User blog:Ziharku/Log 10: Despair

Too strong. The beast is simply too strong.

The beast appeared, finally. So much waiting for a glimpse, and more than a glimpse received. Perhaps twas me, perhaps not. The creature knew us, knew we were camped by the ledge overlooking its roaming ground. As we slept, it crept out of hiding, scales glistening in the moonlight. I was keeping guard with the Warrior of the company, a Galka whose Axe was easily as broad as his own shoulders, the haft as tall as a Hume. He boasted on making it himself. When the energy surged, like it had a few times before, I dismissed it as a rustling. Instead, it began to draw closer. In a panic, I move to wake the others. As the party starts to move from their tents, armor half buckled on, weapons hanging from loose hands, the serpentine eyes of the titan stare from the cliff’s edge. A roar echoes through the night, shattering the calm that was just moments before.

Like mighty rams, the heads crash into the cliff repeatedly. The ground shudder, preventing our ability to gain a proper ground. The Humes, 3 of them, a Red Mage, Thief, and Monk, manage to fully equip themselves and begin hurling things at the beast. The Red Mage uses a bow and arrow, though her aim is shoddy at best. the Two Tarutaru, a White and Black Mage, are tossed about by the quaking ground. The Galka and I far larger and somewhat heavier than the others, manage to keep steady footing. The Galka runs to the little ones, picking them up one under each arm and from there, getting together their equipment as well.

So terrible a start, I know something must be done to turn the tide. Pulling a second sword from my bag, having bought it in town before headed for the woodland, I run for the edge. Surprise rattled the party as I sailed through the air, landing on the beast’s middle head. Swords outstretched and pointing downward, I land on it to heavily to get a hold, though thankful my blades met their mark. Both eyes, pierced by blades, the creature is blinded on this head, and I’ve gained the right to keep from being thrown off or falling painfully from that height.

Pain staggers the beast, I sigh in relief that the cliff is no longer assailed. The party moves down from the high point, reaching a safer height to descend and approach the creature. At this point, the sense of pain felt by pierced eyes must have faded by some degree, as the beast stops thrashing senselessly and instead turns one head to face the party, the other directing its attention at the blight that I’ve become. Digging my right sword deeper, pulling the left sword from the socket, I pray I can keep the fangs at bay.

Immediately, the Red Mage sets to work crippling each head. The Thief begins weaving between lashing fangs and stomping feet, aiming for the underbelly. From behind, the Monk engages the tail countering swings with pointed hand-blades the likes I’ve never seen. The Warrier, fearless, Charges in from the front swinging his mighty axe in an attempt to remove the head I clung to. The Black Mage, not knowing just what element the fiend was weaker to, begins to run through the elements for effectiveness. Seeing my plight, the White Mage starts casting wards so that I might not die by the gnashing teeth as I sit waiting in the air.

A crack ripples through the air. One of the Thief’s daggers has broken on the beast’s underbelly. A cry of anger follows soon after as the man curses his luck. A sickening series of cracks, as the Thief, distracted by the breaking of his blade, doesn’t see the underbelly crashing down from above. Not that it would have made a difference. So wide is the monster I doubt he’d have managed to jump from his already hunched position below the stomach to safety. The monk turns his gaze in horror at the blood of his comrade as it trickles downhill toward him from below the belly of the beast. In a fit of rage he maneuvers around the tail trying to get on its back. Upon climbing on the beast though, it rapidly raises itself back up, launching the Monk into the air, only to come back down on the sharp spikes that line its spine. The Red Mage, seeing her fallen friend, lets out a sob and falls to her knees. Without a continuous stream of magic crippling the heads, they start regaining their optimum function. The middle head which I cling to so dearly takes up a terrible flinging so as to toss me asunder, forcing me to reinsert my left blade. The two remaining heads, however, set to work on the Warrior before them. His axe has yet to make more than a few inches of progress into the neck his attention has been focused on when suddenly the two remaining heads dive for him. He manages to put up his guard in time to dampen the blow, but the force shatters the axe head and snaps the haft in half as though it were a twig he held. The little ones take to a panic at this. The White Mage doesn’t know who to heal first, the Black Mage running extrememly low on mana as it took many tries to find something that could so much as crack the scales that lined the titan’s body.

My grip is slipping, my arms are growing number as I cling helplessly.

Shaky as my vision is in such motion, I still turn to avoid seeing one head toy with the little ones as they run about in a panic. Taking the sword, fallen from the Red Mage’s hand, the Warrior stands before her so as to keep her safe for a time. A short time. Again I turn as the open jaws extinguish an energy mass, then another. The Monk pulls himself loose from the spike that impaled his shoulder, only to slip on the back-scales and find a massive foot crashing down on him.

All strength gone from my limbs, I fly into the cliff-side, the edge in fact. A cacophony of splintering cracks can be heard as my left side impacts the edge before I’m sent rolling along the top of the cliff. Pain screams through me, the voices scream. The fear I felt in them is gone, rage boiling through instead. No hunger, no longing, only rage and calls for vengeance. My eyes are burning. I still sense the little ones. Perhaps they will get away.

My right arm claws at the ground, pulling my body back toward the edge. Burning, I need water, I need to flush my eyes or they’ll burst into flame. Mangled, my left arm claws too. I manage to stand, though my leg is twisted beyond recognition. What is this I feel now, not pain. No, I feel power. Surging, I sense something beyond myself. Something darker. Burning, they’re burning. My side is…normal? It cannot be, my eyes, burning, must deceive. But they do not, the White Mage is at my side panting, then collapses. The Black Mage, not far behind, also found the cliff far safer than the ground below. Those serpentine eyes glare from the edge again, satisfied at their victory. But I am not.

Running again, I leap from the edge. Luck is on my side, for another party has arrived, though I will not know until after this is done. Like lightning, arrows rain down mangling the beast’s right head. Wrapped in darkness, a lance pierces the beast’s left neck severing that head’s spinal chord. The middle head, sensing a repeat in tactics, avoids my landing. I do not care for the head though. With a power far greater than myself, I fall to the creature’s back and pour power onto the main spinal chord. More, more, I pour every ounce of strength in me and more into this constant stream tearing spike, scale, flesh, and finally bone. I cannot stop it, the tearing continues through to the other side. Drained, I collapse on the fallen titan.