[hr][h1][color=royalblue]Pietro Machelli[/color], [color=powderblue]Anna Strauss[/color], [color=gold]Kane Bounevialle[/color], [color=lightyellow]Karkadin Gatoa[/color], and [color=palegreen]Wizzlebee de LaShtüp[/color][/h1][sub]Featuring [color=lightsteelblue]Kane’s Guard[/color] and [color=gray]Bartleby de LaShtüp[/color] [/sub] Written with [@Spoopy Scary] and [@Septicgentleman] [hr] Pietro heard a loud bang from outside of the storeroom door. His right hand flew to his rapier. His left arm stretched out wide, keeping the people back away from the door. Anna took her wand out of her bag and pointed it at a barrel of wine. The barrel floated up into the air magically and stopped above the door. The door shook. Pietro heard a shout and then the crunching of bone on the cobblestone. The door flew open. Standing in the doorway was none other than Kane Bounevialle, the legendary Talborian guard. Relieved to see that the undead were not encroaching, Anna lowered the barrel to the ground and sighed. He was handsome, just as handsome as the stories said. Spontoon in hand, he walked into the room. For a moment, it appeared to Anna as if a stream of sunlight were stretching down from the heavens and dancing across his golden hair. Pietro’s hand dropped off of his sword’s pommel. It was that guard from earlier in the day, the one that every woman in the city seemed to swoon over. He tipped his hat, mainly to hide his eyes, as the citizens rejoiced in seeing him. “It’s Kane...!” A plump woman cried. “Sir Bounevialle?” said a young boy. “You must hurry!” Kane urgently said to them, “My men have taken point at the main gates; there you can evacuate the city! I had fell the wights on the way, but they won’t be down for long! Come, go!” The citizens heeded his warning and ran for the door. Pietro and Anna followed them out into the alley. They could hear the screams of the wights and the clash of steel against bone from blocks away. Just at the end of the alley, a wight dove onto a guard and pulled him to the ground. The guard struggled under the wight’s strength, managed to roll it onto his back, pinned it to the ground with his shield, and then beat it mercilessly with a hatchet. “Which way do we go?” the young boy cried. “Main gates.” Kane repeated, then pointed down the alley Kane had come through, as indicated by a trail of skeletal bodies slowly trying to reassemble themselves. “Follow this path and it’ll get you on the main road toward the southern gate of Maceron, you’ll see some of my men and a large doraki beetle mount. Make haste, before they rise again!” Kane then turned and looked at the southern Nepharian man with the rapier. He looked capable, perhaps even familiar - but this was no time to be trying to recognize faces. He just looked capable, and knights had a way of measuring up a man’s or woman’s worth. “Keep them safe!” He said to him, before running in the opposite direction. Pietro looked at him, surprised, as he ran away. He shrugged and drew his sword. “Do not worry, my dear knight!” Pietro shouted with a smile on his face. “We will not lose a single man, woman, or child!” The people began to flood towards the end of the alley. One of the children screamed “A dorak! I thought they were myths!” Soon they reached the end of the alley and poured out onto the South Road, one of the four large roads that connected the main gates of the city to the inner square. The road was in chaos. Merchant carts and bodies littered the street. Wights ran amok, hunting down those who had yet to find shelter. Mothers in the crowd following Kane hid their children’s eyes as two wights dragged down a poor woman who was running across the street. Anna drew her wand and blasted the wights off of her with a jet of water. She appeared to draw quite a bit of attention from the wights nearby, who began to circle the group, their jaws hanging open. Pietro’s eyes grew wide. He shouted “run!” at the people and began to herd them towards the south gate. He ran with his sword in his hand, slashing every wight in their way to pieces before they could react. Anna hovered above the crowd, blasting jets of water at any wight that approached the group. Now every wight on the south boulevard was chasing them towards the gate, their screams absolutely intolerable. Anna flew to catch up with Pietro at the front of the crowd. “Tell me you have something in that bag of yours for this!” Pietro shouted. “I have a couple ideas!” Anna hovered back up into the air. She took two different terra cotta grenades out of the pouch on her belt. The largest congregation of wights was in a side street in front of the group, forming a large mob to catch them as they approached. Anna tossed the bomb in her right hand towards the horde. They looked down at the object with curiosity. It hit the ground and shattered, sending a blast of greenish-brown smoke into the air. It smelled so awful that the group, still about five blocks away, could smell it instantly. Anna flourished her wand in the air. A stream of powerful wind surrounded the wights, locking the stench cloud in. It did not affect them at all. Anna noticed another group congregating at the other side of the road. She cursed and pulled on the mini-twister. It stretched across the alley, creating a surging flow of wind that obviously did not obey the laws of physics in the slightest. This was quite a strain on Anna, as wind magic was new to her. She attempted to distribute the stench cloud between the two mobs, but it was becoming too dispersed. She frowned and took her second stench bomb out of her pouch. She had the ingredients to make two more, but making it properly would take hours. She threw the second bomb at the other half of the horde on the other side of the street. The wall of wind converged on the two groups, holding the stench in. The people were now less than two blocks away, and the wights attacking from behind were catching up. Pietro was at the back of the group, swatting at the wights as he ran. Anna took the third bomb out of her pouch. “Oh Ma’el, I hope this works,” she muttered. She threw the fire bomb at the stench cloud. Unfazed by the smell, the wights watched the terra cotta ball fly through the air and shatter on the ground. As it hit, the dragon oil ignited the oxygen in the air and threw both itself and the magnesium powder up in a lovely, super-hot explosion. The heat ignited the gas from the stink bombs. The entire block exploded, sending a bellowing “WOOSH!” across the city. The light was blinding. Shards of burning bones flew through the air like shrapnel. When the dust settled, a pile of broken bones laid scattered across the road. Several buildings had been leveled in the blast. Anna hoped no one was inside. She was growing very tired now, and she was beginning to sink towards the ground. Pietro shouted to her as she sank: “That was brilliant! Smelled like ass, though!” He swatted at another wight that was chasing them. It was exceptionally difficult to hit a target with a sword while running backwards. Pietro stepped on a femur thrown from the blast and fell backwards onto his back. The wights dove on him, dog-piling him to the ground. He screamed. “Gallor’s balls!” Anna yelled. She pointed her wand at an iron vent where the open sewers seeped into the pipes below the streets. The vent exploded, throwing the iron vent across the street and sending out a torrent of sewer water. The water blasted the wights off of Pietro and knocked the pursuing horde into pieces. Pietro got up from the ground, sputtering, and ran towards the group of civilians. Several city guards were now leading the front of the group, swatting at the wights with their spears and bashing them with wooden shields. Anna was breathing very heavily now. Her wings were exhausted and the hand with her wand in it quivered. She fell to the ground, heaving for breath. Pietro cradled her in his arms and began to run for the gate, which was now not far away. Suddenly, out of two other side streets, two hordes of wights appeared. They ran towards the citizens, their jaws open wide and their bones rattling. The guards moved to fend them off but were swiftly overcome by the sheer number. Pietro, running with Anna in his arms, became aware of a very large group of skeletons running behind him. They were no more than two paces behind, their arms outstretched and their jaws open in an unending ethereal scream. They approached the gates. As Kane had said, a large beetle stood at the south gate, with several guards on its back. Kane’s guards ran towards the wights attacking the citizens. With their help, the rest of the city guards rallied and pushed the creatures back. Pietro felt a skeletal hand hovering above his shoulder. Anna moaned weakly. As he approached where the guards had set up, he ducked his head and dove, cradling Anna in his arms to protect her from the impact. Just as he hit the ground and skidded to the beetle, a wave of flame erupted across the hordes. Some of the wights burned, while others ran in fear, still screaming. Pietro sighed in relief and fell onto his back, panting. Anna rolled off of him and got to her knees. She dug through her bag, her hands still shaking, and pulled out a vial of a milky-colored serum. “Stand still,” she said. “You’re hurt.” Indeed, his jack of plates had several bite marks in it now, and a very large bloody gash was on the base of his neck, put there by the clawing finger bone of a wight. “Can’t you...usually just zap cuts and bruises away?” he asked through heaves. “I can’t...do aether magic right now…” she panted. “I’ll do what I can.” “Alright, just don’t...don’t fuck up.” Anna rolled her eyes. She applied the milky serum to the gash on his neck with a silver spoon. It sunk into the wound and stopped the bleeding. Then she pulled out an herbal bandage. She pulled down the sleeve of his shirt and vest, exposing the top of his chest. “Not in front of the dead guys, sweetie,” he goaded. He suddenly felt a pressure around his pancreas. “Yeesh, it was a joke. You have no sense of-” “Shut the hell up and stand still,” Anna said. “I need to apply this very...carefully.” The cool herbal spread on the inside of the bandage was cool to the touch. Slowly, she wrapped the bandage around his body, keeping pressure on the neck wound. Once she had used up the bandage, she took a metal pin out of her bag and used it to hold the bandage in place. Pietro pulled his shirt back up. Then he rocked up to a seated position. “Thanks,” he said. “For that, and for, you know, drowning me in sewer water.” He flicked a speck of what he seriously hoped was mud off of his vest. “Anytime,” she said. “And thanks for, you know, not leaving me to be eaten by zombies.” Pietro smiled again. “Anytime.” "We should go to the next gate then? Help more people escape?" Karkadin, the Dorak, said to Oscar. Oscar sighed at the dorak’s suggestion as he fended off another wight. “Maybe,” he said, “my only concern is that – Ha! – the other gates are in much closer quarters that we may not be able to effectively defend. The wights’ main advantage is their numbers, strength, and primitive ambush tactics.” Sten was still atop Bruk, counting down his leftover bolts. There weren’t many left. He sighed, and looked down at the two. “It’s our duty to help them – but there’s a depressing reality knights got to face: we can’t always save everybody. I would be surprised if anyone was still alive on the outskirts of Maceron after being sieged for this long. If there are any left, they would have to make a break for one of the closest gates.” Oscar’s spirits appeared to have immediately dimmed. Sten continued, “The fact remains, we cannot hold out against so many wights for so long without reinforcements. We can only save as many as we can before we retreat ourselves.” Bones flew out from one of the streets into the square, following a primal roar. Charging out was the half-orc guardsman, Alexander Xerxes, now a sweaty big from his wake of devastation. Even though now practically rubble, Alexander continued forward and hooked a cracked up skull’s eye socket with the back, the pick-end, of his war axe, he slung it into the air and swung with his other axe – spraying bone shards through the air over the head of the king’s statue. Two firballs fired from the now mini golems incinerated them in mid-air. The amount of charges they could fire, limited by the amount of mass they had left, then ran out and the fire golems dissipated into thin air. A thin layer of ash seemed to coat the city square. Alexander stood there panting and invigorated, and a great big smiled stretched from one side to the other. “YEAH!” Alex bellowed into the air. “Any more?! Any more challengers?! Huh?! Come on! [b]Come and get it![/b]” Wizzlebee, still in his coach, only kept a wary eye on the half-orc. Bartleby, from down below, piped up real quick to ask an (unanswered) question. “What in Death’s name is that racket? Are there barbarians attacking us now?” “Here he goes again...” Sten sighed. “Well hey, what did you expect?” Oscar said, smiling at Sten. “I’m just glad he’s on our side.” “Who is…” Karkadin softly questioned, somewhat not wishing to really receive an answer. [b]“I am the [i]wall[/i] against which weaklings [i]break![/i]”[/b] “I guess so.” Sten answered Oscar. “We got another large group come through. Some looked hurt, but they’re alive. How much longer do you think we can hold this position?” “I don’t know.” Oscar answered truthfully. “Not much longer, I think, but I refuse to move from here until we get word from Kane.” Sten nodded in silence and kept his eyes peeled. There was so much happening it was difficult to focus, even for a Knight of the Ram... or, at least, having once been a Knight of the Ram. But when Kane’s bright hair and shiny armor came into the very edge of the clearing, there was no mistaking it. Their captain had returned with a group of survivors with him. “I see him!” Sten called to Oscar. But he frowned – something was wrong. Why was one of the citizens carrying his pike? What was it that Kane was carrying that kept him from... from... “Oh no...” Sten muttered. Oscar looked confused between him and Kane’s approaching band. Then the glistening, unmistakable shade of red caught his eye. A shade of red coating a familiar armor, and a familiar head of hair of a young boy he knew. Oscar’s jaw was dropped and his sword was lowered. Alexander, further ahead, caught a close look at the massive, gouging wound in the neck of the lifeless young man Kane was carrying... even after Alex’s frenzy, his breathing slowed and he, too, lowered his axes. Kane solemnly looked ahead, keeping the family’s rear. Oscar, after a brief moment, broke from his daze of disbelief. “Don’t tell me...”