Holy fucking shit. My first assignment as a demigod dwarf is to hunt down a night creature consort. Simple enough, right? Turns out there are 3, and two of them are straight up night creatures, badass night creatures. They kill me and my two companions outright, but I decide not to let him die and load my save outside the lair. I go and slay a couple of bandits and kobolds, learn the multiple shield/weapon ability, (exploit), and return to the cave with upgraded gear and two additional companions. They still handily dispatch us, and I am about to give up on my third try when:
The situation is dire indeed.
The axeman was downed on the consort's third strike, his head caved in.
The pikeman has been literally torn apart by two of the beasts.
The spearman has been bitten in twain.
The swordsman is unconscious on the floor, in a pile of vomit and his own blood.
I've only sustained a bruise to my arm, but I have only managed to lop off a tail, bruise an eye and cut open a hand in the entire fight.
Then something strange happens...
As the two beasts ravaging the swordsman finish off their victim, they rejoin their companion, who has been dancing with me for the entire fight. The three begin their assault, and strangely, I begin dodging all of their attacks. It goes on, I missing, oohh, missing repeatedly, not daring to use any stabbing weapons for fear of being pinned down, missing the opportunities I attempt to take, and yet, as the fighting gets heavy, I remain alive.
Somehow none of their claws, nor blades, nor teeth, are able to find purchase on my person.
We continue, I dashing, leaping, and rolling through the small lair, and the beasts lunging over each other, missing, as I glide through stale, cool cave air. But I become tired, and as the fight drags on, a lucky punch bruises my eyelid, and then as I continue to duck and weave my foot is split by a bronze fork. I keep fighting, but I know that I can only hang on for so long- my strength waning, and I'll only get less effective. I know how desperate the situation is, and how miraculous my survival has become.
And then the dwarf slips into a martial trance.
Hope courses through my veins!
As his focus becomes fortified, the ancient blood of his warrior ancestors awakens, the brawn in his muscles realizing their potiential, the dwarf's perception slows, and the world becomes a picture he is surveying.
(What is this, what is this feeling?! The dwarf thinks, alarmed by the strangeness overcoming the world. But soon the strange feeling overwhelming him calms all his qualms; he feels reassured, as though someone, perhaps his father, was there, guiding him.
He lets himself get swept up in the feeling washing over him, and slowly the sounds around him fade, his nerves go into overdrive, every nerve in every poor sending inputs directly into his brain. He feels the moist air against his arms, feels the ground beneath his feet.
His heartbeat is slow. Very slow. It's deep rythm reminding him that he's alive.
He looks up, and sees the beasts before him again, but something is different.
It's like it's the first time that he has actually seen anything.)
The monsters become frustrated by the evasion of their quarry, and soon the opportunity presents itself; one of the beasts has dropped it's guard, leaving it's belly open!
(How could I not see this before? Have I been blind to the fight up until this point?)
With a single slash of his steel shortsword, he sidesteps, dragging the blade across the thing's gut and cutting the savage creature in two, sending the pieces flying.
(My god that was easy)
The thing's comrades enrage at their partner's slaying, and lunge at him again with a bloodcurdling roar--
(So simple, the openings are so plain, the strokes so fluid!)
As the two beasts throw themselves at the dwarf, he seems to disappear. The male begins turning even as his gruesome fork stabs air, trying to find his quarry-- and instead sees his consort slide past the dwarf, a look of confoundment on her face, as her torso splits from her legs and crashes against a wall. The events are going in slow motion now, and the monster, which had until this point never known what fear was, felt a stone sink through his gut. But he can see the dwarf now. The miserable little vermin has taken the time to slowly stand up. He watches him, the blood of his lovers seeping off of his body, turn slowly to face him, a haunting look of blankness, almost as if the dwarf was focused on something a thousand miles away, is fixed upon the dwarfs' complexion. How dare he do this? How DARE this vermin come into his home, kill his brides, and dare, DARE, to attempt to take his HEAD?! This will not do, this will not stand at all. This-dwarf-HAD-to-DIE!
As the beast began to move, so did the dwarf. In almost artistic motion, the beast brought his talons up from his side, his face contorted in a visage of rage and his body rigid with hate, and the dwarf stepped forward, ever so slightly wide with his front foot, and slowly brought his steel sword up--up--up--so that the pommel wrested at hip level, the blade angled down, glistening in the blood of the fallen.
The Steele daggers that were the dark creature's claws were halfway through their arc, the creature, previously unsure, was now beginning to think the dwarf would walk into his death. The thought made him want to salivate as he brought his claws closer and closer to the dwarf's head.
As the curved blades gained momentum, the dwarf began to step faster, his leg pulling him forward, directly into the path of wicked protrusions.
The creature was now certain of his victory as he watched the dwarf do nothing but walk, his eyes seemingly glazed over, into the creature's clutches. But just as the blades were to hit, the dwarf took his third, and last, step.
With his final motion, the dwarf spins around, facing his back directly at the creature, and brings his left sword hand up in a sweeping motion, the sword tucked with the blade to the right of his head, the pommel just in front.
The claws were now just a few inches away, but the dwarf had plenty of time.
In a single motion, the dwarf smoothly tucked his head down, clearing the spikes as they passed through the air his head should be, and kicked off with all his might with both feet, giving himself a noticeable spin.
As the dwarf twirled through the air, his back passed under the creature's arm as the thing lunged forward, his back now parallel to that of the monster, who is bent over and sideways from the force of his swipe.
The creature watched in slow motion, as the dwarf continued his rotation, blank as he watched the demigod take the sword from it's protective storage with effortless grace, and directing all of his might into his slowly outstretching arm.
The dwarf's sword met the back of the creature's neck, gliding through the scale, eviscerating the muscle, cleaving the spinal cord and seperating, in an infinitely smooth arc, the creature's dumbfounded head from his neck.
As the creature's body slowly realized that it was dead, the dwarf landed softly behind the still falling corpse, his arms extended behind him, crossed in an X under his lower abs, the demigod slowly recovered his senses.
As he stood up, the pain slowly crept into his brain. He started to remember his exhaustion, his wounds, his hunger, and like that the mighty dwarf snapped out of his trance and collapsed on the cave floor.
He slept soundly though, the empty cave holding the earth child in her embrace, and in the morning the dwarf gathered his gear, attended his wounds, and returned to the castle a hero.
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Topic: What's going on in your adventure? (Read 2135424 times)