Shoot for the Moon (Part Eighteen)
Chandagnac
Broken Robot
- Location
- Nowhere
This took me an unreasonably long time to write. But I got there in the end.
*
Shoot for the Moon (Part Eighteen)
Stretching out your mind, you reach for Keron's statue. As you connect to what remains of the Elder God, you are almost overwhelmed, dragged under by an onrushing tide. You feel a rush of blood, a veritable flood, from your head down to the tips of your toes. Beyond the battle that rages all around you, in which the Myrmidons are eerily silent while the demons emit bestial howls and agonized moans, you hear the pounding of drums, the blaring of horns and the bellowing of exultant battle hymns. You feel the pounding of gonnes, the clashing of blades and the cracking of bones. And you feel his attention turn to you, just for a moment."I'm not dead yet. I'm not a slave or a commodity to be traded," says Keron. "While I still have a few droplets of strength left, I defy you."
For a few moments, he becomes a storm of blades and cannon fire. Bloodied and battered, Melphior stumbles backwards out of reach, shrieking, "Argh! Why won't you just die already?!"
"Distract me not," he tells you, even as he continues his duel with Melphior. Once again, the demon lord is driven back as the elder god becomes something much more than a battered old statue: for a few moments, you see him as the incarnation of violence and slaughter he once was, a huge and horrible shadow that seems impervious to harm, striking and slashing with a hundred serrated blades.
In the seventh round of combat, Keron rolled 10d6 -7 because of the injuries he has sustained so far and got a total of 29. (1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 6 and -7)
Melphior rolled 10d6-2 and got a total of 28. (1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6 and -2)
Melphior rolled 10d6-2 and got a total of 28. (1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6 and -2)
"Can you do anything so Hurondus can't recover your body if you're defeated?" you ask. "I'm sure he plans to trap your soul somehow!"
"There's little I can do to prevent him taking the shattered remnants of this statue, if he wants," Keron replies calmly, even as Melphior launches his counterattack, ripping and tearing at him with shadow magic. "But there are many relics of the elder gods all over the world. An abundance of them, in fact. If that was all he needed to trap my soul, he would have done so already."
Great chunks of metal are torn away, leaving his statue as little more than a fractured, broken hulk. Nevertheless, he refuses to surrender. You know that he is the elder god of striving and so he must fight on until the end, until all hope is lost, and even further than that. If he were to do otherwise, he would be betraying himself and everything he ever stood for.
In the eighth round of combat, Keron rolled 10d6-7 and got a total of 28. (1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6 and -7)
Melphior rolled 10d6-3 and got a total of 30. (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 6, 6 and -3)
Melphior rolled 10d6-3 and got a total of 30. (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 6, 6 and -3)
"Besides, even if this statue is destroyed, I have yet another refuge," says Keron. Despite the grievous wounds his current host body has suffered, he continues to fight with such berserk fury that Melphior is once again forced to retreat. "I'm sure you've heard of the Blood Sword."
You vaguely remember the tale of Gwydur and Gwygaun, which your father told you six or seven years ago, although it seems like a lifetime has passed since then. The Blood Sword was a weapon Sir Gwygaun took from one of his defeated foes, which turned him into a murderous brute who slew his brother and was slain by him in turn.
Horrified, you cry out, "That was you?!"
"Distract me not," Keron chides you for a second time.
"Throughout history, you've set brother against brother and turned heroes into monsters!"
"I gave them strength and glory, if they were worthy of it," he corrects you. "Strength enough to overthrow tyrants, slay terrible beasts and slaughter armies of demons."
You don't see any point in arguing with him. By now, you understand he will always try to cast himself in the best possible light, to portray himself as far nobler and wiser than he really is, despite the fact that many of his actions and decisions have had disastrous consequences. He won't accept any attempt to contradict his glorified self-image, so you might as well not bother. Instead, you turn your attention elsewhere.
In the ninth round of combat, Keron rolled 10d6-8 and got a total of 31. (1, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6 and -8)
Melphior rolled 10d6-3 and got a total of 28. (1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6 and -3)
Melphior rolled 10d6-3 and got a total of 28. (1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6 and -3)
Because your entire conversation with Keron took place telepathically, including your horrified outburst, no one else seems to have noticed or to be paying any attention to you. Hurondus is watching the duel between Keron and Melphior, as avidly as a spectator at a jousting tournament. You drift closer to him, flying as lightly as if you were a winged insect, muttering just loud enough for him to hear: "Disappointing…"
"Yes, it is," he says, seeming irritated by the fact that, despite his many wounds, Keron still seems to be getting the better of Melphior as often as not.
And then you flit away before he has a chance to consider his words or yours, to take notice of you or wonder what's going on.
If you're interested, I rolled for the next few rounds of combat between Keron and Melphior after Elys left:
Round 10
Keron rolled 10d6-8 and got a total of 36. (1, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6 and -8)
Melphior rolled 10d6-4 and got a total of 38. (1, 2, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6 and -4)
Round 11
Keron rolled 10d6-9 and got a total of 25. (1, 1, 1, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6 and -9)
Melphior rolled 10d6-4 and got a total of 25. (1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6 and -4)
Round 12
Keron rolled 10d6-9 and got a total of 33. (1, 1, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6 and -9)
Melphior rolled 10d6-4 and got a total of 28. (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 6, 6 and -4)
So yeah… I think it's pretty clear that Melphior's gonna win in the end, but Keron's certainly not making it easy for him.
Round 10
Keron rolled 10d6-8 and got a total of 36. (1, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6 and -8)
Melphior rolled 10d6-4 and got a total of 38. (1, 2, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6 and -4)
Round 11
Keron rolled 10d6-9 and got a total of 25. (1, 1, 1, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6 and -9)
Melphior rolled 10d6-4 and got a total of 25. (1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6 and -4)
Round 12
Keron rolled 10d6-9 and got a total of 33. (1, 1, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6 and -9)
Melphior rolled 10d6-4 and got a total of 28. (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 6, 6 and -4)
So yeah… I think it's pretty clear that Melphior's gonna win in the end, but Keron's certainly not making it easy for him.
Retreating to a safe distance away, past the noise and frenetic violence of the ongoing battle, until you're surrounded by so many distractions that it seems impossible that Hurondus could notice your opening a portal, you take a last look around, hoping to see that the Myrmidons are on the verge of victory. Instead, you are dismayed that the opposite appears to be true. Despite the fact that the demons are fighting on two flanks at once, there are so many of them that this seems to make little difference. They so heavily outnumber their enemies that they are able to fight on regardless of any losses they may suffer. The Myrmidons fight with machinelike efficiency, but they are not invulnerable. One by one, they are hacked down or torn to pieces or smashed into the dust, but even as they die they make no more sound than if they were a child's wooden dolls. You see one of their beetle-like vehicles, missing all of the legs on one side, mindlessly shuffling around in a circle. Because it is a machine, you can't be sure if it has a life or soul of its own, so you don't know whether to pity it or not.
Elsewhere, the orcs are fighting valiantly and with consummate skill, defending the 'bullet' and the Night Blades' field headquarters, but they have suffered casualties as well. You see more than one of them lying in a crumpled heap, broken and unmoving, having found the glorious death they sought. They seem less hard-pressed now the demons have other enemies to focus on, but still you wonder how much longer they can hold out.
Deciding not to waste any more time, you teleport into the heart of the prison fortress, where you find the majority of the Night Blades, the elves and the Chosen you brought along on this expedition. They are standing before an enormous silvery-grey door, which appears to be inscribed with many magical runes. You overhear snatches of conversation as you approach:
"Twenty-seven different keys?! You've got to be joking!"
"–find them anyway? I mean… a feather from one of Telthalus's winged cats? Aren't they supposed to be extinct?"
"I've never even heard of some of these things! What is a tintinnabulum anyway?"
"Nymandor must have had a lot of fun designing this puzzle," says Green Flame. "I wish I was having fun."
What will Elys do next?
[] Write in.
There's quite a lot to digest in this latest update, so I'm going to leave it up to you to decide how to proceed.
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