- Several blocks from the portal -
"This is absurd," Duinir declared after running an owl bear through and yanking his blade out.
"That someone fit this many creatures in a single vessel," Faral asked.
"No, that you're winning."
"You're keeping score," Faral sidestepped the claws of a human with a scorpion's head and claws and decapitated it.
"Don't you two?"
"No! Usually we're focusing on surviving," Edran yelled, kicking a dog sized rat away.
"Come now, you must try to get some enjoyment from this," Shaman Gratz suggested, sending a pair of summoned hounds to attack a worg, "Gorg is having fun." As if to emphasize his statement, Chief Gorg jumped, laughing all the way, into a cluster of monster and swinging his pair of axes wildly.
They then heard a deafening roar coming from the location if the portal. Booming footsteps drew closer as the monster pulled itself out of the too small opening, stretching it wider to allow its bulk to pass. The black scaled hydra was gargantuan, easily over 20 stories tall. The main body and central head were covered in black scales, but the other 4 primary heads were each a different color. Red, blue, green, white, each resembling a dragon's head each neck large enough that they looked like they could swallow an elephant whole. And like branches on a tree, smaller heads branched off from each of the 5 primary necks, their color matching the head they branched from. The blue opened its maw and a bolt of lightning decimated a nearby building, the smaller heads firing their own smaller bolts in different directions indiscriminately.
-
Alyvia, still invisible, dropped her pen in shock. "This is what that boy became.....," she was at a loss for words. The red head turned a street into a raging inferno, only for the white to suddenly put it out with a blast of ice. The monster slowly crawled forward on its six clawed feet, 7 spiked tails whipping behind it. Even from her distance, Alyvia could see the attacks that were being fired at this new threat, the smaller monsters now a much lower priority and allowing them to spread further into the city.
- Mages School Hallway -
After they saw the blast fire from the school, Gabriel requested Theodore let him investigate. Unfortunately, he was being forced to walk the hallways to his destination because someone very powerful had erected a field around the entire school that prevented flight spells, teleportation, and anything else he could have used to get there faster. Even communication spells weren't able to call out. However, he wasn't going to the library as he had originally planned. As he had been walking to the library, a pair of senior students had ran by, not having noticed him and were talking about needing more time to break the seal on the Dark Vault. After pressing the 2 for more information after some unpleasant coercion, he had learned of a plan to open the Dark Vault and plunder the artifacts inside. He prayed that whoever was in the library didn't need his help, as anything that was stored in the Vault was never meant to see the light of day.
Gabriel rounded the corner and skidded to a halt. At the far end of the hallway was the remains of the first of the 3 sealed doors, its cold-iron frame broken and hanging limply on the remaining hinges. Sitting in the center of the hall just in front of the destroyed door was a well dressed man in an elegant high backed chair. A tea kettle floated around him and refilled the cup in his hands.
"Ah, good. I was starting to wonder if anyone was going to show," he said as if greeting a houseguest.
"Who are you," Gabriel demanded.
The man sipped his tea and then sighed contentedly. "Introductions then. I am Reginald Harker, you must be that drunkard who lives in the far northeast tower." A powerful explosion rippled behind him in the darkness and sent a whirlwind of air slamming into Gabriel, who had to plant his feet to keep from being knocked over. Reginald seemed completely unphased. "And that would be the second seal being broken. I wonder if you can stop us from opening the third," he smiled maliciously.
"To stop you I will give all that I have," Gabriel declared and he fired a dozen bolts of lightning from his palms that all converged on Reginald at once, sending up a cloud of smoke and dust from the resulting impact.
"Is that really all you have? I must say that I'm not impressed," he chuckled through the smoke and dust. A pair of menacing glowing blue eyes peered out from the cloud as it dissipated. His chuckled stopped when his monocle lens cracked as well as his teacup. He removed his monocle and examined it. "Ah well, I suppose you do have some talent," he casually threw the broken glass away. He then pointed his finger at Gabriel. "Now let me show you what I can do," the ring on his finger began to glow like the energy gathering on his fingertip before he fired.
- Mages School Library -
The tremor that rumbled through the school from somewhere down below jostled Celine awake. Feeling something heavy on her she pushed and managed to roll the fallen bookshelf off of her. Getting up, Celine surveyed the destruction. The blast had opened a 10 foot wide hole in the wall to the outside and had carved a trench into the floor marking the path. No signs or remains of the one that had failed to keep the barrier up. Eva was busy fighting the only other infiltrator in the area, the other 3 were presumably still trying to break the seal on the forbidden section and Akemos was nowhere to be seen. Her eyes fell on Freed's kneeling form, his binding ribbons slowly regrowing and obviously tired out. 'Now's my chance to end this,' venom dripped from her claws as she stood up. Celine tried to fly but her wings were damaged. Fighting through the pain she ran towards him, her vision tunneling at her now singular goal.
Freed heard her approach and turned. Seeing the murderous intent, he desperately willed his body to move but it remained unresponsive too tired from that last attack. Just before the claw came down, Freed heard someone speak and a shield of light stopped her claws.
"Sorry I'm late, this place is confusing," came a familiar voice. Standing in the doorway, hammer and shield ready was Dolph Remly. "Shouldn't you be in bed Freed?"
"What are you doing here," Freed asked.
"Needed someone to talk to and thought of you. Healers said you were coming here for some reason and it looks like you need a hand. As for you," he glared at Celine, "care to dance?"