WAR: Monster Attack

War: In the Valley of Peace

Chapter 15: Wrath of a Magus
Chapter 16: Paranoia
Chapter 17: Pyros' Firey Rampage

Chapter 15: Wrath of a Magus

North Side

Stamm Hammerfist turns Forge back around and measures up his opponent. The tall bugbear seems preoccupied with the huge burn scar across his chest. after a moment Stamm spurs his horse and charges again. The bugbear looks up in alarm at the sound of hoof beats and throws itself out of the way as Captain Hammerfist aims another slash at it. The creatures hits the ground, tumbles over and quickly springs to its feet. It looks around for a moment then screeches something and turns northward to run away. It doesn't get very far as Forges' superior speed allows the Captain to easily catch up with the bugbear quickly. A quick slash across the back and the creatures tumbles again. As it starts to get up it sees it's life flash before its eyes and it lets out a fearl scream of terror as a pair of powerful hooves comes down on its back forcing it down. There is a loud snap and the bugbear twitches for several moments before becoming still.

Stamm circles around the body for a moment making sure it's not a ruse before turning and heading back to the battlefield.

Damion pulls himself up off of the battlefield and rubbing his head and says, "Good thing I landed on my head. At least nothing important was damaged." He smiles weakly.

Ulqik laughs as he trots over to the young soldier and says, "You fight well and with spirit. Now a little bit more training, endurance, and superior weapons and you will be a great warrior. He looks briefly toward the forest to the west. He laughs quietly to himself and then claps Damion over the shoulder and says, "I think the archer needs us lets go help him." The pair trot around the corpse of a lizard, so that they can attack three bugbears moving toward Pol Crane from behind.

Pyros chuckles to himself as the watches the two foolish bugbears who dared to challenge him stop struggling and simply burn. The flames on his swords go out, but he doesn't seem to care. He watches with childish glee as the two bodies burn.

When the flying creatures burst out into the sky above the forest and begin to fly away he looks at them his head half cocked and says, "Well, that explains a lot." His eyes narrow, "So you wish to test yourselves against the might of Enerius do you? Well then so be it! I will personally make sure you burn burn! BURN!" Once again maniacal laughter erupts from the priest.

Sindel picks herself up off of the ground muttering some very unladylike things under her breath. If looks could kill, then the look Sindel flashes at the retreating form of her older brother would flay every piece of flesh from his body. She calms herself down, "After all I can't expect that pig-headed, irresponsible, brain dead child to considering anything like a warning or constructive help." She looks back at the remains of the lizard, its mouth propped open by her charred sword. "Reason number 23, why he'll never get a wife or if he does why she'll have to kill him on the honeymoon." She moves back over to the corpse and retrieves her sword. After a careful inspection she realizes she will need to get it replaced, "It's still serviceable but I can see where the explosion started to damage it."

After studying the battlefield for a long time watching the ebb and flow of battle, Feldemaan finally acts. With one hand he tosses his cloak aside letting the wind catch it and it begins to flare behind him. He holds himself straight up as he begins make strange and mysterious gestures in the air. In a commanding voice he speaks, "Dalen beres xiao...Bao Tze!" Suddenly there is a flash of dark purple. The light coalesces into three wildly whirling balls. Feldemaan points at the farthest of the three bugbears moving toward Pol Crane. The three balls of light shoot of wildly zigzagging around the corpses of the lizards briefly circling the other two bugbears, which causes them to pause. This erratic motion is enough to give the third creature warning as he tries to deal with the fact that his arm has been nearly sheared off. It turns just in time to see all three of the balls of light race toward it. They hit the creature at the same time making a triangle shaped mark on its chest. The creature screams in as it stumbles back but falls silent before it hits the ground.

Pol Crane uses the distraction to take aim at one of the creatures who paused and fires. The arrow flies true and the bugbear who paused at the passing of Feldemaans rune, never sees the arrow that shatters its skull dead center. One moment it is looking at a passing light the next it falls over with most of its head missing. The arrow continues on into the sky and falling somewhere deep in the forest.

By now the third bugbear has gotten and idea that something is drastically wrong and it turns to flee only to find Ulqik and Damion blocking its way. It charges in hopes that it can get past them but, Ulqik quickly intercepts it and the two slash at each other. Both stop about ten feet from the point of impact. Ulqik stands up and sheathes his swords. The creature reaches down and feels blood from the wounds. It doubles over slightly and turns to look at Ulqik in hopes that the elf won't follow so that he can make his get away. He looks only to find a mace coming straight for its head. The impact sends him spinning in the other direction. It spins around twice before falling on its side. It attempts to crawl away and Damion moves to cut it off, but with a sharp call from Ulqik he looks up. The elf simply shakes his head and turns to inspect the rest of the battlefield.

The pike man and Tristan look at the woods where the half man-half horse creature disappears. They look up a few moments later as the two creatures appear above them. The pike man says, "Was that Sergeant Voreas? Did that creature just change into one of those monsters? Are we next? Are they following us? What the heck is going on?" He looks around him fearfully, expecting attack from all sides.

"Hi brother", the soldier says, "I bet you didn't expect to find me around here, did ya?"

Pheras soothes the soldiers brow, "What the hell are you doing here. Didn't I leave you at home, nice and safe. What's wrong with you don't you learn anything. This place is too dangerous for you. When are you going to learn that. Stay home where it is nice and safe and raise a family. Hey man I'm counting on you. It's not like I'm going to get the chance."

The soldier smiles weakly, "Yea, well maybe next time. But it's kinda hard to go back to a normal life. After the adventure bug bites you it doesn't really let go that easily. Don't worry, just find me and we can try this again. Besides, you're so much better at this than I am. You'll probably survive to a ripe old age and have lots of kids."

His breathing starts coming in short quick breaths and he begins coughing up lots of blood.

Pheras cries, "Damn you, I went through a lot of trouble for you. You had better learn to stay home. Or you'll get us both killed."

After several minutes the man is still. Pheras sits there for several moments staring into the man's glassy eyes. Shocked, angry, sad, and alone.

The nearby archer closes the man's eyes and shakes Pheras, "There is nothing you can do for him, but there are plenty of others who can use your help. Come on man, if you don't help then others are going to end up like him."

This last statement gets to Pheras, but he doesn't move. After a few moments the archer turns his back on him and aims his bow north to where a bugbear seems to be getting the better of two soldiers. The soldiers both have long swords, problem is so does the bugbear. It also has some sort of shield strapped onto its front and back, like a primitive armor. That combined with its superior reach and no little skill with the sword seems more than sufficient to handle the guards.

The archer takes aim and fires. The creature distracted by the fight before him never sees the arrow coming as it plows into his arm. It cries out in pain and drops its sword. A second and third arrow misses but the damage is done. The two soldiers charge in and get swiped aside by the creatures’ massive hands. They recover, slowly, but it doesn't matter as the bugbear turns and runs full tilt for the forest. There is nothing anyone can do as it quickly out runs anyone.

"If you ever attempt to bother me again..." Tyrion tosses the merchant back down and begins speaking a rune...

Getting back to his feet, Bormann with his back to Tyrion and the merchant, curses and unstraps the flail from his belt. Running up behind the stricken bugbear, he aims a savage, overhand blow at it.

Tyrion finishes his rune and between his outstretched hands appear two angry red glowing arrows. He gestures forward they arrows streak off toward their target.

As the flail arcs through the air, two red streaks of light zip past the dwarf and slam into the back of the creature sending it lurching forward. Bormann's flail slams harmlessly into the dirt in front of him. Not to be deterred the dwarf charges forward as the creature weakly begins moving away. He bashes at the creatures' head until the skull caves in and the creature stops moving. He watches the burning corpse for just a moment before kicking out the fire and retrieving his pick.

Though the monster tries to retreat, Wismerhil is not content to let it go. A slash at the creatures back and the hairy monster falls to this knees, the young warrior puts his blade under it's throat and looks in the bugbears eyes, as if he is trying to see what the creature could be thinking about. The fear in his eyes tells the story, the bugbear sees his death before him. He turns his head toward his dwarven companion as he hears him breathing heavily. The bugbear seeing his chance tries one last grab at Wisermerhil as he raises his sword far above his head, pointing to the sky, and drops it in a swift and deliberate blow, cutting the bugbears head off. Desperately trying to remember if bugbears share the same properties as trolls he says, "You shall never re-live! I hope!"

The creatures’ headless body falls to the ground. Wismerhil drops the head to the ground a moment later.

A sad look on his face, the thin young man then turns towards Keegan, "that ugly beast!" He mutters while trying to stop the blood flow from the dwarves many wounds. "You there", he shouts to a nearby archer, "Come here and stay with him. If you need help shout for it, but NEVER leave him! I still have things to do!" The archer puts away his bow and clumsily tires to help stop the bleeding from the dwarves many many wounds.

After regaining his favored footman's pick, Bormann re-straps the flail and strides with determination northward toward the front of the caravan, unfortunately he gets there in time to watch the others finish off the last of the bug bears.

Turning back to the end of the carriage, his hair begins to float in a little breeze and his eyes have a strange red glow about them as Wismerhil smiles and starts whispering words in an ancient and forgotten language, "Traz fay Yi'O. Traz makal Yi'O! From the darkness you came and in the darkness I will fight you." On this last word a deep shadow falls on the young rough looking guard. A moment after no one can see through the growing darkness that seems to have consumed him and the area around him.

Aruna watches the creatures fly away trying to judge if he can get a shot off. When he realizes he cannot he turns back to the battlefield and notes with some surprise that the sphere of light that engulfed Cors and Asura has moved and is now floating several dozen feet above his head. He stares at it trying to figure out exactly this means. After several moments he returns his attention to the battlefield.

Aruna shouts his thanks to Crow who waves in return and wonders aloud, "I can't believe I asked for this kind of thing when I joined this caravan." He looks around and spots the darkness moving closer to him. He moves quickly to the other side of the wagon watching the moving darkness suspiciously.

Inside the sphere of light Asura tells a stunned Cors Flamestrike, "Hang on, this'll be rough."

He looks at her curiously for a moment then instinctively reaches for something to hold onto as they suddenly start falling. Unfortunately there is nothing for him to hold on to.

The shiny globe of light suddenly streaks ground ward like a falling star toward one lonely bugbear who looks up and realizes that today was not a good day to go hunting.

The falling star hits the poor creature and both vanish in a massive explosion that knocks Voreas from his horse, and forces the creeping darkness back several feet.

The explosion scatters the nearby corpses and knocks one bugbear for a loop. It recovers nicely and starts to stagger away.

Zraxin is slamed across the corpse of the lizard he just killed bu the force of the explosion and Stash stumbles several feet back before regaining his balance.

Gwydeon was spared most of the force of the explosion, being far away from the center and sheltered by one of the lizard corpses. To him it was more a a groundshaker.

The shock, the damage, the pain and now the loud bang and rumble is more than one poor lizard can take and it turns tail and tries to retreat into the forest. However it has to get past Gedai, who feeling rather adventurous and brave, takes a dagger and leaps on to the creature as it tromps past him. After several stabs the creature falls silent.

Damion looks up at Ulqik and then down again at the bugbear. He shrugs his shoulders, trusting the elf's judgement and walks over to stand by the elf as he surveys the remains of the battlefield.

The bugbear, realizing that it has been spared, vainly tries to crawl away, but it gets only a few short feet before it expends the last of its energy and dies.

Wren and a soldier pause to catch their breath for a moment. Then Wren leaps over the corpse of the lizard and begins to search the ground near one of the bugbears. As he reaches the corpse, he gives a small shout of victory and pulls a finely made dagger out of one of the creatures hides. He wipes it clean in the grass and searches around the area again. After several minutes of searching he finds the other dagger he threw.

Stamm Hammerfist watches in amazement and concern at the light show at the other end of the caravan. Ulqik! Pyros! Take care of things here. He spurs his horse and heads to the back of the caravan.

Tristan, a little perturbed by the pikeman's increasingly paranoid mutterings, scans the battlefield looking for anything that might validate this worries. Noticing that most of the creatures are dead, or on the run, he relaxes and he turns to the pikeman, "Come with me please and watch my back."

The soldier grips his pike and looks around quickly from side to side expecting something to materialize in thin air as he follows Tristan a little to the west. Tristan carefully searches the ground while trying to keep an eye on the forest. After several moments he stops as he spots movement in the trees. He stares intently into the forest, before realizing he is watching the movement of a sapling in the breeze. Relaxing a bit he searches the ground again and finds a dagger.

Tristan, with his sword still drawn and ready, walks over to the bugbear that he and Pheras first encountered. Trying to keep eye on the forest...and one on the ground, Tristan looks for his lost dagger.

After several moments Tristan locates a shiny, but slightly bent bronze dagger. He stands up, giving the woods a last look and seeing nothing, he turns and head back to the caravan.

Tyrion finally calms down and looks around at his surroundings. He looks down at the merchant at his feet and wonders what to do with the man. He hadn't meant to beat him that badly, though for a few moments he really wanted to turn him into a flaming pile of burning lard.

Deciding to try and smooth things over with a relatively friendly gesture he shrugs and holds a hand out for the man to grab hold of. As the merchant rises to his feet he sees whose hand he has hold of and lets go. He backpedals quickly and falls on his rear. His face goes white with fear and his starts to shake, "Please! No more! I won't bother you again sir! I'm sorry! Just don't hit me again! Don't turn me into a frog! I won't bother you with my petty little concerns again sir! I'll even give you, your money back for the passage! Please just please don't do it again!"

Seeing all is in hand up front, Bormann turns and heads toward the rear of the caravan. It is then that he notices the soldier fretting over his companion. He gets closer and he sees what condition Keegan is in. He calls out, "Hey, someone send that priest Stash over here!"

Looking down at his companion he says, "Looks like you'll be riding all the way to the tower."

With the battle all but over on three fronts, everyone relaxes a little bit though a few are still on edge, because for some people however the battle isn't yet over.

As the dust settles over the southern half of the battlefield, from where the sphere of light fell, Asura strides out of a small crater, leaving behind a confused and shaken Cors. The bugbear has vanished from existence.

Asura looks around and spots the two bugbears retreating to the south. She heads out after them, but quickly realizes she isn't going to catch them, at least not while she is wearing that heavy armor of hers. She does however get a bonus as two of the creatures who were only knocked out slowly revive after getting tossed around by the explosion. The two never get a chance to recover fully as the sword of light flashes brightly leaving long yellow streaks in the air behind it and various body parts go flying off across the clearing.

Gedai plunges his dagger repeatedly into the skull of the lizard he is riding and it slows and falls, tumbling and throwing the heroic elf ahead of it.

As the last creatures are destroyed or retreat many pick themselves up off of the battlefield.

Aruna looks around the battlefield and up into the sky to make sure nothing else comes falling out of it.

Voreas picks himself up off the ground and goes to check on his horse who is standing nearby and seems to be in better shape that he is.

Crow looks up as Stamm Hammerfist comes galloping around the corner, sword in hand. The Captain slows as he realizes there are no enemies left. He surveys the devastation and the crater, not quite sure what to make of it all.

As Stamm Hammerfist takes off for the other end of the caravan, Ulqik takes charge. "Pyros! Stop gloating and see to the wounded lest that water priest gain more a few followers!"

This brings Pyros out of his maniacal daze. "What?!?! Never! He is too incompetent to do such a thing!" Nevertheless Pyros leaves the corpses behind and begins to search for wounded. As he does so, he pulls out a small torch and lights it. The flame is an odd shade of yellow with no red highlights.

"You two", Ulqik points to Wren and the soldier, "Get to work on clearing a path for us to get out of here. The scavengers won't take long to find a feast this size."

Both men nod and though obviously tired, they get to the unhappy work of moving the corpses out of the way of the caravan.

The bugbear corpses are difficult to move but can be handled by one man. The lizard corpses however, are another matter. One of which requires four men just to roll out of the way.

Damion moves to the driver to help calm the nervous horses. Up until the very last the horses were prancing nervously and the driver was quite convinced they were going to bolt yet again. But for some reason they didn't and for that he is very grateful.

Back near the caravan, Tristan slaps the nervous pike man across the back, this causes him to jump and look around even more nervously, "Relax, my friend. Looks like we will live to see another day yet!" Out of the corner of his eye Tristan notices Pheras on one knee beside one of the merchant's guards. "Excuse me." Tristan walk's over towards Pheras, and notices the dead guard.

Putting his hand on Pheras's shoulder he says, "Pheras, there is nothing more we can do for him. He has died in battle, a most honorable death. The God's have his soul now. You did what you could Pheras. Maybe now he will find peace."

Pheras growls at Tristan, "There was no honor in his death! He shouldn't have been here. He shouldn't have died! He should have been at home protecting mom and making a living. I should have been here to protect him!"

Pheras holds the body closer, as tears run down his face. "Why did you have to come out here. Why didn't you stay on the farm and get married and have children. You were supposed to leave all the heroics to me! That's why I'm out here doing all this fighting!"

Feeling a bit uncomfortable at the outburst several nearby guards start searching the bodies of the bug bears looking for anything useful.

Pyros eventually appears on the scene and he treats one brave soldier for his wounds, by giving a quick prayer to Enerius and touching the flame to his wounds. The man screams out in surprise, when it is done he looks down to see his wound healed and his armor only partially scorched.

After seeing him treat the one brave soldier for wounds, the others pretend to look busy until Pyros chases them down checking for wounds, one by one the healing flame does its work leaving surprisingly unharmed soldiers in his wake. More than one looks at the priest of fire with new eyes.

When Pyros comes to where Pheras, Tristan and the dead guard lie. He bows his head and says to no one in particular, "There are some wounds that even I cannot heal. Enerius has not yet granted me any powers over the healing of the heart, nor the power of restroking the spark into a new flame."

Once Bormann arrives the archer watching over Keegan takes off looking for the water priest. Spotting the sphere of darkness the archer skirts around it and heads to the rear of the caravan.

Keegan finally manages a weak laugh. "What are ye talking about boy. Tis’ merely a deep scratch. I'll be fine in a little bit. I guess my age is showing, when a little battle like this is enough to tire the likes of me out."

Flint appears on the other side and says, "Ye daft idiot, you're younger than me! Why didn't you go to those stupid dueling priest when you got hurt the first time? One of them could have helped you out pretty good."

Tyrion looks at the trembling merchant, "Well for starters I will take you up on your generous offer to return my fee. Second, you will not disrupt my studies again for any reason. If you wish to garner my attention then a polite knocking on the door will suffice, if I do not answer you will go away. Now," he looks around for a moment then says, "This battle is over and I have many miles to go. Now get off of your arse and get this caravan moving again." Tyrion turns around and walks back to his carriage closing the door behind him.

The merchant quickly gets up and says in a quivering voice, "You heard him everyone get ready to go quickly." The merchant runs for the first carriage and locks himself in.

A short while later the archer returns with Stash who takes a look at the dwarf. "Hmm, this is serious. I'll see what I can do. For now drink this." He pulls out a vial of liquid that seems to half green-half blue and the two colors chase themselves around the vial, never mixing.

Keegan chokes the liquid down. Then Stash moves the others away from him and bows his head in prayer, "Lord Solutious. This droplet has been separated and stranded from the great river. I implore you to use your powers to return him to the river before he expires under the cruel gaze of the fire lord. Infuse him with the life giving waters which you have granted to us all."

From everywhere, yet nowhere, there is the sound of water. It sounds as if it was being poured into a wineskin or mug only much louder. Over time the sound changes as if the wineskin were being filled. As it does, the worst of Keegans injures begins to close. When sound is gone, Keegan lies under a sheen of water droplets, like grass under the morning dew. His injuries are still severe, but he is no longer in danger of dying and seems to have a good measure of this strength back.

Stash sighs, "That is all that I can do for him at the moment. He will survive but he will be weak and must be attended to. Find a space for him with the injured in the carriages and I will attend to him again later.

With the help of his dwarven companions, an unhappy Keegan is put amongst the injured and made as comfortable as a irritable injured dwarf can be.

With that done Bormann heads down south to examine some of the lizard carcases mumbling something about a stew. Unfortunately he doesn't like what he finds. Each body he approaches he notices the area around one of the arrows stuck in each body is an odd color. He moves closer without touching the arrow and realizes they all been poisoned. "I can't use these, unless I'm trying to kill them all. All the meat has been ruined. Stupid archer."

He then heads north to examine those carcases hoping that some of them weren't poisoned. The stench of burning lizard greets him as he walks past Sindel and the corspe of the lizard that Xedel torched from the inside.

That one he writes off as being burned to a crisp. However, he does find one of the lizards in good enough condition and without poison. He begins cutting it open to salvage some of the meat.

As Asura finishes dismantling the last two bugbears, Aruna leaps off of the carriage and begins searching the battlefield for any arrows that are still in tact. Eventually he manages to find a pair of unbroken arrows, but he seems hesitant to touch them because they are covered with some kind of liquid.

Stamm Hammerfist says, "Good job men! Priest see to the injured, everyone else prepare to move out I don't want to be here long." He trots over to Voreas.

"Sergeant! I'm not quite sure if I want to know what happened here, but I can see that your men got the job done quite nicely." He turns his horse around in a circle, "When you have recovered I would like to talk to you about what we are going to do about these flying creatures. I can see now we just can't ignore them and hope they will go away."

Crow looks around and notices Stash seems to be down on one knee staring into oblivion. "Stash? Hey, pal you okay?"

After a moment, Stash looks up and says, "Oh hi, just talking with my Lord Solutious."

Asura wanders over to them and Crow says, "Wow, what the heck happened to you?" As he looks at the scrapes on her armor and grass and grass stains which seem to be just about everywhere else. After a short prayer to Lord Solutious a slightly chilled Asura thanks her friends and with the help of Crow starts to look over her armor. They quickly realize that with the help of Crows mace and obvious strength they should be able to remove the bigger dents without too much trouble.

An archer runs up to Stash, "Sir, we need your help desperately. One of the dwarves has been badly injured."

With that Stash and the archer head back around to the east side of the caravan.

Gedai picks himself up and after making sure the lizard is dead begins looking for his lost sword and daggers.

Gwydeon begins looking for his two dropped swords, once he finds them he looks around making sure all of his men are still in one piece. Satified that they seem to be taking this well, he then moves to examine each of the corpses of the bug bears. Two of them are no longer in any recognizable shape after Asura hacked them to pieces. But one of them still is in relatively good shape.

Unfortunately, the only thing salvageable from that body is a cloth wrapped around the arm of one of the creatures. Gwydeon removes the cloth and realizes that it is a fur cloak made to fit someone the size of an exceptionally short and skinny dwarf.