him as he ballooned into a scaled, serpentine dragon. Jaws, claws and tail, just to kill. Just to kill.
It was as a fevered vision. The youths ran towards the demon, screaming to drown out the terror. The veterans jogging behind them, no more aware of what was to come. Another flight of arrows, and the completed dragon spread its wings, tearing through the air to land between the unseasoned recruits and the heavy infantry. Confused, the mad spearhead turned around, their screaming muted now. A green cloud poured out through the dragon's mouth to obscure the scene, but all knew what happened in that deathly mist. The crunching and snapping of bone, the sound of flesh rending. Another hail of arrows, blindly into the corrosive mist. More screaming.
A triumphant roar, and the sinuous killer rushed out of the cloud and at the archers, the terror-struck trustee. 'Arm yourselves, don't just stand there', came the shout from Fenric, and the dazed soldiery unsheathed their swords and daggers. The dragon wavered, skidding along the now-melting snow. It all seemed so absurd. Grigory thought he could hear orders to charge the beast, and somehow he found himself hacking at the creature ineffectually. And just like that, it took off, flinging its assailants back in a gust of buffeting wind, and disappeared into the darkening clouds overhead.
Why had it come, why did it leave without killing him first? Nothing made sense, nothing was just. Grigory fell to his knees. In the distance, he thought he could hear himself mewling.
Four figures stood in the air, silhoutted against the night's bright moon and suspended by seemingly nothing, their naked bodies savaged by something terribly powerful. Limbs torn off, chunks of torso gouged out by a power not of this world. Even then, they were knitting together. Only a few breaths later, and they were fully mended.
'So, then, thusly does a god fall', noted one, as they peered at the falling form. 'Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Prince Makar, we are not yet powerful enough...', snarled another.
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Topic: Dominions 4 Round 4.02 - 6½ months, thanks for playing (Read 51124 times)