The death of Rydar

[youtube:https://youtube.com/watch?v=k1DNRlRp4C4]Story Script:

I felt myself being shaken. “Kyth, we need you!” Opening my eyes slowly, the world came into focus.

“How long was I out for?”

“Please come!” Gibby stood and helped me up.

“Wha...what’s happening?” Coming out of a glipper’s sleep was so disorienting.

“The Prince has been wounded”

We hurried down the twisting hall of our underground base. Wounded men were being carried past me, heading towards our healer’s room. What was going on here?

“We couldn’t wake you - the Prince insisted that we went without.”

“Went to where?” The world was moving too fast for me. I felt half-drunk, and still half exhausted.

“To free them, Kyth. The prisoners.” Gibby’s jaw was clenched. I knew my friend well enough to know he must have argued against going without me. We entered the Prince’s chamber, he was laying in his bed, surrounded by aids and friends.

“Move,” I commanded. A gap separated as they saw me enter. “Why didn’t you wait?” I asked my friend, kneeling beside his bed. The sheets were stained red with his blood. He had been bandaged, but from the looks of it, the wound was severe.

“I couldn’t, Kyth. They were suffering. Tortured.” The prince closed his eyes, wincing in pain.

Glancing up at Gibby, he nodded, confirming my thoughts he must have gotten that info from one of the pigmen prisoners.

The head healer looked across to me from the other side of the bed. His face was tight. He shook it slightly, the meaning was clear.

Rydar must have known as well. He struggled to sit up. “Get me a scribe, quickly.” Though in such pain, his voice was still firm and resonated with leadership that had been bred and refined for years.

“Rydar, you need to rest.” I pleaded.

With a small smile, Rydar looked at me, “I think I’ll have a very long time to rest shortly, my friend.” He took a sip of water from an aide. The requested scribe hurried into the room, and the Prince spoke. He spoke slowly and carefully so there wouldn’t be any misunderstanding. “We knew when we entered this hell that it would be a one-way trip, and so it is. This venture was the greatest thing mankind has ever done. We few, sacrificing our futures for the entire future of the human race, succeeded. People called this a fool’s mission when we planned it out in my father’s keep in Port Breigh, and yet, we, the fools, closed every nether portal in the world. Your families will live long and happy lives thanks to what we did.”

“It seems as though I will not be able to continue this journey with you. Though our first mission is over, and ‘our’ families safe. There are other people here who need us. Kyth has proven himself time and time again in this conflict and has my trust, and my friend. Follow him, go and rescue our brothers and sisters from these beasts, and live out your days.”

Prince Rydar nodded to the scribe that he was finished and looked up at me. “Kyth, you must save them. There were more pigmen in the castle than we knew. I fear our losses were substantial. I believe they got reinforcements, I’m sorry, I should have waited…”

I smiled down at my friend, his energy fading, “You don’t have it in you to wait when you see suffering. I swear, I will save them and protect your people.”

He coughed up some blood, turned to look at me, “Your people, Kyth. Now, my friend, leave me so I can get some of that rest you mentioned.”

We embraced and I left him. The Prince died a few hours later.

We had a large funeral for the Prince and all the dead. Burning them in lava, as would be our tradition with the dead. The number of dead was staggering.

After the mission to break all the portals, a total of 429 souls remained. Prince Rydar took 350 men in his rescue attempt. Gibby told me the men who returned numbered less than 80.

I convened my first war council. I sat at the table, Gibby on my right, Gilda on my left. General, formerly Sergeant Ward, the First Healer Sage Fornad, and a human who had shown great courage in the battles, Lincoln Aris.

“Tell me everything I missed.”

“Yes, your majesty,” General Ward said. Your majesty sounded so very odd to me. Though I was a prince in House Comely, ever since entering the Nether, I was just a commander of Rydar’s forces. For that matter, in all honesty, even at the Zygon Society, I was simply a Dru to the others there, no Prince.

“We moved against the pigmen from the East, having looped around to the rear entrance to their castle. We saw no scouts, heard no alerts, and had no reason to expect they had been reinforced.”

Ward paused, I nodded to him to go on. “It’s my fault, my Lord, I didn’t recommend patience and more scouting.”

“It’s alright, General. Prince Rydar was many things, the patient was not one. Please, go on.”

“We decided that a fast and sudden attack would be best. It had worked for the initial portal attacks and perhaps they wouldn’t be expecting another attack so soon. We ran through the gate guards and well into the castle before they unleashed the full counter-attack.

They were prepared for us. They allowed us to proceed into the castle, resisting hardly at all until we were bottlenecked inside the halls. When the pigmen came, they came in force. Pigmen from the front and rear, while Blazes rained fire down on us from above.

We recognized there was no chance of quick success, and Rydar sounded the retreat. It was a bloody mess, my lord. Men were getting struck down, hit by fireballs, knocked into lava all around us. It was then the Prince was struck. A skeleton of all things.

When Rydar went down, the men started to run. I picked up his body, an arrow through his gut and all and ran with them.”

General Ward looked down, ashamed.

“There is no shame in staying alive. If it weren’t for you, I would not have been afforded the chance to see my friend once more.” I reached out and touched the general’s shoulder, trying to be sympathetic.

“That’s when it got worse.”

“Worse!?” I exclaimed, raising my eyebrows in surprise.

The pigmen have something else, m’lord. Some sort of superweapon. It’s a giant floating face like creature. It could shoot flaming explosives down on us. The pigmen let us go, retreating again from their castle. I didn’t know why at first, then the Ghasts appeared.”

“Ghosts?” I asked.

“It’s what the men have taken to calling them. Sire, the explosions were all around us. I would say we lost more than half our fallen during the retreat alone.”

I sighed. Pigmen, Blazes, and now Ghasts…. how could just over one hundred men take them on.

Someone knocked at the door, with urgency.

“Come.”

“Sire, our advance scouts report a detachment of pigmen left the castle, with all haste.” The boy said.

I looked at my council. “Ideas?”

“Reinforcements?” Gilda suggested.

“They were already reinforced?” I questioned.

“Perhaps they were, but maybe they were reinforced by all remaining soldiers,” Gibby said, brow furrowed in thought. “There is a second, smaller keep not far from here.”

“I still don’t understand how the Castle was reinforced right under your noses,” I asked

“This Nether is so unexplored, and 360 degrees across the landscape is a lot of areas to watch. This army doesn’t use roads, they could have come from anywhere.”

I thought about that for a few moments, something didn’t seem quite right. At once, I got it. “Send your fastest scouts to that second keep, and have them investigate it thoroughly. Tell them to look for tunnels.”

“My lord, how could they look for tunnels from outside the walls?”

“If my suspicions are correct, they should be able to walk right in the front door. I’m guessing the keep is empty.”

I broke the council for dinner and went to inspect the remaining men. They were in no condition to mount another attack. Of the soldiers we had left, most were as ragged as could be imagined. Those who weren’t injured were exhausted, dirty, and had nearly broken spirits.

A few hours later, our scouts returned. It was as I suspected. The second keep was abandoned and there was indeed a tunnel stretching under the ground between the keep and the castle holding our people prisoner.

“I suspect the pigmen routinely use this tunnel network to travel. It would explain so much, how they move so quickly between portals, and why we never run into a traveling nether force.”

We set spies to watch the tunnels for reinforcements incoming and broke for the night.

A few days later, the council was meeting again, still trying to figure a way to attack with a vastly smaller army of mostly wounded or exhausted men, and how to do it before reinforcements arrive.

The door burst open, “M’Lord, a pigmen army is marching from the south. I couldn’t see the end from my hole, but they must number in the thousands. They were entering the tunnel system for hours,” one of our spies exclaimed, huffing. Thankfully we had sent our fastest horses. Now that we were no longer fearing pigmen armies marching across the surface of this red hell, we could risk riding openly over the netherrack.

“How much time?”

“12 Hours, maybe a day.” He shook his head, “They’re not fast, but they are relentless. They seem to be slowed by pulling those damn Ghasts on a leash.”

“Ghasts. Fantastic. How many?”

“Sire…. 20 or more.”

I nodded to the scout, dismissing him. There was only one way. I think I knew for some time, honestly, when I look back, but I was hoping for another way. “Send all the men into the tunnels.” My friends stared at me, confused, “take the TNT and set traps to cave in the tunnels on top of the reinforcements.”

“All the men, sir?” General Ward questioned.

“We should attack the castle now, take our people and disappear.” Gibby urged me.

I smiled at my old friend, “There’s no time, and we don’t have the manpower. They no doubt know reinforcements are on the way. If we attack, the pigmen would just simply pull back into their fortifications and slow us to a crawl.”

The council reluctantly nodded agreement. “Then what’s the point of stopping the reinforcements?” Ward asked.

“Because I will need more time,” I said, the full plan coming together in my head.

“Time for what?” Ward asked.

I looked at the old general, “To kill them all.”

People In the Story:

[ul]

* Kytholique Comely

* Gibby

* Rydar Bahrkin Donao

* Lincoln Aris

* General Ward

* First Healer Sage Fornad

* Gilda

* Gibby

Locations are shown in Cinematics:

* Thumbnail: Sandrasku

* Elmyra's Covert

* Ruins of Agmarth

* Sandrasku

* Stillpoint

* unknown, somewhere between Port Breigh and Castle Caraway

* The Dig Site

* Transys

* Travill

* Whirling Fey