Realm of the Lost

by Orsuros

Chapter 13: Battle Begins

Sandbar: Try to buy time.
Smolder: Start a fight and help Storm Surge.

“Hey, can’t we all just be friendly?” Sandbar asked.

He rubbed a hoof through his mane and stepped away from one of the floating ice spears nearby. His hair was standing on end from the magical energy he could feel coming from Shade and Nightmare. The two shadow alicorns motioned to their guards to form up. Sandbar tried to spin around to keep any enemies from being behind him, but they were surrounded.

“I think we can take you!” Smolder shouted. She breathed a blast of fire at the nearest spirit, but it was far enough away to easily dodge.

“So you choose pain!” Nightmare shouted. She stomped a hoof. “Get them!”

Storm Surge snapped his fingers and two dark voids were torn in the air next to him.

“Let’s make this a little more even,” he said.

Four of the strange hippogriffs from Jester’s Court walked out of one of the voids. A moment later, they changed into a dragon, an unbrum, a yak, and an earth pony. Storm Surge pointed to the side.

“You four fight the umbrum over there. Fight well, and I just might have a memory or two to give back to you. And my other friends will fight those windigos.”

Sandbar almost froze in terror as he saw what crawled out of the other portal. Two squid-like creatures crawled out of it before it closed. They had glowing red eyes scattered across their long faces. Their huge maws roared out in a series of terrible sounds while their many tentacles and claws pulled them rapidly across the floor.

Shade lifted into the air on his wings. “You’ll pay for bringing such filth to our throne room!”

Sandbar felt the familiar tap of a dragon claw on his shoulder.

“Hey, get your head in the fight!” Smolder said. “I’ll take those two umbrum. You get that extra windigo.”

Sandbar watched the fight as he hesitated. Storm Surge’s first attack was blocked by a barrier of darkness that Nightmare created. Shade slashed the hippogriff with a black spike of shadow. Storm Surge morphed into a medium-sized dragon and added flames to his barrage of claws and ice spikes. The three leaders traded vicious blows until the dark spikes pinned Storm Surge down. He was blasted with a barrage of dark rays until he collapsed.

A burst of magic drove back the magical attacks. Storm Surge rose again in his hippogriff form, but his eyes were glowing yellow. The yellow spots on some of his feathers glowed and blinked like eyes, and dark tentacles wiggled on the edges of his body and wings. He screeched and charged at Shade and Nightmare.

Sandbar was blasted with a wind so cold that his hooves went numb. The windigo he was supposed to be fighting laughed and danced away as Sandbar tried to kick at it to drive it away. Sandbar was swaying on his numb hooves. He should have been paying better attention to his own fight.

All around him, the confusion of battle continued. The terrible shambling creatures that Storm Surge had brought were frozen solid beneath the two windigos. The shapeshifting hippogriffs all shouted triumphantly as the last of the four umbrum went down.

At Sandbar’s side, Smolder fought the two umbrum with her fiery breath. She dodged their hooves by gliding and jumping.

“You’re almost as easy as that other guard I fought!” Smolder shouted. She took a deep breath to ready another fiery burst.

One of the umbrum circled behind her. A swift kick hit Smolder in the back of the head. She gasped and crumpled to the floor. The flames around her mouth quickly sputtered to smoke then nothing.

“No! Smolder!”

Sandbar ran toward her, but the windigo blocked his way. He could barely move his hooves until he reached deep inside. He still had something left inside him, but it wasn’t much. He focused and bucked with all his might. His aim was true. His hooves connected with something solid this time. The windigo was knocked back. Sandbar ran past and put a hoof on Smolder.

“Please be okay! Get up!”

He focused on her. He could feel her energy. It was almost like she was a seed or plant he was trying to help grow, but the connection was very faint. He tried to transfer energy to her. He felt something go from his hooves and into her. She coughed and steadied herself by supporting herself on one knee as she tried to stand up again.

“Smolder!”

He gave her a quick hug even as their enemies circled around them.

“Hey, no hugs. We still have a fight to win.”

She pushed him back and stood all the way up. She clenched her claws into fists.

Sandbar was breathing hard and his entire body felt like it had been burned by the extreme cold of the windigo’s first attack.

“I don’t know if I can fight much more.”

“Heh. I don’t know if we have a choice.”

“We could fall back and let Storm Surge’s friends fight them.”

“No way. I’m not a coward. I won’t let some weird hippogriffs fight when I can still keep going. Now let’s get back in there and kick some spirit butt!”

Sandbar hesitated. He could try harder to convince Smolder to stop, or he could focus on himself. He didn’t think he could heal her if she got hurt again. Another dumb idea popped into his head. He could try to create a distraction to help Storm Surge beat the two shadow alicorns, but all the crazy magic destroying that half of the throne room might easily tear him apart with one wrong step.

(Sandbar is at 1/14 stamina and 5 friendship tokens. Smolder is at 3/14 stamina and 7 friendship tokens.)

1. Fall back and see how the fight goes.
2. Convince Smolder to fall back.
3. Help Smolder fight.
4. Distract Shade and Nightmare.
5. Draw on the magic of Harmony to help Smolder (costs friendship tokens).

Author's Note:

Voting closed for this chapter.
Or feel free to leave an alternate suggestion in the comments. If I see any great ones, I might use them instead.

Character sheets and story notes here.

And here's the behind the curtains rolls/events:

Split votes. Dice rolled to break tie between both choices.

!mythic ask 5 Does Smolder take on the two umbrum?
Does Smolder take on the two umbrum?
Yes

Lots of rolls for NPC combat. Too many to show here. Most fights ended up pretty one-sided except for Storm Surge vs. Shade and Nightmare.

Smolder fight:
Body !1d8, Fire Breath !1d10 vs Body !1d4 !1d4, Insubstantial !1d10 !1d10
Body 2, Fire Breath 4 vs Body 1 2, Insubstantial 6 10
Body !1d8, Fire Breath !1d10 vs Body !1d4 !1d4, Insubstantial !1d10 !1d10
Body 5, Fire Breath 7 vs Body 4 1, Insubstantial 8 10
Extra dice for umbrum: Body !1d6
Body 6
Body: !1d8
Body: 3
Note: Umbrum have a special ability that ignores the penalty on attacks normally given by the insubstantial talent.
Smolder takes 6 damage and is at 0 stamina.

Sandbar fight:
Body: !1d8 vs Body: !1d10, Cloud Wrangling !1d20, Insubstantial !1d12
Body: 7 vs Body: 5, Cloud Wrangling 20, Insubstantial 9
Sandbar takes 13 damage and is at 1 stamina.
Note: My version of windigo have a special ice attack tied to their cloud wrangling ability that works a lot like dragon’s fire breath but only activates on rolls of 12+.
Body: !1d8, Stout Heart !1d10 vs Body: !1d10, Cloud Wrangling !1d20, Insubstantial !1d12
Body: 7, Stout Heart 4 vs Body: 5, Cloud Wrangling 1, Insubstantial 5
Sandbar deals damage and escapes to try to heal Smolder.

Healing Touch !1d4
Healing Touch 3
Smolder regains 3 stamina.

This was a short but action and combat heavy chapter. Shade and Nightmare hurt Storm Surge enough to activate his rebirth ability. I was also surprised by how one-sided most the fights ended up. The windigos beat the shamblers easily (which I based somewhat on the shambler from Darkest Dungeon). The nameless (the hippogriffs that change forms) also beat the umbrum quite easily. Smolder probably could have won her fight if the umbrum didn't get the extra exploding hoof dice on that one attack, but her defeat gave Sandbar a nice chance to be heroic. Also, I'm very happy Sandbar didn't get knocked out in a single attack. If he had rolled any lower, he would have been down.

Comments

[Yoshifan30]

Boy this is some battle scenes here I hope the others get there soon