CotV Chapter Twenty

Year: 52 CE
Drool swung from their lips. Their shiny white skin, erratically decorated with crude tribal tattoos of a black ink, cracked in the burning sun as they swung their massive fists, bringing down crumbling sandstone walls. Their patchy clothing was fashioned from leather, and provided an unnecessary layer of protection.
Two mages teamed up, casting spells which complemented each other. The two energetic streams spiraled around each other and dug into the body of the Narrak juggernaut like few physical weapons could. It was damaged, but took on an expression of more annoyance and pain than real lasting damage. Lasting damage is, of course, the end goal when you cast two spells at the same time into someone. Unless they're really benevolent spells. Well, at the very least on a battlefield... no, battlefields have a larger amount of healing spells being cast than normal as well. Hmm. Well, in general casting a combination of two spells into one being will do some sort of lasting damage. There. Two exceptions being healing spells and Narrak.
It lumbered towards them, and they dove to two sides. It lazily targeted one, swinging down a massive fist into the sandstone barricade behind which she had dodged. The blockage shattered, scattering comprising blocks across the cobblestone roadway. The other mage (by name of Restavis) pulled a large rock into the air by way of his staff and proceeded to swing at full strength forward, driving the rock into the Narrak's head/neck area. It collapsed to the ground and began oozing dark red blood. Restavis turned to see another charging at him, and leapt into an open front which had been a shop window barely in time for it to slide to a halt. The staff flew out of his hand, landing in the back of the large room.
The Narrak reached out, grabbing the sandstone between the window and the doorframe in its giant fist and pulling it free of its built surroundings, creating a large hole. Before it could move in closer, the other mage (by name of Mariva) wrapped black tendrils around the neck area of the creature: a hard task, as the bottom of its head was indistinguishable from the beginning of its neck. (This, by the way, is true for all creatures of its species.) Regardless of anatomical resistance to choking, snapping, and many other neck-related injuries that damage the human organism (very poor design, may I add), Mariva pulled back the monster from moving into the ruined store. Restavis scrambled for his staff, practically leaping to the back. He grabbed it and turned as the monster broke free from the restraining tentacles. He cast a debris blast directly at the monster, drawing blocks from around him into the beam striking the beast in the chest. It collapsed on the ground in front of him, more thick red blood slipping across the floor.
"Let's get out of here!" he yelled to Mariva. Narrak could smell the blood of their dead, attracting more. He jumped out of the window and they went to regroup.
----
Elsewhere, a significantly larger specimen ignored the dual stream of sped-up sharp debris fragments being cast by two earthen mages who were not Restavis. It was too busy knocking down two pillars at once. The third (mage, not pillar) hurled a fireball at its head, which exploded, giving it a nasty blow and possible later-in-life tinnitus. At this it took notice, becoming quickly angered. It turned and charged, swinging with its meaty fist. The earth mages flew and each hit a wall and fell dead to the ground. The fire mage blasted a flaming spell at the monstrous Narrak, but it did nothing to the creature, who smashed the mage into the ground with a fist.
----
"We're taking heavy casualties," reported a nature mage (by name of Iotivia) to her general, accompanied by two companions. "Our forces can't make it much longer. When will the assets arrive?"
"I ordered them half an hour ago, they'll be here very soon," he responded.
A Narrak burst into the open, a large plaza in the center of which was a regenerative fountain. The great wizard turned to it, his custom-built staff twirling effortlessly in his hand, as if there was no monstrous beast three times his height and four times his width lumbering towards him. He simply moved forward, a sweeping motion of all his limbs, and cast at it a simple motion spell, pushing the monster backwards with extreme force, such that a Narrak would inflict on a normal human with a push of the hand. It flew, practically, into a sandstone wall, which crumbled. The general (by name of Edward) simply cast from his hand lightning, which rocketed across the plaza, striking the monster directly in the head and chest. A bloodless kill.
Edward was an insanely powerful magic-user, such that he could (if chosen) attain the title of Sorcerer, but he preferred great wizard. At the age of fifty-four, he was remarkably spry, and looked not a day past twenty-five.
"We'll head to the southern sector, there's report of a very large one," Iotivia yelled to Edward.
"Let your companions go," Edward responded, casting with deft accuracy two homebrewed potions across the square, which they caught. "I need you here to defend the fountain."
"Understood," responded Iotivia, and they both turned to face the next Narrak assault.
----
In yet another location, Restavis and Mariva met with a water mage holding the arm of one of the stragglers living in the ruined city. "I found one, we need to get him to safety," the water mage gasped, "but I'm being purs-" He didn't get to finish as a Narrak charged into the street, roaring at the three.
"Got this one," Mariva yelled, and fired from her staff a dark tendril that took on a scary face.
It was purely an intimidation tactic that seemed to fall flat on its face when confronting a giant beast of pure predatorial instinct. The spell itself didn't, however, hitting the monster in its chest. The water mage placed a bucket onto the ground, and from it sent a stream at the speed-neutralized beast by way of his staff. The stream restrained the creature as Restavis prepared his spell. Mana centralized in him, around him, focused through his staff, and he stepped forward, swinging the staff from one side to the other quickly. The ground in front of him, underneath the Narrak, ruptured, and the large beast fell to the ground. Mariva shot it through the head with a bolt of dark energy.
"Come on," Restavis yelled, already on the move. "We need to get to safety before more show up!" The other three followed.
----
In front of the fountain a Narrak twice as large as the norm burst through a wall, roaring. Edward simply turned to Iotivia and said lazily, "I was informed it was in the southern sector."
"It was last time I got a report, sir!" Iotivia responded. She jumped before the monster could slam down its fist onto her, and it instead hit the ground where she had been standing. It tried to do the same to Edward, but in a flurry of air currents he was somewhere else immediately.
Iotivia cast vines which wrapped around the monster. They didn't hold for long and she, too, had to quickly be somewhere other than the position upon which the giant stone-like fist slammed. She ended up behind its head, and cast a quick blade from her staff, slicing it across the back of the neck. Basic Narrak anatomy would prove that the quick attack from an unprepared position very quickly and awkwardly damaged no major organs, but did distract the great beast, which turned toward her as she landed on the ground. It began to lumber toward her, but was immediately captured in a cat's-cradle spell cast by Edward.
A cat's-cradle spell is a type of restraint spell used to hold back large masses. It takes extreme skill to cast and master. It takes the form of ropes comprised of the element which is utilized to cast the spell (lightning in this case), wrapped in many different ways around the hands of the caster, extending to the mass, where they also wrap in certain formations to hold back whatever it is. It can be (and has been) used to stop large rocks from falling, keep motorized vehicles from crashing into certain doom, and hold back a large Narrak from assaulting a nature mage. Edward, of course, had cast one nearly perfectly, the ropes of mundane electricity (magical electricity which is inactive, thereby non-shocking) wrapping around the shoulders and hips which connected the limbs to the body, as well as forming an X shape across both faces of the Narrak's torso.
Edward quickly activated the electricity and the monster was zapped, roaring in electrocuting pain. It grabbed the "ropes" with which it was tied, forcibly tearing them off.
"That's impossible," Edward breathed. The Narrak turned towards him, and began a fast lumber that was practically a sprint. With barely a flicker of worry Edward began a new spell, but when he cast forth fire from his wand the monster ignored it, smacking him hard and sending he and his staff flying in different directions. The staff, though unaware of it (being a staff and all), got the lucky end of the stick, landing on the sand harmlessly. Edward was not quite as fortunate, his back instead meeting with a hard sandstone wall.
"Edward!" Iotivia screamed, but he simply opened his eyes in a smile.
"I'll be fine," he said in a somewhat quiet voice which reached, by some magic force, across the plaza to Iotivia. "They're here," he announced in the same voice, gesturing out to the open end of the plaza beyond which was desert. Quite hopeful, for a man with a drooling Narrak standing over him. The monster, appearing to understand the sentiment of a cornered, weakened enemy with sudden immense hope, looked in that direction as well.
Restavis, Mariva, and the water mage (by name of Enquivi) entered the plaza quickly, but not from the open end of the plaza: they instead witnessed what Edward, Iotivia, and the Narrak did.
At high speeds, seven redlectric-powered speeding machines hovered across the desert, flying at breakneck speed two blocks off the ground toward the plaza. They slowed and came to a stop right at the outer edge of the buildings. The Narrak roared at them, but the machinelike precision arrangement didn't stop. Two of them flew upwards, forming the corners of a square with two more on the ground. The latter two opened their sides, extending out a complex array of Energetic Stone, obsidian, and Connective Stone towards each other and the floating ones. Three men exited another, opening up their hovering truck to reveal magical guns, weapon shipments for an army. Quite fitting, as the four cornerships finished constructing their mobile Edwardian Portal, which lit and flamed with sparking blue portal blocks.
Inside the portal a silhouetted figure appeared, floating above the ground with large skeletal wings, arms outstretched, holding what looked to be a scepter. Underneath him the shadows of hundreds faded into existence, and burst through, an entire army of magical soldiers walking in terrifyingly intimidating time. Above them, wings of dark magic and scepter of black mana, floated sorcerer Vizzan Julius, member of the highest tier of the Wizardian Council. Edward was one of his only equals.
"About time they arrived, don't you think, Edward?" he called, casting from his scepter a gray beam encased in fading runes with no motion of his own, such that it seemed the staff had taken it upon itself to unleash its magical energy. The beam dived past the now-approaching Narrak and enveloped Edward, healing his body and raising him to his feet. Salvation had arrived.
Vizzan turned to the monster and commanded his army, "Kill it! And all others you see like it!"
They obeyed. Ten of the machinelike soldiers broke from the ranks, fanning out to cast. The rest of the army began to split into streams, marching single-file into the city. The squad started casting the same spell, a basic flaming cat's-cradle attack. Their lack of experience didn't matter, as their combined power resulted in one normal attack. This, however, was useless, as the Narrak simply pulled off the ropes as it had done to Edward's spell, swinging an arm like a cinderblock and knocking most of them across the square into their fellow mages.
"Continue marching!" yelled Julius to the legions. "I'll handle this one." He extended his arm slowly but methodically, as if he was a choreographed dancer, pointing at the Narrak with the blackened branch capped with golden intricacies that was his magic channel.
From the scepter flew a black formless mass which wrapped around the enormous Narrak. The beast tried to grab the magical substance and pull it from its body, but it stuck like glue. Julius raised the scepter with some difficulty, and with it came the Narrak. He twisted his body in the air, and pulled along the Narrak with it as if there was an invisible pole stretching from the scepter to the monster. Julius twirled in midair, the Narrak revolving around him uncannily like the hammer in a hammer throw competition. He pointed his arm up and as his scepter stopped glowing, the Narrak flew vertically, ascending far past the tops of the highest buildings in the town. Restavis, Mariva, Iotivia, Edward, and Enquivi watched, mouths completely agape, as Julius made a mockery out of the gigantic enemy. The army continued to march, emptying out of the portal and dissipating into the city.
Julius floated down and landed next to his troops in a way much suggesting he was one who didn't plan to stay on the ground long. Just as soon as he was on the ground he was off again, leaping with enhanced strength into the air. As he sped vertically towards the falling Narrak, carried by his skeleton wings, his scepter glowed and shined, producing from its end an enormous blade, at least the size of Julius himself. He swung it powerfully, meeting the Narrak in midair and leaving a hefty slash wound that propelled it even further into the skies.
The blade disintegrated and Julius sped towards the ground faster than he had flown up, landing with the force to shatter the legs of a non-sorcerer. His powerful impact cracked the ground and brought from the earth a pure black fire in a circle around him. The four mages and Edward, off to the side, watched as the flames crackled and twisted themselves above him into a powerful spinning vortex that formed a dark spike.
The Narrak, running short of the lift granted it by Julius' sword strike, fell helplessly, meeting brutally with the spike. The lancelike spear of dark energy split into thousands of smaller tentacle-like strands, all stabbing through the beast and ending its life nigh-instantaneously. They faded away as soon as the job was done, sending viscera and blood sprinkling all over the plaza. Narrak blood, guaranteed to attract more of its kind. But Julius paid it no mind, turning to face the five left in the plaza. A long and powerful awed silence followed as the five processed what they had just seen.
Edward broke the silence. "Vizzan", he said, with the faint laugh-like huff that comes with utter amazement. "You've improved, vastly. I don't think even I could have done that."
"I know," responded Julius. "You're lucky you have me on your team, because I'm feeling more powerful than I've ever been before."
His eyes twinkled in a purple flash that only Restavis and Mariva saw.
Category:Sad's Fanon
Category:CotV