Post by Leonida on Jun 7, 2024 16:18:49 GMT
Leonida doesn’t trust this “celestial” as far as she can throw it.
However, as the small platinum dragon in Keros’s strong grasp explains more and more about the metallic device it gifted to them, she can sense her companions slowly coming around to it. Believing its words.
Mendal picks up the device and casts a spell to identify it — it’s an antimagic bomb like the dragon says it is, he explains, though it’s kind of a rush job.
The dragon adds that it was created by the priests of Bahamut this morning. Keros sets it down on the ground gently, apologising for manhandling it.
Rae, the starving battle-mage, is suddenly very eager to hear the wyrm out. All morning, they had been impatient to get to Kundar’s sewers and deal with the Something Hungry, despite having no real plan on how to go about doing that and coming back alive. Their eyes light up with famished delight when they realise that a solution has fallen into their lap.
Leonida starts to doubt herself: did she really see a liar’s smirk in the dragon’s reptilian lips when it gave them the metal thing, or was she mistaken? Can a celestial lie?
But even if this creature is serving some ulterior motive, does it matter? If, at the end of the day, the Hungry’s connection to the Demonforge is severed?
Maybe she should urge for more caution. But she doesn’t have an alternate solution either.
So be it.
Astaroth crouches at the edge of the cliff, looking down at the rocky plateau 30 feet below. Fifteen to twenty armoured demons are patrolling about, but otherwise it’s a jump and then a straight path to the gigantic gaping maw in the ground. He can cover the distance in less than 10 seconds, and he’s got Mendal and They covering him from behind; he can activate the bomb, set it down on the circle of runes that binds the Hungry, and be back in no time at all. Theoretically, anyway.
Leonida’s consciousness sits in the cortex of his mind, patiently reining in his primal desire to annihilate the demons before them. All he needs to do is run and deliver.
Rae is off to the side distracting Urdox, the current avatar of Something Hungry. Astaroth sees his chance — he leaps down and hits the ground sprinting full-speed forward.
He skids to a halt in front of the rune circle with the maw within it, and he twists the knob on the bomb. A pair of tubes pop out at opposite ends of the device and slowly begin to push themselves back in…before they stop, making odd whirring noises. It’s stuck. The gods-damned bomb is stuck.
Fuck me, Leonida sighs in his head.
Astaroth lets out an irritated growl. The hulking hell knight presses his gauntleted palms against the tubes and, with a single powerful motion, shoves them in.
If they die here today, if they wake up on the shore of the River Styx after this, it would be a good death. To make the ultimate sacrifice while crippling the Abyss’ most dangerous weapon yet — that would be the greatest paean to Zariel ever composed.
A tiny light in the centre of the device blinks off. The bomb shatters into pieces in Astaroth’s hands as a massive wave of force pulsates across the underground cavern. The foetid air turns dead still for a moment, the buzz of arcane potency from Rae’s and Mendal’s spells suddenly muted.
Astaroth is pushed back several feet by the explosion, his sabatons scraping a trail on the floor of the cavern, and he holds his arms up in front of his head to weather the blow. But he is still on his feet. He glances down — the rune circle in the ground has stopped glowing.
The maw is shifting, undulating, pulsating, and…expanding. The walls of the cavern begin to take on the colour of wet flesh and large, yellow incisors are jutting out of them. The whole place shakes violently as sucking and slurping noises susurrate in a horrible crescendo all around them.
Urdox is howling like a dog that has just lost its master. “What have you done?! WHAT HAVE YOU D—”
He is cut short by a stalactite that falls on his head and splits his skull open with a grotesque crunch.
Astaroth turns around and dashes back up the cliff. He grabs Mendal and They, tucking them under his arms, and he doesn’t look back as he runs.
The people of Kundar pay no attention to Keros’s and Mendal’s desperate warnings, even as the Kundar Adventurers’ Guild HQ collapses into a sinkhole. They can only watch as ordinary kobolds and dragonborn approach in curiosity and the ground under their feet suddenly crumbles. Ear-rending shrieks follows soon after.
Clouds of dust rise over the city as buildings begin to topple. The shrieks from within the grinding maw join a cacophonous chorus of thousands.
Leonida tries not to look back.
The five of them stop to gasp for breath after leaping out onto the cobbles of Portal Plaza.
“Ha… Ha, ha! Yes!” Rae throws their hands up into the air as a manic, triumphant grin cracks across their face. “We did it! The hunger is gone!”
Keros, still panting, stares at his ex-lover indignantly. “Rae, what the fuck? Did you not see what just happened back there?!”
Leonida is clutching her pained chest as she climbs back onto her feet. Her head feels light as a feather and her throat is choked with sand-dust, but even now she can hardly believe what she’s seeing. They makes a worried sound from behind their bandages.
“I can finally get back to what I was doing!” Rae continues, apparently unaware of the mood of their companions around them. “I’m on the verge of a breakthrough. You have no idea how huge this could be!”
“Rae,” Keros snarls, sulphurous smoke billowing out from his flared nostrils. “Whatever, WHATEVER it is you need help with next, don’t invite me.”
The demonspawn whirls around and begins stomping towards the Town Hall. Mendal sighs as he follows behind; he glances around for They, looking to bring them along, but the small, bandaged stranger has already vanished. Leonida can’t say she blames them.
It’s just her and Rae left in the Plaza. They smile in her general direction, their eyes looking unfocused. “Hey, thanks so much for helping me! I know it could definitely have gone better, but—”
WHAM.
Rae doubles over when Leonida’s fist slams into their stomach, and they reel backwards unsteadily.
“Feed on that, you little piece o’ shit,” she spits at them, before storming off.
Leonida holds herself against a wall as she bends over and retches.
She sees the Blood War every night in her sleep. Lives it, as Astaroth the Dormant. She had always thought that her dreams and mercenary work would prepare her for anything, even the sight of hundreds of bodies being crushed by falling buildings—
A torrent of sick forces its way up her gullet and out through her mouth, dribbling onto the cobblestones below mixed with saliva. Her eyes are damp now.
She could blame Prideborn for his madness, Rae for their selfishness, or Bahamut for failing to intercede, but it was her hands that detonated the bomb. It was her blind zealotry and thirst for glory that made her ignore her instincts about that platinum wyrm. And for what?
Her mind plays back the cries of children coming from under the rubble and her stomach turns. She heaves again.
Her body is numb all over. She can’t feel her connection to the Other Shore. In that moment, she is no warrior of Avernus — just a girl in a lonesome street, feeling all too mortal.
However, as the small platinum dragon in Keros’s strong grasp explains more and more about the metallic device it gifted to them, she can sense her companions slowly coming around to it. Believing its words.
Mendal picks up the device and casts a spell to identify it — it’s an antimagic bomb like the dragon says it is, he explains, though it’s kind of a rush job.
The dragon adds that it was created by the priests of Bahamut this morning. Keros sets it down on the ground gently, apologising for manhandling it.
Rae, the starving battle-mage, is suddenly very eager to hear the wyrm out. All morning, they had been impatient to get to Kundar’s sewers and deal with the Something Hungry, despite having no real plan on how to go about doing that and coming back alive. Their eyes light up with famished delight when they realise that a solution has fallen into their lap.
Leonida starts to doubt herself: did she really see a liar’s smirk in the dragon’s reptilian lips when it gave them the metal thing, or was she mistaken? Can a celestial lie?
But even if this creature is serving some ulterior motive, does it matter? If, at the end of the day, the Hungry’s connection to the Demonforge is severed?
Maybe she should urge for more caution. But she doesn’t have an alternate solution either.
So be it.
Astaroth crouches at the edge of the cliff, looking down at the rocky plateau 30 feet below. Fifteen to twenty armoured demons are patrolling about, but otherwise it’s a jump and then a straight path to the gigantic gaping maw in the ground. He can cover the distance in less than 10 seconds, and he’s got Mendal and They covering him from behind; he can activate the bomb, set it down on the circle of runes that binds the Hungry, and be back in no time at all. Theoretically, anyway.
Leonida’s consciousness sits in the cortex of his mind, patiently reining in his primal desire to annihilate the demons before them. All he needs to do is run and deliver.
Rae is off to the side distracting Urdox, the current avatar of Something Hungry. Astaroth sees his chance — he leaps down and hits the ground sprinting full-speed forward.
He skids to a halt in front of the rune circle with the maw within it, and he twists the knob on the bomb. A pair of tubes pop out at opposite ends of the device and slowly begin to push themselves back in…before they stop, making odd whirring noises. It’s stuck. The gods-damned bomb is stuck.
Fuck me, Leonida sighs in his head.
Astaroth lets out an irritated growl. The hulking hell knight presses his gauntleted palms against the tubes and, with a single powerful motion, shoves them in.
If they die here today, if they wake up on the shore of the River Styx after this, it would be a good death. To make the ultimate sacrifice while crippling the Abyss’ most dangerous weapon yet — that would be the greatest paean to Zariel ever composed.
A tiny light in the centre of the device blinks off. The bomb shatters into pieces in Astaroth’s hands as a massive wave of force pulsates across the underground cavern. The foetid air turns dead still for a moment, the buzz of arcane potency from Rae’s and Mendal’s spells suddenly muted.
Astaroth is pushed back several feet by the explosion, his sabatons scraping a trail on the floor of the cavern, and he holds his arms up in front of his head to weather the blow. But he is still on his feet. He glances down — the rune circle in the ground has stopped glowing.
The maw is shifting, undulating, pulsating, and…expanding. The walls of the cavern begin to take on the colour of wet flesh and large, yellow incisors are jutting out of them. The whole place shakes violently as sucking and slurping noises susurrate in a horrible crescendo all around them.
Urdox is howling like a dog that has just lost its master. “What have you done?! WHAT HAVE YOU D—”
He is cut short by a stalactite that falls on his head and splits his skull open with a grotesque crunch.
Astaroth turns around and dashes back up the cliff. He grabs Mendal and They, tucking them under his arms, and he doesn’t look back as he runs.
The people of Kundar pay no attention to Keros’s and Mendal’s desperate warnings, even as the Kundar Adventurers’ Guild HQ collapses into a sinkhole. They can only watch as ordinary kobolds and dragonborn approach in curiosity and the ground under their feet suddenly crumbles. Ear-rending shrieks follows soon after.
Clouds of dust rise over the city as buildings begin to topple. The shrieks from within the grinding maw join a cacophonous chorus of thousands.
Leonida tries not to look back.
The five of them stop to gasp for breath after leaping out onto the cobbles of Portal Plaza.
“Ha… Ha, ha! Yes!” Rae throws their hands up into the air as a manic, triumphant grin cracks across their face. “We did it! The hunger is gone!”
Keros, still panting, stares at his ex-lover indignantly. “Rae, what the fuck? Did you not see what just happened back there?!”
Leonida is clutching her pained chest as she climbs back onto her feet. Her head feels light as a feather and her throat is choked with sand-dust, but even now she can hardly believe what she’s seeing. They makes a worried sound from behind their bandages.
“I can finally get back to what I was doing!” Rae continues, apparently unaware of the mood of their companions around them. “I’m on the verge of a breakthrough. You have no idea how huge this could be!”
“Rae,” Keros snarls, sulphurous smoke billowing out from his flared nostrils. “Whatever, WHATEVER it is you need help with next, don’t invite me.”
The demonspawn whirls around and begins stomping towards the Town Hall. Mendal sighs as he follows behind; he glances around for They, looking to bring them along, but the small, bandaged stranger has already vanished. Leonida can’t say she blames them.
It’s just her and Rae left in the Plaza. They smile in her general direction, their eyes looking unfocused. “Hey, thanks so much for helping me! I know it could definitely have gone better, but—”
WHAM.
Rae doubles over when Leonida’s fist slams into their stomach, and they reel backwards unsteadily.
“Feed on that, you little piece o’ shit,” she spits at them, before storming off.
Leonida holds herself against a wall as she bends over and retches.
She sees the Blood War every night in her sleep. Lives it, as Astaroth the Dormant. She had always thought that her dreams and mercenary work would prepare her for anything, even the sight of hundreds of bodies being crushed by falling buildings—
A torrent of sick forces its way up her gullet and out through her mouth, dribbling onto the cobblestones below mixed with saliva. Her eyes are damp now.
She could blame Prideborn for his madness, Rae for their selfishness, or Bahamut for failing to intercede, but it was her hands that detonated the bomb. It was her blind zealotry and thirst for glory that made her ignore her instincts about that platinum wyrm. And for what?
Her mind plays back the cries of children coming from under the rubble and her stomach turns. She heaves again.
Her body is numb all over. She can’t feel her connection to the Other Shore. In that moment, she is no warrior of Avernus — just a girl in a lonesome street, feeling all too mortal.