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Message: <blockquote data-quote="xenoflare" data-source="post: 1458260" data-attributes="member: 12431">The rakshasas strode into the conflagration that was once the keraton, as boldly and brazenly as though they owned the land, their obscenely misshapen forms spewing forth flame and poison. The three of them were chaos and death personified each of them as different as they were deadly. A particularly massive and loathsome ogre stood leering with all seven of his mouths; where normal men had eyes, ears, and a nose, he possessed gaping maws with an abundance of crazily lolling tongues and red-stained cruel tusks. His consort, an incongruously petite ogress with scars from countless bites all over her naked frame, laughed gaily next to him as the multitude of scars opened into a thousand little eyes, taking in the horror and shock all around her. The last of the demons bayed, hound-like, on his haunches, belching forth clouds of acidic, noxious flame into the keraton, slaying most of the old and infirm and injuring many others among the assembly.The largest fiend’s visage crumbled with cruel mirth as he saw a burning youth falling in front of him, crying and rolling in an attempt to halt the biting misery of the hungry flames, and all seven of his mouths cracked in sadistic joy as he stomped down, hard, upon the adolescent’s back. The chorus of laughter from his multiple throats wafted among the pleas for mercy and crackling of flames, providing a surreal symphony to the carnage.“We are the representatives of the Kingdom of Ogres to your north, oh King Srisukra. I am He who frightened the Nagas into their sleep beneath the waves, He who terrified the Garuda such that it flies into the sky and fears to return to the earth, I am Buta Tujuh Cakil, undefeated in battle, unvanquished in martial pursuit, eternally strong,– that am I, and more! Hear my name and know despair! My liege, King Bauhbhuta has demanded the rib-cages of five hundred of your subjects and the skulls of another five hundred to be carved into a beautiful statue for his pleasure.”The grievously wounded King Srisukra shouted for the guards, tended to and assisted by Humam’s ministrations, the shrieking Lord Wijaya forgot all about his beloved fish, and the assembled nobility ran forth, some foolhardy scions assuming silat stances to do battle, but the majority of the panicking crowd sought egress, not conflict. The brave souls charged Buta Tujuh Cakil stalwartly, war cries blazing from their lips more brightly than the flames engulfing the keraton.“I’ll take that as a “no”, then.”Buta Tujuh Cakil laughed again as he beheld their assault and with a single massive sweep of his gong-sized fist he knocked them away. The sickening thud and crunch of bones only added new layers of gruesome resonance to the horrific mood.Radin stood up through the crimson haze of his own addled agony, and shrugged off the pain as he rose to do battle with the ogres. He intoned a brief chant to focus his ilmu batin and girded himself with an impressive panoply of pure will. As if in answer, Buta Tujuh Cakil roared, and a slippery, oily mass of seething primordial chaos manifested in his hands, congealing into a wickedly jagged blade that would have been a long parang in any normal man’s hands, but looked only like a short kris dagger in his prodigious grasp.“Little man knows some tricks, hmm? He knows how to do a little bit of magic, and he knows how to breathe deeply and do all kinds of pretty tricks, hmm? Fffffeh!! What will you do, little man? Use your ilmu sirep to make me fall asleep? Use your ilmu gaib to make me smell of flowers and honey?”Buta Tujuh Cakil laughed raucously, his thunderous guffaws drowning out all other noise in the palace.“Meet your doom, demon.”The defiant reply served only to increase the ogre’s laughter tenfold, and he tore the earth up in huge gulping bites to show his arrogant joy.“Little man not only has some brains for magic, little man also has some guts and balls on him, hmmm? No matter, my seven mouths are all hungry, I’ll tear you apart and eat all of ... aarrgh!!”The fiend gaped in pained surprise as he felt one of his knees weaken and give way. One moment Radin had been more than 10 paces away, and the next he was beside Buta Tujuh Cakil, leaping and stabbing his kris downward with impeccable precision, his thrust lent extra force by the gravity of his short hop sliding into the rakshasa’s right knee joint. Radin had learnt some tricks of the blade from the Batak knife-fighters to the western islands, and relaxed his grip on his kris, before applying a palm strike to the pommel of his blade, driving the wavy blade deeper past the giant’s loathsome flesh and viscous sinew.Radin spoke, in even and calm tones. “Your follies, demon, were assuming that we “little men” are all weak and the same, and in taking too much joy in your empty, posturing actions. Your energies are unfocused; you are too lost in sensation, the world of lair, and your strength is futile. You are like the dying centipede, a thousand legs thrashing nowhere, directed towards nothing. While you were too busy gloating, my brother Humam goaded and tricked you by telling you to meet your doom – and you were so eager to see only your own perception of my weakness, that you were blinded to the reality of my approach.”A tendril of invisible thought fired forth from the rasa of Humam to Radin’s own, linking their minds in a mystic unity of communication without the need for speech. Pretty words, young brother. There was a hint of curious amusement in Humam’s mental voice. Radin’s reply was also amused, but his mirth was coloured by tinges of sheepish, abashed emotion. I picked most of them up from your many lectures, older brother. Ah. That would explain it. The brothers’ banter was interrupted as Buta Tujuh Cakil staggered backwards, hissing seven different insults in seven different tongues expressing a single cadence of wrath at Radin and Humam in particular and the Javanese in general. Radin went into a low, defensive sempok stance as he recovered his breath, and tried to gauge the situation again. Despite his confident words and the successful ruse against the ogre, victory was not assured – that powerful strike was usually enough to dispatch any foe, but the rakshasa was proving to be stronger than any ordinary foe. The blow he had dealt was further bolstered by surprise, a resource he had already squandered, and most distressing of all was the fact that he was now without a blade, for his kris was lodged deep into the vile chitin of Buta Tujuh Cakil’s flesh...</blockquote>

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