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Post by The Forgotten God on Jul 9, 2020 3:58:43 GMT
The Mist is home to strange and malevolent things, antithetical to life as humans can know it and aggressive in its expansion. There are times in the sunniest mornings though, even the elves of the Twilight Sun can admit that the deathly fog has a beauty unmatched around the world. The unnatural Mist can make prisms in ways normal water cannot, and at the breaking of dawn entire fields and valleys become a veritable kaleidoscope of patterns and swirls.
Or at least that’s how Herneiros remembers it, in the nights before he closes his eyes and prays to dead gods that the shadows do not visit during his slumber. For all his bravery and single minded wrath against the Mist decimating the world, even the bravest man cannot be fearless in a land ruled by death itself. And like an antibody fighting a virus, the Mist immunizes itself against even the most powerful interlopers into its unquestioned domain...and the stronger the invader, the worse the cure.
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Post by The Forgotten God on Jul 10, 2020 5:18:47 GMT
“Wake up sleepy!” Leuwinmorgh called out, in that baritone voice that a gigantic elf of two and a half centuries develops. Two and a half meter frame towered over the huge human, even towered over the other elves who formed the Mistbreakers, and his halberd was a full meter longer than any human would ever use. Elves usually thrives on subtlety. Leuwinmorgh pronounced the b in subtlety.
“We got him! Two miles west and coming ashore! Only a few hundred of his bastard spawn guarding him!” The crazed warchief spoke as though five hundred monsters of Mist were a speed bump to the three dozen member band. “Ain’t seen a mistlord out in the open like this in sixty years! Herneiros! Get that skinny ass up and grab your quiver! We’re getting us some calamari today!” The elves all chuckled. They laughed more in Herneiros’s dreams than they did in reality for some reason. Leuwinmorgh was exactly the same, however. No one could dream up a nuttier character.
A Reclaimer who survived three years of campaigns in the Mist was celebrated. Maximilian Wolfhaven had survived two hundred treks and thirty four years. The elf had managed a century and four score more years and had shown no signs of settling down. So why was he so sad in his dreams, when the real chief had never visibly shed a tear in the young human’s life?
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Post by Geoffrey Ravenhurst on Jul 11, 2020 15:50:53 GMT
"I'm awake!" His voice was masculine but not so booming as Herneiros thought it shouldn't sound. His face felt colder too. He had always said he would grow a great long beard so as not to suffer the elements like his elven family, but then the cold never bothered them anyway. Herneiros was simply a child and had not yet completely adapted to harsh winds.
The young human gathered his bow and arrows. He had wanted to learn the halberd like Leuwinmorgh, but his mother Olwyn had gently turned his focus to the bow. It was much safer and frankly, her son couldn't even lift her husband's weapon.
Prepared, he practically sprinted to his father's side. One day, Herneiros’s head would reach the elf's shoulder, but today, Leuwinmorgh still made the human feel like a dwarf.
He tried to imitate that Elven swagger, but it was harder with a bow. He was honestly just happy about not being left behind.
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Post by The Forgotten God on Jul 11, 2020 16:45:48 GMT
The elves had slipped through the Misty trees like wraiths, nearly as much part of the landscape now as the unnatural beasts surrounding it. For fifteen minutes there was nary a sound, and then Herneiros heard them. Sea-goblins. That’s what they called them anyway. As he created a ridge and peered over they saw the little abominations with their four clawed hands and prehensile tails scurrying about in their tribal rituals. And then...yes, there behind them, the Kraken itself.
The Kraken has been a colossal squid in its first life, a sentient terror of the seas. When the Mist had granted it its power though...that’s when it became a nightmare. A hundred and fifty feet of writhing barbed tentacles found purchase on the land, pulling the beast up and up. On its back was a great whelk shell, protecting it from the attacks that had repelled it in centuries long gone. Electric yellow light danced in its eyes and gave a hint as to the raw power coursing through it.
Even seeing the beast gave Herneiros chills, an unnatural fear settling in his bones. Legends told of some Mistlords who had defeated armies merely by being seen. The hunter could now see why. Leuwinmorgh made his hand signals and the elf war party began spreading out to prepare the ambush...
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Post by Geoffrey Ravenhurst on Jul 11, 2020 20:12:56 GMT
In his shock at the sight of the Mistlord, the young hunter had not thought to look directly at his father for commands and didn't move until he noticed the others spread out. Herneiros felt so clumsy as he prepared his bow and arrow while moving towards what seemed like a decent sniping spot.
But what could he fire at? He imagined thousands of archers had had the clever idea of aiming for the Kraken's monsyrous eye over the centuries, so it obviously required more than what it took to nail a squirrel to a tree. And the length of those tentacles...
Sea goblins.
Whatever those were, he began scanning the horizon for them. In his mind, he pictured little green men in garish Imperial attire with big hats, but this childlike image didn't mesh with the terrifying spectacle before him...
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Post by The Forgotten God on Jul 11, 2020 21:34:26 GMT
Exactly how the battle had begun was something Herneiros couldn’t remember. He only knew he hadn’t been involved in the first volley, the arrows felling four armed sentries and opening a hole into the enemy host. The sea goblins’ screams echoed across the coastal battleground and they rushed in a frenzy toward the offending archers. Just according to plan.
As the horde scrambled up the slopes they tripped on sliding rocks, their webbed feet horrible for gripping dry stone and branches, the splinters cutting the soft flesh between toes. Dozens and more died in the first minutes as Leuwinmorgh and his elites went around towards the prize itself, the ponderous sea monster as it exposed itself on land. They had decided that, lack of knowledge to the contrary, fire would be their weapon of choice, and months before this battle they had bought casks of thick oil from a merchant in Bastion who assured them the material could burn even underwater.
Herneiros had one such cask on his back as he sprinted towards the gigantic monster and the Kraken seemed slow to recognize the danger.
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Post by Geoffrey Ravenhurst on Jul 26, 2020 0:41:51 GMT
Herneiros hoped it was true that fish didn't have ears because he was screaming almost the entire sprint. Eventually actual words were formed. By the time he reached the Kraken itself, he had settled on, "I am Herneiros! I am a hunter! I am going to live! I am Herneiros! I am a hunter! I am going to live! I am Herneiros! I am a hunter! I am going to live! I am Herneiros! I am a hunter! And I am going to shove this barrel up your fat pink arse!"
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Post by The Forgotten God on Jul 26, 2020 3:21:40 GMT
The Kraken turned toward the threat too late to prevent the savage assault. The flaming casks smashed onto its shell and tentacles and the burning oil stuck like honey to the Mistlord. Sizzling and the unmistakable smell of calamari filled the air as the Kraken screeched an unearthly roar.
Herneiros remembered seeing Leuwinmorgh use his unearthly strength to heave a second cask nearly fifty yards to the monster, adding to the inferno. The elves fired their crossbows and pressed the attack. Herneiros had to roll behind a boulder to avoid the looping strike of a tentacle crackling with some pulsating energy that hummed as it whistled through the air.
For a minute or so the fight had been to their advantage. One minute was longer than anyone had managed to last in decades. And one minute was all that they were allowed.
Exactly sixty four seconds after the first cask landed the Kraken turned its enormous beak toward the raiders and opened it with a hiss. Flames licked at it as a disgusting black ink fired out, melting anyone caught in its wake, dissolving them like they were sugar cubes in boiling water. A quarter of the elves had simply ceased to exist in that eight second span.
The next minutes were of panic and retreat and a confused melee. For a mile they had moved toward the misty forest away from the sea dwelling hordes. Most would be devastated at the failed attack, but the surviving elves had cheered that night. For even as their kindred dissolved, they had seen the beast bleed. And a monster that bleeds is a monster that can die.
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