Ambrosia Software Web Board: Order of the Black Fang - Ambrosia Software Web Board

Author's Comments: I've gone back and rewritten sections of the earlier parts. This part might get a little descriptive on a couple of deaths so, be warned. As always, the italics means events happening at a different time. Comments and Critique is welcome. Enjoy number 5...

Order of the Black Fang

The nightmare of Talryn continued, and the landscape changed. He was on the ground, tears forming at his eyes as he relived the last moments of his world.

The hour drew to a close, and on cue, the Death King’s forces stepped through the void to combat the forces of the Chimera. Legions of Undead stepped into the world of the druids, and they marched towards the light at the cave entrance. Various demons followed the Undead through to support the masses.

The ground shook rhythmically as the Undead marched out of the cave into the open air. The sound of a horn echoed through the air, signaling the Orders to prepare for battle. With each step, the ground continued to shake, until the Legions of Undead spread out in front of the Druids. A cloaked figure stepped forward into the gap between the two masses.

“Surrender now or die painfully.”

“We, the Council of Dusk will fight till our dying breath.” The figure disappeared, and the two masses continued to stare at each other. As the hour finally ended, battle horns of the Death King echoed across worlds, and the eternal war began.

The Undead walked calmly forward and a few spells impacted the Orders. The melee shape shifters shifted, and let out loud roars, boosting the Druids moral. Creatures representing bears, lions, wolves, and wolverines charged forward to meet the marching Legions. Hawks and eagles flew overhead, going straight for the Wraiths. Offensive and Defensive spells on both sides where thrown around like a rain drop in a hurricane.

Panthers leapt over the front line, which was holding steady after the first day, and ran through the gaps in the legions, heading straight for the towering Demons that kept casting devastating spells into the air.

As the hawks un-shape shifted behind the front line to recover, the leader of the Storm Crows let out a screech, which informed his Order to shift and prepare to fight. Talryn shape shifted into a crow like the others, a third of the Order remained in their normal form to help support them with magic.

The Bears let out a deafening roar, saying that the needed to rest and heal. The Storm Crows took off and flew towards the front line. The Bears pulled back, as the order resembling Yeti’s charged forward to fill the gap. As the storm crows entered casting range of the front line, bolts of lightning went shocking through the Undead troops, jolting the bones off the joints and melting the armor and weapons.

The Wraiths responded by returning to their corporeal form, and let loose a powerful blast into the Order of the Hunt’s support troops. The blast exploded in the center of the group, vaporizing many Druids and severely injuring others. The healers rushed over to save whom they could, while the not as injured support troops used the opportunity to thin the numbers of wraith.

<No… it started there, after the blast… that lead to the line breaking…>

The Wraith continued to fly corporeal over the support troops, exchanging blasts every once in a while. They served the distraction they we’re supposed to perfectly. Thick hided and armored Demons stepped out of the cave and charged down the remaining ranks of the Undead Legions through the front line.

The Yeti section broke as they were either slain by the undead or torn apart by the heavily protected demons. The support troops attempted to focus their efforts on the chargers but the Wraith were running interference by either disrupting the spell or killing the casters. The remaining panthers broke their attack and leapt from undead to undead till they pounced onto the backs of the demons and begun clawing the armor off.

The Demons tried to shake the panthers off, but the claws sunk into the thick hide, and they hung on. The demon casters were now free from distraction and begun launching offensive spells off like a gust of wind in a tornado. The front line crumbled everywhere. The Undead surged through the failing ranks, with groups getting through to the support troops.

The battle turned into a massacre. Support troops were slain instantly, the healers barely had a chance to shape shift or defend themselves. The flying druids were either being shot down or being ripped to shreds by the wraiths. The Order of the Hunter leader gave the screech to fall back before half of his body was disintegrated by dark magic.

Adrenaline coursed through Talryn’s veins; his wings beat faster as he flew back to help his friend. Ton-Sair let loose two lightning bolts at a group of approaching Undead, destroying half of them. A few people near by cast a quick shield as a bombardment came crashing down. Most of the spells where deflected and absorbed, until the shield overloaded with magic and exploded upwards, devastating anyone flying above.

Talryn flew above the undead legions, letting loose a couple of lightning bolts at a couple of groups, but he focused more on flying as spears where being thrown into the air to pierce his wings. He was almost to Ton-Sair.

Ton-Sair pushed himself back to his feet, and saw that two undead had survived the shield blast and were heading his way to kill any survivors. He drew his sword of bone and charged the pair. He parried one undead, and kicked the other’s leg, detaching bone from bone and it fell. He dodged a swipe from the Undead’s spear and then kicked the fallen undead’s head into the ribcage of the still standing one. The undead crumbled to pieces and he stood victorious in his small nearly insignificant fight.

Talryn swooped down even closer to the ground as he neared his friend and stretched out his claws. He flew into another group of approaching undead and his claws took off the heads of many and the force of collision disassembled the others.

Talryn shifted back to normal and picked up a sword and ran over to Ton-Sair and they took turns protecting the other, while they casted some spell. Talryn concentrated on some of the magic being used by demons, felt the way the powerful blasts were put together and he mimicked the process. A large group of Undead casters were spontaneously obliterated as Talryn let loose his spell, which led to the front line starting to stabilize once again.

Talryn turned around and cheered with Ton-Sair, and then he saw the wraith. The two dived apart as it let loose its deadly blast. Ton-Sair through up a magical shield, which drew its attention. The wraith, having already exhausted all its mana, decided to kill Ton-Sair with its deadly claws. Talryn stood up as the wraith swooped down to kill Ton-Sair, Ton-Sair channeled the shield into a powerful blast of pure mana. The wraith overloaded and exploded.

Talryn smiled at Ton-Sair and started to speak until he saw a sword rip through Ton-Sair’s chest. Ton-Sair began to scream out in pain, and Talryn charged over and tackled the undead warrior, and punched the skull off of the neck. He ran back over to his dying friend and caught him as he fell to his knees.

Ton-Sair looked into Talryn’s eyes wanting to tell his friend to move on and to keep fighting. Talryn held Ton-Sair and looked at the wound, trying desperately to somehow save his life. Ton-Sair gasped one last time as his impaled heart attempted to pump blood one last time. Tears started to stream down Talryn’s face, his pants were soaked in the blood leaking from his dead friends body.

The body twitched one last time as his friend died. Talryn tried everything, but he couldn’t bring back his friend. The battle continued on around him. After a couple of minutes, Talryn felt the tears stop streaming down his dirty face and a strong rage take over his sad emotions. Granted, Talryn did kill the undead that had slain his friend, but there were plenty more killing everyone one he knew.

He set the body down, and let out a scream of rage. Nearby undead started to head towards him, as the scream had drawn their attention. Talryn began to feel the world, as it existed with the powers/abilities that the council had told him never to use. He found he could cause devastation so much easier than it would previously have taken to do with using only Druidic methods.

He sent his rage pulsing out into the planet. The sky darkened, storm clouds forming above. The slain bodies that had been dead for at least half a day began to twitch and rise as the curse had taken over the corpses. The Undead grew bewildered as slain Druids rose up and began killing again.

Lightning began striking down in huge masses, decimating everything within a half a mile. Rain began to fall, winds came from no currents, the Druids stopped casting anything, in fear of drawing the attention of this freak horror storm. The undead that were struck were vaporized. Those nearby had a powerful electrical current surge through them, turning the metal armor into liquid and exploding the bones.

Talryn let loose pure mana surges at any Demon he saw. The council sensed the rage and a strong source of mana come from seemingly nowhere. A few moments later, the council found the source, Talryn. The storm spread to cover the whole world and the decimation hit both friend and foe. The council cast a spell, which launched Talryn off the ground into the air towards the mountain at a fatal velocity.

The wind funneled ahead of him and formed a huge cushion. He slowed as he hit the side of the mountain, above the void. The rage surged through the wind as he fell and it began to tear apart the mountain ahead of him. The council cast a lightning bolt at him. The storm of rage weakened the bolt, but it was pre-occupied in destroying the surface of the world. The council was killed next and the bolt hit Talryn, and he was knocked unconscious.

The winds plowing into the mountain stopped, and Talryn fell into the crater the winds created. The storm of rage continued to destroy everything except two figures, Kelar who was carrying the body of Ton-Sair. In a matter of minutes the Death King’s forces, the race of the Druids, and the life on the planet had been destroyed.

Kelar carried the body to where Talryn lay. He buried Ton-Sair and glanced up at the still present storm. There was no longer thunder from the lighting, and the lightning had stopped striking the ground in such big blasts. Kelar cast a healing spell on Talryn, and put him inside a form of stasis.

“What have I done…” Kelar spoke as he glanced across the barren world, littered with bodies and the cursed Druids standing around. The ever-constant lightning gave the barren sands a purple hue. The druids that rose lay back onto the ground and resumed being lifeless. There was also an ever-present breeze that blew the sand. Kelar sighed, shook his head, and walked to the void.

He created a magical torch by the void as a warning. He then began to wander the void for hundreds of years. Talryn healed in his stasis, with his powers continuing to develop.

When he awoke hundreds of hundreds of years later, he walked around and fell to his knees in front of Ton-Sair’s burial site and wept. He stayed there crying in pain on and off for a week for what he had done to his people and his planet. The flesh had decayed off of all the bones, making it impossible to figure out who was who.

Once he was calm, Talryn walked down to the cave where the void still existed. He watched the star patterns change periodically for the day. Then he wandered into a random world, but he didn’t exit at the void. He appeared in the middle of a wilderness.

He used his druidic powers and felt a town nearby. He wandered in and spent a year doing various jobs till he knew the language and bought some armor, weapons, and a light and dark green cloak. Then he traveled to a different city, seeking out a Tavern where he heard heroes were known to stop by.

Talryn stood up, looked at the ever-rising walls of blood around him, and cried out into the sky in pain and rage. The walls shook and then came crashing back down on him.

--

-Dark

Interesting, if a bit hard to follow. I admit that I have not read much of the other chapters of your 'Order' series, but I assume that at least this one is defining a prequel to your character's introduction. When I have time, I'll have to go back and read the others.

Pity you decided to kill off Talryn in the 'for whom the bell tolls' TS, but I suppose it is your right as the character's author to do that. Although, this Tree of Life business might be a good way to undo that discussion with a good bout of story instead of a cheap cop-out; at least the possibilty is left, even if the option is not taken straight away <overt hint>.

Anyway, see you around, and good luck writing chapter 6: If you're as busy as you claim, you're going to need it.

[quote name='~vIsitor~' date='Sep 11 2007, 08:01 PM' post='1787549']
Interesting, if a bit hard to follow. I admit that I have not read much of the other chapters of your 'Order' series, but I assume that at least this one is defining a prequel to your character's introduction. When I have time, I'll have to go back and read the others.

Pity you decided to kill off Talryn in the 'for whom the bell tolls' TS, but I suppose it is your right as the character's author to do that. [/qoute]

Err... I killed off Tej in that one or at least Tej was supposed to die. In the last TS that I participated in, (the one with the Undine and the random sword of power), Talryn lost his memory and this way I could both give a history of him and begin to wrap up things for Talryn.

And thanks

-Dark

I'm not a pro at finding problems, (quite the opposite,) but I thought it was cool.

Well, Talryn seemed a bit powerful (not that I'm really in a position to say much about that sort of thing), but it was good overall .

This post has been edited by Selax: 14 September 2007 - 11:04 PM