Deer Me: Adwanee Sands

by The Psychopath

The dead shall know no rest

With the same 'tact' demonstrated in the battle against the black snow, Effervescence used what desert plants she could summon to create mutant, carnivorous plants that occupied the soldiers as much as possible. Another unfortunate situation for the jackals were the mutated cacti shooting their sharpened needles like crossbow bolts at whatever Effervescence considered an enemy. Radivus slid underneath multiple anyubinites whilst slicing their tendons and following up with a spine-shattering elbow dive onto them all. Tenyom, on the other hoof, found more amusement in wrestling with five of them at the same time and pushing against the spear they were trying to pierce her chest with. As for Yolumay, well, she had no sense of self-preservation and reveled in slaughter every time she was cut or stabbed. Some spear heads remained stuck in her hide as her berserker rage over took her and allowed her to continue slaughtering what came across her field of vision.

The insect giants had a surprisingly hard amount of time fighting the guards reinforced with whatever dark magic coursed through them and their weapons. A few had already fallen to their adversaries, but the insects continued on. Head Crusher was rather adamant about fighting the anyubinites' zaoris and quite literally barreled through the empowered guards.

"You betray, like all mammals!" he bellowed. "You will then die like them all!" He grabbed a guard's head, raised him high, then crushed his head with a nauseating 'crunch' sound.

Hora remained next to Oriyis, but he did not move. He was observing.

"Then you wouldn't mind fighting these creatures before reaching me," Oriyis said. He spread his hands, and a trail of black goop followed. He started chanting in an unknown language and spun around, gradually reaching the floor and creating the strange cross symbol all around him. The goop sank into the sand, but it wasn't long before it had an effect. The sands shifted and bubbled like lava as the dead from centuries past rose up to continue the fight, their skin dried, eyes hollow, and shards of golden armor and randomly placed across their bodies. Two bone giants formed partially from sand and bone behind Oriyis and Hora, both with massive khopeshes in their hands crossed along their chest.

"All our gods are affiliated to death," Oriyis proclaimed. "Did you really think one of them wouldn't be for using the dead as soldiers?!"

"Oh great. Not he's a necromancer," Stelimus complained. "What's next? Mummies?"

"Stelly, why don't you summon some frost spirits to help us?" Copper asked.

"Because there are none in the desert..." Stelimus sighed.

Copper looked around and smiled sheepishly. "Oh...That's right."

"That being said." The deer king took a deep breath and exhaled mist from his nostrils and mouth. "They're still spirits."

He jumped at one of the undead and tapped its forehead with his right hoof. With all the spirit essence coursing through its body, the creature burst outwards with white energy.

"Princess Yolumay, are you okay?" Radivus yelled whilst snapping a jackal's neck.

The doe pulled a spear out of the side of her neck and patched it with a flower Effervescence tossed her. It grew into the wound and locked the flow of blood to its intended pathway.

"Yes! Don't bother with--Woah!"

Yolumay narrowly avoided five anyubinite warriors thrown at her and into a house behind her, shattering the walls into pieces. The doe nodded with approval.

"I think we should leave from here. We're stuck in the crossfire. They're bringing undead into this!"

Stelimus impaled and froze another skeleton, but not without receiving a slash across his side. He looked to Yolumay with a comically shocked expression. "What? Yolumay doesn't want to fight?" He huffed multiple times in mockery.

"We're stuck in a crossfire of two warring races and you still find the time to make jokes?"

"There's ALWAYS time to make fun of you." He smirked widely. "That being said, we can't abandon the Gitz-Gitz-Guak. They were allies of our people but my father was the one who abandoned them. I can't let them believe that all deer are of the same mind. It isn't right, and this is the best time to make them friends again."

The princess growled. "Your bleeding heart will kill you one day."s

Stelimus ignored her comment and dodged a few swipes from nearby guards and rushed to help his wife. "Copper," he said tiredly. "We need to reach that head crusher. If we can help him we can stop this whole thing."

"But how do we get to him?"

Stelimus poked Copper's wing. "They don't have archers, in-case you didn't notice yet. If you fly us above them, you an drop me down and I can create a bomb of ice and frost."

"And on impact you'll freeze everything around that's undead."

The deer king lifted an eyebrow. "So you knew I was going to specify it with spirit essence?"

"I know you enough to know how you think," she teased.

Stelimus nodded and let himself e lifted by Copper Blossom. He never could get over how strong she was despite her little size in comparison to his own. From above, everything looked like a massive sandstorm. Insect Goliaths were being pelted by tiny jackal Davids, and while the Davids could not fight individually, they could triumph in groups, and the deer could see where the plan succeeded with the black forms piling on a Gitz-Gitz-Guak and causing it to fall over. Others were not so lucky and found themselves using one anyubinite as a bludgeon to thwack away the others.

"Right here?" Copper asked.

"Yes." Once she dropped him, the Stelimus shouted. "BOB-BOMBS AWAY!"

Stelimus antlers were causing some wind resistance and, thus, announcing his presence with a loud whistling. Oriyis and Hora both started to look around, trying to identify the provenance of that noise.

"What is that? Where is it coming from?" Oriyis spoke.

"I don't know, Zaoris Oriyis. The Berbiers have a new weapon perhaps?"

Oriyis scoffed at the notion. "Like these barbarians could--" A sudden realization hit yer. "ABOVE!"

The two giants raised their weapons to hit the blue ball bolting towards them, but their weapons shattered a violent shockwave of ice and sand threw everyone in a one-hundred meter radius onto the floor. Taking a few minutes to recover, Oriysis and Stelimus both stood up and wobbled a bit, and the zaoris was the first to look around and see all his summoned creations completely frozen in some aberration of sand and water. He glared at Stelimus who was rejoined by Copper Blossom.

"Are you okay, Stelly?" Copper asked while hoisting him up with her wings and foreleg.

"Yeah. I just wasn't expecting that kind of impact even with that height."

"What is this?" Effervescence stuttered as she took in her surroundings. "Since when does he have that kind of power?"

"Since he and his wife have been training after the war with the Black Snow," Yolumay explained.

"But none of my brother's children ever had this kind of power before."

Yolumay snorted. "That's mainly because you and Grimliss amused yourselves with killing them every time you saw them."

"Be that as it may, it doesn't excuse the power he has now. I find this development interesting."

"How DARE you!" Oriyis bellowed. "You come to MY home for MY aid, and then you betray me and DESTROY my capital? I--"

The zaoris' throat was grabbed by the head crusher. "And then the mammal would do what? Your words ring false and your songs play sour. You will die for your transgressions and hatred towards our people." He looked to the side to see an exhausted Stelimus. "And then, perhaps, we can renew ties with the reindeer."

"H-Hora!" the zaoris choked. "Help me!"

Hora only stood and watched his zaoris getting his throat crushed. Oriyis' struggling and choking suddenly ceased, but not because he was dead.

"Fine," he accepted. "Then even you betray me."

"I don't like the road that you are leading our people down. We are not warriors born to kill and maim everything we don't like, and your disregard towards our gods is taxing for me."

Oriyis' body started thrumming with the black energies that had been bestowed upon yis guards and their weaponry and armor, and with a little squeeze, forced the insect giant to let go of yer. Ye walked calmly towards the light symbol created by the three constructs in front of his palace, and stood there. He took a deep breath and looked at Stelimus.

"You want to know what the black snow is and how we know about it?"

"ORIYIS, DON'T!" Hora shouted.

"Too late! You've forced my hand!"

The skies darkened with black clouds moving about like coiling snakes, and the light etched upon the sand became black as the void of space. Columns of spinning sand erupted upwards and started morphing the landscape into a veritable ocean of sand, much to the horror of even the anyubinites there as they saw the pyramid's center realign itself and the houses, temples, and monuments shatter and scatter into the unforgiving maw of the desert.

"The Adwanee Sands!" Head Crusher announced.

"The snow and sands of black are of the powers of dark and light fleeing from its powers. Fear leads and and fear powers all, and I am the source and herald of fear!"

"That voice..." Stelimus exhaled.

"Yes, familiar soul. The source of all. No form or shape or identity."

Oriyis' form started growing bigger and bigger until it towered over even the head crusher, yis body completely engulfed in swirling blackness.

"Size has no meaning if it cannot be used. Even the source of the adwanee sands will submit, much like its titans did to us in the past."

He entered a fist fight with Oriyis, and while both took the blows of the other and sent out more the former zaoris backhanded the insectoid into two separate pieces and jettisoned the two halves into the sand behind everyone. The zaoris stomped the sand, created more blackness that spread like colored water upon paper and corrupted the remaining anyubinite soldiers and civilians into massive snarling beasts of fear and terror.

Stelimus tried to stand, but fell over, and Effervescence's attempts to approach the creature met with failure as it blocked her attacks with the help of gusts of black wind.

"I can't stop it!" Effervescence cried out.

Oriyis turned around to face Stelimus and his wife, and grinned.

"You will be ended, and your soul collected, for fear and terror are its soul and syrup, and you are the much needed amusement to the millennia of monotony."

Copper stood in front of Stelimus and blocked the outreaching hand of the giant. "I won't let you hurt Stelimus! I love him, and even if he lives longer than me I'll die with him!"

"Then die with him you shall!"

The giant's hand was suddenly frozen mere millimeters from Copper's face. She turned to face 'Stelly', but he shook his head. He hadn't saved her. All eyes went to a glowing ball of light slowing floating past Oriyis and towards Stelimus before stopping, then a voice came from it:

"What is this? I see my son fighting the source of black snow with the gitz-gitz-guak and he refers to sleep instead? I thought I taught you better than that."

"It's not like your kid is any better than you are," a female voice scolded the first."

"Little brother always complaining about something," a second male voice joked."

"What?" Stelimus gasped.

Comments

[Snowfyre]

"What?" Stelimus gasped.

i agree... what?

[The Psychopath]

7972496 Yes.

[Chrome Masquerade]

This ought to be good....