Alright, let's finish this. And yes, scorpions would wear socks. Along with gloves, thongs, and hats.
---------------*~*The dream becomes clear*~*-----------------
Liceyi looked out over the settlement of Ngabsuslem, with its crowned obsidian towers rising into the sky like fingers pointing in accusation of the sunlight. Greasy black smoke billowed up from burning trashpiles that littered the ground and the base of the towers.
Liceyi had destroyed the human towns that bordered the forested lands. Those who fled for the inner plains had survived, but they were of no concern to Liceyi. What concerned him now were the goblins that lay before him.
With his destruction of the human power in the area, Liceyi had risen to a kind of godhood among the forestdwellers, and they followed him with the kind of devotion that can only come from following such a being. He stood flanked by the golden-bronze armor of the scorpions, and behind him lay an army to rival that of any "civilized" race. Wolves formed packs numbering in the hundreds, scores of bears dotted the mass of grey-white fur, and the unicorns stood sentinel in a tightly-packed group of the wild land's cavalry.
Liceyi looked back over the goblins, and took a few moments to collect his thoughts.
Finally, with a great breath of the only clear air this close to the goblin settlement, he called the charge.
The ground vibrated with the pounding of paw and hoof as they attacked, Liceyi running down the hill with the scorpions scuttling along beside him. As they neared, a goblin watchman saw them and raised the alarm, sending goblins dashing away to find weapons and armor of their own.
The wolves struck first, piling onto those goblins not quite fast enough and sinking their fangs into scrawny goblin necks. The bears came after, shattering their frail bodies with mighty swipes of the paw. Prepared goblins, both formal guards and bloodthirsty peasants, began to flood out of the towers to meet the attacking animals.
With this, the unicorns arrived, charging with heads lowered into the goblin troops and crushing those who were not impaled upon the pearl-white horns.
Finally, with battle in full swing, Liceyi leapt into the melee. The scorpion bodyguards took on whole squads of goblins, their pincers slicing goblins in half and their stingers pumping poison into the warty hides. Liceyi swung his club with brutal strength and impossible aim, shattering the skulls of all the goblins who came within range, paving a path for himself with their lifeless corpses.
Blood flew and bodies fell as the goblins fought their spears and axes against the animals' teeth and claws. The line was slowly moving its way back into the center of the towers when another wave of goblins arrived. They stormed out of the towers that had already been passed by the animals, and so struck directly into their flanks. Liceyi and his forces were surrounded.
The carnage took on an almost surreal level as the animals in the back fought against new fronts, the bodycount rising to such a level that the rows of warriors on both sides had to climb over their beaten fellows to fight against the others in a seemingly endless contest over the blackened ground.
The battle seemed to have come to a standstill when there was a sudden, echoing blast as a roaring ball of fire crashed into the animals, setting fur alight as the animals panicked from the explosion. A visage of terror landed in the cleared zone and began tearing the beasts limb from limb with his coal-black claws.
The demon stood fourteen feet, and its leathery wings seemed to extend to twice that length again. Wickedly twisted horns seemed to provide an unholy crown atop its skin, the color of which could only be likened to burned flesh.
Within moments the demon had added new spatterings of blood to his body as it was forcibly taken from that of the animals that were too close to make an escape. One after another, the demon batted away the bears and unicorns as they came at him. Liceyi stared in horrid awe of the otherworldly fiend, and one of the scorpions turned to combat it. With its stinger raised, it crawled with a speed that would not be expected of a beast proportioned in such a way. It neared the demon, and evaded one swipe from the behemoth before coming within range of the stinger. Just as the scorpion's tail drove forward, the demon's foot came downward, stomping on the armored back of the arachnid. The stinger entered the demon's leg just as the scorpion's entrails exited the sides of its body.
The battle was not going well, but retreat was not an option. Even if the way were clear, Liceyi could not risk such a defeat. He focused his mind, and ran towards the demon.
Liceyi had become abnormally fast, even for an elf, and he could dodge the demon's reaching blows with ease. He muttered wild prayers taught to him by the forest spirits as he ran, and his club took on some of the woodland's power. Just enough so that he might damage the beast on his own terms.
He reached the demon and began to dance around its legs, slamming his club into the ankles and knees of the fiend. He evaded the stomping feet and seeking claws while always searching for a weak point in the demon's build.
With an especially hard blow, he crashed the embued wood of his club into a spot on the inside of the demon's knee, and it shattered with a sound like the crackling of a flame. The demon roared and let out a resounding curse in its native tongue, the words of which were of such an alien quality that they made Liceyi's head throb with pain. His concentration lost for the time being, Liceyi was struck by the enraged demon's fist, sending him flying several feet away.
Liceyi lay there, staring into the charred dirt as he coughed it from his mouth. In his dazed mind the world had shrunk to just that small patch of ground. His head throbbed, his breath trailed out of his mouth in thin wheezes, and he heard and saw nothing outside of that small patch of dirt. Time slowed, sound dulled, and he could do naught but stare at the tainted earth underneath him.
His senses slowly came back to him, and with some effort he brought himself up into a supported position. He took a gasp of air for strength, and propelled himself upwards into a stand. He turned back to face the demon- and stopped.
Liceyi stood aghast. He looked at the kneeling demon's yellow eyes, crinkled in a malicious smile of victory. At the demon's side lay the battered corpse of a goblin pikeman, one that had fallen earlier in the battle.
One whose pike was no longer clutched in its dead hands.
Liceyi's eyes slowly sank down as his knees began to lose strength. He looked at the pike with its wickedly barbed iron head set atop a fire-hardened shaft of wood. He looked at it as it quivered slightly in its new resting place in his chest.
Liceyi, chosen of the forest, sank to his own knees in front of the demon. Two lords sitting in mock respect of one another across a crater of the dead.
His eyes closed, and he drifted into slumber.
The goblins slaughtered the rest of the woodland creatures in a fashion that only goblin minds are wicked enough to concieve of. The bodies from such an occasion would normally be piked and set around the settlement, but there were simply too many corpses, both goblin and animal, to leave enough room for efficient movement.
So they hauled all the bodies off of the makeshift streets and rolled them off the slope at the other end of the settlement. The bodies tumbled down and away from the obsidian fingers in their eternal condemnation of the heavens, and settled into a massive heap of crumpled flesh and bone at the bottom.
Liceyi's body was inside this heap, and his flesh kept its warmth only through the insulation of so many fur-covered beasts that were piled atop him. The pike had since been torn out of his chest, and something else had been torn with it. As the barbs shredded the chest as they were pulled out by gleefully grinning goblins, a small woven pouch was ripped along its side, and a handful of dark seeds spilled into the gaping wound.
Deep inside the flesh mound, something started to grow. Something spread its tendrils into once-living flesh. Something wove itself throughout a mind and body that had died serving an act of retribution.
Something opened his eyes.
---------------*~*The dream fades*~*-----------------
Hmm, not quite as elegantly put as I would've hoped, but it will serve its purpose. Anyways, time to start planning the new guy.
I was thinking along the lines of a human monk. No, not the kind that has a bad haircut and brews beer, the fighting kind. This is after all a martial arts modification. I would, of course, have to mod humans to enter martial trances, but I hope that can be accomplished without the need for a new world.
Other than that, I'm at a loss. There's always the chance for a Greek-esque warrior, but I'd need some time to outfit him the way I want him to be. Or, possibly a human or dwarven crossbowman. Make a suggestion, just please don't ask me for another troop leader. I can handle two or three companions at the most, but anything more than that and things just start to unravel.
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Topic: Death and Glory! (Read 58260 times)