The fighting seemed to die down for a time in the dinning hall. They had managed to drive the demons out, but now came the task of defending it. The guards seemed to have set up defensive lines at the entrances to the hall, looking something like retrofitted hoplites with their spear walls. It seemed to be working for a time, but the guardsmen were tiring, the fatigue from battle quickly catching up with them as they fought. With every one demon that threw itself on the defenses two more followed behind. Every so often the demons would break through and resume the rampage through the hall. But before i could get too far back it would meet its end by either a student, a teacher or a guardsmen's hand. One of these groups of demons was just being finished of by a small force of students and gaurdsmen. The demons had not been the most powerful, only having broken through with pure numbers, once they were through the breach and they spread out they lost a bit of their advantage. They were able to kill them off one by one only taking minimal casualties in the fight much to their luck, for they would need to make use of every capable fighter to defend the hall. Deven and Jenna had joined up with a group of guardsmen who were jumping between the defensive lines mopping up any demons that broke through. The latest of this put up some fight, not so much with skill but with numbers. They left their mark on the group of defenders just as every group of demons had before them. It seemed to have fallen down to a battle of attrition at this point, and this battle the defenders would surely loose. The demons, from memory, had the numbers to keep throwing weaker demons at them and whittle down their defenses. They would not hold for ever, unless something changed. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Fucking demon!" Deven growled as he stomped on the head of one of the now fallen demons. "Go back to the inferno where you belong!" He added, his abuse of the demon's body doing little to quell the fire that burned in him. His eyes bore into the demon's lifeless body containing such a immeasurable amount of hate and pain with no small amount of fear laying below. Old emotions were brought back into light bringing out a side of Deven he would much rather keep hidden away. His resentment for demons and any associated with their kind was already higher then most, this, only served to tip him over the edge. He wouldn't be content unless every demon here was slain were they stood, in the most grueling way possible, but even that would not serve to make amends for what they had done here and before. When things began to calm an increased clarity of all the damage the demons had done came with it. Deven's calm demeanor he had taken up during the opening fight had melted away when he saw everything the demon's had done. During the fight he had watched the demons claim some of the lives, but his drive to fight to survive and the immediate threat on both his and Jenna's survival had kept him focused and his head for the most part clear. But now, there was no immediate threat on his or Jenna's life, they were safe for a time and he could not stop the rage from swelling within him. "Deven." A voice said from in front of him. Slowly he lifted his eyes from the demons lifeless corpse to see Jenna standing before him. Blood coated her in many parts of her body, some of it her own and some of it not. Her clothes had large stains of crimson dotting it and her cloak was long gone, her hair had clumped together in places from both sweat and blood. All over her arms were scratches and cuts from the many demons they had encounter across her stomach lay the slash from the two demons they had fought sometime ago. She had been forced to focus her healing efforts on only threatening and inhibiting wounds, leaving many of the smaller cuts and scratches open. She had not been able to heal these large wounds by far but had managed to close them, yet she was left winded by the effort. Deven's own body showed the signs from the fighting. His helmet was dented from when he had been struck with the blunt of a demons sword. His chest plate was decorated with dozens of slash and claw marks some digging deeper then other while even fewer actually breaking through. One his side was the wound he had sustained in the same fight Jenna had taken hers. The armor going up his arms showed just as much if not more marks then that of his chest plate. Across his armor splatters of crimson darkened his dark silver armor. Through the slit of his helm his grim eyes were set gazing forward looking like that of a soldier's caught in a never ending battle. "Don't waste your energy on the dead ones. Save it for those that can actually do some damage." Jenna said stepping towards him and pulling his shoulder forward. "Come on. Some Slasher demons broke through at one of the defensive lines. We need to go help." She continued pushing Deven onward. He nodded his head in response and followed her push. "Sorry, your right. Lets go, the longer we take the more people can get hurt." He said, his tone grim and far from what it once had been when they walked this great dinning hall. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When the fighting died down and Deven's attitude changed so did Jenna's. She had taken the chance to finally get her head on her shoulders again, no longer was she cowing in fear and struggling to will herself forward to fight a demon. The sight of the dead and the wounded gave her a will to protect those that were still standing and filled her with a sense of purpose that was more then to just purely her own survival. She wanted to make sure as many people as she possibly could survived this night. When they managed to push back the demons her dwindling hope was sparked anew again and with each demon death that followed her hope that they may have finally turned things around was strengthened. But her new found drive came as a double edged sword, she had found her will to fight but with each defender that fell she felt a great pain a their loss each one struck her as her failure to help them. But with each loss she would push harder and fight harder as to try and stop more from meeting the same fate. She nodded towards Deven as he began moving towards the breach. Many of the guardsmen from their group were already far ahead so their was a chance they would not even need to fight the demons, instead the demons may already be dead by the time they got there. Jenna had managed to scavenge a decent amount of arrows from fallen guardsmen and soldiers which she put to deadly use, in truth she was thankful for finally getting her hands on a bow and arrows, she was much more effective with a bow than a sword and many of the guardsmen were thankful too for at times a well timed and placed arrow had saved a guards life and claimed that of a demons. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Soon the pair arrived just in time to see two students finish off the small group of claw demons. Both Deven and Jenna only barely recognized one of the students having seen the girl hanging around Ssarak earlier in the night before all things went to the inferno. The demons seemed to fall easy enough, having been distracted with what seemed like a bat of some type. Once the students finished off their opponents they made there way towards the defensive line. Just as Deven and Jenna were about to turn and head for a new defensive line they heard a shout from the spear wall. "Incoming! We have a large group of demons coming this way! We're going to need some back up!" Shouted the voice from somewhere in the lines. Cries of despair rang out from points in the lines. Deven and Jenna both flashed each other worried looks, they had no way of seeing over the line of soldiers so they had no idea just what was coming for the their defensive line. Deven's eyes skimmed around the area before settling on a nearby overturned table. He sheathed his sword and jogged over towards it. "Over here." He said as he reached the table tipping it back upright before pushing it closer to the lines. Jenna catching on to what he was doing ran forward and hopped onto the table just as Deven brought it to a stop. Once she was on she turned her gaze towards the approaching defensive lines now able to see over the majority of the guardsmen in the defensive position. With the new vantage point she was able to see just what was coming for them. Jenna's heart dropped to her knees as she watched the oncoming group of menacing demons. "By the gods..." She said almost under her breath. Just as she did Deven climbed up onto the table to see for himself. As he did he immediately understood just why the guardsmen had cried out as they had. "We are going to need a lot more to defend from that..." He said his tone grim. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Deven turned and looked back as to try and spy one of the teachers. "We need some more help for this. We are going to be in for one hell of a fight if we do this on our own." He said quietly as the group of guardsmen they were traveling with joined into the ranks of the defensive line. "Someone! Go find the teachers! We are going to need their help for this." Deven shouted as he turned his head back to the defensive line. Once done shouting he quickly turned his head back to Jenna, "Whittle those demonic bastards down with every arrow you have, anything you can do to hurt or kill them will help in the long run." He said before looking back to the guardsmen. "If you have a bow or skill with a bow now is the time to use it! Get to a vantage point and put some arrows in those bastards!" Shouted Deven before he hopped down off the table. [I]We need something. Something to help slow them down or at least hurt them.[/I] He thought to himself as his eyes scanned around the area for anything they could use to help them fight these demons. Then he spotted it, what once had served as a spot to refill your drinks, it had a collection of barrels all containing different alcoholic beverages. Deven rushed over towards the barrels quickly scanning over their labels looking for one he knew would work well for his plan. Then he found it, [i]Dragon Spite[/I] a gift from Yarsomere and something that to his knowledge should ignite when coming into contact with fire. Deven looked towards the defending guardsmen, "Someone help me over here! I have an idea!" He shouted, hoping someone would come to help. Once done he turned back towards the job at hand. He stepped towards the barrel and wrapped both his arms around it and lifted it up, he then turned and set the barrel on the ground before looking back toward the other barrels. Behind most of the barrels was a even larger keg, much larger then his whole body, its label read "pure alcohol". Deven was bewildered as to why the college would have pure alcohol out but he just pushed the thought out, [I]Now is not the time to question the colleges choices in alcoholic beverages![/I] he scolded himself. [I]If we could get our hands on that barrel, we could do a hell of a lot more. But we'll need some serious muscle to get it rolling.[i] He thought to himself as he looked the barrel over. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mean while, atop Jenna's table she was repeatedly nocking arrows before letting them loose towards the approaching Demons. Her primary targets at this time were the claw demons, their quick movements made them rather difficult to hit, but she was a skilled archer and managed to land a few arrows before another target crept into her ire, the Fallen Sorcerer. She nocked an arrow and aimed for the Sorcerer, "Get out of our College you son-of-a-bitch." She said angrily before letting the arrow fly, it whizzed through the air heading towards the Sorcerer. With grace her right hand moved to retrieve another arrow from her quiver before nocking it, pulling back the string and letting it fly towards the mage.