OCC: Alright, I'm sure a vampire and eleven, or so, professional assassins can be very distracting. The next few liches won't be dispached so easily, nor will they fight one-on-one.

Ian

"Then I shall expect the same from you, Worm King!" He shot back, jumping down from a pillar, the curse flying over him. "Sent your minions against me, and I shall slay them, AGAIN and AGAIN!"

The vampire's wrist blades lit up once again, heat radiating from their surface. Ian met the charge of the first orc-lich bodyguard, spinging inward to avoid the blunt weapon's strike. As the war hammer struck the stonework, he jumped slightly to land on the handle.
The unexpected burden forced the lich, however strong, to it knees. Before it could properly recover and throw the vampire off, the undead's head was cleaved in two by a scalding hot spike.

Ian landed easily, stepping over the body of the first lich, the remains of the head were smoking faintly. As the next two liches moved in, crossbow bolts, broadened to slice but not pierce, flew from vantage points as three of the Narza'Tai opened fire on the hoarde of undead.
The decaying flesh was no match for the specialized rounds, legs were halfed and necks were separated from torsos.

Plys'Iea

The brutal light burned his retinas, forcing him to step back and shut his eyelids tightly. The recoil lasted for a split second, before he regained his composure, with his eyes still pained, he did the best he could to compensate.
The alien's six extra-sensory appendages lengthened to their maximum, flaring out in different directions. One above each shoulder, to the left and right, and tow down toward the ground. His sixth sense was so well-developed, through nearly constant use, that it worked just as well as his sight.

The light of the witch's spell did not affect his ability to detect motion, he could fight just as well this way as he could with his eyes open...... but then he would have used both primary senses. As the Dunmer caught a dagger that thrummed oddly, he leapt toward the female, whom he suspected was a witch of some sort.
His large, four-fingered hand formed a fist the size of a typical humanoid's head, and attempted to strike Amrita.

Cerpin

Cerpin didn't use tactics as straightforward as Ian's. Instead, he stayed atop the stonework with the Narza'Tai, but while they shot crossbow bolts, he summoned lightning bolts and fireballs, eventually concentrating his fire on the two liches that faced Ian.

Cerpin could barely see Mannimarco in the distance, but there was a wall of undead blocking the way.

Rann

Amrita had told him to close his eyes before the dagger even reached his hand. Surprising even himself, he caught the dagger, but when he opened his eyes again, their foe was headed straight for Amrita, the monstrous fist threatening to crush her skull.

Feeling as if he had no choice, he drained a moderate amount of magicka from Amrita and immediately felt it coursing through his own veins. He didn't have much time to be creative, so he put a shield on Amrita as he ran to attack with his dagger.

This post has been edited by Dantrag: Oct 18 2007, 11:47 PM

Amrita

As Amrita recovered from her spell use, she was surprised to see that the creature was lunging in for an attack almost instantly after her spell. A slight chill went up her spine as she felt her magicka being drained by Rann. She didn't know that Rann had such an ability.

Just before the fist of the creature landed, Amrita sensed the shield spell surround her. The fist smacked against the barrier and caused Amrita to slide backwards from the force; but she was unharmed.

She paused a brief moment as she figured out how the beast could recover from such a blinding spell so quickly. Obviously it had other ways to sense them. She then noticed that six spikes located on the body of the beast had increased and were twitching constantly. She pointed at them.

"Aim for those spiky appendages! I think they're like motion sensors," she instructed Rann as she aimed a bolt at one particular one and fired.

Rann

Rann had closed the distance between himself and the Plys'Iea, and sticking Amrita's dagger into his belt, he decided to try Amrita's suggestion. He gripped his sword with both hands and with a mighty overhead chop, swung at one of the appendages, unsure of what would happen next.

Mannimarco.

Mannimarco cursed. The vampire was good, easily slaying one of his new Liches. At the same time, a torrent of crossbow bolts and magicka rained down upon his forces. The Lich-king rose his hands into the sky and, after sending a curse at the origin of that firing, scores of zombified birds leaped for the skies, momentarily blackening the sun as they sweeped around for an attack on the walls their ground-bound kin couldn't reach.

OOC: The individual birds are fragile as hell and can't do much damage. Any form of armour is enough to stop a peck. So mostly they're distraction (and meatshield)


Flint Ironwood.

Flint looked up for a moment as a shadow rose. He didn't remember any clouds blocking the sun.
,,Ah, crap." He muttered as he identified the source of the darkness as countless flying animals of some sort. The way they moved in a thick swarm made him shiver involuntarily.
,,Something's wrong. Big time." The Breton concluded. He looked down at the work in his hands. It would take at least half an hour to reassemble his armour, and most of it was still in pretty poor condition at that.

He dropped the pile, picked up Aleatoire and leapt straight up so he could see out over the city.

OCC: The birds should also be a great way to disease the army

Plys'Iea

He only comprehended the female's words as her lighting struck one of his spines. The electricity caused the appendage to multiply the pain threefold. The towering alien lost his footing, incidently, causing Rann's dagger to miss.

He caught himself, and instinctively rolled to the left. As he rose, he reminded himself that the lightning had only disabled that individual spine temporarily, and if his foes managed to cleave part of them off, it would grow back with time.
His sense was still active, albiet, not quite as clear, but that luxury would return in a minute as the damaged spine recovered. The Plys'Iea was forced to understand face the truth, these creatures knew of his spines, their vulnerability. No longer could he toy with them, nor could he continue to fight at such a close range.

With that he retreated rapidly, using his senses to detect his discarded staff.

Ian

As a small murder (group of crows) swooped down to assail Ian, he cast a minor shield spell, enough to ward off the mad pecking for a time. As the two liches burned, the vampire drew his bow for a moment and let loose a couple of frost arrows, partially freezing and sticking some zombies to the stone work.
Before another group of liches approached, he stowed the projectile weapon and held up his burning wrist blades, prepared for another melee.

This post has been edited by Lord Revan: Oct 19 2007, 09:53 PM

Rann

Rann saw that the alien was retreating, so he threw his sword after him as hard as he could. Being that it was a sword, though, and not to mention an unbalanced one, it fell short and did nothing but make a clamor on the cobblestone streets.

"Thanks for that lightning earlier," he said between heavy breathing. His heart was racing, which only multiplied the amount of blood pouring from both bite wounds on his shoulder and arm.

He wanted nothing more than to go back after the creature, but he knew that he would be ill-prepared. Looking around, he spotted Flogir propping himself up on Iceshard, still giving orders to his men who were hard at work keeping the zombies from entering the breach in the wall.

Cerpin

"Take cover!" he shouted to the Narza'Tai around him. With a quick glance, he was satisfied that all assassins were properly sheltered.

He cast a large area of effect frost spell and watched as many of the birds fell to the ground and shattered into tiny pieces of ice. There were still more birds that would prove to be annoyances, but at least he could see the true target again.

Ian

The next two liches were a Dunmer in glass with a dai-katana and legionnaire with the typical sword and shield. Ian stepped to the side and used his left wrist spike, plus the long blade's momentum to move the chop harmlessly to the left.
The vampire slammed his free arm in the glass breast plate, it cracked at the point of impact but did not yield completely. By now the legionnaire had arrived, raising its longsword above its head for an impaling chop.

Ian threw himself away from the two, avoiding the legionnaire's strike. Both liches recovered and rushed toward the vampire again. Time to end this, the agent thought, his blades bursting into flame anew.

Dan, standing about

Dan stood, watching about as events unfolded around him. Up until the current moment he had been idly watching as two warriors did battle against the alien beast he himself had faced previously. The battle was fierce yet Dan was helpless since he was too far away from the action to actually help. He did try to support the two warriors fighting the beast with his prayers. As the battle seemed to become more and more dire, Dan could only wish that he was there as well, so he could at least sacrifice himself for the two brave warriors to escape. Unlike Dan, they had both their tongues and their lives ahead of them. Before Dan could contemplate more on the situation however, the skies were blackened by endless numbers of crows, which swooped down to attack the soldiers waiting for the next attack at the breach. Though they were frail, they would all swarm their prey until it had no choice but to flee or take cover. As Dan drew his blade he could see soldiers running about in a demoralized fashion, confused by the crows.

"Stand your ground! Face them and they shall fall!" Dan yelled telepathically, trying to rally the fleeing soldiers.

Soon enough, he himself starting running and swinging Balmung through the air wildly, hewing a few of the wretched birds in the process. Dan could also see with the tail of his eye that the assault at the breach had been renewed tenfold. The phalanx however was holding, with some difficulty. Spears glistened as they were being thrust about, all around the length of the shield wall. Men were pushing and shoving with all their strength, in a valiant effort to keep the enemy out of the city. The Imperial phalanx was being pushed back however. Recognizing the greater danger, Dan quickly ran to do his own share of pushing. With his utmost force, he slammed into the men holding the shieldwall, pushing them forward a little. He then kept on pushing, all the while rallying his comrades telepathically.

We won't last long without reinforcements. Where could the commander be?

Flogir however was unable to personally rally the shield wall. He was unable to do much of anything in his current state, except bark out orders desperately, in a faint hope that someone would listen.

Plys'Iea

Some distance away, the alien had recovered his staff. He rose back up and tentatively opened his eyes.

His vision was not quite back to normal, but most of the pain and shroud had deminished.
When the murders descended, he was far enough that the huge flock did not immediately reach him.

The hunter watched as soldiers attempted to flee or defend themselves against the pecking birds.
"The Maggot King's work I suspect"

Before a murder dived at his exposed head, the Plys'Iea wisely shut his eyes again.

While the birds played hell with his motion tracking, he would be able to navigate without possibly having his eyes pecked out, like some soldiers and goblins.

Mannimarco.

Mannimarco gritted his teeth. The Vampire was doing better than he had expected, even considering their earlier encounters and the man's allies.
,,No matter. I have converted this place's entire ecosystem to my cause. A single bug won't do much good, but how about a billion?" He nodded in thought and raised his hands again. This time, it appeared as if the entire ground had sprung to life. Ants, worms, two dogs, flies, mosquietos, caterpillars. It all swarmed to join the fight.

,,Go on, fight for your lives! I shall gladly make them mine!" He shouted at his opposition.

OOC: Warn me when I'm beginning to get too uber. Anyway, mosquetos and flies won't do more but cause some itching. The caterpillars are practically helpless. The dogs are straightforward. Treat them as a slightly faster but slightly weaker zombie. The real threat are the ants, even though they're slow. If they're allowed to swarm all over, they'll kill. Too bad you can knock out huge portions of them with a single fireball.


Flint Ironwood.

Flint had landed next to Odrik.
,,Hi, how's it going?" He asked. The Bruman waved a hand in greeting before he gazed back at the breach.
,,We're holding at the moment. My men are thinning the ranks beyond the wall, gives the phalanx less stuff to stab at. But what is that Necrophyliac doing? He zombified birds?" Odrik grunted.

Flint shrugged.
,,Hey, he's a necromancer. Why stick with humans? Speaking of which, maybe we should smash that temple before anything else comes out of it. The Trebuchet I had moved earlier should be able to hit it from its current position." He suggested casually. At first Odrik frowned but then he gave a single nod and relayed the order.
,,I don't think the Divines will appreciate this, but I think they appreciate that thing's infection even less."

Two minutes later, a slow stream of rocks blotted out the sun as they crashed down on the temple.

Ian

The sun faded for a moment, then there was the sounds of stones splintering. Masonry flew in different directions, smashed undead, and damaging other structures nearby. Ian leapt back before a man-sized piece of stone-work could splatter him.

One of the liches he was fighting got its side clipped by the shrapnel. The vampire glanced over his shoulder to see the other two stepping forth. Then, to his relief, the Narza'Tai group leader and another sword-wielding assassin appeared and intercepted the undead.
Ian turned his attention back to the Dunmer lich, twin, flaming wrist blades versus one very sharp dai-katana. He reminded himself not to take the lich as a nuisance only. So focused was the vampire, that he missed Mannimarco's ranting and the sections of paved streets being pushed aside by undead vermin.

Five more Narza'Tai appeared, all wielding fine blades, to impede the undead long enough for the deed to be done. One of the archers said to Cerpin, "We'll do our best to hold off the undead, take out Mannimarco."

OCC: Perhaps Cerpin won't get the chance to swap bodies, but otherwise tire the KOW out enough for Ian to get Kirana back, and gain a four of Mannimarco's fingers from whatever hand he's holding Kirana's gem with.....

This post has been edited by Lord Revan: Oct 22 2007, 04:25 AM

Rann

Rann hadn't been using the mind shielding techniques that his sister taught him for quite some time, as nobody had been using telepathy as of late. Now, suddenly, someone was shouting encouragements in his thoughts.

He gave Amrita a questioning look that seemed to ask if she was 'hearing' the same thing he was. Her expression told him that she was, and he began looking around, trying to spot the one responsible.

Cerpin

Cerpin put a barrier spell on himself to avoid the nuisances of birds and insects while he took off after Mannimarco. He slipped on his glove as he went, mentally preparing himself for the beating he planned to purposefully take.

Mannimarco.

It didn't take Mannimarco long to realize that Cerpin was going for him. With all of the undead heroes kept busy by Ian, only regular undead stood between Cerpin and the Lich. They were too slow to present much of an obstacle.

Mannimarco prepared a curse he would throw as soon as Cerpin broke through the last line.

Amrita

Amrita eased her adrenaline-filled breathing at the vacation of the creature. She had done something she wanted to, plus she found out a way to actually hurt the beast. She would need to spread that knowledge along to the rest of the army.

Amrita then heard the telepathic message and noticed that Rann had heard it to. It seemed that he wanted to know who did it. Using her magical expertise, Amrita followed the leftover essence to an older man with a longsword. Amrita nodded to the man to tell Rann that was the person he was seeking.

Dan, fighting at the breach

The shield wall was being pushed back further and further by the assortment of creatures and men gathered to conquer the Imperial City. Enemy warriors and soldiers pushed and shoved with their shields as hard as they could, while goblins flung themselves at the shield wall, weakening and pushing it back with every suicidal wave that attacked. Dan could see that most of the soldiers were nervous, and some of the ones from the back rows were starting to loose heart and waver.

"Stand your ground, if we lose the breach the city will be lost! Do not falter!" Dan shouted telepathically once more, his message echoing in a wide radius about him.

Out of all the soldiers however, the captain of the phalanx seemed calm. He was in the third row, thrusting his spear at the enemy warriors pushing the shield wall back. After savagely thrusting his lance through the throat of a tall Nord clad in mail, the captain looked around him. After the phalanx was pushed back a few more steps, he suddenly opened his mouth.

"Halt!" he yelled with all his strength.

The phalanx then suddenly stopped, not retreating one step further. Every man braced himself and held his ground on order of the captain. The front row then pulled their spears back, while the second row held their shields forth.

"Engage!" the captain yelled.

Suddenly, the first row advanced one step, thrusting their spears at the same time, skewering the front rows of the enemy. They then retreated behind, while the second row advanced with their shields held high. The phalanx had become an impenetrable wall once more. The enemy then renewed their attacks.

"Engage!" the captain yelled once more.

As had been done before, the men all advanced one step, thrusting their spears in unison once more. Dan was amazed to see the Imperial soldiers all move as one unit, coherently and without signs of individual mistakes. After another row of enemies was skewered, the foes seemed to lose heart. Some of the goblins started running back. Soon enough, a trickle became a flood and most of the enemy soon started retreating. Dan could notice that some of the soldiers in the phalanx were restless and eager to pursue the enemy, yet one glare from the captain was enough to make them stand their ground. The battle had been won, yet the enemy would undoubtlessly return in greater numbers the next time.

Dan stood at ease as he walked away from the phalanx, with Balmung slung on his shoulder. He was getting hot under his mail so he started looking for some water to cool himself. A small fountain nearby was enough to both quench his thirst and cool him down as well. Dan then started looking around for the two brave warriors which had fought the enemy champion.

Plys'Iea

The defenders had clearly forgetten about his presense, most were concentrated near the breach. The fools, he thought as he sensed a small group of civilians scavenging amongst the debris of once splendid structures.

Without hesitation, the alien honed in on them, one-by-one whenever one went out of sight of the others. His fangs ripped out their throats, his fists snapped their necks and smashed through their sternums, and his claws cleaved through their jugular viens.
In two minutes he stood alone, blood caking his boots, hands, and maw.

Though under-handed, the alien knew that slaughtering civilians would make even the most disiplined defenders disheartened and cloud their judgment.

Silently, the hunter slipped away, eager to further exploit this new hunting ground.

This post has been edited by Lord Revan: Oct 27 2007, 05:35 PM

Flogir

Flogir limped over to the breach, using Iceshard as a makeshift crutch. He clapped the captain on the back with his free hand and grinned.

"Excellent work, Captain. Same goes for everyone; you've done this city proud!" he paused to let his words sink in. "Now that we have a moment's respite, try to get some food, some water, and perhaps some sleep. Captain, setup a watch schedule."

Flogir walked away from the men then as the Captain started barking orders. Flogir wanted to find someone who would help him with his leg.

Rann

Rann looked over at the telepath that Amrita had pointed out, and watched as he led their side to a small victory at the breach. His mind wasn't completely there, though, as he was mostly thinking about how he hadn't been rendered unconscious after absorbing Amrita's power.

Her powers are of a dark nature.

It wasn't a fearful thought, nor was it one that changed his opinion of Amrita - after all, his own ability was considered to be dark in nature as well - he was merely curious and had a suspicion that she had her own set of unique abilities that she hadn't shared yet.

Rann then remembered what had happened last time he used his power, and he immediately pulled up his shirt sleeve to have a look at his tattooed arm. It was growing again, and still glowing red. If it was anything like the last time, though, it would stop in time. He then remembered that Amrita was standing right there, so he quickly pulled his sleeve back down and did his best to change the subject.

"Should we go meet the telepath then?" he asked.

Cerpin

Using a spell he had aptly named 'burning hands', his hands became engulfed in flame, and he used his fists to sear through half-rotten zombie flesh as he broke through the zombie line, trying to reach the necromancer. After a few short moments, he was through, and standing face-to-face with Mannimarco.

"The King of Worms, back from the grave to be beaten once more," he greeted, his yellow eyes staring at the mer in front of him with contempt.

Mannimarco

Mannimarco laughed, a cheerless laugh.
,,You do think so? Fool, it is your grave that will be dug here!" He answered and hurled the curse he had prepared. If it hit, Cerpin would merely be paralyzed, nothing more. Or at least, nothing more for as far as the eye could see. But from within, a parasite would be born, a parasite that hungered for the flesh of its host.