Ohtar Turinson
Explorer
Return of the Archwizards. The name of the series Troy Denning did about the return of Shade.Gez said:
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Shemeska's Planescape Storyhour (Updated 29 Jan 2014)
- Thread starter Shemeska
- Start date
Gez
First Post
Well, the guardinals emprisonned the Mother of Serpents in Belarian so that the Axis of Eeeevil 
p) couldn't make use of her. I guess grabbing Belarian was, in a way, a "rescue" mission to seize that monstrous asset.
Now, building that fortress of evil on Belarian was an impressive task. Wonder if it isn't tied to the disparition of the Crawling City... CC moves to Carceri, pass through the Carcerian Portal, and arrives at Belarian.
p) couldn't make use of her. I guess grabbing Belarian was, in a way, a "rescue" mission to seize that monstrous asset.Now, building that fortress of evil on Belarian was an impressive task. Wonder if it isn't tied to the disparition of the Crawling City... CC moves to Carceri, pass through the Carcerian Portal, and arrives at Belarian.
Clueless
Webmonkey
Planewalker updates, and a bit of an advertisement for those of you who're already missing Shemmie's storyhour and want more:
First - a veritable bevy of works, recently joining the library of our old friend the Chronicler. (Has anyone ever actually see the old geezer? Name like that one'd think one woulda heard o' him before now.) These bein' works from - oh boy. Her. Ms. Shemeska herself: a collection of bedtime stories. Whispers Upon the Waste, Welcome to Carceri, The Inevitable, The Heart of Perdition, So tell me, what is it you want?, Lament of the Willing Damned, For There is a Hole in the Sky, Footsteps on Oinos, Fine Print.
In other news, under Planar Portals, a new class detailing the details o' the godhaters, the Athar. By Christopher Campbell, this promises t' be an interestin' read. An' useful at that if'n you plan t' meet up with any Athar anytime soon. Defiers
First - a veritable bevy of works, recently joining the library of our old friend the Chronicler. (Has anyone ever actually see the old geezer? Name like that one'd think one woulda heard o' him before now.) These bein' works from - oh boy. Her. Ms. Shemeska herself: a collection of bedtime stories. Whispers Upon the Waste, Welcome to Carceri, The Inevitable, The Heart of Perdition, So tell me, what is it you want?, Lament of the Willing Damned, For There is a Hole in the Sky, Footsteps on Oinos, Fine Print.
In other news, under Planar Portals, a new class detailing the details o' the godhaters, the Athar. By Christopher Campbell, this promises t' be an interestin' read. An' useful at that if'n you plan t' meet up with any Athar anytime soon. Defiers
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Shemeska
Adventurer
Have yourself a 'lothy little Christmas
“The changing of loyalty consists, in its primary step, of the eradication of existing loyalties…What can people be made to believe? They can be made to believe anything which is administered to them with sufficient brutality and force. The obedience of a populace is as good as they will believe.” – Lavrenty Beria
1 hour before the slide:
The Ebon hovered before the gaping, gnashing maws of the Mother of Serpents there upon Belarian as the layer shuddered and slid. The great serpent locked its eyes upon the fiend like a cobra upon a snake charmer; entranced, enthralled, captivated, controlled.
“And now after so many years of preparation, I have need of you my pet. I have need of you now after these long centuries of waiting and gorging you on the blood of my own kind to whet your stomach to the taste.” The Ebon said as his eyes began to glow a flickering red that was soon reflected back and amplified in the depths of the Serpent’s own.
“And now as your prison begins to break, its wardings buckling and tearing from their moorings, I have much to speak to you of the coming hour. So listen, learn, submit, and obey…”
But previously…
4 hours before the slide:
Anthraxus the Decayed looked up from four miles distant at the Tower that once was his, and soon would be again if all went according to plan. The ground shook as he strode between the ranks of fiends serving in his name; those who would die in his name, for death was preferable to cowardice should he succeed, and preferable to surrender should he fail. But failure was not in his mind or in his twisted heart.
“Ensure that the mortals are ringed by at least double their number of fiends. They fear death where a Mezzoloth does not, and I want them terrified more by those at their backs driving them forwards than to whatever filth awaits them in the trenches ringing my former Tower.” The voice of the former Oinoloth rang out harshly to his attendant generals and warlords, Ultroloths all of them, perhaps twenty-five or thirty all told. Surrounding out around them were perhaps double that number of Arcanaloths and Nycaloths, who would in turn carry out the smaller details of the battle plans within their own smaller contingents.
The precognizant scent of blood rose on the air as The Decayed spoke out once more, the Staff of the Lower Planes cradled in his arms. “Death under the pikes and spells of the enemy before us is far more preferable to you, all of you, than to risk my displeasure and all the lower planes forbid, my anger. They stand before you as cowards and I stand behind you as conqueror and savior. You have no choice but to wallow in their blood this day in honor of me. You will dance amongst their bones to the rhythm of my creed and praises in honor of me. It is birthright, it is destiny, and it is my will.”
And Anthraxus the Decayed raised his skull-topped staff and gestured forth towards the summit of Khin-Oin miles above, laughing as the armies surged forwards around him. As the uncounted millions of fiends surged flowed like a black, chitinous tide of damned souls and evil made flesh, the air hummed with the battle cries of his soldiers and the beating of the wings of slasraths that threatened to blot out of the gray of the sky itself, while high above atop the summit of the Wasting Tower, the Oinoloth looked down.
“What, if any, suggestions do you have Typhus?” Mydianchlarus the Oinoloth said as he strummed his fingers upon the throne of Khin-Oin.
Typhus, one of the Altraloths of Disease, looked up at his lord from where he stood on the precipice of the tower overlooking the armies below. “Your strategy is sound my lord, I can find no fault in the overall plan itself. As well, the armies are nearly evenly matched in raw numbers and in their exact composition.”
The Oinoloth nodded, his expressionless face holding only the flickering, gleaming eyes of his species and the jaundice of his position, though his voice rang clearly and powerfully in the mind of his supplicant. “You hesitate slightly. Why? It is unlike you to pause when discussing military strategy.”
Typhus nodded his compact, misshapen head, “The mercenaries employed by your enemy swell his force to a fraction larger than your own. Your own contingent of Mezzoloths is marginally larger, but not enough to make up the difference. While your own force of arcanaloths is nearly double that of the enemy, his hired wizards make up the difference, or nearly so, and we have nothing to counteract his use of clerics.”
“Godslaves…” The single statement hung heavily on the air with the faint sensation or smell of burnt flesh lingering on the wind, intoned by the Oinoloth’s impression.
“At least the Overlord of Carceri has provided a larger force than originally promised by him or projected by us. Not that he has deigned to show up in person…” Typhus put emphasis on the latter fact and smiled cunningly at the Ultroloth prince.
“He still has time to make his presence known and to earn his continued position of leadership in the Red Prison. If he does not, well, then you and I will talk about your ambitions. But not till that point.” Mydianchlarus was firm, but the smile only grew on the Altraloth’s face.
A moment’s concentration crossed the otherwise blank features of the Oinoloth and flickering motes of greenish, sickly light danced in the ebony ovals of his eyes as his voice reached out across the miles and into the minds of his generals and the blackened hearts of his soldiers, down to the very last canoloth.
“Brace for them and let them charge you. Protect the casters and engines of war behind the front lines and allow them to fire into the enemy’s rear guard after the initial wave is broken. Feast upon their hearts this day my children and I will be proud of you. Serve your Oinoloth and your race.”
3 hours before the slide:
“The armies will fight for days and I am not in the mood for a war of attrition at this point, even if it is one that will win by virtue of the Tower and what lays below.” The Oinoloth said as he rose from the throne atop the Wasting Tower with a flaming red glint swirling within his eyes.
His attendants nodded, Ultroloth’s all of them, perhaps thirty or more gathered together there at the summit of the spinal column that marked the birthplace of their race. None of them however replied or dared hazard a guess as to what their master meant by the statement.
“You disappoint me, all of you. But no matter, in this matter idiocy breeds compliance and that is all I require for the moment, neither brilliance nor spontaneity, just brute force.” Mydianchlarus allowed his voice to linger on the air as a latent psionic hum for a few moments before brandishing his sword.
His generals still said nothing.
“My predecessor is arrogant beyond his means and we will enter the fray directly and make our way to him. When the fallen one is dead the war will be over and we may begin shipping our troops back to their battles in the Blood War, and begin the execution of those who had the temerity of choosing the wrong side.”
“Or those not appearing in person…” Typhus said with a snicker underneath his breath. Unnoticed in his covetous moment of envy there at the summit, the Altraloth failed to notice the unnatural smile on the face of his scribe, an arcanaloth from the Tower Arcane in Gehenna. Later, though the scribe would die in the continued fighting of the siege, Typhus would remember the expression it had borne in that moment and the idiot savant of War would be perplexed by it, and, for a brief second, appreciative.
A brief gesture was all it took from the Oinoloth and the Ultroloths separated out. Half of them clustered around their master and the other half vanished in the momentary, telltale flash of teleportation down to their own troops in the seething carpet miles below. Once more the telepathic voice of Mydianchlarus rang out into the mind of Typhus, “I would have you at my side… as further proof of your loyalty and ability to command; something that will be taken into consideration when Anthraxus is dead…”
Typhus nodded, wiped the stream of drool from its mouth and brandished his axe as he took his place at the Oinoloth’s side. Mydianchlarus drew his own blade from out of thin air like a double-edged splinter of a moonless night gripped in his hand and wreathed in flame. Then, with the hum of defensive spells cutting the still, they vanished and reappeared upon the battlefield miles below.
They were sandwiched between the clashing front lines of Mezzoloths and within a second those loyal to the wrong side were incinerated, disemboweled, petrified, imploded, crushed by invisible hands, or simply hacked to pieces. With a hole cleanly punched in the lines of the enemy, and with the defensive wardings of both armies impeding long range teleportation behind one another’s lines, the Oinoloth’s army surged around him and through the breach, and he soon followed.
Gregor Theodorikos, a mortal cleric of Athena stood behind the line of Mezzoloths in front of him and hurled a column of flaming, divine kissed death down upon the enemies of his current master Anthraxus. Evil was evil, there was no doubt about that, but gold was gold, and dying for gold in battle was no dishonor as long as one fought bravely and with pride. Still, the fiends made him uncomfortable in how they looked at him with every whispered prayer and invocation of Athena’s power.
The cleric ignored them and charged forward as the line moved up to replace those who had fallen in the more heated battles in the forward groupings where there seemed to have been a sudden and tremendous break in the besiegers’ progress towards the Tower. Beside the cleric, his brother Dimitri stood and heavily gripped a pike larger than Gregor. Both cleric and soldier had seen easy profit, tales to tell their children, and things to proudly boast over when drunk in the years to come by signing over their spells and arms to Anthraxus in Center. Now however, they found themselves in more of a Hell than they could have imagined was possible.
A massive explosion twenty yards to their right sent them sprawling with its detonation and then scrambling to avoid the rain of gore, blood and broken earth sent skyward. As the bodies of lesser yugoloths and mortals alike rained down in pieces around them the fiendish artillery on their own sides fired back, the ‘spells-long-reach’, catapults for spells, raining down explosive bolts and showers of death in retribution.
Dmitri cried out in fear as a squadron of Slasrath’s shot over their position before turning about and hurling a wave of spells at the fiends below, not far from their own position. Had they been the intended targets they would likely have been incinerated instantly. But, just as soon as the arcanaloths had expended their spells, they were enveloped in a cloud of arrows and ballista bolts from the troops below them.
“We’ll get out of this brother of mine, don’t you worry. Don’t you worry at all,” Gregor said to his brother.
“How can you say that?! Look around you! If we stop, our ‘allies’ will slaughter us or worse, and if we march forward the only thing that’s waiting for us is death.” The fighter said fearfully in a quite realistic assessment of the battle for he and his brother.
“Athena will find a way for us both. She will protect us. Have faith brother.” Gregor said as he whispered a prayer of protection to his goddess a split second before a hail of arrows descended atop their position and skewered a dozen fiends, leaving only them alive by virtue of the divine protection against such.
“Maybe you’re right… but we’re being driven towards the break in the lines ahead, and magic won’t much prepare you from being devoured alive in close combat… we’ll see…” Dmitri said as he thrust he pike upwards to clip the wing of a low flying enemy slasrath.
They both progressed into the hellstorm between the two armies that hurled themselves at one another in a frenzy of blind loyalty. At least the fiends did, and the mortals fought for honor, gold, and most importantly their own lives since they, unlike the fiends, feared death upon the Waste. Closer and closer to the front lines the ash of the ground became a thick, syrupy mud, thick and wet with the blood of mortals and the acidic bile and guts of the fiends. The air itself was heavy with a spray of the stuff like fear taken palpable form as it misted upon their face with each change in the wind; but still they moved forwards. With the iron tridents of their own master’s Mezzoloths at their back, they had little choice.
Still closer, the detonations of spells and hurled missiles from fiendish siege engines that were fired almost indiscriminately from either side of the line grew even heavier while somewhere a quarter-mile or so to their right, it seemed like the armies of Mydianchlarus were surging through a sudden break in the attackers’ line while elsewhere their own line was fragmenting in response to the push of troops forward in other places. Their world was a sea of fiends with blades, pikes and banners rising above the surface of it all like the fins of swimming sharks awash in the bloody froth with which the waters had been chummed, and the latter was what the two mortals that moment felt like.
But not all in the battle was a moving sea of carnage, pain and death that ringed the Wasting Tower for miles in all direction. Not everywhere was the air cut by the curses of the living, the agonized screams of the dying, the ring of steel of steel, steel of chitin, and steel into flesh. Not everywhere was the air alive with the sound of marching feet, chanted prayers and spells, the explosive result of those arcane mutterings, or even the creak and thunderous release of the engines of war on both sides. One small spot seemed calmer, more peaceful, offset and outside the battle in way.
An outside observer to the carnage that ringed the Wasting Tower for miles upon miles around might have seen one incongruous and very out of place person sitting down amidst it all upon first glance. Perhaps a mile from the base of the tower at the point where the forces of Mydianchlarus and Anthraxus’s armies both clashed full on with one another, sat a young aasimar girl perhaps in her mid to late teens.
The young girl was dressed in a simple robe of yellowed, homespun linen cloth but somehow the dirt, blood, and spittle of the battle did not fall upon her. Neither did she seem concerned by the war raging around her, untouched by it as she was. In fact, the fiends didn’t seem to notice her presence at all; they only seemed to avoid stepping on her by a foot or two, and even then the action seemed to come to them unconsciously rather than by a directed action on her part.
Tellura Ibn Shartalan smiled out at the carnage, an expression of blissful innocence upon her face as she reached up to brush back her hair from her face. One half of the long hair on her head was a nearly white blond and the other a nearly purple shade of bluish-black. Curling up from under her hair was a set of gently curling horns like those of a bariaur, a ram, or a goat. Underneath it all were her brilliantly bluish eyes that sparkled with the same innocence as her smile, a comforting beacon in the depths of a hell.
She continued gazing out at the battle with a look of expectation, wonder, and sympathy for the fighting, the injured, and the dying. She continued gazing out and leaned heavily upon a simple wooden staff, crooked at the top like that of a shepherd to tend to a flock of sheep.
“Athena forbid! What are you doing here young one? I have to get you out of here or you’ll be slaughtered, or worse, by the fiends!” The abrupt and startled shout of one of the mortal mercenaries of Anthraxus grated upon the Shepherd’s ears and she glanced over at him.
“Oh heavens, you look injured. Your leg, is it broken or maimed by some spell?” The mortal cleric named Gregor prattled on benevolently like an idiot.
For a moment the ground behind the Dire Shepherd rippled with movement and a darkly malicious glint overtook her eyes before she looked up and smiled back at the mortal. The doomed soul only saw the brilliant blue eyes and the childish smile on the body of the lame but otherwise beautiful young woman. He didn’t consider the incongruity of the juxtaposition there at the base of Khin-Oin, but by that point it was too late. He never saw the girl’s shadow rise up from behind her like a living thing. He never saw the brilliant blue flickers of eyes in the shadow’s goat-like head; all he felt was the sudden shock and horrific pain as it curled around him and sunk its icy, razored fangs into his neck. And, as his world faded into darkness and his soul was rent from his body, he saw the girl whom he had only wished to help, Tellura Ibn Shartalan the Dire Shepherd, smiling up at his dying eyes with a look of perfect, childlike innocence.
Moments later the girl’s shadow lay flat upon the ground with deceiving innocuousness and she wiped her mouth clean with the sleeve of her robe that was left bloody for the effort. The mortal corpse at her feet was almost unrecognizable as mangled as it was, but she barely concerned herself with it, except to whisper to a passing Mezzoloth to drag the body away from her sitting place. The fiend did so instantly without thought and whimpered slightly as if it were groveling in the presence of a figure of worship or adoration, like it was being smiled upon by its mother.
The Shepherd gave only a small smile to the lesser fiend as it did her bidding, instead keeping her attention on the movement of the leaders of the battle and occasionally a fascinated glance towards the sky. The 2nd of The Demented was waiting for something greater to occur than all of her children playing happily around her as they were made to.
1 hour before the slide:
Halfway through the battle, perhaps a single hour before the tide of it all would radically change, something happened fifty miles from the Wasting Tower where a lone Baatezu army abruptly changed direction from skirting the edges of the Yugoloth conflict and moved on an intercept perpendicular to the slaughter. Though itself only a fraction of the size of either ‘loth force, it was not insignificant and likely was larger than the mercenary force of both sides combined. One and a half million Baatezu marching towards history under the banner of Lilith the Hag Countess, Lord of the 6th of Baator… their crash into the tide of ‘loths would be heralded in an hour by something far larger than they; something that would eclipse them entirely.
Shortly after the Baatezu army began its slow and inexorable drive towards Khin-Oin, unnoticed and uncared for, two forces had begun to break their way through the opposing ranks: Anthraxus and his Ultroloth servitors, and Mydianchlarus and his own Ultroloth generals. Like twin forces of nature, the two groups seemed to melt through their opposition in a wall of blades and invoked devastation, heading unerringly for the other.
Mydianchlarus the Oinoloth would simply look and snuff out the lives of fifty or more Mezzoloths standing to oppose him, their blood boiling, their flesh rotting away and leaving only their soft innards to lay upon the ground and be trodden underfoot, or their forms consumed in waves of flames to make Phlegethos seem a cool respite. His eyes flickering a staccato pattern of merciless, flashing light, the Oinoloth caught sight of his predecessor in the approaching waves of soldiers. What he had done by words and intellect before, he would soon do in cruder, more painful ways.
The other force of nature upon the battlefield, the monstrosity that was Anthraxus the Decayed caught sight of his successor a moment later and moved to intercept with a blood soaked sneer upon his maw. He sent a dozen defenders to their deaths with a single blow from his staff, and another dozen with a spell to turn their blood to a volatile, flammable liquid. The former Oinoloth knew what powers his enemy commanded, for he had possessed them once himself, and he knew how to counter them in perhaps more ways than they current holder did himself. Stepping upon a still living Piscaloth under the banner of his enemy, Anthraxus smiled as the fiend’s skull collapsed under his hooves as he physically picked up a Yagnoloth half his size and snapped it in twain like a brittle twig before hurling it some fifty yards across the battlefield. Anthraxus was laughing as he made his way towards his opponent, a trail of blood, filth and ashes the only thing left in his wake.
The Sixth Hour:
Mydianchlarus stood next to the Altraloth Typhus and a coterie of Ultroloths, all of them standing a few hundred feet distant from Anthraxus and his own, all of them staring at the other. Nothing was said; nothing needed to be said. But, for a time they all held their ground and let the fighting rage around them on all sides amongst the lesser fiends while they sought to judge the condition and defenses of their opponents.
“You know that you will die here, today, in the shadow of Khin-Oin. That much is self evident…” The voice of Mydianchlarus whispered mockingly into the mind of Anthraxus.
“If I ever die upon this plane it will not be from the likes of you, a weakling who relies on others to provide him with secrets to topple his betters. Who told you that which forced me from the throne? You couldn’t have known that yourself, or likely discovered it yourself either… you’re too young to have witnessed that yourself… you were but a Nycaloth then and I an Ultroloth… who supported your rise to power? Tell me before you die…” Anthraxus’s own mind whispered back with sibilant promises of death carried on the gaps between the winds.
Both of them and their allies began weaving more and more defensive spells as they approached closer. All the while, unknown to them except for a vague feeling on the part of the current and former Oinoloths, all of them were being watched from a short distance away where a young girl with a lame, crippled leg, who sat silently upon the corpses of several Mezzoloth’s piled high. Tellura Ibn Shartalan smiled at her children as they played and squabbled, and then looked up at the sky beyond the Wasting Tower a moment before planes shifted and realigned.
Suddenly the ground began to shake with a subtle vibration that set the dust and ash swirling and dancing, quickly rising to an earthshaking tremor that left nothing upon the plain surround the Wasting Tower unmoved save the tower itself. Every fiend upon the battlefield paused and looked around in confusion as something lurched within their hearts and clouds began to gather in the sky.
Anthraxus and Mydianchlarus both looked into a sky that was boiling above the Wasting Tower and spreading across the horizon as far as the eye could see while the pungent stench of Styx water rose in the air from vast clouds of mist that billowed out of the roiling skies as something felt suddenly and drastically different. The battle paused for both sides to access the situation when the army of the Hag Countess slammed into the left flank of the armies of the ‘loth civil war and a roar to shake the firmament pierced the still upon the air.
Tellura Ibn Shartalan narrowed her eyes, as did those of her shadow, when the mist cleared and the Mother of Serpents emerged to wade into the middle of both armies, indiscriminately devouring and shattering both forces as the mass flash of teleportation spells signaled the arrival of a third host of Yugoloths from Belarian, the 4th Gloom, itself nearly the equal in size to either of the other two armies.
Anthraxus stepped backwards and Mydianchlarus attempted to teleport further back to a position of safety. The former Oinoloth was pale with fear as he looked up into the malign intelligence lurking behind the bestial eyes of each of the twelve heads of the progenitor of all hydras, and something looked back as the eyes of the beast reflected a reddish-pink in the light of the Waste. And there, looking up into the army that bore down from their opposite flank, sandwiching them between itself and the Baatezu, Mydianchlarus’s teleportation failed as the Maeldur et Kavurik ignored his call. A split second later an eighth of both original armies turned on their comrades in a mass, planned defection to the army in the wake of the Mother of Serpents which bore down upon both past and current Oinoloth with the same reddish-pink gleam still lurking behind its eyes and controlling its every move like a puppet…
“The changing of loyalty consists, in its primary step, of the eradication of existing loyalties…What can people be made to believe? They can be made to believe anything which is administered to them with sufficient brutality and force. The obedience of a populace is as good as they will believe.” – Lavrenty Beria
1 hour before the slide:
The Ebon hovered before the gaping, gnashing maws of the Mother of Serpents there upon Belarian as the layer shuddered and slid. The great serpent locked its eyes upon the fiend like a cobra upon a snake charmer; entranced, enthralled, captivated, controlled.
“And now after so many years of preparation, I have need of you my pet. I have need of you now after these long centuries of waiting and gorging you on the blood of my own kind to whet your stomach to the taste.” The Ebon said as his eyes began to glow a flickering red that was soon reflected back and amplified in the depths of the Serpent’s own.
“And now as your prison begins to break, its wardings buckling and tearing from their moorings, I have much to speak to you of the coming hour. So listen, learn, submit, and obey…”
But previously…
****
4 hours before the slide:
Anthraxus the Decayed looked up from four miles distant at the Tower that once was his, and soon would be again if all went according to plan. The ground shook as he strode between the ranks of fiends serving in his name; those who would die in his name, for death was preferable to cowardice should he succeed, and preferable to surrender should he fail. But failure was not in his mind or in his twisted heart.
“Ensure that the mortals are ringed by at least double their number of fiends. They fear death where a Mezzoloth does not, and I want them terrified more by those at their backs driving them forwards than to whatever filth awaits them in the trenches ringing my former Tower.” The voice of the former Oinoloth rang out harshly to his attendant generals and warlords, Ultroloths all of them, perhaps twenty-five or thirty all told. Surrounding out around them were perhaps double that number of Arcanaloths and Nycaloths, who would in turn carry out the smaller details of the battle plans within their own smaller contingents.
The precognizant scent of blood rose on the air as The Decayed spoke out once more, the Staff of the Lower Planes cradled in his arms. “Death under the pikes and spells of the enemy before us is far more preferable to you, all of you, than to risk my displeasure and all the lower planes forbid, my anger. They stand before you as cowards and I stand behind you as conqueror and savior. You have no choice but to wallow in their blood this day in honor of me. You will dance amongst their bones to the rhythm of my creed and praises in honor of me. It is birthright, it is destiny, and it is my will.”
And Anthraxus the Decayed raised his skull-topped staff and gestured forth towards the summit of Khin-Oin miles above, laughing as the armies surged forwards around him. As the uncounted millions of fiends surged flowed like a black, chitinous tide of damned souls and evil made flesh, the air hummed with the battle cries of his soldiers and the beating of the wings of slasraths that threatened to blot out of the gray of the sky itself, while high above atop the summit of the Wasting Tower, the Oinoloth looked down.
****
“What, if any, suggestions do you have Typhus?” Mydianchlarus the Oinoloth said as he strummed his fingers upon the throne of Khin-Oin.
Typhus, one of the Altraloths of Disease, looked up at his lord from where he stood on the precipice of the tower overlooking the armies below. “Your strategy is sound my lord, I can find no fault in the overall plan itself. As well, the armies are nearly evenly matched in raw numbers and in their exact composition.”
The Oinoloth nodded, his expressionless face holding only the flickering, gleaming eyes of his species and the jaundice of his position, though his voice rang clearly and powerfully in the mind of his supplicant. “You hesitate slightly. Why? It is unlike you to pause when discussing military strategy.”
Typhus nodded his compact, misshapen head, “The mercenaries employed by your enemy swell his force to a fraction larger than your own. Your own contingent of Mezzoloths is marginally larger, but not enough to make up the difference. While your own force of arcanaloths is nearly double that of the enemy, his hired wizards make up the difference, or nearly so, and we have nothing to counteract his use of clerics.”
“Godslaves…” The single statement hung heavily on the air with the faint sensation or smell of burnt flesh lingering on the wind, intoned by the Oinoloth’s impression.
“At least the Overlord of Carceri has provided a larger force than originally promised by him or projected by us. Not that he has deigned to show up in person…” Typhus put emphasis on the latter fact and smiled cunningly at the Ultroloth prince.
“He still has time to make his presence known and to earn his continued position of leadership in the Red Prison. If he does not, well, then you and I will talk about your ambitions. But not till that point.” Mydianchlarus was firm, but the smile only grew on the Altraloth’s face.
A moment’s concentration crossed the otherwise blank features of the Oinoloth and flickering motes of greenish, sickly light danced in the ebony ovals of his eyes as his voice reached out across the miles and into the minds of his generals and the blackened hearts of his soldiers, down to the very last canoloth.
“Brace for them and let them charge you. Protect the casters and engines of war behind the front lines and allow them to fire into the enemy’s rear guard after the initial wave is broken. Feast upon their hearts this day my children and I will be proud of you. Serve your Oinoloth and your race.”
****
3 hours before the slide:
“The armies will fight for days and I am not in the mood for a war of attrition at this point, even if it is one that will win by virtue of the Tower and what lays below.” The Oinoloth said as he rose from the throne atop the Wasting Tower with a flaming red glint swirling within his eyes.
His attendants nodded, Ultroloth’s all of them, perhaps thirty or more gathered together there at the summit of the spinal column that marked the birthplace of their race. None of them however replied or dared hazard a guess as to what their master meant by the statement.
“You disappoint me, all of you. But no matter, in this matter idiocy breeds compliance and that is all I require for the moment, neither brilliance nor spontaneity, just brute force.” Mydianchlarus allowed his voice to linger on the air as a latent psionic hum for a few moments before brandishing his sword.
His generals still said nothing.
“My predecessor is arrogant beyond his means and we will enter the fray directly and make our way to him. When the fallen one is dead the war will be over and we may begin shipping our troops back to their battles in the Blood War, and begin the execution of those who had the temerity of choosing the wrong side.”
“Or those not appearing in person…” Typhus said with a snicker underneath his breath. Unnoticed in his covetous moment of envy there at the summit, the Altraloth failed to notice the unnatural smile on the face of his scribe, an arcanaloth from the Tower Arcane in Gehenna. Later, though the scribe would die in the continued fighting of the siege, Typhus would remember the expression it had borne in that moment and the idiot savant of War would be perplexed by it, and, for a brief second, appreciative.
A brief gesture was all it took from the Oinoloth and the Ultroloths separated out. Half of them clustered around their master and the other half vanished in the momentary, telltale flash of teleportation down to their own troops in the seething carpet miles below. Once more the telepathic voice of Mydianchlarus rang out into the mind of Typhus, “I would have you at my side… as further proof of your loyalty and ability to command; something that will be taken into consideration when Anthraxus is dead…”
Typhus nodded, wiped the stream of drool from its mouth and brandished his axe as he took his place at the Oinoloth’s side. Mydianchlarus drew his own blade from out of thin air like a double-edged splinter of a moonless night gripped in his hand and wreathed in flame. Then, with the hum of defensive spells cutting the still, they vanished and reappeared upon the battlefield miles below.
They were sandwiched between the clashing front lines of Mezzoloths and within a second those loyal to the wrong side were incinerated, disemboweled, petrified, imploded, crushed by invisible hands, or simply hacked to pieces. With a hole cleanly punched in the lines of the enemy, and with the defensive wardings of both armies impeding long range teleportation behind one another’s lines, the Oinoloth’s army surged around him and through the breach, and he soon followed.
****
Gregor Theodorikos, a mortal cleric of Athena stood behind the line of Mezzoloths in front of him and hurled a column of flaming, divine kissed death down upon the enemies of his current master Anthraxus. Evil was evil, there was no doubt about that, but gold was gold, and dying for gold in battle was no dishonor as long as one fought bravely and with pride. Still, the fiends made him uncomfortable in how they looked at him with every whispered prayer and invocation of Athena’s power.
The cleric ignored them and charged forward as the line moved up to replace those who had fallen in the more heated battles in the forward groupings where there seemed to have been a sudden and tremendous break in the besiegers’ progress towards the Tower. Beside the cleric, his brother Dimitri stood and heavily gripped a pike larger than Gregor. Both cleric and soldier had seen easy profit, tales to tell their children, and things to proudly boast over when drunk in the years to come by signing over their spells and arms to Anthraxus in Center. Now however, they found themselves in more of a Hell than they could have imagined was possible.
A massive explosion twenty yards to their right sent them sprawling with its detonation and then scrambling to avoid the rain of gore, blood and broken earth sent skyward. As the bodies of lesser yugoloths and mortals alike rained down in pieces around them the fiendish artillery on their own sides fired back, the ‘spells-long-reach’, catapults for spells, raining down explosive bolts and showers of death in retribution.
Dmitri cried out in fear as a squadron of Slasrath’s shot over their position before turning about and hurling a wave of spells at the fiends below, not far from their own position. Had they been the intended targets they would likely have been incinerated instantly. But, just as soon as the arcanaloths had expended their spells, they were enveloped in a cloud of arrows and ballista bolts from the troops below them.
“We’ll get out of this brother of mine, don’t you worry. Don’t you worry at all,” Gregor said to his brother.
“How can you say that?! Look around you! If we stop, our ‘allies’ will slaughter us or worse, and if we march forward the only thing that’s waiting for us is death.” The fighter said fearfully in a quite realistic assessment of the battle for he and his brother.
“Athena will find a way for us both. She will protect us. Have faith brother.” Gregor said as he whispered a prayer of protection to his goddess a split second before a hail of arrows descended atop their position and skewered a dozen fiends, leaving only them alive by virtue of the divine protection against such.
“Maybe you’re right… but we’re being driven towards the break in the lines ahead, and magic won’t much prepare you from being devoured alive in close combat… we’ll see…” Dmitri said as he thrust he pike upwards to clip the wing of a low flying enemy slasrath.
They both progressed into the hellstorm between the two armies that hurled themselves at one another in a frenzy of blind loyalty. At least the fiends did, and the mortals fought for honor, gold, and most importantly their own lives since they, unlike the fiends, feared death upon the Waste. Closer and closer to the front lines the ash of the ground became a thick, syrupy mud, thick and wet with the blood of mortals and the acidic bile and guts of the fiends. The air itself was heavy with a spray of the stuff like fear taken palpable form as it misted upon their face with each change in the wind; but still they moved forwards. With the iron tridents of their own master’s Mezzoloths at their back, they had little choice.
Still closer, the detonations of spells and hurled missiles from fiendish siege engines that were fired almost indiscriminately from either side of the line grew even heavier while somewhere a quarter-mile or so to their right, it seemed like the armies of Mydianchlarus were surging through a sudden break in the attackers’ line while elsewhere their own line was fragmenting in response to the push of troops forward in other places. Their world was a sea of fiends with blades, pikes and banners rising above the surface of it all like the fins of swimming sharks awash in the bloody froth with which the waters had been chummed, and the latter was what the two mortals that moment felt like.
****
But not all in the battle was a moving sea of carnage, pain and death that ringed the Wasting Tower for miles in all direction. Not everywhere was the air cut by the curses of the living, the agonized screams of the dying, the ring of steel of steel, steel of chitin, and steel into flesh. Not everywhere was the air alive with the sound of marching feet, chanted prayers and spells, the explosive result of those arcane mutterings, or even the creak and thunderous release of the engines of war on both sides. One small spot seemed calmer, more peaceful, offset and outside the battle in way.
An outside observer to the carnage that ringed the Wasting Tower for miles upon miles around might have seen one incongruous and very out of place person sitting down amidst it all upon first glance. Perhaps a mile from the base of the tower at the point where the forces of Mydianchlarus and Anthraxus’s armies both clashed full on with one another, sat a young aasimar girl perhaps in her mid to late teens.
The young girl was dressed in a simple robe of yellowed, homespun linen cloth but somehow the dirt, blood, and spittle of the battle did not fall upon her. Neither did she seem concerned by the war raging around her, untouched by it as she was. In fact, the fiends didn’t seem to notice her presence at all; they only seemed to avoid stepping on her by a foot or two, and even then the action seemed to come to them unconsciously rather than by a directed action on her part.
Tellura Ibn Shartalan smiled out at the carnage, an expression of blissful innocence upon her face as she reached up to brush back her hair from her face. One half of the long hair on her head was a nearly white blond and the other a nearly purple shade of bluish-black. Curling up from under her hair was a set of gently curling horns like those of a bariaur, a ram, or a goat. Underneath it all were her brilliantly bluish eyes that sparkled with the same innocence as her smile, a comforting beacon in the depths of a hell.
She continued gazing out at the battle with a look of expectation, wonder, and sympathy for the fighting, the injured, and the dying. She continued gazing out and leaned heavily upon a simple wooden staff, crooked at the top like that of a shepherd to tend to a flock of sheep.
“Athena forbid! What are you doing here young one? I have to get you out of here or you’ll be slaughtered, or worse, by the fiends!” The abrupt and startled shout of one of the mortal mercenaries of Anthraxus grated upon the Shepherd’s ears and she glanced over at him.
“Oh heavens, you look injured. Your leg, is it broken or maimed by some spell?” The mortal cleric named Gregor prattled on benevolently like an idiot.
For a moment the ground behind the Dire Shepherd rippled with movement and a darkly malicious glint overtook her eyes before she looked up and smiled back at the mortal. The doomed soul only saw the brilliant blue eyes and the childish smile on the body of the lame but otherwise beautiful young woman. He didn’t consider the incongruity of the juxtaposition there at the base of Khin-Oin, but by that point it was too late. He never saw the girl’s shadow rise up from behind her like a living thing. He never saw the brilliant blue flickers of eyes in the shadow’s goat-like head; all he felt was the sudden shock and horrific pain as it curled around him and sunk its icy, razored fangs into his neck. And, as his world faded into darkness and his soul was rent from his body, he saw the girl whom he had only wished to help, Tellura Ibn Shartalan the Dire Shepherd, smiling up at his dying eyes with a look of perfect, childlike innocence.
Moments later the girl’s shadow lay flat upon the ground with deceiving innocuousness and she wiped her mouth clean with the sleeve of her robe that was left bloody for the effort. The mortal corpse at her feet was almost unrecognizable as mangled as it was, but she barely concerned herself with it, except to whisper to a passing Mezzoloth to drag the body away from her sitting place. The fiend did so instantly without thought and whimpered slightly as if it were groveling in the presence of a figure of worship or adoration, like it was being smiled upon by its mother.
The Shepherd gave only a small smile to the lesser fiend as it did her bidding, instead keeping her attention on the movement of the leaders of the battle and occasionally a fascinated glance towards the sky. The 2nd of The Demented was waiting for something greater to occur than all of her children playing happily around her as they were made to.
****
1 hour before the slide:
Halfway through the battle, perhaps a single hour before the tide of it all would radically change, something happened fifty miles from the Wasting Tower where a lone Baatezu army abruptly changed direction from skirting the edges of the Yugoloth conflict and moved on an intercept perpendicular to the slaughter. Though itself only a fraction of the size of either ‘loth force, it was not insignificant and likely was larger than the mercenary force of both sides combined. One and a half million Baatezu marching towards history under the banner of Lilith the Hag Countess, Lord of the 6th of Baator… their crash into the tide of ‘loths would be heralded in an hour by something far larger than they; something that would eclipse them entirely.
Shortly after the Baatezu army began its slow and inexorable drive towards Khin-Oin, unnoticed and uncared for, two forces had begun to break their way through the opposing ranks: Anthraxus and his Ultroloth servitors, and Mydianchlarus and his own Ultroloth generals. Like twin forces of nature, the two groups seemed to melt through their opposition in a wall of blades and invoked devastation, heading unerringly for the other.
Mydianchlarus the Oinoloth would simply look and snuff out the lives of fifty or more Mezzoloths standing to oppose him, their blood boiling, their flesh rotting away and leaving only their soft innards to lay upon the ground and be trodden underfoot, or their forms consumed in waves of flames to make Phlegethos seem a cool respite. His eyes flickering a staccato pattern of merciless, flashing light, the Oinoloth caught sight of his predecessor in the approaching waves of soldiers. What he had done by words and intellect before, he would soon do in cruder, more painful ways.
The other force of nature upon the battlefield, the monstrosity that was Anthraxus the Decayed caught sight of his successor a moment later and moved to intercept with a blood soaked sneer upon his maw. He sent a dozen defenders to their deaths with a single blow from his staff, and another dozen with a spell to turn their blood to a volatile, flammable liquid. The former Oinoloth knew what powers his enemy commanded, for he had possessed them once himself, and he knew how to counter them in perhaps more ways than they current holder did himself. Stepping upon a still living Piscaloth under the banner of his enemy, Anthraxus smiled as the fiend’s skull collapsed under his hooves as he physically picked up a Yagnoloth half his size and snapped it in twain like a brittle twig before hurling it some fifty yards across the battlefield. Anthraxus was laughing as he made his way towards his opponent, a trail of blood, filth and ashes the only thing left in his wake.
****
The Sixth Hour:
Mydianchlarus stood next to the Altraloth Typhus and a coterie of Ultroloths, all of them standing a few hundred feet distant from Anthraxus and his own, all of them staring at the other. Nothing was said; nothing needed to be said. But, for a time they all held their ground and let the fighting rage around them on all sides amongst the lesser fiends while they sought to judge the condition and defenses of their opponents.
“You know that you will die here, today, in the shadow of Khin-Oin. That much is self evident…” The voice of Mydianchlarus whispered mockingly into the mind of Anthraxus.
“If I ever die upon this plane it will not be from the likes of you, a weakling who relies on others to provide him with secrets to topple his betters. Who told you that which forced me from the throne? You couldn’t have known that yourself, or likely discovered it yourself either… you’re too young to have witnessed that yourself… you were but a Nycaloth then and I an Ultroloth… who supported your rise to power? Tell me before you die…” Anthraxus’s own mind whispered back with sibilant promises of death carried on the gaps between the winds.
Both of them and their allies began weaving more and more defensive spells as they approached closer. All the while, unknown to them except for a vague feeling on the part of the current and former Oinoloths, all of them were being watched from a short distance away where a young girl with a lame, crippled leg, who sat silently upon the corpses of several Mezzoloth’s piled high. Tellura Ibn Shartalan smiled at her children as they played and squabbled, and then looked up at the sky beyond the Wasting Tower a moment before planes shifted and realigned.
Suddenly the ground began to shake with a subtle vibration that set the dust and ash swirling and dancing, quickly rising to an earthshaking tremor that left nothing upon the plain surround the Wasting Tower unmoved save the tower itself. Every fiend upon the battlefield paused and looked around in confusion as something lurched within their hearts and clouds began to gather in the sky.
Anthraxus and Mydianchlarus both looked into a sky that was boiling above the Wasting Tower and spreading across the horizon as far as the eye could see while the pungent stench of Styx water rose in the air from vast clouds of mist that billowed out of the roiling skies as something felt suddenly and drastically different. The battle paused for both sides to access the situation when the army of the Hag Countess slammed into the left flank of the armies of the ‘loth civil war and a roar to shake the firmament pierced the still upon the air.
Tellura Ibn Shartalan narrowed her eyes, as did those of her shadow, when the mist cleared and the Mother of Serpents emerged to wade into the middle of both armies, indiscriminately devouring and shattering both forces as the mass flash of teleportation spells signaled the arrival of a third host of Yugoloths from Belarian, the 4th Gloom, itself nearly the equal in size to either of the other two armies.
Anthraxus stepped backwards and Mydianchlarus attempted to teleport further back to a position of safety. The former Oinoloth was pale with fear as he looked up into the malign intelligence lurking behind the bestial eyes of each of the twelve heads of the progenitor of all hydras, and something looked back as the eyes of the beast reflected a reddish-pink in the light of the Waste. And there, looking up into the army that bore down from their opposite flank, sandwiching them between itself and the Baatezu, Mydianchlarus’s teleportation failed as the Maeldur et Kavurik ignored his call. A split second later an eighth of both original armies turned on their comrades in a mass, planned defection to the army in the wake of the Mother of Serpents which bore down upon both past and current Oinoloth with the same reddish-pink gleam still lurking behind its eyes and controlling its every move like a puppet…
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Clueless
Webmonkey
"Perhaps a mile from the base of the tower at the point where the forces of Mydianchlarus and Anthraxus’s armies both clashed full on with one another, sat a young girl of perhaps an age of thirteen or fourteen."
.... she *still* creeps me out. I don't care how polite we were to each other last time we spoke. She still creeps me out.
.... she *still* creeps me out. I don't care how polite we were to each other last time we spoke. She still creeps me out.
shilsen
Adventurer
Clueless said:
I'd wager the politeness is part of it. In my experience, whenever one of my NPCs is really, really nice and says "please" and "thank you", that's when the PCs start backing away and fingering their weapons. People are just so untrusting nowadays
And Shemeska, I have two words for you - hubba hubba
!
Graywolf-ELM
Explorer
Merry Christmas indeed.
GW
GW
Shemeska
Adventurer
Clueless said:
For those curious... a little tale about The Shepherd that gives away no hints about the storyhour, but fleshes out the NPC a bit. The PCs in the campaign would meet her about a year or two later, Clueless slightly before the rest of them.
