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Aug. 16th, 2012 03:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
death_gone_madThe stone is deployed.
Yes, I feel it. It's little wonder no one has found the place yet; there are spells in place to disguise the weak spot. It is going to take more effort than it used to take to punch through. It may be best to wait for the next guard change. The weak spot has to show up then.
You don't have the power to do it yourself?
Though the other gods have mostly abandoned this world, they still interfere. I am not all powerful and all seeing, for the gods hide things from each other, and mortals learn from their gods. Especially the Mahjarrat, due to my idiot brother and ... other idiots. Stay out of sight, I don't want these idiots to think that they are colluding with humans.
Yes My Lady.
A contigent of scabarites is gathered, waiting on the vaguely humanoid red beetle seated at the high end of the room. The not-quite priestess of the new alliance between the Devourer and the Most Wise and Holy Scabaras looks to be deep in thought as she searches and waits. There was an evil in a far away land, an evil that needed to be extinguished, and the Mistress wasn't going to risk a march across the halfway across the world through the human kingdoms to get there. The yellow shelled insectoid scabarites stand ready with lances, longbows, quivers, and staves to leave, many on their first purification mission.
She stands and utters, "We go," providing little warning to the cold blooded scabarites gathered before her for the abrupt change of climate that comes next. The warm, smoky cavern they were in gives way to suffocating emptiness, then blinding light, back to emptiness. Then a cold, empty sky, and snow everywhere. There is a brief struggle somewhere in the ranks, then suddenly they are no longer outside, but inside a room even chillier than it was outside.
Eyes turn to face the invading insectoid army. Human eyes, but also icy globes and facets. The creatures made of living ice are the first to move toward the scabarites, as if they could sense what effect the bitter cold would have on their cold blooded anatomy. The red shelled one, however, showed no signs of drowsiness.
"UNNATURAL FILTH!!"
The Mistress' fire magic hits the fiendish living ice hard, and it warms up the room enough to give the scabarites a fighting chance. But it is not as warm as the caves back home, not as warm as the desert, but still they fight on. Room through room, they fight sleepiness, human warriors, archers, and mages, unholy spirits, giant spiders made of ice, trolls, trolls of ice, ice dragons, ice hydras, ice giants, ice demons, so much ice. And not just icy rooms and icy foes, but icy traps. And deeper the dungeon descends, and so to do the scabarites. They flames provided by the red Mistress consume the fallen, both to keep the living warm and to spare the dead from the necromancers she keeps screaming about, urging her dwindling army to resist the cold and the slugishness it brings, to push on through and rid the world of the necromantic stain. Down, floor by floor, past mighty demons, witches, behemoths. And huge floating tentacled eyeballs. And accursed frigid wind and magic.
Then...
"Praise Scabaras! We escaped that frozen hellAAAuuGGckK" The first scabarite to see the ice free room hits the room's floor with an arrow through his head.
"Archers!" hisses the Mistress, "Mages move up, everyone else move back. Sandstorms and Plague Swarms on my signal, then everyone rush the room. Lancers, be quick if you want to save lives."
A wave of flame spreads through the room quickly followed by the dark magic of the scabarite sand and plague spells. The remnants of the scabarite invaders pour into the room and quickly eliminate the few defenders actually there. This, coupled with the change of ... climate? ... gives the scarabites a chance to stop and rest.
The red carapaced Mistress, despite wanting to press on, pauses as well and surveys the surviving scabarites.
How did I manage to keep so many alive through that? "How many defenders were in here? Did anyone get a count?"
"Five?"
"I saw eight."
"Twelve maybe?"
"Much less than what we were fighting through before." The Mistress rummages through the chests and pots scattered about the room. There is food, maps, notes, mugs. "Eat, rest up," she says after shoving a few mouthfuls of food in between her mandibles. "We'll have to move again soon, I don't want to get caught defending." She fishes out a mug, walks over to the door to the next room, and uses the mug to try to listen for clues about what they would be facing next.
"What are you doing?" asks a near by archer.
"Listening. Shh," hisses the Mistress.
"Then why aren't you using your antennae?"
She gives him a severely annoyed look. "The sound carries better this way. Trust me, I know these things." You will be the the first to die in the next room. She carries on listening, but this time she presses her illusory antennae against the door as well.
Yes, I feel it. It's little wonder no one has found the place yet; there are spells in place to disguise the weak spot. It is going to take more effort than it used to take to punch through. It may be best to wait for the next guard change. The weak spot has to show up then.
You don't have the power to do it yourself?
Though the other gods have mostly abandoned this world, they still interfere. I am not all powerful and all seeing, for the gods hide things from each other, and mortals learn from their gods. Especially the Mahjarrat, due to my idiot brother and ... other idiots. Stay out of sight, I don't want these idiots to think that they are colluding with humans.
Yes My Lady.
A contigent of scabarites is gathered, waiting on the vaguely humanoid red beetle seated at the high end of the room. The not-quite priestess of the new alliance between the Devourer and the Most Wise and Holy Scabaras looks to be deep in thought as she searches and waits. There was an evil in a far away land, an evil that needed to be extinguished, and the Mistress wasn't going to risk a march across the halfway across the world through the human kingdoms to get there. The yellow shelled insectoid scabarites stand ready with lances, longbows, quivers, and staves to leave, many on their first purification mission.
She stands and utters, "We go," providing little warning to the cold blooded scabarites gathered before her for the abrupt change of climate that comes next. The warm, smoky cavern they were in gives way to suffocating emptiness, then blinding light, back to emptiness. Then a cold, empty sky, and snow everywhere. There is a brief struggle somewhere in the ranks, then suddenly they are no longer outside, but inside a room even chillier than it was outside.
Eyes turn to face the invading insectoid army. Human eyes, but also icy globes and facets. The creatures made of living ice are the first to move toward the scabarites, as if they could sense what effect the bitter cold would have on their cold blooded anatomy. The red shelled one, however, showed no signs of drowsiness.
"UNNATURAL FILTH!!"
The Mistress' fire magic hits the fiendish living ice hard, and it warms up the room enough to give the scabarites a fighting chance. But it is not as warm as the caves back home, not as warm as the desert, but still they fight on. Room through room, they fight sleepiness, human warriors, archers, and mages, unholy spirits, giant spiders made of ice, trolls, trolls of ice, ice dragons, ice hydras, ice giants, ice demons, so much ice. And not just icy rooms and icy foes, but icy traps. And deeper the dungeon descends, and so to do the scabarites. They flames provided by the red Mistress consume the fallen, both to keep the living warm and to spare the dead from the necromancers she keeps screaming about, urging her dwindling army to resist the cold and the slugishness it brings, to push on through and rid the world of the necromantic stain. Down, floor by floor, past mighty demons, witches, behemoths. And huge floating tentacled eyeballs. And accursed frigid wind and magic.
Then...
"Praise Scabaras! We escaped that frozen hellAAAuuGGckK" The first scabarite to see the ice free room hits the room's floor with an arrow through his head.
"Archers!" hisses the Mistress, "Mages move up, everyone else move back. Sandstorms and Plague Swarms on my signal, then everyone rush the room. Lancers, be quick if you want to save lives."
A wave of flame spreads through the room quickly followed by the dark magic of the scabarite sand and plague spells. The remnants of the scabarite invaders pour into the room and quickly eliminate the few defenders actually there. This, coupled with the change of ... climate? ... gives the scarabites a chance to stop and rest.
The red carapaced Mistress, despite wanting to press on, pauses as well and surveys the surviving scabarites.
How did I manage to keep so many alive through that? "How many defenders were in here? Did anyone get a count?"
"Five?"
"I saw eight."
"Twelve maybe?"
"Much less than what we were fighting through before." The Mistress rummages through the chests and pots scattered about the room. There is food, maps, notes, mugs. "Eat, rest up," she says after shoving a few mouthfuls of food in between her mandibles. "We'll have to move again soon, I don't want to get caught defending." She fishes out a mug, walks over to the door to the next room, and uses the mug to try to listen for clues about what they would be facing next.
"What are you doing?" asks a near by archer.
"Listening. Shh," hisses the Mistress.
"Then why aren't you using your antennae?"
She gives him a severely annoyed look. "The sound carries better this way. Trust me, I know these things." You will be the the first to die in the next room. She carries on listening, but this time she presses her illusory antennae against the door as well.