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Message: <blockquote data-quote="talien" data-source="post: 4756426" data-attributes="member: 3285">Serpentine Path: Part 9b – This Might Sting a Bit!Outside, chaos reigned.  To the right, a man was struck through the top of his head with an arrow, an arrow that turned into a snake and slithered out of his gaping, gurgling mouth as he fell to the ground dead.  “Get out of the path of the tower!” shouted Beldin.  The tower’s shadow loomed over them.  If they didn’t get out of its shadow soon, it would crush everyone between the inn and the base of the tower. “We don’t have much time!”Calactyte and Kham were running towards them, freed from the prison that had once been at the base of the tower. To the left, several petite women ran from a residence, each cradling an infant.  Reptilian soldiers surrounded one of them. She tried valiantly to fight them off, but her efforts were cut short as one of the ss’ressen spat a sticky glob into her face.  “No!” Bijoux shouted in dismay.  She pointed with one claw, the other covering her mouth in horror. With a wicked scowl, the ss’ressen snatched the infant from the woman’s grasp, ripped its head off, and returned the dripping head to her. “Illiir!” Beldin didn’t stop dragging people out of the path of the tower. With a flick of its claw, the ss’ressen disemboweled the helpless woman.  It grinned in Bijxoux’s direction as it licked its claw clean.Vlad dropped a serving wench’s unconscious form and struggled to draw his blade.  “We can’t rescue everyone and fight those things at the same time!”Calactyte whirled, axe out.  “Go.  I will take care of this.”“Cal!” shouted Ilmarė. “You can’t, there’s too many!”The venomous scale ss’ressen menaced the remaining women and children. “GO!” The ss’ressen whirled, axe out.  “They will follow me in frenzy.”  He roared, ear flaps rising up, muscle bugling with rage.  “MOMMA’S COMING!”The lizards heard Calactyte’s challenge and responded in kind.  The human women fled as the ss’ressen were distracted.Calactyte charged towards them, his clawed feet pounding the pavement beneath him in little clouds of dust.   Acid spewed forth, striking the big ss’ressen again and again, but Cal was undeterred.  The fury with which he descended upon the ss’ressen shocked even his bloodthirsty opponents.Cal swung low, disemboweling one of the ss’ressen with a swipe of his axe.  His tail slapped another ss’ressen down before it could retaliate. But there were too many.  One leaped on his back.  Then another.  And another.  Clawing, biting, roaring.Ilmarė knocked an arrow and took aim.  Then she stopped and lowered her bow.“What are you doing?” Bijoux asked, incredulous.  Ilmarė was the only one not helping drag people out of the path of the tower.  “Help him!”“Cal knows exactly what he’s doing,” said Ilmarė.  “He’s drawing them to him.”More and more enemy ss’ressen poured through the gates.  A mass of scaled bodies concealed Calactyte’s chaotic melee.  Gouts of blood spiraled up and attackers were tossed aside, but soon the conflict became a boiling mass of reptiles beneath the shadow of the tower.“No!” shouted Bijoux.  “Calactyte, NO!” Having dragged the last person to safety, she launched herself in the air.  “We have to help him!”Sebastian rolled out of the path as rocks pelted the area.  He drew a wand of resilient sphere, the same wand he used to stop the explosives in Freeport. The tower was just about to collapse.  “If I time this just right…” Suddenly the combat stopped.  The ss’ressen all looked downwards.  Cal had fallen.  Spears raised up above them.  There was a shrill hiss, loud enough that even the humans knew to be a cry of horror.  The ss’ressen finally were released from their frenzy, staring up in shock at the tower…Then it fell.  Tons of rock and rubble pounded the path between the tower’s base and the Shining Shield Inn.  Dust obscured all vision.  Calactyte had taken out dozens of enemies, but at a terrible cost.“We have to leave!” shouted Kham.  “There’s more coming!”“No!” screamed Bijoux, tears streaming down her face.  “We can dig him out!  We can dig him out!”  She launched herself into the haze of blood and dust.“There’s no way…” Sebastian shook his head, wand still outstretched.  “Even if the wand worked…there’s so much rubble…”Thousands of Ssethreograns poured through the breached wall.  Already, they were swarming along the streets and buildings of the city.  Overhead, flying reptiles attacked with ranged and breath weaponry.  Behind them, cannon thundered ominously from the citadel. “To Klos Ka’Ra to regroup!” shouted a patrolman.  “We will hold the gate as long as we can!”Beldin tugged on Sebastian’s arm.  “Let’s go!” But it was too late.  The thousands of scaled horrors outside the wall had sealed off their exit to Klos Ka’Ra.  They would have to fight their way through the Ssethregoran horde to the citadel.</blockquote>

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