BBeast

The Horde of Evil - Tresspassing through treacherous tribes' territory! (RP closed)

As Faeles sat next to Torrens, he gave Faeles a nod of acknowledgement. When Faeles shared his intrigue, Torrens replied, "A king, eh? If he becomes a problem we may have to kill him." As Faeles elaborated, Torrens stroked his chin for a few moments as he considered this information. "Sounds like a creature of flesh, either way. Easier to deal with than the other sort." Torrens looked skywards, following where Faeles had looked earlier, and managed to spot the tiny speck which was Clotho, high above. There was no sign of this flying orc king yet, although he felt a twinge of concern for Clotho, who would have no idea that perhaps her greatest threat came from above.

The distant sound of a brawl snapped his attention back to earth. He couldn't see D'Artagnan, which didn't mean much at this distance, but there seemed a good chance that this warrior had started fighting the orcs. To Faeles he responded, "Let's."

Between his hands he generated a fireball, roughly a meter in diameter. Holding the fireball in his left hand, he took the pointer finger of his right hand and twirled it around the fireball, from top to bottom, binding it in the magical green flame and compressing it to the size of a baseball. Torrens took another look at the camp, took a few steps back, then threw the ball with a running overarm throw towards the camp. The fireball streaked across the sky like a comet, flying in a smooth parabola until it hit a tent across from the tent where the brawl had broken out. On impact the magical bindings were shattered and the fireball exploded, covering the entire tent in flames in an instant. If that didn't divert attention from D'Artagnan, nothing would.

As Faeles slunk across the ground towards the camp, Torrens broke cover and also advanced on the camp, intentionally going in the opposite direction to Faeles. Glowing like fire in the dusk light, Torrens would be plain to see to all who looked in that direction. This was, of course, his intent. The orcs would see him and blame him for the fire and go after him, leaving their backs turned to the others in his party. At least, that's what Torrens hoped.

The Horde of Evil - Tresspassing through treacherous tribes' territory! (RP closed)

Not as nimbly footed as D'Artagnan or capable of flight like Clotho, Torrens fell to the back rank of the scouting party, scurrying around boulders to try to keep up with the rabbitfolk warrior he had put in the front of the party. In vouching for D'Artagnan, Torrens realised that he had slighted Clotho, although he had no intent to apologise. Not yet, anyway. D'Artagnan had shown himself to be surprisingly capable during the raid on the dwarves, despite his diminutive stature, and Torrens saw potential in him.

Eventually, D'Artagnan rounded a large boulder, and when Torrens reached the corner and rounded it, he saw the orc tribe. Evidence of its presence had been littered throughout the narrow valley leading up to this point, but its appearance still took him slightly by surprise, since Torrens had been travelling quickly to keep pace. He reversed back behind the boulder as quickly as he had arrived. Then, carefully this time, he poked his head around the boulder to see more clearly. It looked like a typical orc tribe. Quite flammable. He also saw the small figure of D'Artagnan, a mere blotch of fur at this distance, sneaking into the camp.

Torrens smirked, and slipped back behind the boulder. Torrens was the kind of fighter to burst in and shoot everything with reckless abandon. However, he had enough tact to know when that was not appropriate, and until D'Artagnan or one of the others alerted the orc guards Torrens would lurk by the sidelines, waiting for the right time to strike. So he settled in to watch and observe from a gap between two boulders, a location he hoped would not be too revealing of him and his incandescence.

The Horde of Evil - Tresspassing through treacherous tribes' territory! (RP closed)

Torrens looked down the D'Artagnan and analysed the rabbit-person for a few moments. Then he seemed to come to a conclusion, shrugged, and said, "Sure, makes sense to me. Lead the way, Sir D'Artagnan." Torrens motioned ahead with his hand, indicating for D'Artagnan to go.

Looking to the other two people in the group, Torrens defended his decision. "I'm sure you can both admit that he is very well built for scouting across terrain like this. No point wasting time bickering. You two get moving, I'll bring up the rear."

The Horde of Evil - Tresspassing through treacherous tribes' territory! (RP closed)

@Kangutso, we've finished with the dwarven outpost. We've now moved on to a new mission, where we are marching on a rival Keeper's Dungeon while his army is out at war.

The Horde of Evil - Tresspassing through treacherous tribes' territory! (RP closed)

While there was still green in the landscape, Torrens had been happy marching along, for he could break off and burn down some trees whenever he felt, for want of a better word, hungry. However, the barren landscape of the mountains offered no combustibles, which meant that he wanted to get through them as quickly as possible or else he might be half dead before they even got to the rival Dungeon. Although, rocky terrain was familiar to Torrens, for his last Keeper had his Dungeon in mountains like these.

Then he was assigned a scouting mission with some of the others, including Faeles. This Faeles person had started acting a little less suspiciously as of late. Nobody knew anything about him still, but at least he wasn't hiding or anything. Then Faeles posed the question of who would be leading. "That depends on whether we want to be sneaky," Torrens said, "If we don't care about being seen, then I should definitely take the lead, so if we get attacked they'll strike me first, and I doubt that'll be something which would deal me any serious harm. On the other hand, if we want stealth, then I'd better pull up the rear instead."

Torrens looked over at the other champions in the scouting party. Clotho, D'Artagnan, Faeles. They looked like the sneaky types rather than the direct types, although he had given them the option either way. Being part of an army needed a team effort and cooperation, and Torrens knew that well.

The Horde of Evil - Tresspassing through treacherous tribes' territory! (RP closed)

Torrens was not a big fan of downtime. Unlike most other beings, his strength decreases substantially over time, so if he were to just laze around the Dungeon for a week he would dwindle to little more than a small campfire. To keep that from happening, Torrens went on frequent forays out into the world, burning down entire forests just to keep his strength up. He even burnt down a couple of farms just for fun, although he avoided villages lest he draw unwanted attention to himself and by extension the Master.

The rest of his time he spent in the Dungeon. He socialised, chatting with the other champions, or at least those who were sociable in nature. He noticed that Emily was not in the Dungeon. He had also noticed a new being in the Dungeon, who could be a Rogue Being, except that this being who went by the name of Faeles tried to slink away from all contact and questioning. This was rather suspicious behaviour to Torrens. It was possible that this was just in Faeles' character, but Torrens was still suspicious of this entity. He also inspected the work of the Keeper and his newly summoned minions. This was a familiar scene now. As a veteran servant of Dungeon Keepers, Torrens knew that every serious Dungeon Keeper had to have an army, and until now Clotho had been more of an actual Keeper than the Master with her army of insectoids.

As soon as he first saw the winged vanguards, Torrens had been quick to scoop off a handful of that green flame which crawled over their hide. To his mild disappointment he noticed that it wasn't soulflame, but it was at least magical, which made it useful. After getting some more of it, by harvesting some and burning down half a forest with the stuff, Torrens took some time in his room behind the forge to experiment. The magic fire behaved much like normal fire, being hot and burning combustibles, but it was much more difficult to extinguish than typical fire, which is a standard trait of most magical fires. An additional benefit of magical fires is that they are much easier to manipulate into complex forms than normal fire. Back when he had possessed soulflame Torrens had been able to create fiery forms with complex behaviours, such as a decoy of himself, or homing fireballs. This stuff had none of those animated properties, but it still expanded his box of tricks substantially.

Then, finally, the Master called a meeting. Torrens listened intently to the speech. When time came to inspect the scrying spell, Torrens was easily able to get a front row view, since nobody would want to get into a shoving contest with someone who's a couple thousand of degrees. As the description of the plan fell into place around him his face lit up with glee. As the champions began to split up, Torrens advised them, "You understand what this means? If this warlord is an actual Dungeon Keeper, then if we strike at his Dungeon and destroy his Dungeon Heart this warlord will become practically powerless." Torrens gave a maniacal laugh of his own and left, heading to the gathering army and joining their ranks.

The Horde of Evil - Tresspassing through treacherous tribes' territory! (RP closed)

@Cyclone, Wow, that's a long time. And in almost all that time he's been serving a Keeper of yours. Torrens is a good, fun character, I suppose, and flexible in his setting.

The Horde of Evil - Tresspassing through treacherous tribes' territory! (RP closed)

@Eviledd1984, We've left the dwarves far behind and time-skipped forwards a week or two, since cleaning up is rather boring. We're back in the Dungeon. The Keeper's summoned an army. We've got a new mission to do.

@Cyclone, about the winged vanguards. What is the nature of this 'sickly green flame'?

The Horde of Evil - Tresspassing through treacherous tribes' territory! (RP closed)

I agree with @Lugubrious. Hordes of mooks don't provide much interest. Some worthy foes would make for a good fight.

@Cyclone, that also seems like a good idea. Fast-tracking the final mission seems to be an appropriate thing to do. Maybe have just one more mission where we capture some well-defended fortress or city closer by to act as a forward base (being sure to throw in some tough opponents, of course), then we can make our final push.

And remember, time-skip is our friend. Cleaning up after a battle and long-distance travel don't make a gripping adventure.

The Horde of Evil - Tresspassing through treacherous tribes' territory! (RP closed)

Cyclone, I should complement you on your GM'ing. You've made sure to keep us players engaged, always having something to do. Teleporting us to the dwarven outpost was a good move, and summoning the giant demon threw in some decent action. You've been cleverly adaptive, adjusting to fit the situation should any of us go astray. Well done.