26th Day of Ash, 124th Year of the Age of Steel
Deep in the Imperial Marches, Ecith
Deep in the Imperial Marches, Ecith
Masagh crouched at the highest point of a dilapidated stone tower, or what once had been one. It was crumbled and the stone was held together and held up by thick ivies and vines. Wildflowers grew up one side like a carpet, though their colors were muted in the early night. He furled his wings about his shoulders and peered around at the various bulging ruins that rose above the tree line.
He had been traveling for a day. All was to chase down the soul bound servant of a necromancer. It had led a group of feral zombies to attack a group of frontiersmen. Masagh had happened upon the grisly scene and intervened to save the redveins. Only after noticing one of the undead was actually a soul bound thrall did his motives change. Now he was trying to recover in the wake of losing his first and only real lead.
They had told him of these ruins, and that this was where the horde had first started trailing them. This must be the area the thrall was trying to keep intruders out of. The necromancer who had created the thing would need a safe and dry place to work. An interior place. Masagh had thought the tower might be a likely entrance, but the interior had collapsed long ago and now was covered in soil and roots.
Grinding his teeth, the ghoul leapt from the tower-top and soared down to glide over the canopy. “What do you think, Indira?” He asked.
“I think this seems like the type of place a necromancer would live.” She said, she said with a long sigh. “I should know, I was butchered and reincarnated as a ghost by one.”
“Why I asked.” Masagh said.
“Hmph.” She then reached out of him with her spectral arm and pointed. “What about that over there?” Excited laced her words.
She was pointing to the jagged spines of what had been an arena or amphitheater of some kind. Now the few arcing stones that reached above the tree canopy trailed vines. It was only the shell of the building it had once been. Masagh veered towards the ruin.
Perching on one of the spines ringing the circular ruin he looked down into the hollow center of the thing. A pool of still water had formed in the lowest portion and stadium seating seemed to rise out of it. The old squared stones had eroded and been broken. Much of it was covered in moss or soil now. But Masagh could see in the bones the building that could have stood here, hundreds or thousands of years ago.
There were aisles, or what used to be aisles, that led to what could be an underground interior. Masagh grinned to himself. The ghoulish warrior dropped, flaring his wings to slow his descent. He set down at the lowest stone pew above the pool of water. His flesh morphed as the wings retracted into himself and he looked around.
“You think it might be in here somewhere?” He asked. Around him the spines of the theater rose like the talons of a giant. Leaf laden vines hung down, still and unmoving. It was very quiet, with no animals calling from within the structure. The deeper he went into the Imperial Marches area, the more sparse the wildlife, he found.
“Seems dreary enough.” Indira remarked. “Although it is a lot greener than my previous landlord’s. I enjoy that.”
“Right.” Masagh said, rolling his eyes. “You think we shou-”
The pool of water exploded.
Water showered down on him, obscuring his vision. A form had erupted from the pool. Masagh could not see the details of the form. Hulking and deformed, it lunged with inhuman speed towards him. Masagh instinctively invoked his Traversion Rune, teleporting a few pews higher. The thing was undead, misshapen and ugly. It had a human head and torso, bolstered in size and muscle mass by necrotic surgeries. Puckered stitching showed where the maker had carved it open and increased the muscle size. Clutched in its passive ham sized hands was a long glaive with a vicious blade at the end.
As the thing lumbered out of the water, Masagh saw the rest of its body. Below the waist the thing was a stitched to the body of a tiger. The fur was muddy and matted, the body grossly decayed. It dripped water and ichor both. The massive paws thumped dully as it climbed out of the water, still staring at him. He noticed it wore the same style cuirass as the juggernaut he had fought yesterday.
Masagh smiled.
“Where is your master? I wish to talk to them.” He said to the thing.
“No talk, no trespass, no live.” The think croaked in a deep rumbling caricature of life. It pointed the glaive at him and Masagh saw two more of the hulking hybrids come lumbering out of the water to either side of it. Did they know he was coming?
Both the others carried axes and chain link nets. Masagh could see the chain nets carried disks of burnished metals in them that gleamed with arcane light. Runeforged weapons. He grimaced. This was no chance encounter. These hulking abominations had come here with a purpose.
The first with the glaive raised its hand and spoke a word of power. Aether consolidated around them, building a gleaming copper dome around the circular ruins of the theater. Masagh stared at the shimmering magic, then back to the abominations. He raised Ghoulblade before him in a cautious Crethian mid-guard. He hadn’t expected these jungle undead to possess Runic magics.
“No talk, then.” Masagh growled.
Then he was behind the furthest one, leaping from a rift in space. Ghoulblade lashed and caught the tiger flank as the thing twisted and cast its net. It was fasted than he expected. The chains coiled around his shin and foot. A sapping like a mosquito sucking blood pulled at his aether from anywhere the disks touched him. Growling, Masagh struck again with Ghoulblade but was parried. He made to leap again through Slipspace to attack from a different angle but could not access the Rune.
“Shit!” Masagh cursed as he hastily backpedaled. The chain net was weighing him down slightly but it seemed more intended to stop the use of magics. They were definitely here for him. The other two were quickly closing in, their large tiger paws thudding on the wet stone. Their massive forms trembled with the impact of their stride as they barreled towards him. Masagh didn’t have time to untangle himself before the lot of them were barreling over him.
“Indira! Flank!” He shouted, not wanting the ghost to get caught up in the net as well. Who know what a magic negation item could do to a ghost. She ripped from him like a shadow and skittered up the stone seats.
Then the abominations were upon him. As their shadows loomed around him, his Pact weapon arced in his hands. As it did so a trail of Duplicates shimmered into existence like a fan of death about him. Aether radiated through his limbs as he desperately blocked the abominations anvil heavy blows with Duplicate and Ghoulblade. So it was not all magic the net blocked. His Reaving Rune still responded.
Masagh parried a bone breaking blow from one axe and cut clean through the arm of another. The meaty appendage dropped into the pool of water with a splash. Tempo rising, their weapons danced around each other. His duplicates were dwindling as they parried life-ending blows from the abominations.
Then Indira’s banshee form was on them, lacerating limbs and gnawing on feet before darting away again. She was quick and their focus was clearly on Masagh. The three abominations had surrounded him and Masagh was like a grey blur as he spun and dodged, silver blades glittering around him. The Creth warrior stood in the midst of the hulking undead, holding his own.
Masagh turned a glaive lunge into the axe head another and their weapons tangled for a heartbeat. It was enough. He invoked the Snake totem and morphed his trapped leg to the body of a snake. As it thinned and became more flexible the netting slipped away and the siphoning sensation disappeared.
He was free. Free to move. Free to kill. Masagh invoked the Traversion Rune and Phased through the next set of strikes. He flickered out of existence and appeared behind the nearest abomination, the only one still with a net. The thing reared up to throw its weapon, tiger paws raking the air as it stood ten feet tall. Then a white blur appeared behind it. Banshee claws raked through the muscles of its forearm and the thing turned to see Indira. Masagh didn’t need more of an opening than that.
