- Grand Colosseum Arena -
'We can't keep this up like we've been doing,' Jack cursed, his arms had begun to feel heavy from the constant fighting. His weapon was starting to dull and the armour was getting so dented that movement was starting to become difficult. 'We're so disorganized out here and these monsters keep coming like they're being drawn here.'
The surviving traitor adventurers had pulled back from the melee and were keen to let the others wear themselves down fighting. True they had inflicted numerous casualties on the traitors and the monsters that seemed to be ignoring them, but even the most experienced and powerful loyalists were starting to show signs of fatigue. Jack's mind was racing for some kind of solution to their problem, a way to rally or boost them up to full fighting capability. His sweeping eyes fell on a pair of Halflings that were swinging their lutes at a giant man-ant, and an idea began to form.
-
Elsewhere in the arena, Vesper's borrowed scimitar deflected a claw that was aiming for his head. Before the werewolf could swing again, Vesper swung his tail full force into its side and sent it crashing into a giant bat. Seeing movement out of the corner of his eye, Vesper turned to face the leaping minotaur. It was too close for him to have time to bring his sword up to defend himself, the feral eyes seemed to bore through him. Then a tail came crashing down on top of it and pinned it to the ground. 2 arrows then struck its bellowing head and it was still.
"Shouldn't I be defending you Neisha," Vesper questioned.
"You're welcome," Neisha fired off another arrow into the air, striking a swooping giant hawk in the wing and causing it to fall into the arena end over end.
When the fighting began Neisha's 2 bodyguards had given their lives to protect her. Vesper was nearby and had helped fight off the traitors, once the immediate threat was taken care of Vesper heard someone calling out weakly.
One of Neisha's guards was still clinging on to life. Vesper looked around frantically for a healer, but they were all either dead or fighting on both sides. "Stay with him, I'll go find a healer," he began to leave to try to drag one back when he felt someone grab his arm.
"Wait," the guard coughed, "please. It's too late for me. Please protect her where we failed."
Vesper stared into the guards unfocused eyes and nodded. The guard let out a sigh and his grip loosened.
And now here he was fighting with all the strength he had.
He used his free hand to throw blasts of magic at any foe his sword couldn't reach, but the mana was running out, as was Neisha's arrows.
Then over the sounds of battle, the two of them heard music starting to play. The pair turned toward the source of the music. Jack was issuing orders to the other fighters to form up a perimeter around the bards, their music granting renewed strength to everyone's abilities. Several mages and clerics were dashing past the forming circle of weapons and adding their own power to the formation. Vesper grabbed Neisha's hand and drug her along behind him as he quickly made his way to the group, dodging fang and claw and stinger of and that tried to stop them.
A pair of heavily armored warriors parted and let them pass inside the formation. Once inside, Vesper and Neisha turned outward to help face off against the monster horde.
-
Vect wasn't sure when he began to feel the bloodlust he was feeling now. Maybe it was already there when he began this joining, maybe it was just now making itself known to him. He didn't really care as he wrenched the dire wolf's head to one side violently and heard its neck snap. Vect smiled maliciously as he let the body drop to the ground, satisfied with his work.
(Vect please separate us! Something's affecting you.) Erress pleaded, her voice strained from the effort required to keep herself from merging fully with him.
"This is real power," Vect echoed a voice in the back of his mind, ignoring Erress's please. "I never knew it could be so intoxicating." He grabbed the back leg of the dire wolf and threw the body into a traitor harpy that had been strafing the arena with arrows and knocked it out of the sky. His actions had caught the attention of a winged red snake and it moved to attack him. Running forward to close the distance between them, Vect was surprised when the snake opened its mouth and breathed out a wall of fire at him. Vect tried to sidestep the flames, but was unable to clear the flames completely. Feeling a stinging sensation, Vect looked at his arm and saw the the fire had burned off the entire left sleeve up to the shoulder. However his skin was mostly unharmed, looking more like a sunburn and a few more red and black scales were growing in place. He reached up with the bare arm, grabbed the throat of the snake and dug in him lengthening nails, breaking the skin. In one swift motion Vect pulled and the serpent's neck followed, leaving the rest behind.
As he dropped the remains, Vect felt his eyes prickling and blinked to clear them. When he opened them he saw a black aura surrounding the traitors.
He wasn't sure how, possibly some kind of new sense from this joining, but Vect was able to feel the same magic on all the traitors. A kind of evil magic seemed to practically ooze from a their pockets and surrounded them. Reaching into the pocket of a dead traitor, Vect fished out a strange looking coin. The dark aura surrounded him and the monsters seemed to no longer be interested in him.
Sensing a large concentration of this aura coming from one of the arena's entrance halls, Vect bolted through the fighting and towards the source. As he got closer, Vect saw the monsters were entering the arena through the same passageway. Past the oncoming waves of monsters and in the pitch darkness, Vect saw a very large group of the traitors gathered inside. Most he didn't recognize, a few he'd seen once or twice. As he stood at the opening to the passageway, monsters ignoring him as they ran by, Vect felt a powerful heat building inside him. A heat that needed to be unleashed.
(Vect! Don't! I can't hold it!)
(Do it) a voice urged him on.
-
Mok, crammed in the passageway with dozens of his fellow conspirators, was patting himself on the back for thinking of gathering the others and waiting for the monsters to wear the enemy down. The monsters were funneling into the passageway and they had no where else to really go save back out into the arena. His smile disappeared when he saw the outline of someone standing in the passageway entrance. The figure seemed to just be standing there.
"What in the nine hells is he doing," were Mok's last words.
-
Salazar Ortega was relishing this opportunity to use his abilities to their fullest. He had lost count of the foes he had felled for the first time in his life. And he wasn't the only one who was enjoying the brawl, Vect had been fighting like a mad savage.
(It seems like the elf's partner is having trouble.) Ortega's spirit partner, Amron, observed.
(With what,) Ortega asked, headbutting a four armed gorrilla.
(Seems she tried to do a temporary joining with the elf and now he has lost control. Look at him.) Turning away from the beaten ape, Ortega saw the elf's clothes were torn, burned, and covered in blood. Steam was rising from him, like he was about to catch fire any minute. Vect took a deep breath.
(I looks like he is going to use his breath weapon,) Ortega frowned, (but he shouldn't be able to unless they're joined fully.)
(Well he is, and his partner is begging him not to.)
Ortega gasped when Vect unleashed his breath weapon on the passageway. Instead of the typical orange and red fire that was expected, the flames were black and purple with a few hints of red mixed in. The 'fire' engulfed the monsters and entered the passageway, anything inside was not spared the inferno. Rather than just burning, those caught in the fires were melting and almost decaying as they burned.
(What in the hell is that?)
(Ortega, you must stop him now.)
(Why? How?)
(Separate them, kill him, I don't care just do it before he joins fully.)
In the distance Vect was on his knees, clutching his head and screaming.