The time for subtleties had come to an abrupt end.
Lorcan's fist struck the bandit's head right on his iron cap, the force and suddenness of the blow sending him stumbling and groaning, immediately trying to right himself. His companion gaped at the tree that had sprung to life! He reared his crossbow around and realized it was yet unloaded, so he held it high above his head like a makeshift club. It might damage the weapon, but crossbows weren't light either.
"You're just an elfspawn!" He cried, wailing away at Lorcan until a spear was rammed into his companion's knee, the scream frightening the man so violently he halted his attack for a moment. Just then, a rock struck him at the base of the neck from behind, knocking him out cold mid-combat. Faeril ran over in triumph, taking the man's knife and kicking him while he was down.
The battle was no less confusing elsewhere, as Emmaline's spell began to take effect on the bedazzled man, who seemed lost as to who he was. Migi took his blade with almost no effort, like he wanted her to. For his part, he fell over onto his ass and gazed around in confused wonder, even as someone might be ready to strike! Raddek stormed forward to finish the bastard Migi stood over, but a sudden, blazing light that burned as a glowing star broke through the clouds that lingered high in the sky.
As the exiles and bandits fought for their lives and scrambled through the dirt and debris amongst the devastation of the town, the clouds opened afar, and all eyes turned to see the thing that pierced reddish light upon the land, making the ruins they waded within look like a slice of hell. Through the dirt and grime, Emmaline and Lorcan could only just see its trajectory as it sent flames cascading out of its wake, but all of the others could make out what it was clearly. It was an object unlike any had ever seen, engulfed in flames that burned into the retina of any that looked it's way.
The ball of flame was no comet or asteroid, but a titanic struggle of flesh, talons, and hellfire. One could go a thousand years without seeing either beast, but now the party bore witness to a behemoth of a Dragon locked in vicious combat with a Greater Daemon of the Hellrealm, both plummeting to the ground faster and faster as they tore at one another, biting and tearing and striking. From so far away their cries sounded like bird screeches and the grinding of wagon wheels.
As a shooting star would, they disappeared past the tree line and faded into memory, leaving the sky overcast as if they had never been...
Until the flash of white, the roar of the wind, and even their screams were drowned out until naught was there but darkness.
Alas, the final days of the cataclysm were filled with debauchery and violence. The once tranquil, pretty landscape above the Peninsula of the Seven Cities was now all but ash and barren wasteland, from the reaches of the pass to the borders of Varone. Fraught with peril had been these lands, but now something even darker began to take shape amid the ruins. Such rumors and foul thoughts hearkened back to the time before time.
Before there had been a beginning, there had been an end. A violent end of destruction with beings beyond count and conception, where all the mortal souls battled over the heart of eternity. They fought until there was but the one whom made it all, who made it again. Who made a world both like and unlike the old. A new world now encroaching upon a new age. An Age of Heroes...if one could ever find them.
A dog barked, snapping the group back to reality.
"Ssssh Horace!" An old woman scolded the thing, pulling it out of the street and out of the path of the group of refugees trickling in from the countryside, escaping the land of blight where no living thing could subsist. Men with their graven faces walked like the awakened dead as women sobbed, holding their children as if they were their one last grip on this mortal plane. The land had been sparsely populated closer to the foot of the mountains, and yet those that came southward were still so few. It had seemed an eternity to the lot, but it had only been two days.
The impact of the fiery struggle had shattered mountain stone and flattened miles of rock. It's gales scythed through the leaves and toppled the flimsy construction of the buildings around them. The prisoners had died from flying debris or being lifted off to sail into the trees, breaking their necks and backs. Most of the group could grab a hold on a tree or stone, but some of the lighter members were lifted off their feet. Luckily for Emmaline and Migi, they had been flung right into Raddek who had managed to grab them, though all three were sent rolling until a lone wall kept them in place. The wind howled like an ancient god until it pittered to a stop, leaving merely no prisoners. Just the combatants to continue to fight and die through the catastrophe, simply having waited for the wind and flame to abate.
What bandits had been left at the end were butchered, their armaments and food, or what could be found, were taken. Their bodies were left to rot in the forest where the village had once stood, with only the souls of their victims to keep them company. Some of the forest around them was wrecked or cut, but most of the trees were still intact where they had been, and once the village was destroyed, only the tower they had once seen remained. It was there they made camp, and they were joined by three others who had survived the fallout of the area.
Jaina,
Falfer, and
Francisco, having seen the tower from afar to find shelter within as the ash began to rain from the sky.
All night the ash fell, but the morning brought hope and sunlight. Once they were well fed, the group traveled southwards through the woods at Raddek's bearing, until they made it to the stone and carmines walls of Varone, joining with what little peasantry amongst the hills had decided it was safer in the city walls than staying on their farms, if they even had a farm left to them. Whispers and rumors floated past their ears as they trudged into the gates, the guards and beak-masked physicians checking the refugees for any signs of the plague or corruption.
Raddek stood at the head of the group, crossing his arms over his chest. With the cloak around him, it just made him look like a hulking figure.
"Welcome to Varone, the Diamond of the Blood Coast."
