theninjagoose

  Aphrodite's Apostles were bustled from the dining room to an empty conference room, where they changed as quickly as they could before joining the stragglers of the guards sprinting from the pace. The rest of the defense forces were already massing on the southern side of the city, where a horde of... something... was rolling across the hills, heading directly for Chattery. They stopped at the bottom of the steps in front of the Pace to look at the scene before them.

  "What are those?" Shiloh asked, squinting at the unidentifiable mass of bodies.

  "Demons." Twil stated evenly, though her narrowed eyes betrayed her distaste.

  "This ain't good." Ara commented. "That mob has to be at least twice the size of the guards."

  "We better hope there are some good fighters at the Guild." Beck replied, rolling her shoulders to adjust in her armor.

  "And that they're willing to help." Elnor whispered.

  "Why wouldn't they help?" Shiloh asked, aghast. "Surely they wouldn't flee and let the city be overrun?"

  "Some would find it better to flee and let a city fall, especially if they hold no allegiance to it, than die fighting for people they don't know. That's doubly true for those who have spouses and children waiting at home for them." Ara said, shrugging.

  "Are w-we going t-to help?" Katerine asked, though she was also already garbed for war.

  "Yes." Shiloh said firmly. "I will, at least."

  "Where you go, we go." Twil's voice was still even, but her grip had tightened around the staff given to her by Cinder.

  "Wait! Wait!" They heard Hans Chambers shouting as he ran out the door. He waved at them and rushed down the stairs. He was wearing the same clothes he'd had on at dinner, clearly not pnning on joining the fight.

  "What can we do for you, Viceroy?" Shiloh asked politely as the noble drew closer.

  "Are you pnning to defend the city?" Chambers gasped, catching his breath.

  "Yes."

  "Then please, allow Sarai to join you." Shiloh raised his eyebrows at this, but none of his allies looked all that surprised. "She is a quite powerful Assaulter, but I can't commit her to any of our standard formations. The guard captains won't utilize her properly, for fear of her being injured under their command. I trust that the chosen of a goddess will keep her safe, however."

  "You would risk the life of your wife?" Shiloh asked, earning a reproving look from the leader. It was filled with judgment and derision, along with what Shiloh suspected was a hint of shame.

  "Sarai would not allow harm to come to one of her citizens while she has breath in her lungs. Had I been given a combat css by the gods, I would also join the front lines." Hans replied coolly.

  "Ah. Of course." Shiloh said, kicking a foot nervously. "I meant no disrespect, your grace. You have my apologies."

  Hans' stance softened. "It's okay, Lord Sutton. Perhaps your world did not have the struggles that we face, but here, on Glitnir, any who can help, should help."

  Shiloh nodded at him, then noticed Sarai descending the stairs. The pretty, brunette woman was all shapely legs and serious looks, garbed much like Elnor in leather armor covering leather clothing. Instead of a bow, however, Sarai was dual-wielding two bdes that were either incredibly long daggers or incredibly short swords. The bdes were shining in the setting light of the day, and there was a rge gemstone in the pommel of each, one ruby and the other emerald.

  "Are we ready?" Sarai asked, eyeing the horde making its way towards them.

  "Yes, as long as you are." Shiloh replied.

  "Lead the way."

  Shiloh nodded to Elnor, who navigated the group through the city streets until they arrived outside the walls. The guards assembled there blocked any path forward but, at a word from Sarai, they slid aside and allowed Aphrodite's Apostles and their VIP to make their way to the front lines. When they emerged from the press of bodies, Shiloh got a better look at the demons approaching.

  They were still a couple miles off, and looked to be moving quite slowly. As he watched, he had a difficult time making out one body from another; they seemed to shift and move right through each other in one enormous, unduting mass of inky bck flesh. He couldn't even really tell what shape they were supposed to be, though they seemed vaguely humanoid.

  "It doesn't look like they'll be able to get here before the sun sets." Shiloh mused. "Not very good pnners, are they?"

  Sarai looked at him with a cocked eyebrow. "You've never fought a demon, have you?"

  "Nope."

  An unamused expression took over Sarai's face, and she looked at the others gathered around her. "Have any of you fought demons before?"

  A round of shame-faced mutters in the negative rippled through Shiloh's lovers, except for Katerine. "I h-have."

  "Would you care to enlighten them?"

  "N-no."

  Sarai looked at her carefully, and her expression softened. "Integration?"

  "M-m-my whole p-party." Katerine looked like she was going to be sick, and Shiloh rubbed her shoulder comfortingly.

  Sarai offered her a sympathetic half-smile, then addressed the rest of them. "Demons, contrary to how they appear, are not actually individuals. The mass of bodies you see rolling across the hills is one entity, capable of shifting its form as it needs in order to accomplish whatever it sets its mind to. It is smart, strong, and capable of fighting the individual warriors of an army with no drop in efficiency.

  "If you cut into one of the 'bodies' that it forms, it will not bleed. If you chop of a head, it will not die. If you think it's finished, watch out for the portion of it that's about to stab you in the back. It needs no weapons or armor, as it can harden areas of its skin at will, making it tougher than steel. Worse than that, however, is that demons have no eyes. It has no need of light, and can fight as easily in the pitch bck as it can in the afternoon. Its arrival this te is not a ck of pnning, but an abundance of it."

  "How do you kill it?" Ara asked. Her voice was hard, but Shiloh noticed a slight tremble in her hands.

  "You have to cut it into pieces. A limb detached from the body will dissolve if not quickly rejoined to the rest of the demon. Only by cutting off the vast majority of the body can you get close enough to burn the heart, which is an amalgamation of the blood of its victims, congealed and centered in the main mass of the body. When it gets close enough to a person, it will attempt to integrate them into its body by covering them completely in its shifting flesh and then moving them closer to the heart, where they will slowly be digested. Their blood is added to the heart, and the rest of them turns into the same bck substance that the rest of it is made of."

  The group gnced surreptitiously at Katerine, who refused to look up from her hooves. The horrible truth of what had caused her to give up adventuring now apparent, they were able to fully appreciate just how much courage it took her to leave the Guild, let alone to now stand with them and face down the monstrosity creeping ever closer.

  "What about true damage?" Shiloh asked. Sarai raised an eyebrow at him. He checked his sheet really quick.

  Shiloh SuttonCss: Cleric of AphroditeHP: 250/250Level: 24MP: 150/150Lust: 16320 Strength: 8Arcana: 0Finesse: 15Divine: 301Fortitude: 25Resistance: 25Endurance: 12Focus: 30 "How much true damage would it take to bring that thing down?" He looked at Sarai.

  She frowned and considered it for a moment. "The reason you cut pieces off of it is so you don't have to expend the energy killing the entire beast. If you wanted to try and kill it in one hit, true damage would indeed be the best option, but there is still a lot of flesh to melt through. A demon of that size, you'd probably be looking at close to fifty thousand true damage to burn through the whole thing."

  "Would I need to burn through the whole thing, though?" Shiloh asked. "It kind of came out like a beam st time. Couldn't it just nce through the thing and kill the heart?"

  Sarai turned and looked at him full in the face. "It might. It might not. Every choice you take on the battlefield has consequences, though. If you were to use this power, and it fails, would you be capable of still helping in the ensuing battle? Burning a huge hole through the demon would no doubt hurt it, but we would be unable to take advantage of it. Climbing in the hole to look for the heart would be suicidal, and the demon would eventually recover from it."

  Shiloh nodded gravely. It looked like this would be a battle that they couldn't steamroll. Even Viktora's insane All is Darkness skill wouldn't actually be much use here. She could slice up everything in her sphere of shadows but, if the demon just avoided it, she would have to deactivate it and wait for the cooldown to use it again. Artillerists like Katerine wouldn't be much use either, since their skills were most effective against multiple enemies and the demon only counted as one, according to Sarai.

  The most effective fighters in this battle would be Skirmishers and Assaulters, putting a lot of the stress of the upcoming battle on Elnor, Ara, and Sarai. Shiloh considered the ranks of men and women standing beside them, and saw nothing but terrified faces gritting in determination. So many lives that could, and would, be lost. So many dreams snuffed out, loved ones left behind, waiting up for the father, mother, son, daughter, wife, or husband who would never come home, who was being torn apart and added to the horror outside their walls.

  Shiloh's resolve hardened until it was steel. He began walking forward, and his lovers followed a few seconds ter, their jaws set and their nerves steadied as action was taken.

  "Where are you going?" Sarai called, tentatively joining the vanguard.

  "I won't let that thing any closer to the city than I have to." Shiloh growled, a righteous anger welling up within him at the thought of screaming children, terrified women hiding behind men who were no fighters, yet stood bravely between certain death and the innocent. "Ara, battle pns."

  The Berserker's response was a minute in coming. "Eight of us against a creature literally the size of an army? Stay the fuck away from it. Beck can't cover every angle it could attack from. Katerine and Twil will be of limited use. Beck, Viktora, Sarai and I will need to continuously chop off whatever gets too close while Elnor pours out the damage as fast as she can. Keep your buffs up, keep Empowering Pool on Elnor. In a bind, Viktora can use All is Darkness to clear us out, but we'll need to fall back immediately if she does. Keep enough distance between us and the main body to keep from getting overwhelmed, and let Elnor whittle it down. If we're lucky, she might blow through the heart with a Double Shot fme arrow."

  "It is touching to see you all willing to share such personal details with each other." Sarai mused, a small smile on her lips. "It must have taken quite a long time to develop that level of trust with one another."

  The Apostles declined to respond to that observation.

  "Are you okay with the role Ara assigned for the upcoming battle?" Shiloh asked, instead. "Or would your talents be put to better use in another way?"

  "I will do as she suggested." Sarai responded. "My specialty will not be applicable here, but I am perfectly capable of sshing off limbs."

  "Perfect." Shiloh responded. They continued forward stoically, determined to whittle the demon down before it was able to reach the guards, let alone the city behind them. As they grew closer, Shiloh saw that Sarai's assessment of its physical form was quite accurate. It almost looked like a defted balloon with many, many people inside of it, occasionally stretching the rubber out from the center in a hand, leg, face, or their entire body. It was disturbing, to say the least. Particurly when the bodies had too many limbs, or had them in the wrong pces.

  They were soon within range of Elnor's bow, and they stopped moving. "Shiloh, offensive buff."

  "Are you not already buffing us?" Sarai asked with another quirked eyebrow. "I felt it activate while we were walking."

  "Oh." Shiloh replied happily. "I guess it finally considered you our ally. That was a passive buff. It's just on all the time."

  Sarai's second eyebrow joined the first, then they both shot upwards as far as they could, and her eyes flew open as Shiloh's offensive buff activated. She flexed her hand, feeling the power of a one hundred and fifty point boost to her Strength and Finesse running through her.

  "Truly, you are gods-blessed." She whispered as she eyed the unassuming, yet charming, young man. He grinned back at her, then Elnor started shooting.