[right]”This horror will grow mild, this darkness light.”
[color=gray]- John Milton, [i]Paradise Lost[/i][/color][/right]

There was smoke on the near horizon.

Just over the dunes, perhaps; nearer than the strider initially thought. It was recent, the sands had not picked up greatly enough in the last few days to have obscured it. No, this smoke had begun to rise within the last hour. It could not have been the blood locusts, either. They had flown some weeks past, and would not again for some time. The blood locusts did not burn, so that theory further did not make sense.

As it walked over the dunes, the scene came into focus, one of carnage, blood and gore splattered on the sand. Tents burned as monsters ate their fill of goblin meat. The shine of the strider hit the monsters’ eyes, and they all turned to watch as the strider crested the hill, striking arms at the ready. It was too late to turn away, as much as the strider feared the coming conflict.

The creatures charged, pouring from the camp in numbers the strider had never seen before. Its light instinctively focused, and the beam cut a hole into the charge, the horrific chimeras faltering as they were blinded. Nevertheless, they still poured in from the sides. Screams, roars, and murderous calls sounded throughout the air, rattling the ever-present sandstorm. The strider desperately refocused its light in sweeping arcs, but it still did not stop the horde, even as they trampled over each other and ground their own bones to dust.

The strider began to back up, they were getting too close, and the light was only a temporary solution. The crest of the hill was surrendered, and then the creatures came tearing over the top. They launched themselves with reckless abandon; a two-headed creature of patchy fur and sickly scales embedded its skull onto one of the strider’s striking arms. It fell limp, like its life had simply been switched off, and the strider, in a panic, shook it off as it was buried in a mountain of teeth and claws.

Teeth broke on crystal. Claws rent spiderwebs of cracks into the strider’s flesh. It struck out blindly, the spikes each time catching another creature. Some, it killed, while others it only dealt wounds. It collapsed under the weight, but it kept striking, over and over. There were screams, some that were its own, while others came from the dead and the dying. It kicked its legs out, throwing creatures off of it into the sand, as it cried out.

It was loud; loud enough to rupture eardrums. The soundwaves rippled through the mass, and there were more screams. The crystal rang like a bell, once, then three times more. Each time, the mass recoiled before once more charging. But time had been bought, and the striking arms had more space to work. It struck quickly and accurately, one good strike on each head that came to bite it. Each time, the spike embedded in a skull and silenced a creature.

With the sun once more on its body, it could focus light again. This time, it focused successively on each new target. When their would-be killer’s guard was dropped, recoiling from the bright light, it struck and killed them. The horde repulsed back and forwards like a wave in every direction, each time leaving more cracks on the strider. It was winning, yes, but there was only so much victory it could commit before it too was dead.

The bodies piled around it, stacking higher and higher until it could not see over them. Yet there were still more creatures, and exhaustion had begun to set in. Just then, the ground shook. It was rhythmic, the ground rumbling in a pattern. One of the walls of bodies was thrown aside, massive claws swiping them as though they were nothing but chaff. The smaller creatures backed away, bowing in acquiescence to a massive hydra, eight heads, one a different type of creature. All had sharp fangs, all had red eyes and fury.

It was four times the height of the strider. A second swipe sent the strider flying. It bounced twice off the sand, before coming to a rest on the crest of the hill. All eight heads roared, as it launched itself viciously forward after its prey. The horror was fast, too fast. It sped forward and twisted its body unnaturally, sand flying in its wake to mix with the sandstorm. There was no choice: the strider had to move forwards, to meet it in a way of the strider’s own choosing.

 Two front crablike claws came flying down to crush the strider. It slid to the side, rolling violently out of control under the creature. It struck repeatedly, and the creature let out another furious roar. Its hind leg kicked out and hit the strider, and the strider shot out from under it and was buried in the sand. One of the pincer-claws dug into the sand and pulled out the strider.

It lifted the strider up to its eight heads, inspecting the pitiful creature, its crystal covered in cracks. All eight mouths opened up to take a bite. Its claw repositioned to make room, and – the sun hit the strider just right. Through the cracks, light redirected to the heads, and the creature screamed as it was blinded. Its claw let go, and the strider struck as it fell, the spikes catching in one of the heads’ necks.

As it slid down, the creature’s neck was split open vertically, and tan blood, viscous and filled with worms, poured out onto the strider. The smaller creatures fled across the sand, some flying and some running. As one of the eight heads died, this one a lion, the hydra swung wildly with its crab claws, but missed every time. 

When the strider came to the bottom of the neck, it struck out with its free arm at the base of the neck of another head, and embedded itself. This head screamed as well, its face one of a baboon. A claw met its mark, hitting the strider across the head and launching them spinning into the air. Something shattered. Light poured through the strider’s nervous system, and its body fell into a seizure.

Everything felt impossibly far, now. There was a distant thumping, growing more rapid and weaker at the same time. Something was crying. Its whole body hurt, something coarse rubbing against it as every carbon fiber muscle seized at the directions of the accursed sun, flooding through nerves in blind hatred. It couldn’t see, its hearing was as though it was listening from the bottom of a pit.

It went on for ages. The strider could hardly think, so great was the pain. Its muscles were exhausting and fraying. The coarseness around it seemed to dig into every crack, trying to tear into its innards. One eye turned upwards, and it swore it saw an evil grin on its torturer, through the merciless light it bore down. Hours of this, and the strider began to wonder if it had died and this was its punishment.

The sun set on the horizon, and night fell. The light left its nerves, and finally, mercifully, its body slowed to a halt. Its sight returned in one eye, and its hearing gradually returned. It was alone on the sands, dug slightly into a pit of the grains through its own motions. The smoke had died off, and the horde had left its bodies where they lay. The hydra had seemingly fled, judging by the tan blood that streaked off into the far horizon.

Crystal lay scattered across the sand in small shards and chunks. A manipulator arm tentatively reached up to the strider’s face. There was a great hole in its head, deep enough to sever a fiber optic nerve and expose the whole system to light. It hurt, an agony unlike anything the strider had ever felt before. It dragged itself forwards, its legs too weak to stand on. There was a collapsed tent ahead of thick leather, designed for blocking out the heat of the sun.

It crawled underneath, swaddling itself in the leather. Nothing nearby moved but the wind and the sandstorm. The strider let itself cry, from the agony and the loneliness.

[hider=The Strider is NOT Hercules]

We go back to the strider who’s walking north in the desert! They see smoke nearby, and go to investigate. There’s a horde of blood monsters from the outer gods there who have massacred a goblin camp utterly, and are busy eating their fill. They see the strider, and decide they want to eat crystal too.

At first they dogpile the strider, but the strider gets better at fighting quickly and manages to turn it around to merely being surrounded on every side instead. It spins around fighting creatures as they advance, taking wounds for its trouble but killing an absolute shitload, enough to start stacking up into a wall around it.

Then an eight-headed chimera hydra who’s the big boss in town tears down the wall around the strider and bitchslaps it dozens of feet away. It charges with absurd speed, and the strider goes under and stabs it a few times. It kicks the strider and the strider bounces like a pinball out and gets buried in the sand.

The chimera digs the strider out with a giant crab claw and lifts the poor thing up to its 8 heads to have a nice snack. Just now the strider pulls out its light-reflecting flashbang again and gets dropped. It rides down like jack sparrow on a ship's sail, opening up the neck of one of the heads.

Then it stabs the base of another head, and kills that head too. The chimera bitchslaps it again, but this time a large portion of the strider’s head shatters and it goes into a seizure as light floods its fiber optics from the sun. It has a vision of Itzala as the horde flees in fear, not noticing that the strider is now helpless.

The strider has one big unending painful seizure until the sun sets, at which point it crawls under one of the tents abandoned by the goblins to have a good cry.
[/hider]