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Message: <blockquote data-quote="seasong" data-source="post: 750789" data-attributes="member: 5137">Breaking Cat, Day 17Morning.At the edge of the forest, an old shaman, his breath whistling through the hole in his neck, led eight orc youths into a central ring of warriors. Upslope, Theralese arcanists panicked - it was reasonably obvious what he was doing, and while they weren't sure what shamanic sacrifices could call down, they knew that they didn't want whatever it was.Fireballs and other long range attacks rained down the slope, only to be consumed by whatever spirits where protecting the shaman, disappearing in puffs of rent magical energy. Greppa exhausted himself casting, and sat down abruptly. He needed to rest, so he could be more helpful later. And then the youths, as one, raised blade to their own throats, and cut. As their life blood seeped into the ground, there were a few moments of quiet as the forest animals silenced...An armorcat, ten feet at the shoulder padded out of the forest. It lowered its ponderous head to the shaman's, and Theralis could hear his gleeful laughter as he pointed upslope. The armorcat leapt, covering nearly a fifty feet in a bound, and sprinted into the Theralese shield wall before anyone thought to run.Kyriotes, as coldly professional as always, began incanting, and the Keraunesti converged on him, protecting him with their meat bodies from however the orcs might try to stop him. The armorcat ignored them, a fatal mistake. Kyriotes summoned a serpent larger than even the gargantuan armorcat, with flesh of granite and eyes of emerald. It sucked in breath, a rasping noise like chalk on shale, and began whipping downslope to the armorcat.Kyriotes disappeared, invisible again, and the Keraunesti moved in to help fight the armorcat, while the front shield line was assaulted by orc fighting wedges. When the serpent seemed to have things well in tail, Athan led a split-off group of Keraunesti further downslope to help hold a breaking wall.As soon as Athan was near the front line, the female giant began to move. She'd marked the one who threw that spear at her mate, and had marked his movements since. He wasn't hard to spot - he was taller than most, broad of shoulder, and wearing a white cloak.Hefting her club, rarely used in battle, she charged through the shield wall to bring it down on his head. Athan managed to shift enough to take only a glancing blow, but even that shook his muscular frame like gelatin. Looking up at her from slightly below the hips, Athan grinned fiercely, and stepped in, punching the butt of his spear into her ankle and shoving into her knee with his shoulder.She went down, collapsing onto the ground, and soldiers swarmed in to stab her as best they could, though their spears mostly clattered off her shaman-protected flesh. Angrily, she caught Athan on the side of the head, knocking him flat, and together they struggled up, she to run away, him to pursue.She got almost forty feet before he caught up to her again, this time stabbing the back her knee with his spear, and knocking her flat again.Above, Greppa watched the fight and realized that Athan was in trouble - an unbelievable athlete, he'd outrun the other soldiers to catch the giant, and orcs were now converging. Using the last dregs of his strength, he began raining fireballs and sun streaks on the orcs that got close...Athan lept upon the giantess' back, and as she rolled over, dropped onto her throat with his great spear. Her eyes were filled with fear, and an unspoken question died in her throat... how could a human do this?Then the orcs moved in, and stabbed Athan. Their eyes were tearful, for they admired him greatly. Only the greatest heroes of their history were said to wrestle with giants. But they could not let him live while he was an enemy, and so they stabbed and stabbed and stabbed.Merideth was practically on top of them before they realized it. The air around her shredded as her kinetic knives found their way through orc flesh, and then she fell upon Athan, sobbing and healing.For Greppa, the world swam and went black. His strength gone, he hoped he'd done enough, and idly, wondered what Merideth's new spell was.Athan's body was healed, but his soul had fled. A hero of Theralis was dead.</blockquote>

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