Carpe Florem [Semi-Closed]

[hiss the villain]

The explosion of holy power, while pussiant, was not as effective in the Depot as one would imagine. Spread out as D'eon's minions were, when the single Unnatural priest detonated, a large part of his unit (gathered as they were near the service entrance) escaped the thirty-foot spread of the blast.

D'eon himself, however, and a sizeable chunk of his advance party were struck with the full force of the singular explosion. The air was briefly rocked by sound- as eighty-four nearby animated bodies exploded, the resulting expansion of gases trapped within cavities and holy might rocked the Depot. The gypsy himself was flung from his feet, and hurled bodily into the unfeeling stone walls. He was forced into the wall by the force of the blast, and stone cracked and crumpled as his preternaturally hard form smashed into it soundly. His vision was ablur- Unnatural though he was, the sheer concussive force had quite ably knocked him for a loop.

When he came to himself, a scant few seconds later, D'eon found himself slumped against the pitted wall- with three of the blades that he had collected in his journey struck through his chest. The energy had scorched at his coat, and given his direct proximity to the blast, had taken off more than half of the gypsy's face. Black ichor seeped from the open wound, the exposed muscle and tendons beneath charred and blackened. The stuff dripped from his chin, began to pool in his lap. Then D'eon rose to his feet, and the core of his being was assailed with an anger so tremendous that it would have torn a mortal body in twain. He ripped the blades from his flesh heedlessly, hurling them to the ground with such force that the tempered metal shattered. More of the ichor pumped forth; his coat was slick with it now, and the corrupted shaman looked as though he had been doused in oil.

The spirits shuddered as the force of his will, amplified by the Desecrator and powered by rage, lashed out. The spirit of the priest, no doubt expecting to be carried beyond mortal ken into salvation, was abruptly surrounded by a gout of spiritual force that struck through him like lightning.

With a flex of his will, D'eon tore the holy spirit apart.

The agonized wail of acute suffering that the soul released was like a balm to the spirits so recently torn asunder from their new bodies. While the explosion had demolished their physical form, the lash of the Desecrator was too powerful to be rendered useless. The same will that had annihilated the spirit cast the shreds of its form to the ravenous ghosts; they set upon it, starved as they were, with a fierce swiftness. As they began to feed, however, D'eon began to feed on them. Standing alone in the hall, soaked with gobbets of decaying flesh and sick fluids, spiritual energy surged through him like a river. The sheer force of drawing on the procession of feasting souls shook him visibly- he staggered backwards a step, and a finite trembling began to spread through his limbs.

As the surging, cutting power raged through him, however, the voracious center of avarice that was his core lashed out, and it, too, began to feed. As the remnants of dessicated souls suffused D'eon, the exposed, charred flesh of his half-eaten face began to mend itself; as he fed, the channels carved through his ribs began to swell and close. Simultaneously, his voice that was not a voice thundered through his spiritual link to his dead, his rage sinking into their beings as though each had suffered the same indignity.

They have taken our children, he boomed, Now we will take theirs. Hurry to their beds. Move with the fire of my hate, live through our anger. Hurry to their beds, and drown them in blood.

A hundred of the corpses insulated by the walls of the Depot, and those stationed closest to the service tunnel entrance, began to file back into the narrow portal. They moved with speed and alacrity- guided by one mind, there was no individual shoving or bumping. Like a flock of birds, that travels as a whole with nary a clipped wing, the legion of bloodthirsty ghouls flowed into the tunnels, charging towards the dormitories in the few crystalline moments that directly followed the explosion. It would only take them a matter of minutes to arrive; perhaps three, perhaps four. As they ran, a healing D'eon stalked back through the halls, the remainder of his forces circulating through the Depot to rejoin him. Where corpses was found, mages began to cast their dark magics; soon, flesh golems stood from the wreckage to bolster the Unnatural army.

It was at that moment that the world exploded again. When the massive Sentinel burst through the ceiling, the falling detritus immediately crushed ten of the straggling army; another seven died as the construct began laying about with its terrible spiked arms. Each death, D'eon felt acutely- because every souled ghoul that was destroyed flowed back to its succor, rejoined the mass of spiritual power that the Spirit-tongue was housing within his physical frame. Power roiled off his skin like a miasma, and the sick black thing that was D'eon's aura gradually faded into life. One hundred and one souls clamored in the grip of his strength, and as the host began to pull back from the Sentinel, the unholy psychopomp cast his arms out, akimbo.

There was a terrible rending noise as the power of the devoured souls exploded from D'eon into the Desecrator's conduit. Ten of the twenty mages still left in his direct proximity surged into prominence as their forms were consumed by the corrupted power that they bore- they became flaring and sparking entities of corruptive energy, their physical, dessicated shells utterly overwhelmed. It was these mages that raised their hands to mimic D'eon- the unison in which they moved was terrifying enough, but the sheer force that they plied against the earthen construct was more terrible still.

Their might was met with great resistance; the construct was not simply made, and layers of powerful enchantments prevented the corrupted terramancers from immediately tearing it asunder. But slowly, slowly, their collective will, empowered by the Descrator and the sacrificed souls of the re-dead, began to break through the thing's defenses, piece by piece. As it raged, and more Unnaturals were crushed and pierced, D'eon stayed at the very back of his host, arms still spread, spiritual energy surging through him as he acted as a conduit for his army.

Below, in the tunnels, his second host had reached the service entrance to the dormitories. There was no point in being silent now- the door exploded inwards, and a flood of ravenous ghouls boiled through the frame. Less than five minutes had passed since the explosion. Escape was futile.

Unnatural Troop Movement Summary

100 of D'eon's original 216 undead have breached, and begun the assault upon, the dormitories.
--[60 berserkers/warriors, 23 mages, 6 alchemists, 3 technicians, 8 flesh golems]
Out of the remaining 116, 17 were immediately killed by the Sentinel. The remaining 99 are currently engaged in combating the Sentinel and completing their assault on the Depot.
--[41 berserkers/warriors, 20 mages, 6 alchemists, 2 technicians, 8 golems]

[odium.]

In the midst of everything that was going on, there was the silhouette of a man walking through the undead of the night. He wore a suit that appeared to be cut from stone with sleeves rolled up past his elbows. Each hand clutched either wooden handle of a rather large wheel barrow, which stowed a mountainous pile of barbecue. He seemed completely unawares of the chaos that was going on around him, whistling all the while he pushed the barrow down the walkway past the depot.

"Tomorrow, everyone will be surprised. A picnic, hah! Ingenious."

The way he walked was rather curious, as if to the tune of a melody that only he could hear. Those steaming slabs of seasoned pork and beef smelled mouth-watering, the thought of a get together for the students brought a smile to his face. Mr. Maxwell imagined an extended family, opposed to a group of separate individuals merely living in close proximity to one another. His vision of unity and interdependence was slowly piecing itself together, one student at a time.

[desolate]

Explain. He felt the dark repetition of that one word as a noose around his neck. While Monarche continued chatting, each word became a tourniquet, cutting off his choleric circulation. It seemed like gospel; no less than if he were reciting from Principles of Pudding Perfection. Yeah, one cup shredded shredded suet, an ounce of black rum, can't forget the candied fruit—before that last question cracked him like an egg and yanked the yolk of yore. Resurrected? A bite-sized sense of self-entitlement struck his stomach. He was the Culinary Champion! Of course he should have been resurrected. What would the world do without his waffles? Based on that flavory fact alone, it was clear as custard: his Squire Suppliant was no vegetarian villain; he was a defender of desserts. In this singular way, he was righteous and consequently, forgivable in the ways he flunked.

But that still didn't answer the question. Avent smacked his lips, trying to conjure any memories associated with the taste of those weekly cake offerings. There was the image of Henry the Hall Monitor and his booming cries of defiance as he attempted to prevent The Gaian Academy Chefs' Club from carrying cake through the catacombs. Henry would pay with his lard and become a crostata, commercialized in cookbooks everywhere as a caution to never cross the Culinary Champion! Deeper in the medley of memories, there was some indistinct, droning exposition by a professor whose name he couldn't recall, the vacant chatter of students studying to become enchanters or artifcers, the pressure of gizmos against his skull—how dare they? He had been a science exhibit for seniors! The reliquaries and his philatory made sense now. At least it was flattering, but that brand of praise was too piquant.

Caught up in Monarche's pace, every retreating step brought Avent closer, but there was something soupy about his Squire Suppliant's rationalizations. The highest tastes? Tinctures of the mind and distinctions of the spirit? Monarche was inebriated by the immaterial, illusions, imitations—ingredients for a sickly stew, in which Avent had no choice but to dissolve like gelatin. As he passed the Desecrator, he was similarly intoxicated by the juxtaposition of paternal affection with fondness for his flunky. The compulsion to fry him waned, though Avent continued to idly wonder what kind of batter to use if it came down to it. Black lintel? No, no, no. Sweet rice to contrast the maudlin.

"So you're one of those unnaturals—Gaians this, Gaians that, destroy all Gaians," he momentarily mimicked Monarche's spooky voice while waving his hands and waggling his fingers like a jubilant child telling tall tales to his peers. "Never rolled with those Gaians either—unnaturals this, unnaturals that, destroy all unnaturals. It's all gumbo. Myths cooked up by cognitive dissonance. You are what you eat, Squire Suppliant. You should stop your shenanigans and find yourself a healthier diet." With no plans for the future, nothing beyond tagging along for now, Avent considered everyone he knew. A cleric wasn't equipped to handle his crummy circumstances; he needed a necromancer and an artificer that didn't operate according to destructive doctrines. Roasting over holy fire was unappetizing.

---

The sentinel assaulting the supply store slowly crumbled, chunks of stone clipped from its chassis by unnatural magic. It did not relent, even as its head cracked, its arms disintegrated and its legs fell off. As D'eon and his coterie worked to destroy it, they became a beacon within the gradient of maleficence consuming the Academy grounds. Two more sentinels were drawn to them, now priority targets; they dropped down outside instead of within. As a matter of efficiency, they destroyed the remaining support structures with swings of their arms, caving in the rest of the building. After, it was a matter of impaling fish in a broken barrel.

Aside from the two units at the depot, sixteen remained. Their deployment was strategic; they were not simple automata. Troop movement was seriously impaired when all the sentinels took to the courtyard. Rather than walk down from their walls, they dropped onto flesh golems, groups of mages or particularly dense formations of non-priority unnaturals as soon as they emerged. Clumping together was a consequence of a simple lack of space. There were four groups of four sentinels, each squad located at chokepoints between buildings.

Within the dormitory, those students who had already realized what was going on, who had access to the Free Gate, crowded to escape through it. Otherwise, the first floor was empty; the other students had escaped to the highest floors. The stairwells between the second and third floors were hastily barricaded with random objects in a sloppy, panicked fashion, but the third and fourth floors would be much more difficult to pass; the students who were in the least amount of immediate danger created stronger fortifications. With at least a few skilled conjurers and abjurers among them, keeping the fourth floor inaccessible from the stairs would not be too difficult.

Stragglers, however, were slaughtered.

On the other side of the Academy, the faculty and alumni buildings were empty. Unrestricted Free Gate travel for employees and their research assistants meant nobody was sticking around for the massacre. For those who cared about their students, the best they could do for them now was not to sacrifice their lives to the horde, providing the unnaturals with adepts in every field, but to notify the proper authorities. For those who didn't, they gathered at restaurants across Terrenus, drank blood wine and discussed what a potentially wonderful learning experience it would be. A particularly nasty clique of professors started a betting pool in Last Chance.

All it took for Central to take notice was a hysterical teacher abruptly popping into existence in some major city, screaming about the Academy and unnaturals. The closest satellite cycled through its optical feeds and detected the mass of evil consuming the school.

It beeped.

---

Academy Activity Summary

Sentinels: 2 destroyed. 18 remaining. 2 attack the depot; it's destroyed. 16 deployed in groups of 4. 1 group located between the lecture hall and the temple, 1 between the greenhouse and the temple, 2 between the lecture hall and the front gate. They're too big to fit inside the buildings, an issue which will be addressed during the next homeland security meeting; someone will be fired.

Faculty and alumni: All of them escape. Central is alerted.

Satellite: Gladius salvo signalled. ETA is two rounds.

Students (d%): 1,980 have Free Gate access. 970 escape. 1,010 are killed in the attempt. 848 of those manage to put up a fight before dying. 4,020 remain. 1,689 sloppily barricade the third floor. 2,331 expertly barricade the fourth floor, trapping those who did not make it there on the third.

[circa.cipher]

Shay's perch in the crook of the tree allowed her a bit of a view. Her thoughts were relatable to Chaflin's in the way that she agreed the undead looked like maggots pervading the campus, but the campus did not look like a bloated corpse, but simply a plain one -- devoid of all life. In fact, that was the thing that frightened Shay the most. Her classmates and teachers she saw on a daily basis, even people she'd never talked to but always saw in the dorm hallways or on her way to lunch, seemed to have vanished. All except for one.

Chaflin ran past the tree she was sheltered in, and a gut feeling to call out to him was vanquished solely by an unspeakable fear. Instead, she'd find her legs sliding past the biting bark as her hands held her perpendicular to a lower branch. The bare soles of her feet would float soundlessly through the air for a moment as she steadied herself in preparation for the drop. Letting go, she'd fall through the air for a moment before her feet met the appropriate target. Her hands were soon to follow and grip the branch with grimy fingers. Her feet began to slip, so she pushed off the branch and made a haphazard landing on the dirt below, one knee and the paired hand meeting the ground while the other leg's foot caught her in a half-crouch.

Her adrenaline allowed her to stand and chase after Chaflin immediately with little recoil from the hard landing. She reached his side only through the greatest amount of effort -- his legs were much longer than hers and the speed necessary to catch up to him caused her to trip into his back. Whether or not he fell, she'd first roll headfirst, and then lengthen out into a barrel roll that matted her hair and clothes with dirt. Her lungs were resistant to the cloud she kicked up, and she did her best to cover her coughs up in the soft part of her elbow. "Chaflin, it's me, Shay!" she whispered, assuring him that he wasn't being attacked. Standing slowly and creakily, she'd dust her bleeding knees off as best she could and shake her hair out like a wild dog. If Chaflin was paying any attention, he'd notice that Shay's shyness seemed to have melted away like an unlucky suitor, leaving her scarred face -- as well as her disheveled pajamas -- to open observation. "I had a bit of a vantage point before this. They're coming from the depot. The main exit should be open!" Grabbing his hand, she dragged him in the direction of the chapel -- unbeknownst to her that's where the real danger was.

[Acies ab Vesania]

Chaflin approached the door feeling unease- somewhere deep within his gut; he knew he could be walking into pure and utter chaos. His hand clinches the hammer tightly, his palms growing sweaty, his grip feeling looser by the second as his body continues to drip with each pulsation in his temples. It felt like his heart beat three hundred times a minute, the steady thumping playing like a drum solo at a school concert. It was bad enough that he knew what lay beyond his immediate vicinity, from within the depot and currently falling out of the temple. Knowing what lurked there only made entering the dormitories that much more ominous, for what came from those places surely made up a great deal of what could be preparing an attack on sleeping students. Chaflin barely reaches out for the door handle, his grip on the hammer loosened briefly enough to pull open the door, when he feels a heavy force knock into him.

Shay’s quick reassurance saved her life.

Having seen the terrible things roaming the campus, Chaflin immediately thought of the creatures he saw tearing apart the Sentinels and the fleeing students, and with such grisly images in mind, whipped around with his hammer poised and ready to strike whatever attacked him. Fortunately, Shay knew to respond quickly and did so with enough forewarning to prevent Chaflin from causing a terrible and regrettable accident. Simply knowing that he nearly took the hammer to her head filled him with guilt, a silly and useless feeling to bear while trying to survive a crisis.

Chaflin lowers the hammer and his shield arm, blinking rapidly in an effort to confirm that what he saw was and not a figment of his imagination. He took no notice of her partially revealing sleepwear; although he is a heterosexual male, the situation too thoroughly traumatized him to allow him to take notice of such things, even if he were at an age where hormones should drive him towards such observations. Even so, had he noticed, Chaflin would have just been embarrassed, and awkward. Instead, all Chaflin saw was someone he knew and someone he felt some ties to, just as scared as he was- if not more so.

“Shay?! You scared me half to death! Are you all right? How did you get out of there? What’s going on inside, are there others? Can we reach them?”

Chaflin spoke rapidly, his words spilling together into a mash of nearly incomprehensible speech. Chaflin did the best he could to slow down and speak more clearly, but his nerves rattled him beyond control. The more he spoke, the faster it came spilling out, and though he tried his best to hide it, Chaflin trembled. Never before had been so scared- he felt helpless, powerless, and frightened. Part of him continued to bid him to run, filling him with shame for harboring such thoughts when others needed help getting free. Nevertheless, Chaflin managed to hold it together, keeping his mind mostly clear and his grip on his makeshift weapon tight enough to withstand the tugging of a gorilla.

“You don’t want to go that way, believe me. I just came from there, and there is a whole herd of those things stampeding out of the temple.”

Calling the scourge dumping onto the school grounds a herd sounded funny, but it was not an entirely inaccurate statement, and it was something the farm boy could label them. In some ways, they resembled a herd of cow, mindlessly running about, moving with the crowds and acting on a collective instinct and basic underlying motivations. Only these were not cows seeking food and refuge- these were bloodthirsty killers, hell bent on the annihilation of every living being on the campus.

All that in mind and more, Chaflin waits for Shay to fill him in on what goes on inside the dormitory. He hoped she could tell it quickly- no telling how long until the undead began to poke around the area.

[ruckus]

"Really, Avent, I thought you were a bit smarter than this." Monarche laughed, sardonically lowering his arm from its beckoning posture as he began to weave his way through the catacombs, seemingly guided, as it were, by a preternatural sense of direction. In reality, the Desecrator simply allowed him to access the figurative map that guided the Unnatural force through the tunnels undergirding the Academy's foundation; if Avent could intuit the communicative hierarchy through which such a map was generated, he might, in turn, be able to discern exactly where the pair were headed. "I've 'rolled with' the Gaians who want to destroy all Unnaturals; I've been their tool, their weapon, simply because it was the only way to preserve my 'gift.' Their dogma is not so cut-and-dry as they might want the general populace to believe."

"Some of them work at this very institution, raising the next generation of violent tyrants, wandering criminals, the sophisticated jokes called 'Peacekeepers.' Will there be exceptions? Of course there will be exceptions, as long as there are exceptional individuals. I praise the Gaian who chooses peace and tolerance; I simply haven't met her. I have met Gaians who destroy what they do not understand on principle. I have met Gaians who abduct a young Unnatural boy and subject him to torture simply because he is what he is. I have met more Gaians who choose the path of war and coercion than any other religion I have ever encountered. Do you see the Christians in Rosinder cultivating such bloodshed? What about the mystic Gods of Muhir, with their myriad iterations of the Zodiac?"

"No," Monarche said, snorting. "No. Gaianism alone, through its puppet-nation Terrenus, encourages such barbarism. Even alternative derivations of Gaianism preach intolerance; consider the Siren War, the conflict that emerged when one iteration of a goddess' chosen people interacted with another's."

"Even the most beautiful idea can be made ugly when twisted in the minds of blind idealists. My goal, here, is not to eliminate Gaianism from the face of this planet; Gaia herself can make that decision if and when the time comes. Faith, for the Unnatural, is not a matter of belief- I can feel Gaia as firmly as I can feel the ground beneath my feet or the sun against my skin. My goal, here, is to eliminate the men who make this world ugly and to destroy their tools by any means necessary, coopting these tools when and where I can. I am not a creature enchanted by desolation, merely one who sees a means to a noble end."

The weft and weave of the catacombs would have seemed a labyrinth to a mortal man, a vast and open maze that snuffed the senses and left the self suspended in the stifling embrace of dust and shadow. To Monarche and, by proxy, to Avent, it would be akin to exploring the underwater trenches of a serene and silent chasm - a philosopher might have termed it an Abyss - while the Academy's surface churned in turmoil.

"One such tool, for instance, might be a Gaian satellite. If you reach out to the spirits with which you once had communion in this life - provided such an act is still possible for you - you might realize that those courageous and altruistic Gaians, each one of them in a position to save this Academy, have simply fled; they would rather let a machine do their work for them than risk their lives to die for the sake of their institution, their corrupt nation, their wilted flower."

"While I did not anticipate their cowardice, at least not to this degree, I can at least say for certain that my time in the Black Ops cell, working for the Terran government, had its benefits; when the satellite strike comes, Central will find that they are matching wits with an insider, a phenomenon hitherto, I believe, unexperienced by their fledgling regime. I will, if they can isolate my identity, be convicted of Treason against the nation-state of Terrenus; it will be the greatest honor I have yet experienced to be labeled a criminal in the defense of my imprisoned people."

"A people," he added, tilting his head as though listening for a noise, some itinerant buzz or the high-pitched whine of an approaching insect. "That should be nearly quintupled in size relatively soon."

Beneath the Faculty Building, specifically beneath a particularly obnoxious addition to the professorial R&R routine at the Academy -- a swimming pool -- Monarche lifted his hand toward the ceiling and began to reach for his way in. Like a mother's womb parting at its seams to allow its child an unnatural reentry, the earth began to split.

[ruckus]

In The Infirmary

43 berserkers, 31 mages, 2 alchemists, 6 technicians, and 2 flesh golems burst through the floor beneath one of the infirmary's infamous "sanitary sinks," where little Kathy Mage-In-Training can wash her eyes out after forgetting to wear her goggles while playing with the venom of a Fumespitter Drone. Within a short time, the students confined to their beds due to sickness or injury have been summarily dispatched amid a rather heartbreaking series of screams and wails for help, for any help at all, from the professors who they could never have known simply fled the Academy. The younger students, in particular, aged no more than ten years old, wet themselves and lose their minds long before they actually abandon this mortal realm.

In the midst of the chaos, the technicians and the alchemists go to work on the most advanced curative machinery in Terrenus, rerouting its circuitry so as to reverse its effects; the next person to go "under the knife," so to speak, will be rendered an Unnatural due to a simple inversion of the magitech boards that govern the machine's processes. The change, though immense in its consequences, is but minuscule in execution, requiring the concentration of a surgeon as well as the minds of six lifelong technicians - and a few impromptu spell-circle additions on the part of the alchemists - to conceive and execute as planned. Simple panelling conceals the handiwork from sight, and a few aesthetic dents and dints are made to the machinery to make it look as though it has not been neglected in the Unnaturals' rampage across campus.

The bodies of two ten year olds thrown through the Infirmary doors by flesh golems announce their introduction to the campus-wide battlefield.

Unnaturals are picked off left and right on the battlefield; the sentinels know their jobs and, though unwieldy, they do it well, returning the recently resurrected dead to their "graves." Approximately 30 berserkers, 52 mages, 2 alchemists, 3 technicians, and 2 flesh golems are lost this way. The mages from the infirmary look to "plug the holes" in the pentagram formations of their fellow magefolk, and the incantations that were interrupted (only two formations were fully destroyed) continue with only slightly impediment.

In the Indoor Training Grounds

This job, here, is much more simple, as Monarche himself has been planning it since the first time he used the training grounds. 46 berserkers, 33 mages, 2 alchemists, 7 technicians, and 10 flesh golems crush through base of the drinking fountain; since no one is in the Indoor Training Grounds after night, all save the alchemists and the technicians merely go to work on the door, joining the fray rather unexpectedly and aiding their brethren. All ten of the golems, in particular, assail the nearest quatrain of sentinels, "enjambing" them and hurling their parts with the utmost bodily force through the air over the walls that guard the Academy from the outside or, alternatively, toward the Lecture Hall at its center. The mages serve as stop-gaps all over the grounds; if the sentinels manage to pick off one or two mages here and there in their pentagram formations, these mages re-enter the patterns to continue their nefarious work.

The technicians, here, and the alchemists, are concerned with a task of a particularly delicate nature, but one which promises to be quite satisfying when drawn to its eventual conclusion. Within approximately five minutes of entrance, they have manage to hack into the Indoor Training Grounds' monster generation hardware, releasing three lvl. 3 Battle Blobs onto the battlefield with orders to assail faculty; in the eyes of the Battle Blobs, the Unnaturals simply don't exist as targets (except for one unfortunate Alchemist who was, in his previous life, a professor at the Academy). Taking the form of Suujali, these rogue training programs operate, now, outside of their programmed safety restrictions, and, adopting the herd mentality of the Suujali as they exist in the Wasteland, immediately seek out the rogue headmaster on the grounds, two pairs of red eyes circling 'round the wheelbarrow-toting gentleman while the third pair remains out of sight. Venturing inward, the sleek night-camouflaged limb of the leading beast looks to take the headmaster's legs, while the second edges in past the other's left flank, ready to opportunistically strike at whatever remains.

Elsewhere across the grounds, flesh golems attack sentinels as planned, their main strategy being simply throwing the sentinels over the walls of the Academy or into the various buildings present to spread as much mayhem as possible. Three out of the four formations (including the infirmary formation) are targeted specifically, with ten golems attached to each group of four sentinels. The Unnaturals seem to grow stronger by the minute, and the necrotic ooze leaked behind the milling army begins to proliferate the battlefield as a necrotic mist, obscuring physical (as well as metaphysical) sight for the living combatants who still occupy the field. The mages continue their incantations, seemingly a manipulation of this necrotic essence, though for what purpose remains to be seen; the nefariously hooded mage who led them out of the crypt has disappeared from sight, presumably grouped in one of the pentagrams or another.

Still, the berserkers run and the screaming continues, echoing ominously through the growing mist, a mist that puts the senses to sleep for all but the most acutely tuned of psychics, who might recognize the building energy; it is like a smile growing across the face of the Abyss, a knowledge of what is to come and a belief, firm and true, that one knows a secret no one else can say.

Unnatural Troop Summary

529 troops present on the campus battleground:
--[241 berserkers/warriors, 232 mages, 8 alchemists, 13 technicians, 32 flesh golems, 3 Suujali]

Off topic:
Desecrator [Phase 3]: The necrotic ooze leaked by the Unnaturals begins to mist the battlefield, obscuring both magical and non-magical means of sight and providing an echo effect that inaccurately represents the movements on the field around the listener. Psionists, psychics, or shamans of a certain order or degree might be able to breach this sensory dissonance, but for the those beings dependent upon their senses, navigating the campus will become quite a chore. Highly increased speed, strength and fortification for Unnaturals [Natural Armor: Steel; Bone: Double-folded Steel]. Holy magic fizzles if performed within the Desecrator's Area of Effect (Academy Grounds).

[hiss the villain]

As the Sentinel fell into earthen pieces, D'eon lowered his arms. Mere seconds later, the walls of The Depot blew inwards as the Sentinels outside struck. The building's structural integrity was completely compromised; as the rubble fell, the destruction of the remaining Unnatural forces in the Depot was complete.

Complete, save for one. When the first rain of debris fell, the gypsy cast up his arms reflexively, warding off the few rocks and pebbles the force of the automaton's force had blasted inwards. Mere seconds later, the roof fell. His arms were no defense. The first great shard clipped his shoulder, nearly hurling him to the ground. Before even his supernatural reflexes could react, the second finished the job of the first, striking D'eon full in the chest and driving him into the ground. An inestimable weight slammed atop him- he was pinned, quite ably as the rest of the building collapsed on him and his fellows, but not crushed.

By now, the Necrotic Taint that had overtaken the Academy had swollen, grown fat on the death and despair that thronged the school, and the satellite high above was not the only force to take notice of the great stain of Corruption in the face of Terrenus. It awoke at first insensate, formless, stirred by the Unnatural birth of the gypsy D'eon. One of the first phantasmal bulks to brush against his awareness, an ancient dead thing long divorced from power, it's mindless hunger had guided it unerringly after the aberration as he and his creator infiltrated the bowels of the Academy. It huddled close when the Desecrator awoke; when the gypsy touched it, and infused it with his spiritual essence, the formless thing at first drew away from the font of sickly might; but hunger soon overcame feral fear, and the thing glutted itself on the malevolent font of power.

As the taint grew, so did the black thing, and as it grew, as it huddled so near to the shaman, it began to remember. With recollection comes self; as the broad strokes of memory painted their lines around the shifting, ancient spirit it drew into that outline, began to recall sentience.

As the Depot collapsed, and each soul was released, the thing became aware, feeding gluttonously on the departing spirits like a bloated leech clinging to the veins that spiraled from the infected heart of power that was the Desecrator. As it became aware, it recognized the plight of the gypsy. Newly formed teeth, stark white in the blackness, stretched into a wide grin.

---

When D'eon awoke, the Unnatural found himself seated in a mahogany straight-backed chair, with both forearms resting on the edge of a large rectangular table at which he sat directly to the right of the head. To his left, seated in a far larger and ornate chair- complete with carved armrests; they were done in the imitation of lions, and rubies twinkled in the pits of their eyes - was a figure dressed in what appeared to be a sharply-cut blood-red suit, save for a brilliantly forest-green silk shirt underneath the carmine coat. He was a black man- which is not to suggest that his skin was of any sort of shade, but that it was simply a deep and unrelieved black, almost indistinguishable from the void around the table that stretched off into nothingness. He had fine features, for a creature that looked as if he was carved from a block of night, and a brilliantly white and wide smile. He, like D'eon, sat with his forearms on the table. Unlike D'eon, however, his fingers were laced into a steeple and he seemed perfectly at ease.

"Hello, my gadjo pearl-" Began the dark stranger in a voice that sounded frighteningly similar to the Crones of D'eon's mortal life, silky and sibilant, sweet and menacing. Honey and poison spilled from the man's lips; the familiarity with which he spoke to the Unnatural raised D'eon's figurative hackles. "-you must be confused."

He wasn't, in the strictest sense of the word. Divorced from biological necessity, the whole of D'eon's psyche had been planed down into sheer analytical force. He recognized intuitively that he wasn't here, not really, that he was still buried under the rubble but that something- probably this Dark Man- had brought him, or at least his metaphysical sense of him, into this place that was neither here nor there. The gypsy, who, at this point, had been forced through so many such revelations in the months that preceded the invasion of the Academy, was understandably nonplussed.

"Only in regards to who you are. This place, I assume, is some sort of mental conjuring or illusion; the only spirits I can sense are the ones wailing in your belly." D'eon waved a half-gloved hand in the air dismissively, pushing off the table to recline as best one could in a straight back chair; he sort of slouched to the side, resting his cheek on the fist of his opposite arm, planted on the arm rest. "You taste familiar, though, for a ghost." Jaundiced, laughing eyes narrowed into slits, "Do I know you from somewhere?"

The black spectre laughed, a deep-throated affair entirely at odds with the voice he had manifested earlier. "In a manner of speaking. To be honest, though, no. Nobody knows me- not anymore." Strikingly white eyes of indeterminate color narrowed in an inky face. "Long, long time ago, though, I used to be something." The stranger shrugged, a one-shouldered motion that suggested a casual dismissal. "That's not important." The bright grin grew a touch wider. "You can go ahead and call me Friday. Gotta keep up with the times, right?"

Here Friday leaned forward, and pressed an extended index finger straight down into the surface of the table. "Speaking of the times, you're in a bit of an ugly spot yourself. But all this... business, that's going on outside, all this energy bein' hurled around- all these delicious souls", here he licked his lips, a hand reaching down to pat at his belly in mock satisfaction, "That's what brought me back. And even though I'm in a bit of a tight spot, I figure that means that I owe you. Owe you in a big way. In an Old Way."

Those two words seemed to burn into the night; the place they were in shuddered, as if under great strain. "But being what I am- and isn't that what you said, hmm? Remember yourselves? Well I remember myself, and what I remember is that I don't do anything for free. Thing is, though. You're in a tough spot, I'm in a tough spot. Thing is, we both have something precisely useless to to the person that holds it but absolutely precious to the other, do you understand? Power. I need your power, because I need to be. I need to remember- my memories now are too strong to resist. Do you understand? The lines of my being are being drawn, and I am being forced inexorably into a form I am not yet prepared for. Your power is what I need to free myself from this damnable muteness; your essence is what I require to recover mine."

The hand on the table lifted, open-palmed, as if to forestall objections. "And once it's returned, since you'll be so intrinsically a part of this essence, this force, you get it right back. Tit for tat. Value for value." Curious eyes studied the silent, slouching gypsy. "You've done it with the other spirits; you did it with that... that Monarche, the pale boy who made you, who woke me up."

Both hands pressed flat on the table- when they spread, a sheaf of paper was beneath them. There were no words, only a single arcane sigil- the Evil Eye, painted in broad strokes and fully open. D'eon's eyes opened wide, and his hands clenched on reflex. Had the arms of his chair been real wood, they would have splintered to pulp in the force of his shock. Friday didn't seem to notice; if he did, he didn't react, instead producing a blood red quill too long for the pocket that he drew it from and setting it lengthwise across the contract.

"Help me," Friday implored frankly, "And let me help you."

Was that a trick of the atmosphere, or did D'eon hear drums? An ancient, tribal rhythm, invoking seamy images of steam-soaked jungles and ancient rites chanted by ancient pierced and tattooed men and women, etched all over with vodun sigils and pierced with symbolic lengths of carved bones. No, that was no trick, he could feel them now, vibrating against his skin, beating against his form as if seeking to pierce him, to to beat within him in the place of a dead heart. But still he sat, silent, transfixed by the Eye that seemed to stare right through him.

The strokes were different, the overall design was off, but the basic form and structure of the rune was undeniable. D'eon's heritage was intrinsically tied to the symbol; the Evil Eye was one of the central focuses of the ritualized Tsingano magic that the Crones had, against tradition, imparted to the young boy. If he did in fact still have a heart, it would be hammering in his chest. There was no other decision to make; this power was his, his blood and birthright, and in his Unnatural existence he would distort and corrupt the familiar power as he had distorted and corrupted his shamanistic prowess.

He moved, slightly too fast, to pick up the quill. He signed his name in four looping sweeps- it burned through the parchment and the table below, and did not cease as the red-rimmed scar spread, slowly beginning to devour the mental sanctuary they were tucked away in. No more words passed between Friday and D'eon- none were needed, as the gypsy's spiritual might met the primal force of the revived loa and was inhaled as though his soul was gasping for air after struggling to the surface of an icy lake. The sensation struck him; it stiffened his back, forced him to grasp at the edges of the table as the black room crumbled into a thousand pieces and the gypsy collapsed back into himself...

---

The pile of detritus that was now the Depot quivered oddly in a place somewhere near the center. The rock stirred, groaned and creaked- and then blew upwards in one focused spot, blasting into the sky to leave a hole roughly four feet in diameter. A black flash surged straight up out of the hole- arcing eight feet into the air, D'eon landed lightly on the balls of his feet on the cobblestones below.

Moonlight cast him in an odd and frightening light- as did the vodun and profane symbols etched indelibly into his pale skin. Each whorling line connected with another, a web of interconnecting sigils and circles- and dominated by the Evil Eye, tattooed over both of De'on's own, and branching off into arterial branches of arcane meaning. In his right hand, he bore a sword that he had not been wielding when the Depot collapsed.

It was a blade of three and half feet, and it appeared to be made chiefly from the spinal cord of a human being, save for the fact that each vertebrae was oddly proportioned as the blade tapered to it's tip. Opposite the ridge of vertebral bumps, the bone flattened and elongated, forming a blade that hummed against the air as D'eon shifted; it too was carved with the same patterns that adorned the Unnatural gypsy. Single-bladed, it did not so much taper to a point as angle into one- the blade was vaguely trapezoidal, though narrow. It's edge seemed odd- the air around it fuzzed slightly, as if some unknown force coated it.

D'eon held it loosely in one hand- the hilt was long enough for a second, though not long enough to make constant use comfortable. The hilt was circular, a bloated vertebrae. The gypsy glanced down at his new blade, and the raging new strength that he had taken from the satiated Friday seconds before his reemergence spoke in the back of his head, whispering.

Cut, Brave Ghende, cut.

Yellow eyes flicked up to survey the battlefield that was the courtyard. As the golems raged and the the mages plied their dark magics, the Unnatural's enhanced senses picked through the necrotic fog with frightening ease. Directly ahead of him, in the mist, somehow insulated from the rampaging dead engaged in battle, were two dim figures- a boy and a girl.

D'eon's jaw tightened with an audible pop, and the ground beneath the heel of his right foot abruptly cratered as he blurred into motion so quickly he seemed to vanish, the mist inverting in his wake as he tore with blinding speed across the courtyard, Brave Ghende held extended and behind him as he ran with torso angled forward. The combined effects of the Necrotic Taint and the corrupted vodun sigils that now covered and surged through D'eon raged within him in a confluence of terrible forces that accelerated the Outsider even further past the threshold of the Taint's considerable enhancement.

He would be upon them in seconds, a silent storm out of the fog, the inevitable blade of Brave Ghende scything through the mist to claim Chaflin's blood.

Off topic:
Loa Lunacy! [Friday] Tapping into his newfound link to the recently revived loa "Friday", D'eon gains a portion of his power. The sigils that cover his body greatly increase his magical resistance, physical strength, and speed.
Additionally, in signing the contract he has come into posession of the ancient bone-blade Brave Ghende, a vodun relic coated with a secondary blade of D'eon's concentrated, corruptive spiritual force.

---

Having slaughtered the stragglers on the first floor of the Dormitory, the coordinated undead force make short work of the barricades between the second and third floor, several of the accelerated berserkers simply smashing through the flimsy defenses where they could not simply be pulled down by their superior, Unnatural strength. They surge onto the third floor, their appetites merely honed, sharpened, and begin the assault and slaughter of those trapped on the third floor.

Unnatural Troop Movement Summary

The troop of 100 has made short work of the stragglers on the first and second floors, and have begun their assault on the third.
--[60 berserkers/warriors, 23 mages, 6 alchemists, 3 technicians, 8 flesh golems]
The troop in the Depot has been eliminated.

[circa.cipher]

Chaflin was noble -- so much nobler than Shay could ever be. His first question was about the status of the people in the dormitories. Shay's response was concise and quick to abandon his open curiosity to quiet deliberating. "Who knows, Chaflin? Let's just get out of here!" Thankfully, his warning broke her focus enough to stop her path. "From the chapel, too? .... Oh no... no, no, NO." Panic froze her muscles slowly like the drops of perspiration sliding through the dirt on her skin, carving miniature valleys of blood on her knees.

Squeezing his hand roughly before tearing her own from his palm as if her fingertips were burning, she slapped it up onto her forehead, squeezing her eyes shut and moaning in despair. Her thoughts groped the corners of her mind for anything, coming up almost entirely empty-handed until she thought of her morning routine. After waking up, she'd get ready for class, grab her books, and walk across the path to enter the side door of the lecture hall, the one closest to her first class. However, the bright spark of realization in her eyes was immediately dulled by the terror that D'eon rained upon the two kids. Her legs once again led her, without time to even think, directly towards the side entrance of the lecture hall, the only place in her mind. For a second, Chaflin alone with D'eon brought a brief hesitation to her running, which almost caused her to fall down a flight of stairs. Surely she would have if her grip on the handrail hadn't caught her after sliding down a few steps. The adrenaline eased the pain away.

Her running continued until she exited from the back door of the lecture hall, running directly into a shrub located a little ways out of the door. Falling back, she'd look slowly up its form, trembling for a second before letting out a pathetic sob as she lifted her hand to cover her mouth and stifle the aftermath. Her despair was once again interrupted by fear as some of the undead spotted her and started towards her. They were not lacking in speed. She quickly resumed a standing position, halted only for a moment by trembling legs, and headed straight towards the exit between the cafeteria and faculty dormitories.

[Acies ab Vesania]

Off topic:
If there are any inconsistancies or goofs, contact me and let me know, and I will fix it asap. Hard as hell for me to keep track of details when I try to write these on my spare time on Graveyard OTs, since I can't access Valucre from work.

Chaflin stood protectively over Shay, using his giant frame to shield her from the oncoming threat hurtling towards them. Naïve to the way of the average person, having grown up in a community of people whom always lent a hand to someone in need, Chaflin did not expect Shay to turn and flee from the undead creature. Her earlier insistence that they should leave the others behind and take refuge for themselves should have tipped him off, but Chaflin was an idealist, a dreamer, still a boy in his understanding of the world. He expected her to act in the same fashion as he did, ready to fight for the others whom needed their help. Shay, however, acted on impulse, doing what most people facing these circumstance would do, and because of his naivety, Chaflin found himself in a precarious situation indeed.

He grips the hammer tightly, his focus directed on the abomination in front of him. He only just catches a glance of Shay running away from the scene, finding an open route away from their dilemma. Chaflin feels just the slightest flicker of dismay, only just realizing that she abandoned him to his fate- not that he wouldn’t have sent her away anyway. He barely had time to dwell on this, with a force as dangerous as the one looming over him. Having survived a collapsing building, welling with effluent power unlike anything Chaflin ever encountered.

The enormity of it was not lost on him, despite his inexperience. Something about this creature exuded power and strength; its very presence gripped him with a stranglehold that seemed impossible to break. Chaflin gripped his blacksmith’s hammer with the grip of a dead man, knuckles flaring white from the pressure of it. The barrel lid looked feeble in his hands, an already inadequate form of defense, made to look even smaller than it was in the hands of someone as large as Chaflin was. He was physically the larger of the two, but in spite of that, Chaflin felt very small.

It was all he could do to keep from losing control of his bladder.

Chaflin did the best to hide the quaking of his knees and the unsteadiness of his hands. The world laid out before him in a grandiose display of open expanse riddled in chaos. Every part of Chaflin urged him- no, begged him, to flee the same way Shay had, in the same manner as even many of the faculty had left the students behind. When Chaflin came to the academy, it was supposed to be a learning experience from an academic standpoint, not through a real life crisis that involved the bloodshed of many. Yet, here he stood, in the face of evil, with nothing more than feeble tools and his limited knowledge of combat tactics.

Shakily, Chaflin manages to bring himself to speak to the other.

“Why… why do you do this? There’s no point to all this violence, whatever it is that someone did to you and your followers, surely something can be worked out. Why do you attack the innocent?”

Chaflin did not know if there was any reasoning with the being, to be honest, he did not know if it was even intelligent. Despite his reservations, and how unlikely it was to succeed, Chaflin felt compelled to try reasoning with the being anyway. As they said, nothing-ventured means nothing gained, and if the being that stood before him was reasonable, perhaps he had a chance to change the course of their situation.

Of course, it was just as likely that he was seconds away from being torn apart by something just as mindless as the zombies that hunted the students down.

[desolate]

Unlike his provisional psychopomp, Avent could not determine to what part of the Academy they were traveling, nor did their destination concern him. The arcane schemas implanted by the Desecrator were displaced and reappropriated—maybe misappropriated—by his double consciousness, both his mala fides and his mauvaise foi, and the ongoing anomic aftermath of his reanimation. Avent had found himself polarized; two opposing modalities of cohesion had apprehended him, one after another. On one pole, there was the waif, whose dystopian syllogisms dug into him like a doxy's stiletto heels. Antipodal yet subordinate was the larcenist, whose corruptive embezzlement of emotions had created him with the purpose of revenge. They were the value-rational and the affectional, the jam and the jelly of jouissance.

A lump of clay, Avent spun, drenched in the catsup of cognition, the veritable sea filling this Abyss by way he chased after his very own White Whale on a makeshift Ship of Theseus, itself a part of the figurative map he peeped through the looking-glass Desecrator. When this rôleplaying game ended, who would be left? Avent, the avenger? Avent, the thrall? Avent, the Culinary Champion? Someone, some thing else, or was the Unnatural nothing more than the dizzy anguish of being-for-others?

Beneath the Faculty Building, beneath the reenactment of Gaian zealotry played by zombie actors, beneath the substantiation of Monarche's failed dreams of completion, he rotated a final time and stopped. Like a chef doubting the doneness of a steaming steak, he literally reached out to the nearest spirit, stuck his index finger, his harpoon, into Monarche's mouth while he enunciated the /u/ in "soon," his prophetic last word. A few pieces of dirt fell, tumbled down his hat and left patches of grime on his shirt and outstretched arm.

With thumb poised on his lower lip, Avent merely whispered, "You've met her already."

---

Academy Activity Summary

Sentinels (d4): 3 destroyed. 15 remaining. 2 attacking the depot are destroyed, leaving D'eon and Chaflin to battle it out. 1 sentinel between the lecture hall and the front gate is destroyed.

Satellite: Gladius salvo on the way. ETA is one round.

Students (d%): 2,074 of 2,331 on the fourth floor escape this round by creating stable bridges from the dormitory to the Academy's walls (which, despite being hammered, prove to be exceedingly sturdy), going up and over. 1, 013 of 1,689 on the third floor die while attempting to mimic the fourth floor students, whether killed by the invading Unnaturals, sniped by afar (and, gruesomely and unwittingly, providing themselves as cover for the fleeing fourth floor students) or falling into the fray below. 324 of the remaining 676 on the third floor manage to escape.

[ruckus]

Fear. Like a snake that slithered from the tip of Avent's finger into the very coils of Monarche's guts, the labyrinthine complex that now inhabited his abdomen, terror bit at his flesh from the inside: its scales scraped along the extremities of his spirit, its venom soaked his very bones. The boy's eyes widened, not out of reflex, but out of a willful surprise announced by his features, a bold uncertainty courted by a rational mind and displaced into a more convenient physicality. The taste, earthy, almost bitterly sweet, of Avent's finger slid nauseatingly past Monarche's lips; of the higher tinctures and tastes of the spirit Monarche had encountered, this, suckling the finger of the first man he had killed in cold blood, was certainly the finest. Avent, the jilted Priam, kissed not Achilles' hands, thereby empowering the man who had wronged him, but offered his own hands to be kissed: a gesture with implications Monarche could not even begin to explore.

A second, or two, passed. Monarche stared into the eyes of his victim -- himself, a victim.

Again reduced to the role of a student at the Academy with his hand raised, as though he was prepared to ask a question, Monarche asked without speaking at all. What is the meaning of this? How dare you, a thrall, even an inspired thrall, act against me in this fashion? Have I . . . lost control? Am I never to meet . . . Ziren . . . again? Above him, as though a process enacted by an automaton rather than a will invested with its own agency, the earth spiraled upward in a drill-like pattern, opening a progressively wider hole from the seam Monarche had initially wedged into the dirt.

First, a single drop of water would fall onto Avent's extended hand, then a trickle.

With only this meager warning, the contents of the faculty swimming pool would suddenly cascade down from the ceiling, removing Avent's finger from Monarche's mouth and sending each of the Unnatural pair toward different sides of the hallway, although Monarche regained his footing after only a moment's stumble, one or two footsteps out of place. The water, smelling like a fresh spring, was slightly heated and provoked a pillar of steam as it fell into the catacombs; to those in the room above, it would appear like a cloud of dust or an apparition had suddenly risen from the depths.

A voice soon followed.

"Don't . . ." the boy began, his grey hair slicked down over his face. "Don't do that again, please."

Then, as the water continued to sluice down the drain, Monarche reached up and began to climb, one limb after another, some spindly spider crawling from an obscure and twisting waterspout -- some echo of a folk rhyme, meant as a warning but heard as a song.

[hiss the villain]

D'eon's rampaging surge came to an abrupt halt as the power-drunk Unnatural drew himself up, planting his right foot sideways to halt his momentum. The mist carried along by his passage billowed out behind him as the ground cracked under the force of his stop- his stillness was both frightening and immediate as the girl bolted, though something that might have passed for a smile curved the gypsy's lips for but a moment. War raged around them- as the last of the stragglers in the courtyard were slaughtered by the rampaging undead, and the bulk of the host turned their attention to surrounding and overwhelming the Sentinels, Chaflin would no doubt be chilled to realize that he was one of the last living things left in the Academy. When the larger boy spoke, D'eon ignored him, unsettling yellow eyes fixed on the retreating form of the girl.

A flex of his mind sent a detachment of nearby Unnaturals tearing after her- perhaps she would escape, perhaps not. She was unimportant for now; though her action was significant, her identity was not.

"Faithless," the gypsy purred unexpectedly, suddenly moving, padding slightly too fast in a wide circle around the boy, uncomfortably like a hungry predator. The sigils that marred his pale skin gave off a strange aura- smoky and violent, it seemed to crackle here and there with sheer malevolence, feeding off of the massive font of necrotic power that the Academy had become.

When he swung, it was nearly too fast to see- a slashing upward cut that lashed out as the gypsy circled, but it would not touch the boy, merely send the humming edge of Brave Ghende cleanly through the haft of his blacksmith's hammer, just below the head. "She had the right idea, you know."

"Your bravery is admirable," at odds to his words, there was a hard edge of mockery in the Unnatural's voice, "But it is time, child, that you learned there are forces in this world that you could never hope to match."

With that, he simply blurred forward and kicked, the bone blade held at his side, right foot lashing out in a flat forward stomp aimed directly for the center of Chaflin's shield.

[Acies ab Vesania]

Chaflin did not know what to expect, with so little experience in simulated fights, nothing he learned could neatly match itself to the real world example quickly unveiling itself to him right now. By size, Chaflin would appear to have every advantage, he large enough to give an ogre a challenge in a game of strength. Not everything is as it first seems, and only a fool would rely upon their size to see them through any battle, especially one of this nature and these sorts of stakes. Chaflin had the advantage of size, but Chaflin felt disadvantaged in every other way, and his size never even crosses his mind. Indeed, as the monstrosity born of the darkest circles him, Chaflin feels overwhelmed and outmatched.

He held little faith that he would see the light of the next morning.

The creature, thing, beast, whatever you could call it- it circled him like a wild animal closes in on easy prey, toying with them, deliberately extending the time between now and the moment it would see to the end of its quarry's life. Chaflin tried to reason with it, but displayed no signs that suggested it listened at all, it too disinterested in what he had to say to bother listening. He thinks about trying to reach out again, trying in spite of the swirling doubts screaming in the back of his mind, his subconscious already embracing the dark, awful truth- this thing would not stop, until either it, or everyone else, succumbed to the reaches of death.

The monster suddenly lashes out with its sword, and instinctively, Chaflin reaches out to parry the blow with his hammer, as the attack comes from that side. Unwittingly, he only aids the other in their intent, the blade of their sword sinking into the haft of the tool, the wood splitting with a sickening crunch and a spray of wooden fibers. The head of the hammer absorbs a great deal of the expended energy, and with that excess momentum, flies half a dozen yards away, leaving Chaflin with his barrel lid and a fragmented chunk of what was once a handle. The loss of his weapon was dismaying enough, but Chaflin had little time to dwell on the sudden shift into further disadvantage, as the next attack came driving down on him.

Already stunned by the loss of his hammer, Chaflin barely stood a chance in detecting the next playful jab at him. The thing spoke like a man, jeering him for his failures to follow Shay in her attempt to escape. Chaflin barely heard any of it, a combination of his shock, his fear, his surprise at the sudden strike to his shield, and an unprecedented amount of force that came with it. Chaflin didn't understand it then, though later lessons and experiences would teach him of the surprising strength that came with the unholy damnation of the undead, and because of his naivety, he paid for it far more than he may have, would he have known better than to let it make such a direct hit.

The shield snaps in two, and Chaflin is lifted from his feet, sent flying backwards nearly ten feet, bouncing off the ground and into a pile of collected rubble. Fortunately, for him, having spent more than one occasion on the receiving end of a cow's bad disposition, being knocked around did not faze him terribly. What caused the greatest amount of concern was the lack of a viable weapon and now a lack of any form of protection. All he had now was his size, and his wits- one of which mattered little in the face of something as strong as this, and the other, well, they were barely functioning in light of the chaos and stress leaving him dizzy, and disoriented.

Even so, Chaflin scrambles to his feet, moving back towards the dormitory and standing protectively before it. Clearly outmatched and almost certain to be torn to shreds, Chaflin still put the other students inside the building at the highest point of importance. If his sacrifice meant even just one more student making it out alive, Chaflin felt that his sacrifice was worth it.

He may be a simple farm boy, but he would not let them turn him into a cowardly one.

[hiss the villain]

As the farmboy flew backwards, D'eon followed, his speed deliberately reduced to avoid overtaking him. He slid to a stop as Chaflin rose defensively - uselessly, as the last of the students escaped the dormitories or were overwhelmed and murdered by the rampaging undead. For a long moment the Unnatural stood and stared with hot yellow eyes, an uncomfortably human flash of amusement flickering across his otherwise-emotionless face. He lifted the arm that bore Brave Ghende-

And banished it, the blade dissolving into roiling purple smoke that slithered back up D'eon's name, reincorporating itself into his oppressive presence. "So brave," he murmured again, "It seems a shame to kill you without showing you the depths of your weakness."

His hand, now empty, feel limply to his side as the gypsy cocked his head at Chaflin. "I'll make you a deal," he purred, beginning that slow circular pace again. "Hit me, just once," here he lifted a pale, long digit to thrust forlornly at the dark sky, "and I'll let you live. It sounds good, doesn't it?"

The smile that spread across his face was shockingly white and unnaturally wide, but it never touched his eyes- hot yellow points of malevolence that never wavered from the boy's chest, as if he could see through his ribcage and scry his terrified heart, beating out a swift staccato rhythm against his ribcage. "Much better than dying here like the rest of your friends."

The last was a whisper, and he barely made a whisper when he moved, flickering into nothingness for the barest second before a streak of motion overwhelmed the illusion, culminating in the gypsy drawing himself up in a wide stance point blank from the farmboy, his right foot sliding past Chaflin's left as his body swayed, elbow crooked against his ribs. His hips pivoted, driving the knuckles upwards in two wickedly fast blows- the first striking for the short ribs, and whether it was blocked or deflected his withdrawal was irresistible, recocking his elbow and firing another shot higher, this one aiming to shock into the ribcage below the farmboy's armpit.