Jepetto sat in his garden, babbling incomprehensibly. Together with one of the Elludian mages, who was once tasked with mindhunting the bird commanders, they seemed to inhabit a different world - a world where speaking with only consonants, gnawing on your own(and others') shoes and rolling in one's feces were acceptable modes of behaviour.
The attendants tasked with caring for the feebleminded, yet still the Only True God, shook their heads in grief and sorrow. People of Agartha, when left without the divine guidance, suffered greatly.
The Caelian riding parties were ravaging the countryside, burning temples, soiling the roofs, and lobing thunders at unexpecting civilians.
At the capital of Arcoscephale, the fortress assault ended with a ridiculous disaster - after killing another incarnation of the crazed Nightguest(who did manage to scare away everybody but one of the Pinocchios), the marble oracle proceeded towards the two lowly mages and a holy statue, who bravely refused to retreat despite the slaughter they have witnessed.
And the Pinocchio lumbered forward.
And then he walked some more.
Then he chased a pair of snails, but gave up after half an hour.
Finally, he got to the statue and promptly dismantled it. Then he got to the first of the mystics, and brought divine justice onto his bald head.
Then he turned towards the last remaining mage, made two steps and ran out of juice, thereby making the mystic the luckiest guy in the world.
(If only he had used Duracell...)
Meanwhile, at the walls of the capital of Caelum, Vidar(the excentricaly named, heroicaly tough, blind statue), Pinocchio 10 and Pinochio 15 were drinking some beer.
-"For the love of Jepetto", said Vidar, "this is boring as hell. We're never gonna chip those walls by ourselves."
-"Aye, we hear you" said the Pinocchios.
-"How about two of us visit the neighbouring province, where some birds and something called Queen of Elemental Air, is residing, and have some fun? We only need one of us here to keep the stupid birds in their cages."
-"What a splendid idea!" Exclaimed Pinocchio 15. "Let me show you the way then. We're gonna bbq those chickens, eh?"
Later that month:
Vidar: Oh shit! Something is killing me!
Pinocchio 15: Mommy!
Pinoccio 10: Fucking losers, leaving me here to deal with this shit. Oups, here goes my head...
Also sounds like one of those situations where the quick, adaptable human mind came into play... And also where it needs to come into play again.
It's an immense pleasure to fight against an adaptable player, and Lorak sure learns fast, and well. It's only the more rewarding when you finally manage to come up with a successful counter-strategy(and it hurts less when you lose, I guess).
To be honest, at this point I'm pretty much at loss as to how to counter the bugger. I felt for a while now that the Pinocchios were geting increasingly obsolete, but I just couldn't think of any better strategy than just to make more of those.
ed: Damn, I'm realy getting depressed here.