Shadow Slayers

Before Manasa stood not only a flock of stolas fearen, but a phantom, a figure from her past who's demise she had witnessed with her own eyes. Her mouth dried and her knees buckled together in fear before the sight, the very thought of who was before her and who must have happened to cause this monstrosity to be born was enough to petrify the vishkanyan.

The gargantuan birds began to encircle the duo, closing them off from the rest of battle field in an arena of smoke. One unhinged it's massive maw to let out an ear piercing cry; blood and saliva dripping from it's teeth, but other than that they were still. Stoic even.

"Licca," Manasa muttered under her breath, eyeing the fearenized goblin's features up and down. There was no mistaking it. From her face, to her curls, even to the feathers in her hair the girl before her perfectly paralleled the young goblin. Even her voice, though distorted, still rang with a hint of the bird song like sound that Licca's once did. The vishkanyan's sword hand grew weak, to the point of near dropping the blade, only to firmly grasp it once more. Manasa looked the fearen in the eye and repeated herself, "Licca."

"I̡t͠ h͞ur͜t̀s͜!̡" The fearen said, taking half a step back and contorting in pain. She looked at Manasa with large white eyes, tears pouring out.

A look a sympathy crossed Manasa's face. She lowered her weapon and walked in closer. Perhaps... Licca was different, like Oxy. She was such a kind girl in life, surly there was no darkness in her heart that could be twisted in order to created an evil being. She was just scared, and in pain. Manasa opened her mouth to speak to the fearen, it formed into what could almost be a gentle smile-

Valdus was forced to dodge the attack because he didn't have enough time to summon a shield to block it. Valdus lowered himself closer to the ground to dodge and succeeded in dodging the attack. He was still flying but he was low enough now to get hit by a jump attack.
Since Valdus was paying attention to Zerah he failed to notice what Galystris was doing. He was hit straight in the chest by the frostbolt, and while it wasn't enough to break his armor it did smash him against the wall and freeze him to the wall behind him. Valdus couldn't move, giving Kama the perfect opportunity to attack. Kama jumped into the air and shouted "This is the end for you Valdus! It's time for you to pay for what you've done!" The guild leader attempted to hit Valdus with a slash to the head, but missed his perfect opportunity to end the battle because something unexpected happened.
Kama was within Licca's line of sight and was stabbed in the back by the devastatingly powerful tendril as he shouted in pain "AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!" He fell to the floor with his stomach covered in blood, giving Valdus enough time to break out of the ice. Valdus said "It looks like this is the end for you, not me. When I succeed in becoming the new god of prophecy I'll make sure your legacy is forgotten. You don't deserve to be praised as a hero. You're nothing more than an idiotic and naive old man. Farewell... false hero." Valdus summoned a golden cannon and out of it shot a large chunk of earth, intending to kill Kama by crushing him under it's weight.

The spawn’s plan to attack Valdus was immediately halted as both the resistance from the neighboring soul as well as the chosen one propelling himself 15 feet in the air distracted the vessel long enough for the gilded idiot’s attack to hit, freezing Altheron’s boots to the ground. The shaman struggled to break free, almost losing his balance and falling backwards in the process, but it was no use; he just wasn’t strong enough to move out his frozen shackles. Pitiful, said the spawn, a growl now present in its voice. Can’t even get out of some damn ice….. Altheron looked down at his feet in embarrassment, taking a moment to ignore the condescending tone present in his mind and the deafening screeches of battle as he glared at the phenomenon before him.

So this was ice.

“Hmph!” Gripping the staff with both hands, Altheron held the branch high above his head before striking it down at the crystalline prison enveloping his feet with all the force he could possibly muster, repeating this motion until he could feel one boot slipping out of the cold. He raised his staff one more time, hoping that this strike would be the one to finally him from this humiliating position that his little “friend”, who had strangely stayed quiet throughout the entire ordeal, placed him in, when suddenly large swords appeared in front of the warrior, freezing the shaman in place as he looked at the spectacle in awe.


The winds from the sword sent Altheron flying, the blast separating the man’s only weapon from him as he was thrown to the farthest wall back-first before sliding down dizzily onto his feet, a loud clank noise sounding as the plate made impact. Altheron smiled faintly as he wobbled from side to side. Thank the great spirits that I found this armor….. He almost giggled at the thought as he scanned the ground, when he noticed something off. In addition to his newfound dizziness, the world to his right side had turned that unusual shade of purple. His eyes widened as he brought a hand up to the hair about his face. The force of the winds had loosened the braid and now left his eye- the spawn’s eye- with a clear view of the world around them. He could hear the giggling ensue once more and motioned to move the locks back into place as he once did, when a faint crumbling sound hit his ears, followed by a few small pieces of rubble hitting the ground in his peripheral. His face now frozen with fear, Altheron looked up at the ceiling to see a large crack in its surface. The spirit within him immediately began reacting to it, flickering madly as it presented images of the rubble falling onto its vessel before Altheron seconds before the event could even occur.

THAT MEANS GET OUT OF THE WAY, YOU FOOL!

Altheron jumped at the booming volume of the spawn’s voice, stumbling into a run fast enough to evade the chunk of ceiling that surely would’ve ended their lives on Ignis. Despite what happened, the shaman still made the effort to move his hair back into place as he ran, trying to relieve the migraine the spawn had left with his brash command and free his mind of the thought of the spirit’s possible control over his actions as he looked left and right for his staff. He stopped dead in his tracks once he laid eyes on the branch. For the most part, it looked fine from where it was sitting, but the attention was not on the stick, but where it landed. A few feet away from where Valdus’ attack had left his staff stood a large, hulking, humanoid fearen with jagged armored arms with rough fingers clasped around…..


“Oo…. O-Ooro?” he whispered breathlessly as he witnessed his most valuable friend nearly get her soul squeezed out of her, a sight that left him shaking as a great feeling of helplessness washed over him. The bubbling in his chest started up again, with the mad flickering of his iris joining in soon after. Seeing this as a good opportunity to strike, the spawn began to slowly trickle through its prison, concentrating its presence in the vessel’s mind and in its fingertips, the two access points it’d managed to remain in for as long as it was trapped. Now with its host’s soul slowly breaking, it could begin the process of gaining control of its own body, but first…

There was no harm in speeding up the process, right?

Hot tears streamed down Altheron’s cheeks as he watched the beast continue to taunt the hermit, far too enveloped in his anguish to notice the fearen beginning to circle around him.

Absolutely useless, said the spawn in a much clearer voice than before. Such a change snapped Altheron out of his despair for a moment, only to lower his lashes again at the sound of the words it uttered. That was all that needed to be said to get to the shaman. After all, who could really argue against it? Altheron hung his head low in defeat, allowing the tears to fall to the ground as the beasts around him prepared their attacks. For so long, he'd never once could recall a time when he had been useful in a serious situation. He found himself always being the thing to protect. Looking back at the previous battles with the Shadow Slayers, this was always the case. At the battle with Fearos, sure he pulled some form of weight, using some random spell he stumbled upon to clear a few fearen while the real heroes finished off the colossus, but ultimately he was at a loss. At the price of jumping from fearen body to fearen body, he left his own vessel completely unattended and had to call for help just to stay alive. It was even worse for the second battle. People actually went out of their way to shield him while he made his shoddy prophecies, throwing them into danger multiple times with his carelessness. Going even further back, Altheron was always sheltered back home in the Spirit Forest, being told where to dwell, instructed never to cross certain realms, etc. And now here he is. No staff, no aid, trembling like a child. He didn't even want to look back up. All there was was him, the spawn, and... and...

"Fearen!?" he shrieked, only now realizing the amount of danger standing around in the middle of battle could grant a person. Altheron backed up slowly as the monsters approached, looking for a way out but finding none. His staff was still out of reach, everyone else had their hands full with either fighting the regular fearen or the strange beings like the one he saw Ooro being held by before he turned away from her like a coward. He was on his own. The shaman watched as the beasts: two hound fearen, one sting fearen, and-looking up- a lone winged fearen, prepared themselves for attack. Desperate, he held a hand up between him and the fearen and turned away, the hand serving as both a sign of defeat and as a blind from witnessing his final moments on Ignis.

A few seconds passed and......

Nothing?

What? he thought, turning back toward the fearen. When he got a good look at them, he noticed they were different. They stood perfectly still as if waiting for orders, their red streaks now a bright purple. It was then that he noticed his arm was never lowered, his fingernails taking on the same purple hue as on the fearen, the fingertips slowly blackening before him. Altheron's look of confusion slowly grew into one of horror as he finally caught onto what was happening.


Holding his other hand a foot away from his right eye while the other still controlled the monsters, he checked the luminescence of his- er, the spawn's- divining eye. Even through the hair, it managed to shine over his hand and past it. "Oh no......."

A series of commands stemmed from the man's voice, prompting the fearen of all kinds to rush over to Valdus, the sting fearen preparing their acid, the hounds opening portals, and the winged fearen summoning ice spikes all at the chosen one. When they set out, Altheron forced the controlling hand behind his back and his other hand over his mouth, trying to calm himself down but it reeeeeeeally wasn't working.

Zerah looked over to Kama, eyes barely open. "Naaah, I'm....f-fine! I can keep....fight..fi.." Zerah fell down on one of his knees for a moment, feeling as though he was about to vomit from overexerting his body. "Heheh.....m-maybe you're right....I'll find...Ooro....I'll be back soon...though so..don't die on me.." He smiled at the guild leader. He rose back on two feet, and started wobbling towards Ooro. 

The fearen seemed to be preoccupied with Valdus and other guild members, so it wasn't too much of an issue for Zerah to find his way to Ooro. The only problem being his vision was dimming quickly, and his whole body was convulsing. He wasn't sure if it was blood loss, exhaustion or both, but whatever it was, it was getting extremely difficult to push through. Zerah fell to the ground once more, violently vomiting up the black substance that filled his veins. His face contorted in disgust at the sight of it bubbling and shifting. The blood hopped up from the ground, taking Zerah by surprise and knocking him backwards. The blood found it's way over the imp's eyesocket and settled there, covering the hole. Zerah hadn't told it to do that, nor did he have the magic left to command the blood. Yet the hound-ish hands and blood patch worked on their own. But Zerah wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

He rose to his feet again, wiping his mouth of excess blood and finally made it over to the elven woman. She appeared to have just slain a humanoid fearen, to which Zerah smiled. Thank the Gods he didn't have to deal with it. "Heheh....nice...job, Ooro...Hey, do...you have any....magic boosting herbs...or...or...uh.....just something to.....uh...w-wake...me up...heheh...." With that, Zerah collapsed on the floor, the beasts his hands had been whimpering as they melted into an enormous pool of blood.

Daryn no longer had her bow, so when she was told she was to help Luair bring Valdus down, she cursed herself for letting herself get caught by a spore fearen. Soon however Valdus was brought down by fearen, and Luair not long after had shot her arrow and needed help keeping Valdus down.

"I gotcha, kid!" She shouted, hurriedly grabbing for the strings that were tied to her arrow. "If you see an opening to shoot again, take it! I'll be fine holding on on my own!"

    It took the priest a moment or two to finally come around after the humanoid had solidly nailed him across the side of the head, watching through unfocused eyes Ooro and the man believed to be Marcus finally beginning their fight. Something about their exchange seemed a bit odd, and he wasn't sure whether it was the ringing in his ears or not, but it almost sounded as if there was laughter.

    As Ooro finally brought the fearen's life to a close, he heard a sudden commotion rising from Valdus.




    It seemed as though the plan was now in action.

    Enoch ran back to the smaller elven girl as she shot the second string towards Valdus. Raising his glaive, he focused a Haste spell onto Osseus, Zerah, and Kama before grabbing the second string that had just been shot. In preparation for Valdus-fishing, he widened his stance and dug his heels into the ground, body braced for the inevitable forceful tugging. "Got it." Hopefully this will all be over soon, he thought to himself, surveying the rest of the guild to see their status.