OOC--Last post from home... then off to the East coast and then to college.


IC--Drask had been cut off from his comerades. They had vanished into the House of Altair, led by a ghostly troll. He wondered what they were doing, why they weren't attacking yet--he was, after all, trying to divert all attention to himself, that they might attack in safety. He was attracting attention admirably. Almost too much so. There were many archers among left down among the dead men... And several ogre-magi, besides.

Flying out of arrowshot and far above the surface of the gardens, Drask hid himself among the clouds for a bit. It was sad, when he thought about it, that no matter the outcome of this titanic struggle, the Garden would become a casualty. It would take generations of careful, tedious tending before the plants would approach the beauty they had once shown. Drask knew, though, that it would be better the have a ruined Garden in their own possession, that they might have help in regrowing it--perhaps the Diadem of Order could help with that--than to leave it, less than pristine, in the hands of the enemy.

You do what you have to do, he told himself.

Clouds were gathering around him, thickening and darkening as they did so. The Powerstone shone brightly in the dark as it gathered to itself a chaotic force of nature. Thunderbolts flew from the sky, striking randomly the tallest conductive materials around. The Houses all had lightning rods, so they were fine, but orcs don't generally carry around pieces of re-bar for the sheer hell of it. Some would wish they had--those that would ever wake up.

Drask contemplated his objectives. He had been told that he should divert attention until the attack, which he was doing with great success, almost to the point where it was too well done. He also knew that, were they to truly decimate the forces of the Dark God Dimindium, their transport-ships must be destroyed. That, too, Drask thought of as his responsibility, he being the only one outside. But by the same token, he wanted to charge in among the bastards who had dared to invade his home and desecrate it with their vile presense.

First things first. He must keep in sight, to draw attention to himself. Then he felt that he should attack the ships. After that, it really didn't matter what he did so long as he scared the ever-hating sh!t out of the army of imps below him.

Which task would be easy to accomplish.

Drask flew along the bottom of the clouds, just out of sight from below, until he was directly above the enemy's ships. That done, he folded his wings and dove as swiftly as he could--to avoid any arrows--into the water beside them. The dragon mage swam down a ways, holding his breath in his gargantuan lungs. Now he had somewhat of a problem: Fire magik cannot work in water. And he dared not surface this near the ships for fear of poisoned arrows. He'd seen the livid green paste smeared all over some of the arrow-heads of shots that nearly hit him.

Coldfire. Quite simple. He could that way freeze a section of wood to make it brittle, and could also provide himself with a battering ram of ice. He pressed the palm of one of his foreclaws against the hull of a ship and it froze. The crew heard some strange snapping noises from the bilge, but few if any took notice. Ice gathered around the frozen wood. Ice gathered where Drask stretched out his other hand. And then he closed the distance between ice-ram and target...

The crew felt a deep, disturbing shudder accompanied by waves and a dull boom. And another. And a third. Then nothing, until a few minutes later, they saw the same thing happening to the ship beside them. First the snapping sounds from the bilge, then the collisions. Three times to three ships. And then the Dragon was away from there, his tail thrashing madly as he ran out of breath.

He surfaced on the far side of the island and launched himself into the sky in time to see three ships beginning to sink. The crews were off-loading some strange weapons... They were large, wheeled, and looked like cylinders with holes down their middles. As he watched, a total of eight made it off the ships before all went down into the harbor.

Drask made a mental note that he'd have to clean up that particular mess when they were re-doing the Garden.

Imps and goblins swarmed around these cylinders, and they were quickly transported towards where the acid-minotaur construct kept his station. Now that an enemy was in sight, they were building up their defenses. Drask shook his head at their lack of foresight.

Drask landed in front of the House of Altair, swatting at the doors with his tail, alerting those inside of his presence. His staff swung in an arc of flames, keeping back such foes stupid enough to attack him. Ogres were making their way towards him. About a dozen of them.

'Dammit--I can't do this alone!'

******************
The closer I get to feeling,
The further I feel from alright
The more I walk into the sun
The more I step out of the light.

IC - The dragon had done his part in leading the war angels. Xandim, being the second closest to the door, ran quickly to aid his comrade. With a leap, xandim used drask's shoulder as a launch pad, his sword draw as he leapt, slaying a nearby ogre with a quick and precise swing. With a swift movement, he spun, gutting a goblin charging him. As the goblin fell he stuck his foot into it, prying the sword out of its bloody ribcage, and backflipped, dodging a goblin with a katana. Drask charged beside Xandim, the both of them making a line of dead carcasses towards the main twisted minotaur. Of course, this was a problem. In their rampant bloodlust, they had charged forward not even watching their backs, retreat now not an option, as an ogre and a legion of goblins cut them off from retreat. The AtW had been stuck at the door, fighting their way through the legions of invaders of their home.

"FOR ALTAIR!!!" Xandim shouted towards Drask. The dragon nodded in agreement, looking at Xandim's sword intently. "Channel your energy through this," Xandim spoke, holding his sword high. The dragon, unquestioning, using his magical powers which were still a mystery to Xandim, through teh sword. A gigantic light flashed through the sky, the effect of these two using their powers as one was catastrophic.

The ice sprite Xcarthan, and the fire-mage draskeries had never combined powers before. Ice and fire, an unusual elemental mix, since a small dosage of fire is enough to melt and render useless a large amount of ice. However, this wasnt an ordinary ice sprite. This sprite had showed tremendous power when enraged previously. This time, the fire-mage had triggered its true powers. The sprite felt inferior to this fire, and had released a tremendous amount of power to reverse this. The effect? The strongest icebeam you have seen in a long time. The sprite had seen a need to show himself to his master, and done all in its power to do so.

The battle. The newly surrounded Drask and Xandim had combined to do this magnificant nova blast, sending a wave of frost all around the sword. The legions and legios of goblins and ogres had been slowly tremendously. The tide had been turned for the moment... now it was up to the remainder of the war angels to fight their way towards drask and xandim, who were now continuing their destructive path towards the arena.

well.
they were somewhere familiar now at least.
Tam, being the smart one and having exceptional skill and experience in fighting Dark Armies on a 2000-to-1 basis, had given a very wise decision for eveyrone else to follow.
It was good, for fighting things 2000- to - 1 was never a pleasant thing to do
well at least not for the 1 person.
Its such an unfair world, even walkin in the shadows of light.

"So wheres this big brain we need to detach????" asked vAl of the b4lcruisr..

It was silent and kept moving forward, causing many a stumbling of feet and armmor and of course, robes.

Tam, along with most of the other war angels, followed the ghost trool through the halls of the fort that the enemies had built, looking for the enemy leaders, the metaphorical head which they had to sever from the beast of the dark army. Hopefully Drask was distracting the others well, and the army wouldn't notice that their leaders were dead until later. With a little luck, they would be able to kill the leaders, burst out of the enemy's crude fort where they were now, and flee to the safety of their houses before the army could respond. Then they could plan a way to destroy the army.
The task at hand, however, was to kill the leaders, they couldn't afford yet to worry about the rest of the army.
ßal'Cruz'Ir led them up a spiral staircase to a large oaken door, and stopped outside the door. They could hear heated arguement from behind the door, people arguing about what to do about the dragon, or so it seemed. The troll nodded to the invisible group, indicating that this was where the enemy leaders were. They would be unable to attack while remaining invisible, and the enemies would know of their entrance as soon as the door opened, so to save energy, val released the invisibility spell. They could see each other again, and took a quick head count. Xandim was missing.
"Over ambitious young 'un" muttered Romulus.
"Were you so different when we first met?" asked val.
"I knew we shouldn't have given the younger members so much chicken noodle soup back there."
"There's nothing we can do about it now" interjected Tam. "We can only hope that drask manages to keep him from harm. For now, ßal'Cruz'Ir, what is the room behind this door like? We need to plan our attack on the enemy leaders."
But the troll did not respond. He had heard the word attack. Trolls are stupid anyways, but with a bloodlust, they can't be stopped. Tam shrugged, and drawing his sword, charged in behind the Troll.

Inside the room, there were a dozen enemies around a central table, discussing what to do about their situation. Four men dressed in polished chain and plate mail bustling with all sorts of weapons. A dark elf archer. A high orc warrior in black plate and hard leather armour with several evil looking weapons (think Sauramon's high orc leader from the fellowship of the ring movie). An oger mage, face painted and wearing lots of shiny talismans. A black leathery skinned winged imp, perhaps eight feet tall, with long claws and teeth. A red robed and bejewelled human sorcerer stood on one side of the room, looking very angry, and a necromancer, who might have been human, but was so dark that it was impossible to tell for sure stood on the other with an expression to match the sorcerer's. The four men were on the same side of the table as the sorcerer, while the dark elf, the oger mage, high orc, and imp were on the side with the necromancer. Apparently the enemy leaders had been arguing among themselves, and were almost ready to fight each other when the war angels had burst in. Which meant that while they were not prepared for an outside attack, some of the had weapons drawn. At the far end of the table from the atw, trying to keep order among his own lieutennents, sat a powerfully built man in dragon-scale tunic with a sword strapped to his back and a great axe leaning against his large chair. To his left knelt another man, only slightly smaller, wiith a shaved head, naked from the waist up to expose rippling muscles, and with his hands folded in front of him on the hilt of a black sword. By the tatoos on the exposed arms of the man in the dragon scale tunic, he could be identified as a member of the DC, and the man kneeling next to him was obviousl an innitiate of that order.
The DC. The Demon Coalation. Diminidum's response to the Alliance of the War Angels. It was the dark side's special task force made up of Diminidum's best servents. The DC was his trusted right hand, sent to do all his most important tasks. But most importantly, they had been created as a counter the AtW. To see a member in the gardens was shocking.

Tam did not pause to think about it though. He saw ßal'Cruz'Ir charge into the group surrounding tbe necromancer, and so himself engaged the men fronting the sorcerer.

OOC: I would say go crazy, but I think you'd take me too literally. Remember that these are the enemy leaders, and their best warriors. This should be a tough fight, so you shouldn't be able to kill very many. Instead, try being creative in your posts about how you fight and how you end up killing them, including all the gory details. Perhaps we should institute the old rule about one kill per post? This is all especially true for the DC guys. They are our nemesis and our equal. One of them would be a fair fight for one of us, and if one of us were able to kill one one-on-one, our guy would be very injured by the end of the fight. So unless you want your character hospitalized for the next month, you should team up when you attack these guys (ie, it should take 2 of you to kill them). Have fun and be creative.

OOC- i r tired but that r make for r good postar

IC- The Demon Coalition. Just the sight of one could trigger memories of past hatreds, battles and fears into the minds of the AtW..
vAldiCi prepared himself for a quick strike, although the AtW had already achieved a sudden surprise by barging into the room unnoticed.

the sounds of dragonfire echoed behind him.
At least the dragon would help them keep the skin on their backs. vAl scanned the room again, lookin up at the ceiling arraingments.

"hum" he said
"we have to fight as a team, and then order shall emerge through the chaos." he said

his eyes set on the black-robed necr0mancer, he created an illusion of himself and flung it into the air by the chandeliers
the attention was drawn and several bolts of lightning, fire and ice were reflexively cast by the several enemy magicusers into the air

then in a split second while their spells were in their cool-down phase vAl launched a psionic hand towards the necromancer, enveloping it and dragging it towards the assembled AtW.

By the time the necro could recover from the attack he was already surrounded by Romu and Tam whos magical blades could kill undead. It was destroyed before it could raise a finger.

the rest of them looked in relative shock but readied their battle stances. They would not be so easily tricked again,
vAl noted that the DarkElven archer had a bead on him..


"hum.." he said

OOC: I PASSED MY PRAC EXAM!!!! WOOHOO!!!!! Not going to spend long on this at the moment still have a few things to sort before i have time.

IC: Di'Ethe nocked an arrow and released it in one smooth motion. His shafted pierced through the darkelf's bow string and snapped the bow jarring the elfs hand. Di'Ethe had time to grin at his counterpart. The dark elf glared back not amused and without warning threw something in Di'Ethe's general direction. Di'Ethe reflexively turned his head and felt wind brush across his cheek. Behind him he noticed three darts protruding from the wall gleaming maliciously back at him.

The dark elf cursed and began to restring his bow as the large warrior drew his axe.

Di'Ethe nocked another arrow and prepared to fire at a new target as the Necromancer fell in front of the others snarling curses.

OOC: So let me get this straight... we've got a room full o baddies, (a dozen, I remember), 4 Iron Men and a Sorc...1 Ogre Mage, One High Orc, A Dark Archer, an eight foot Imp (oh mi lord), and a Necro, (dead)
Oooookay then. Tam, you do realize, of course, that we might all end up dead, right?

Since you said a dozen, and that's only ten, I'll say the other two are goons. Expendable orcish types.

Here we go...

IC: Romulus had stepped up alongside Tam Lyn in standard galdiator formation, taking the strong side because he had the bigger sword and Tam was quicker on defense with his twin blades.

As the Necro said THE END Tam spoke out of the corner of his mouth, "So many to choose from old buddy... what do you think?"

Romulus tossed his blade around like a nun-chuck, loosening his wrist and buying time with a taunt. She sang beautifully, a whistling sound like a fishing pole being cast without a line.

"Absolutly no idea Tam... How bout the big ugly one?" he said with a smirk.

"...Which--oh, haha, very funny Romulus."

"She always called me a comedian."

The four men across the table had stopped their arguing and were slowly moving around the table.

Romulus spoke to Valdici not bothering to use their link, "You keep those mages busy Val...especially that Ogre..he looks like he missed his breakfast this morning." The Ogre Mage in question had an impressive strand of drool hanging from his lips. Romulus pointed at him with his free hand and said, "You've got something on your chin, buddy."

The Ogre Mage cocked his head to one side and looked quizicaly at the funny human with the spiffy sword. The eight-foot Imp (OOC: Who ever heard of an 8 ft. IMP?) The eight-foot Imp pointed at his own jaw and the Ogre grunted in embarrassment before wiping himself with the back of his hand.

Romulus smiled. "Ah..you look MUCH prettier now."

The Ogre blushed.

The men were still advancing and the Dark Elf had re-strung his bow, but was waiting to draw another arrow, knowing that as soon as he did the fight would start and this time, there would be no pause. (Apparantly the Necro had been the problem that they were arguing over.)

Romulus spoke to Tam in a stage-whisper: "What do you think our chances are of calling this a draw and getting a few cold ones down the pub?"

Tam grimmaced, "Not likely."

"We'll see." Romulus spoke to the Leaders of the Army of Darkness: "Hey, how bout we all put down our weapons and call it even, huh? I got some great pipe-weed in my pouch, quality stuff...Hobbiton..."

The enemies were not amused.

"Okay then... So we fight. Tam?"

"Romu?"

"Do it to it."

And that was it.

Two Orc goons, waiters or waterboys or mid-day snacks for the Ogre Mage, rushed them first. Standard operating procedure. Everyone in the room knew that they didn't have a chance. If the Orcs had half a brain, (which most orcs, contrary to popular belief, do have), they knew it themselves. But such is the life of an underling. So they died, swiftly and rather painlessly. Romulus whipped his blade around, and Tam recoiled from his swing as their two heads spun like tops on the wooden floor.

"Now someone is going to have to clean that up, you know..."

That was about all the taunting shirt-less guy could take. He was a junior DC leftenent, so his patience was understandably short. Probably acting on orders form DragonScales anyway. Romulus and Tam held their ground as he rushed them, sword swinging wildly.

Romulus saw the archer draw his bow out of the corner of his eye, trusting someone else would take care of the matter, and presently. He had bigger fish to fry, like this fucking chump here who was turning out to be a tougher shit than first impression. Romulus locked him up in an upwards block and Tam took a few swipes at his exposed back and kidneys. Should have flayed him open like a catfish but apparantly the guy was on PCP or something, cause he screamed, (almost in extasy oddly enough) and kept on going.

Romulus took care to control his breathing knowing that he'd be back on the offensive soon enough. Not a lot of time to waste fucking around with--CLASH!!--guys--SHING!!!--like--CRUNCH!--THIS!--BLING-BLING!!-BLING!!! Phew. Dead. And only a gash on the arm to show for it.

Next?


***Knowledge without Goodness is Dangerous
and Goodness without Knowledge is Weak.***

ooc: those 10, plus the 2 DC make 12, which is a dozzen. but never mind that now. and it's a bigger species of imp. like a demon. call it a winged demon.

ic: the imp, orc, ogre, and elf were in a group, so ßal'Cruz'Ir charged them. but instead of bowling them all over, he went right through them. cuz he was a ghost. a ghost troll. and not very smart. but he saw bad guys and wanted to kill them.

so, as ghosts are known to do for short periods of time when around humans, he temporarily took on physical form. sure, that meant that they could hurt him as well, but trolls don't think about that sort of thing. especially not bloodllusting trools.

the important thing was that he could now kill bad guys. so again he charged into the small mass of enemies. he hit the dark elf first, sending it flying and the arrow that it had been drawing on romu flying uselessly into a beam in the ceiling.

he didn't even notice the elf, but continued into the ogre mage with enough force to knock it backwards several paces.

next he ran into the imp-daemon, which had seen him coming, and braced for the hit. as he rushed headlong into the imp, it wrapped its sinewy arms, legs, and wings around him, and the two went rolling to the ground in a heap.

they rolled over several times on the ground. the imp enveloped them both in it's large leathery wings, and beneath them attacked the troll, claws tearing at his body, teeth at his face. it was smaller and weaker, but the imp had the troll trapped. ßal'Cruz'Ir could not move his arms within the fold of the black wings.

roaring with bloodrage, ßal'Cruz'Ir head-butted the imp. if he still had his troll tusks, the imp would have died. as it was, it was only stunned for a few moments.

but ßal'Cruz'Ir had his hands free, and was pummeling the imp, beating it with his clenched fists. the imp screedhed and raked at ßal's leathery flesh with its claws, reaving dripping red gashes in the wake of its claws. but the troll did not stop.

each time the troll's fists fell, the crack of bones could be heard, even over the shrieks of the imp. the imp was thrashing to be free, but soon could not do even that, as it's body had been turned to the consistency of mashed potatoes.

after a while, pummeling the imp's carcass got boring, and ßal'Cruz'Ir got up, covered in large bleeding rends from the imps claws and teeth. he didn't notice these, but felt only the blood rage as he looked around for the nearest thing to kill.