Lucius had seen all sorts of souls before, from the cowardly to the bold, the big and small alike, but none of them exuded a presence quite like this man: Ogier. The giant. A bearded raider of short sword and fury.
He wore not the bulky armors of metal like the other paladins, but instead bared his round belly for all to see, jutting above a sloppily-buckled leather trouser that just barely fit within his stocky frame. His muscles were large: his gut even larger. He was built like a strongman who had, perhaps, just a bit too much to drink.
Ogier swayed and drunkenly stumbled forward. His eyes were blood-shot red, face twisted into an expression of bitter grudge. One glance at his figure then was enough to send a shiver down the players’ spines. He resembled more a terror than even the demons.
“Earlier than usual,” the man uttered, voice low and seeped in a cold, venomous bite. “Come to greet the otherworlders, hm? So be it. Let them see you as the curs you are.”
The abstract monsters descended upon the Peer without hesitation. They laughed as they threw themselves against his body, and they laughed even still when he sucked in his breath, flexed his muscles, and stomped the earth. A shockwave blew through, ripping the things apart in a whirlwind. The ones who remained had not the chance to retaliate. Ogier raised his short sword and cut them down, effortlessly, as if culling wheat. In his eyes was a dullness all too used to the sight before him.
But where one demon fell, hundreds more would take its place. There was no consciousness or strategy in their movements. All they sought to do was overwhelm everything within their endless swarm of ink and paint and unintelligible collage. They were just so colorful and vibrant compared to the bleak atmosphere, so much so that Lucius had to suppress a laugh. It was darkly humorous in a morbid way. The demons were not serious whatsoever; they were actually quite silly.
Ogier didn’t seem to appreciate their whimsicalness, however. He gargled his throat and then spat out a glob of spit.
“Come, Cortain,” he said, speaking to his sword. “Our guests are watching. Let us sate their boredom.”
Toward the guard and down the hilt, a scarlet jewel served as the short sword’s pommel. But as Ogier raised his weapon up high, it began to move. It thumped and pulsed, contracted and tightened, as if it were a living, beating heart.
Ogier opened his hand, and then clenched the jewel. His face grew hot; steam wafted from the quickly-evaporating sweat pouring out from his glands. The man’s light skin soon flared into a dark red, spreading from his chest, to his limbs, and even the top of his head. He moaned and growled. His body shook, struggling to control the spasms raging within.
When every inch of his being had succumbed to the bloody hue, he flung his head back, and bared his teeth in a snarl.
The man known as Ogier was gone. Now, all that remained was instinct and pure savagery.
A berserker of which only carnage could satisfy.
The demons lunged after him; they surged forth in a current of hungry maws. But it took not a second before they were all annihilated, their bodies sundered raw.
Ogier hurled his body forward and spun, blazing a trail through the demons in a whirling cyclone. All that stood in his path were ripped apart, piece by piece, and sent flying into the air in streams. It was like a liquid rainbow: falling, falling, drenching the world below in an ugly palette of muddling color.
Lucius couldn’t even see the man anymore amidst all the corpses. Ogier fought back the horde without care for his well-being. Or rather, he didn’t need to. No demon could pierce his flesh. They couldn’t get close enough to lay an appendage on him. He cut and diced, slaughtered and maimed: crushed, pulverized, mutilated, severed. This and all he continuously wrought, until he had single-handedly butchered half of the invading forces all by himself.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
In the end, he alone stood at the top, above the mounds of the fallen, both demon and paladin alike.
Victory had come, but not without great price. Even a man as strong as he could not fully prevent the victims of war.
The players watched in somber spirits as Ogier slowly dragged himself back to the fortress, where his followers awaited with bowed heads.
“How many have we lost?” he asked. The barbarity in his eyes had vanished, once again replaced by the hollowness of before. There was no celebration—no relief over a defense well propped. The living carried on, forced to mourn over the carcasses of the dead.
“Thirty-two paladins, Sir Ogier,” they told him. “A hundred others have been crippled, while the rest suffer from minor wounds.”
“Is that so? Hm, we have done better since the last invasion.” Ogier waved off the casualties with a cold, unfeeling gaze. He tried to appear unbothered: a stoic warrior who cared not for the weak… but Lucius saw otherwise. Underneath that facade was a deep, deep sadness that could never be shown. “Record their names. If their corpses are still whole, then stitch whatever you are able and bring them inside. We shall hold a eulogy once the suns have set.”
The paladins acknowledged his order and staggered back toward the fortress. The mood was even more suffocating than when the players first arrived. And yet, it did not feel entirely out of place. The gatekeepers of this land had long been accustomed to the insanity wrought day after day.
With heavy hearts and blurry eyes, they returned, content knowing that there would be at least some rest for the remainder of the evening.
That was, until a noise echoed in the distance.
Trudging, heaving, cackling.
As the players turned their heads back toward the mountains, they saw it: a new, different, kind of demon. One that could only be described as a crudely scribbled tree.
It had long, winding branches of confetti, polka-dotted leaves, and bark made of silk ribbons. The thing appeared to be birthed right out of a child’s imagination, one who had never seen the outside.
“The Great Oak?” Ogier said, his brow twitching in disbelief. “Has the forest protector fallen to corruption as well?”
The man’s strength was all but spent. He could scarcely keep himself upright, body trembling from the strain of his frenzied trance, but there was naught else who could fight. The paladins behind him were in no state to take up arms.
He clenched his fist, and silently strode forward with sword in shaken hand. His followers tried not to stop him; they knew to do otherwise would merely delay the inevitable.
Ogier marched, knowing his death was nigh.
“Hippogriff, to my side!”
But when the berserker had just made peace with his end, a voice roared out above him. The fortress dimmed under a growing shadow. A familiar visage revealed itself before all.
There, soaring under the blazing sky, was the good Ruggiero - riding on the Hippogriff Express as if it were a mechanical steed. The train twirled and dived with the slithering acrobatics of a snake, and Ruggiero stood tall, his crystal greatsword glowing in an incandescent light.
“I’ve attended to the last of the injured!” he cried out to the stunned Ogier. “Worry no longer. I shall join the battle!”
Ruggiero surged forth, his speed a faint blur to the untrained eyes of the players. The demon called the Great Oak could not react; its bark split apart, cleaved by the paladin’s blade in a flurry without relent.
The thing swiped with its gargantuan tendrils, the force rippling through the air and leaving great gusts of wind in its wake, but Ruggiero navigated through its blows with a steady hand and a calm demeanor. It could not catch him; he dodged with but the slightest of swerves.
“Balisarda!” Ruggiero yelled with the force of his lungs and readied his shining greatsword until its radiance blinded the sight of all beneath the heavens. “I give unto you every droplet of my strength. Rend this monstrosity, asunder!”
The blade expanded, it stretched all across the starlit expanse. Ruggiero beheld the demon with one, final glare, and then slashed.
The titanic monstrosity that once gave them despair was severed in half: slayed without a sound.
Lucius chuckled, and watched on as the paladin made a triumphant return. Now, the day could well and truly come to a conclusion.