My updating has been, to be frank, abysmal. I have a lot of excuses but its mostly because of the pictures. So, I shall update with the story now and add the pictures later. Here we goooooooooo!
Continued phoom“What was that?” insisted Kogan “who did that?”
phoomKogan looked around at the suddenly stock-still dwarves.
“Everyone, back!” he ordered. The dwarves moved back slowly, looking round, nervous.
phoomEveryone was in a group now, looking out at the trees with there weapons at the ready. Forrest had moved ahead to find the source, as was his job. Kogan looked around. Private Ryan was a small distance from the group, staring at the sky.
“Private, get back here.” commanded Bardbeard.
“Captain…” said Ryan, still staring at the sky.
“What?” insisted Kogan, looking up in time to see-
BOOM(Why does the explosion look crap? Because SHUT UP THATS WHY. I can't really do explosions. Toady, I tip my hat to you)The forest exploded. A dwarf disappeared in a pillar of flame and the dwarf next to him caught fire and was thrown into a tree, screaming as he quickly burned to death. Kogan was blinded and on the ground along with a few others, but he could hear Bardbeard issuing frantic orders.
“
Get into the trees! Into the trees! They can’t hit us if we’re in the t-”
BOOM Several dwarves were throw backwards, the rest totally disoriented. By this time the dwarves were engaged in a mad dash for the woods, attempting to spread out and reach cover before-
BOOMthe next impact. Whatever it was, it slammed into the woods, causing an instant firestorm. Dwarves ran. Others followed, with no idea of what was going on. Bardbeard urged them on as Kogan stumbled to his feet.
“East, lads! We need to stay together! Head east! That’s where these things are coming from!” Kogan sighed with relief at this. If dwarves could head east a mile below the ground they could sure as hell do it above.
Tamunshin was running with a grim, steely determination, colossal sword in hand. He was ahead of the pack by a fair margin and noticed the enemy first. He skidded to a halt behind a tree, picked up a rock and threw it to the right of the tree. A goblin ran eagerly from behind the tree towards the sound. Tamunshin sidestepped, slashed with his sword and removed his head. With the spray of blood he whooped and charged forwards.
(We'll never make it! Theres heaps of them and heaps of us!)He was followed in a few seconds by the rest of the dwarves. The goblins emerged from the trees and smashed into the charging dwarves.
(The clash)The resulting battle was fierce. Humaan charged into the goblins with no restraint, taking down two goblins with dexterity and skill, happily severing limbs. Behind him, Labs was slapping goblins into submission with his carp, preserved long enough to be as strong and deadly as iron. As he shattered skulls, he reflected on the absurdity of a dwarf killing goblins with a carp. Carps were renowned for killing dwarves and goblins didn’t usually factor into the equation. As a goblin swung at him, he grabbed his arm and locked it, then swung around and chopped the greenskin in the neck, breaking it. Meanwhile, Vilien was screaming profanity to all and sundry as he hacked apart goblins with Oldbeard, who was attempting to complain about the lack of respect but gave up and just bashed some goblins in the throat. The battle was short and furious, leaving two dwarfs dead for far more goblins. The goblins were forced into a retreat and quickly decimated, the dwarves pausing for breath at the end of the grisly, short battle. Almost all had managed to kill a goblin and whilst two had fell to lucky strikes, the only wounds were that of a single dwarf sitting against a tree, cursing whilst Raptor attended to his mangled arm. Ryan was leaning against a tree, shocked and elated at his efforts.
(We made it! Yes. I referenced Flight of the Concords. How absolutely devistatingly clever, handsome and modest am I?)phoomphoomphoom“Oh Gods” panted Bardbeard, who had put two and two together “
Heads down boys! he roared, looking up in time to see three balls of flame streak over his head, from the south, crashing into the forest behind them
BOOMBOOMBOOMBardbeard sighed in relief as he heard the impact of whatever the hell those things were, back in the clearing. The enemy evidently didn’t know that they’d moved. Forrest came running up. He skidded to a halt in front of Bardbeard, panting.
“Sir!” he gasped “Sir, I’ve located where it’s coming from! The goblins have several foul contraptions across the river!” Bardbeard cursed. How the hell had they not learned of this? He sighed. There orders had been for communications silence, lest the enemy intercept the messages. It had left them sorely unprepared. All right.
“You” he said, pointing at the wounded dwarf “can you walk?” Raptor looked at him and nodded. The dwarf stood up, his arm in a makeshift sling. He saluted and picked up a weapon. Kogan looked at Bardbeard and they nodded. Kogan turned to the assembled dwarves.
“Lads, we need to take out whatever is firing those damned things at us. We head south. Forrest, do you have any idea of how to get across the river?” Forrest nodded.
“Sir, they used makeshift rafts, easily big enough for five or six dwarves each. We could use those. The area is fortified though, sir.” Kogan thought about this. Then he waved to the assembled dwarves.
“Follow me lads”
phoomphoomphoom“Its okay” said Bardbeard “they don’t know we’ve mo-”
The forest behind him caught fire
“
Damn!” He roared, as the explosions crept closer “
move, boys! The dwarves charged as the forest fire raced to catch up with them. They quickly reached the river, whereupon Kogan and Bardbeard ordered a halt, just out of sight, behind the tree line, where the dwarves gathered around the two leaders. Kogan and Bardbeard looked out across the river, where several rafts lay.
“Okay, we need to silence those things.” Said Kogan, pointing at the metal tubes sticking up at an angle on the other side of the river. The ‘things’ discharged again and a few seconds later they heard the impact, far behind them. Kogan pointed to several dwarves.
“You, you, you, you and you. They don’t know we’ve moved yet and we only have time for one assault. We will provide covering fire, but you need to take out the weapons. Go.”
The squad nodded and ran out, followed by Ryan, who charged out without looking back. Kogan tried to call for him, but got no response. He cursed as through the trees he saw Ryan jump on the back of the raft and make his way to the front. The other rafts bobbed in the water, devoid of passengers.
“Alright, snipers, move!”
The crossbowdwarves moved out, taking cover behind the trees along the river and began a furious exchange with the goblins on the other side, reloading quickly, as only dwarves could.
(Wow, massive change of pace. I wanted to get out of an area before switching to randomized grass. randomizing the grass saved me LOADS of time)They could see the weapons being lowered now, to deal with the new threat. Well, hopefully they would assume this was all that was left of the dwarven company.
(Intrepid redshirts, we salute you!)The marksdwarves managed to down the opposition’s snipers with few casualties, the screams of the wounded and twangs of the crossbows and their bolts were backed with the constant chanting of the goblin mages, their hands on the weapons. Suddenly-
BOOM(Oh, now see, that's why you guys needed names and backstories. Or at the very least, volunteer to go last)One discharged. In a horrible stroke of luck on the goblins part, the payload managed to clip the back of the raft, burning almost all of the dwarves to death and sending Ryan into a cartwheel.
(Deceased redshirts, we salute you!) He landed on the bank and half a second later, the burning wreckage of the raft landed in front of him. The goblins must have thought he was dead but he had only minutes left before the raft either collapsed on top of him or the goblins checked the wreckage for survivors.
(Poor Ryan. So far from home, unaware of where his father is right now. Oh wait, that's Yentl)Kogan swore loudly and began to move. Bardbeard grasped his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
Kogan looked at him, fire in his eyes.
“I have to save Private Ryan.”