Into the Woods {Elthas, Closed}

**Nevin** · 11-03-2017, 08:33 PM

Nevin could feel Aphrael's alarm as she watched from the skies as Elthas clashed with the Goblins. They had seem amused by his arrival from what the bird could make out - and Nevin snarled in frustration as he realized he would not be able to make it to where the Elf had gone in time to help. A command to Aphrael - to harry and distract when she could, raking claws on the Goblins as Elthas fought to survive.

But then his attention was pulled away from his friend's fight by a weird bubbling sound. It wasn't normal - it sounded like a strange popping sludge, thick and viscous. The Alchemist's eyes snapped open and he looked around. There hadn't been anything around him that could make a noise like that except for â€”

The totem. Almost unwillingly Nevin looked back to it. The reddish aura that had been surrounding the thing had thickened while he was focused on his familiar, and now it was a tangible thing, a sludge that corroded the air and earth it came in contact with. The popping sound was coming from it - bubbles were forming in the sludge, and as another popped it released a foul odor. The man rolled back as the gunk surged outwards - and as he stood up, he was witness to the sludge shivering and pulling inwards, back to the totem, and wrapping around it.

Nevin watched in mute horror as the sludge formed into a loose approximation of a human body - only about half again as large, and with no head. As he stared, faces formed in the goop, screaming wordlessly, their expressions rictuses of agony and misery. It charged at him with a gurgling bellow, one slimy arm raising high into the air as it prepared to crush him into the ground.

**Elthas** · 11-03-2017, 09:06 PM

"It has begun, Elf." The Goblin said to Elthas at that point. He looked far away for a moment and then focused back on Elthas as he charged into battle. The Goblin intercepted Elthas with a parrying sword. And looked at Elthas. There was strangely not hatred in The Goblin's eyes...but something far more dreadful. Far more dangerous. The Goblin appeared sinister and calm, as if it were planning the downfall of a much larger enemy. "When your kingdoms burn, who will you turn to for help?" The Goblin mused out loud. "Your Thayne have no power here. The Forgotten Ones are silent, and there is only our wills to create The Future."

"I won't let you harm anyone else." Elthas said quickly, a rage suddenly seething in his heart. His hand burned him at that point, as he held his dagger, the hand that came in contact with the totem he'd grabbed. He felt a rage swelling in his heart that he never felt before. Normally, Elthas was quite a passive individual. He preferred peace to sudden acts of violence, but he knew that this time...there was no avoiding it. The surging in his hand became more intense. At that point, Elthas felt something terrifying in his mind. Something similar to The Goblin's Fell Magics, but far darker. Hidden, in the depths of his heart...he knew it was always there. Waiting, longing for release.

Elthas' mind slowed down at that point as the burning in his hand became all too real. Steam swirled off his hand, as he clutched his dagger tightly. And then he was overwhelmed with a different Boon. Not a Boon of The Great Tree...but a Boon from somewhere far darker. The Void, The Darkness. It burned his hand a lot and burned his heart and soul, and he began to cry at that point. But the transformation was not visible to Elthas. Instead, The Goblin suddenly had a terrified look on his face.

"You...!!! How did you...!?" The Goblin demanded, but it was already too late.

The burning fire within Elthas scorched him to his very soul. He was crying red-stained blood. His face a mask of sheer rage that was maddening. Time stood still for The Elf as he dropped his daggers for a moment and suddenly PUNCHED The Goblin square in the head. There was a sickening wet smack as Elthas hit him. Then, Elthas began to howl like a mad beast, the present Goblins suddenly became extremely terrified at what they were witnessing. After a moment or two, Elthas had literally beaten The Goblin's skull in with his fist. The skin around his hand was glowing with a red energy, residue from The Totem he'd come in contact with. Residue from a Fell source of power.

The creature's skull was smashed asunder as Elthas pounded it into the ground. His fist and knuckles bleeding, empowering The Fell energies coursing through his veins. Elthas howled like a madman once more, and started to attack The Goblins, one by one. Howling and snarling like a beast would...

...something had happened.

Something foul, and dark and truly terrifying.

**Nevin** · 11-03-2017, 10:00 PM

The weighty sludge arm smashed down, enveloping the area in muck that ate away at the very ground around where it had landed. Nevin thankfully wasn't there - he had rolled to the side, and was staring in horror at the ground. It wasn't like acid melting away the earth - whatever this nightmare was it was literally pulling the ground into it, and he could see that the arm was swelling as it consumed the soil. Rocks and grass didn't seem to slow it down any, as they were embedded in the arm as it rose up back into the air, and he stared at it he could see them sinking inwards.

This was dangerous. It was growing with every step that he saw it take, as even its pillar like feet were eating the earth. If this thing got into the village, by the time it got there it would cause untold destruction. It was at its most vulnerable now, when it was only just getting going. Now it was small, even if not that small - it was still easily ten feet tall, and growing as it walked toward him.

Nevin flung the dagger into the one of the screaming faces that was turned towards him. The blade sunk into the sludge, and for a moment Nevin saw that the toxin upon the metal was affecting it - but then a fresh wave of red-purple goop surged out of a 'mouth' over the dagger, and the weapon vanished from sight. A new face appeared, and black ooze dribbled from its eyes as its mouth opened in a rictus of a scream.

Normal weapons wouldn't work on this thing, Nevin could tell. But how on earth could he fight it? It was learning even now as he dodged out of the way of its attacks - the sludge like arms were snaking out wide and wider, starting to form into scoops. Even when it missed those arms ripped up chunks of the earth, folding those pieces into itself, consuming more and more. At this rate it was only a matter of time before it caught him.

Cables of red unspoiled from his arm, bursting forth in a vibrant wave of crimson that shone with an inner light as Nevin faced off against the nightmarish construct. His eyes glimmered in the light from his tendrils, the red in them shining more brightly as his magic flared.

"By the Crimson, I will pass your souls on and let you rejoin the flow. May the next life treat you better."

**Elthas** · 11-03-2017, 10:35 PM

Fifteen minutes passed...

Elthas broke the last one's neck with his bare hands.

A screaming sound filled his head as he stood there gasping and screaming for a moment or three. Elthas stood there and looked at his hand. There was a burning set of void symbols on his hand, eldritch symbols. He felt a tremendous pain flowing outward from his hand. Corrupting his very nature. At that point, he was starting to calm down. He'd allowed The Void to feed through his body. Through his very hand. As he stood there, he cried the same tears of blood from earlier.

Then, he remembered something.

I-I'm supposed to be doing something... He felt as if he'd been hiding a seething rage deep in his heart. That horrible Goblin totem had awakened something fierce and deadly within him. As he gasped for air he finally felt the rage subsiding for a long enough moment that he could think normally. He blinked a few moments and wiped the tears of blood from his face. He felt fire in his lungs and heart. He took a look around and saw nothing but dead Goblins everywhere. I...I did this...? Elthas thought to himself. He realized at that point that there were people nearby he needed to rescue.

He walked towards the huts and entered one of them, inside he saw cages with people from Stonevale. My people...my family... Elthas acted immediately and began to undo the cages and try to rescue any of the survivors. Some of The Stonevale citizens had already been killed, sacrificed to The Void. But there were a few survivors. One, a girl he knew that Elthas had always liked from earlier looked up as if from far away. She saw Elthas and smiled for the first time in a long time, she'd been suffering.

Her body was bruised and scared. "E-Elthas...?" She called out weakly. "I can't see..."

"Those monsters did this to you." Elthas worked to cover her up and picked her up. He gathered what survivors he could. He manged to find five still alive. Have they been kidnapping folks over and over under our noses...? I can't...I won't forgive this... Elthas had chosen his side. The Void. He would use The Void to exact revenge on The Goblins someday. But for now, he had to get the survivors back to Nevin and Stonevale proper. He carried the girl with him. The others were still able to walk...

He clothed them as best he could.

One of the survivors, a man named Llrekyth, looked around. "E-Elthas there were at least twenty...how did you do this?" The man was stunned at what he'd seen. Absolute carnage of every last of The Goblins present.

"The point is there dead. Every last one of them. I have to take you all to safety now." And Elthas began the journey back towards Nevin with the survivors in tow...

He had picked a side.

**Nevin** · 11-04-2017, 12:01 AM

A thin tendril of sludge shot out, snaking towards Nevin. Reacting on instinct, the crimson threads wove into a shield and met the attack, and Nevin felt a strange.... Affront? Indignity? Some emotion like those shot through him, almost as if he was insulted. The sludge washed against the protective barrier - but didn't take it in, didn't eat it. It tried, sucking against the shield, but Nevin's threads were more than they could handle.

And Nevin knew he had a weapon against this thing. His crimson threads weren't absorbed by the sludge, and he could defend and attack with them. So he lashed out, his arm swinging out a lasso of threads that wrapped around one of the sludge-arms. With a mighty pull, he yanked backwards, tightening the noose of the lasso. Slowly the coil of crimson cut through the sludge, until with a heavy plop and thump, the arm fell off.

For a moment, Nevin felt victorious. He had broken this thing's power - but before he could even finish exulting in the minor victory, the abomination of magic and despair stepped on its severed arm, and the sludge was immediately reabsorbed into itself, and the arm regrew. His effort, undone, the damage erased.

Disbelief, anger, despair. The alchemist's gut curled into a knot. He had hoped that severing the sludge would render it inert to the creation - he hadn't expected it would be smart enough to recover it, and so quickly. He would need something else, some other way of defeating this monstrosity. The only question was, how was it vulnerable? Poison hadn't worked, nor had ripping a limb clean off.

It came to him, as he rolled out of the way of a trio of tendrils that tried to coil around him. The totem, that was the source of the vile magic, and it was somewhere at the center of this mass. He had to get that, get it out and destroy it. But that meant getting close, so that his threads could reach into the sludge and find the totem.

So the next time the disgusting sludge shot for him, Nevin wrapped his threads tight around his clothes, protecting him as the abomination grabbed him. It hoisted him into the air, and drew him in closer, and the blood mage knew that it intended on shoving him into its chest to consume him. It wasn't smart enough to realize that if it's arm wasn't eating him, it wouldn't be able to either. But that was fine by him.

Three feet - two feet - one foot - there. He was close to the imposing wall of sludge, and the stench this close was completely disgusting, and he found his head swimming as he struggled to breathe through the putrid odors that made his bile rise. Hopefully he wouldn't have to bear this long, as he thrust his crimson tendrils into the sludge wrapped around him, sending it back into the creation's body.

Searching, twisting, winding, the threads ran through the body, darting back and forth as they sought out the source of the corruptive filth around them. Nevin was beginning to worry - if he had to he could entirely encase himself in his threads, but at that point he didn't know if he would even be able to breathe to survive. Just as his head was about to be shoved face first into the purple-red ooze, he found what he was searching for.

His tendrils wove together and wrapped around the totem, and with a mighty heave they ripped the statuette free of the sludge. It froze, stiff and almost in shock, and then began vibrating. Nevin fell to the ground as the sludge-thing released him, its arms blindly groping about, trying to find the totem before it ran out. But it was too late by then - Nevin had rolled away, taking the totem with him as he moved further, and he stood up as the sludge beast collapsed, the filth beginning to dissolve.

But even as that sludge disappeared, more of the gunk was forming around the totem, shimmering into existence around the statuette. With a snarl, Nevin completely encased the thing in crimson loops, and tightened them inexorably, smashing the disgusting magical artifact to a fine powder. When the vile feeling of dark magic no longer flowed, he slowly released his crushing grasp, and a brown-white powder ran to the ground, all that was left of the thing.

His tendrils retracted into his skin, and Nevin adjusted his clothes as his chest heaved with exertion. The surrounding area looked absolutely demolished, chunks of earth just gone, and most of the remnants of the Goblins camp had also been absorbed during the fight. But of the abomination of magic, nothing remained but the powder of the totem.

**Elthas** · 11-04-2017, 02:04 PM

Elthas arrived a few minutes after Nevin defeated the fell creature that The Totem called forth into their world. All Elthas saw was residue of magic in the air. There were holes in the ground, smashed trees, and other mysterious phenomenon. As Elthas arrived he looked around with his single currently working eye. One of his eyes was blood shot and closed. He carried the one girl with him. The other four survivors followed closely behind Elthas, not wanting to stray too far.

"What the hell happened here?" One of the survivors asked.

Elthas wore a small grin on his face. "I don't think we want to know." Elthas shook his head. He assumed quickly the magical residue was Nevin's doing, and that the second Totem was destroyed. He looked at his friend who also seemed quite ragged and tired. "I found these folks, Nevin. We need to get back to Stonevale." Elthas said, glad that the rage awakened by The Void was subsided and he was able to think clearly once more. Elthas was also quite tired and needed to eat and sleep after that. But before his own needs, the citizens of Stonevale needed to be returned home. Elthas nodded towards Nevin and began the silent walk back towards Stonevale. To explain everything he'd learned, and what they were all really up against.

There is an Overlord present...Thaynes damn it. Elthas thought to himself, they'd won the day, but he was certain at that point that there would be many more battles to come. The Goblins were preparing for something dark and sinister and it was going to happen VERY soon. Elthas considered that. He would be ready. As they walked back to Stonevale, some of them limping, including Elthas himself. He'd been apparently hurt by The Goblins a second time. This time however, he'd not received any serious injuries.

As they walked forward, Elthas began to sing a sad song of his people.

**Nevin** · 11-04-2017, 03:58 PM

Nevin stood up, sore and tired from the fight. Even if he had avoided actual damage from the totemic beast, it had smashed into his shield a few times, and he had had to let it grab him to enact his plan to beat it. While he hadn't been touched by the corrosive, or absorbing fluid, it had put a great deal of pressure on him through threads. But it looked like he had come out of his fight better than Elthas had - the Elf was limping, and one eye was clamped shut.

But he had survivors. Five people, four following him and one in his arms. Nevin's hand curled into a fist as he stared at them before nodding. Getting these people home and safe was their top priority - he would come back and scour the earth of the signs of the Goblins once these people were securely in Stonevale.

High above, Aphrael began circling the travelers, her keen eyes scouring the night, making sure no Goblins snuck up on them as they traveled back to the town. He kept quiet as they walked, mulling over the events that had happened. The totemic beast had been a dangerous foe, and most conventional means of combat would have been utterly ineffective against it. Was it designed to be a weapon of war, or of terror? Either way, it would have devastated the town. The Goblins, it seemed, were quite serious about their war this time.