[CENTER][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/210117/7423788cb403d4c94cda8db158b092fa.png[/img][/CENTER]

[indent][indent][indent][color=gray][sub][right][color=#dc143c][b]Location:[/b][/color] The Dungeon -- The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria[/right][/sub][/color]
[hr]
Packs of laughing dogmen came streaming into the chamber. Stumbling, leaping, crawling over one another to grab their next meal. All their beady, ravenous eyes were locked on the two smallest party members at the back-- Seele and Kazuki. Weak, vulnerable; easy prey. The gnolls bounded forward with such ferocious speed and singular intent that it was already too late. They were just too fast. They'd be tearing into their quarry before anyone could peel away from the dire bat. A perfect ambush, save for one, fatal flaw:

The screaming locomotive of muscle and steel charging right back at them.

[color=dc143c][b]"Come on!"[/b][/color] Graves's sword sang as it left its sheathe, meeting flesh and bone. One of the laughing dog's went silent, the contents of its throat spilling onto the stone. Two more ran over its falling corpse to get at its attacker. Pickaxes flew. The first was hacked off at its haft but the second found purchase in Graves's thigh. The man roared, grabbing the back of the gnoll's head and jamming its face into the other end of the it's own weapon. Adrenaline kept Graves moving as he pulled the pickaxe out, tossing it aside just as another group of gnolls joined the fray.

One of them pounced on his back, claws burrowing into his shoulders to keep it there. Graves kept swinging at its friends, nodachi twisting through the air in wide, deadly arcs. The beast climbed along his back-- leaving long cuts along the flesh as it did-- until it was close enough to lean down and bury its teeth into Graves's throat. The man's wordless bellows sputtered out into wheezed coughing, and his sword slowed in its swings long enough for the rest of the gnolls to rush him. They clamped down on his arms and began to wail away at his chest, peeling apart his armor like a tin can to get at the meat inside.

Kazuki shouted some nonsense and a spell erupted around Graves's body, flinging his attackers in every direction. He stumbled backward onto a knee, shooting the support a crazed, furious look-- [i]don't get in my way[/i].

His palm hit the ground, channeling arcane magic into the pools of fresh blood laid out around him. It came crawling through the air toward him, rushing into his open wounds, his finger nails and his pores to get at his bloodstream. Seconds went by before his wounds began to stitch themselves closed. An ugly, painful experience, where new flesh burst forth from the old and slithered across his skin to fit itself into Graves's injuries. It took the longest to repair the bite in his neck.

[color=dc143c]"Fuck!"[/color] Graves coughed up blood, rising to his feet. [color=dc143c]"Come on, come on, AGAIN!"[/color]

Seele was quick to follow up on Kazuki's spell, launching some kind of purple energy through the air. It hit each of the gnolls one by one, slowing them down. What were once rockets of mangled fur became sluggish, tired-- easy to kill.

Just as Benkei reached his side, Graves was running forward again, bellowing and hollowing. Blinded to the pain. Blinded to whatever was going on around him. The only thing he was tunneled in on were the next group of gnolls standing in front of him. Then he was on top of them, nodachi ready to sing through the air again...

And giant bolts of sharpened rock came crashing through the ground, impaling the beasts around him. Graves tried as best he could to avoid the sudden eruptions, but they were numerous and all targeted at the gnolls-- the gnolls he'd put himself right in the center of. Pain kissed his side, his leg, his arm. He yanked himself off the spikes and called more blood up to him.

He'd never felt more alive.
[/indent][/indent][/indent]