3.133
Winged Knight
Still just a crazy man with a wolf on his head
- Location
- Texas
God, it took me way to long to write this out. Really sorry about this, everyone.
[x] Focus everything on the Giant Shadowspawn.
Attack Roll: 10k6= 42, 49
Damage Roll: 10k4 +10= 50, 64
A smoldering anger fills you at the sight of your enemy standing tall again, looming over the world as it resumes its march even as it feeds. Even through the fog that chokes your thoughts, it does not strike you as right that this abomination should recover so easily from the punishment you have inflicted upon it. Your grip tightens on your tetsubo, further cracked and revealing even more of the light you have infused into its substance.
The darkness shall burn! A thought that is your own, but at the same time is not, resounds through your mind. It must be purged lest its foulness spread.
There can be no other recourse, not in the face of the monster that even now directs its attention back toward the south. It cannot be allowed to venture into the Empire, into the lands given to mankind. That it exists here, on the edge of civilization, is an insult. To allow the Shadowspawn to venture into the heart of Rokugan would be a blasphemy.
You charge forward to meet your enemy once more, the fire within you burning even brighter in response to the muted anger growing within your heart. As you do, the Shadowspawn pauses in its march and ceases its consumption of its underlings and turns back to you. It holds no expression that you can read, and its body is but a vague shape that is barely an outline upon the world, but you can still perceive the faintest echoes of frustration coming from your foe.
Roaring a battle cry as you charge forward, you leap up high into the air and slam your tetsubo into the lump that makes up the giant Shadowspawn's head. It twirls around with the consistency of mud, a corona of fire bursting around and trailing across the monster's body in a torrent of devouring flame. Great chunks of its form, made entirely from the utter lack of substance, burn away beneath the terrible might of the inferno that consumes you even as it empowers your flesh.
Then your enemy responds. Shrieking out with utter silence, the barest edges making the shape of sound that has never existed and never will, a pillar of utter darkness shoots forth from the Shadowspawn and smashes into you. A scream tears out from your lips as the earth embraces you, the terrible strength of the Shadowspawn tearing a groove into the ground with your body as the essence of oblivion pushes against the raging sunlight that leaks out from your soul.
New agony blossoms as once more the darkness attempts to annihilate you, distracting you from the pain of your own flames eating away at your body and spirit. Your fire pushes back against the violation of your existence, but this time the Shadowspawn does not cease its attack. It keeps pushes against you, pressing you down into the earth beneath a pillar blacker than the darkest night.
That terrible weight is greater than anything you have ever felt, at once physical and its exact opposite. The paradox is crushing down on you, choking the very air in your lungs as it tries to force its way into your mouth. It is creeping down into your eyes, your ears and your nose. It keeps pushing to get inside, to rend you apart from within and leave no trace that you ever existed at all.
Before it was needles, but now it is knives that tear into you from all sides. You struggle against it, slowly gaining ground as the Shadowspawn unleashes everything it has toward the effort of erasing you from the face of Ningen-do. But even as you move step by painful step toward you enemy, your fire exuding from you in torrents to hold back oblivion, you are unsure you will make it in time…
The crash of thunder overpowers the howl of the Nothing battering against your body, and the assault suddenly dies. You slam your tetsubo into the earth before you to keep yourself from falling over, and looking up you see great fists made from lightning slam into the Shadowspawn from the heaven's above. It screeches as the energies rip into its form, incinerating great chunks as it arcs from the monster's body and into the ground.
The ground shakes as the Shadowspawn stumbles away beneath the onslaught, leveling one of the hills beneath its giant foot. Then, even through the fury of the heavens battering down upon it, the creature turns toward its latest enemy. It is the man in bright robes, chanting with his arms held out as the kami respond to his will.
Bellowing another cry that deafens with its lack of noise, the Shadowspawn answers the assault with a torrent of dark spears. The large man next to the one calling down lightning tries to intercept, but the sharpened tendrils of shadow merely snake around him and stab into the Shugenja. The priest screams as his flesh is pierced, and the torrent of thunderous fire fades from the sky.
The man's companion responds by slamming his sword down upon the spears, pushing with all the grit and muscle his body can muster. Sweat beads down his brow as the tendrils resist his efforts, but with a scream he takes his other hand and rams it onto the back of his sword. The curved blade cuts through the dark appendages, and separated from its source the Shugenja burns off the shadow blades embedded within his body, falling to his knees as his robes are soaked with blood.
All this happens within the space of a moment, but a moment is all you need to regain your balance. The priest might live, or he might not. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that your foe, smoking and scorched, still stands before you. This is a mistake that must be corrected.
You burn, and in that burning you draw power. But that power comes with a price, and that cost is killing you. This fight has to end, here and now, before the inferno within your heart leaves nothing but ash behind. You cannot do what must be done if you perish. You cannot fulfill your duty if you die before it is complete.
And duty is everything.
The ground ignites behind your every step as you charge toward the enemy of all that exists. You pick up ever more speed as you barrel down the groove your body tore in the land, fire trailing behind you like the tail of a comet. You raise your tetsubo high, and the illumination coming from within is blinding with its intensity. It is as if you hold a solid bar of light in your hands, rather than any weapon crafted of earthly materials.
The Shadowspawn notices you, of course. There is no way it couldn't with the heat and light you are releasing, the power that leaks from your frail mortal flesh. It turns, and it knows just as you do what is going to happen. It knows that this will be the final clash. Either you will die, or it will. There can be no other answer.
Legs tensing, you leap once more into the air and shoot toward the Shadowspawn like an arrow made of sunlight. It crosses its arms to block you, a solid wall of non-existence to bar your way. It is massive and implacable, a barrier beyond anything that has ever been made or ever could be made. For what material thing could match something that exists in opposite of everything?
You strike at those arms with the bar of light in your hands, gritting your teeth as the monster resists your assault. For a moment your strength and its own are equal, the opposing forces of creation and absence pushing against each other…
And then you let out a roar that echoes across the sky. It is a roar of fury and sorrow, a roar of joy and triumph. It is a cry that you fill with every feeling you have ever had, from happiness to sadness to anger to fear to bravery to love. You pour everything that you are, have been or ever will be into that shout, and bolster it with your flame.
The world explodes in fire and light as you pierce through the giant Shadowspawn's arms and deep into its chest, a corona of power and majesty that for the barest instant resembles the sun. The monster's essence burns away as you dart through its form, its body shattering as the purifying light rips it apart from the inside.
Then you tumble out the other side, and the world returns to normal. The ground shakes as you smash into it, cratering around your still burning form. Exhaustion such as you have never known eats away at your limbs, fatigue bleeding through even the superhuman resilience of the inferno within you.
But you cannot let that stop you. You don't know if the battle is complete, not until you see your adversary dead and broken before you. Biting back a groan, you stand up and turn to face your enemy.
The Shadowspawn is falling apart, flames licking away at the edges of the enormous hole you made when you blasted through its chest. It sways once, then twice, before falling over with a booming crash. The ground cracks beneath its terrible weight, sending great plumes of dust into the air. With its collapse the fire spreads even faster about its form, the shadowy Nothingness burning away into flecks of ash that disperse on the wind and vanish.
The fight is over. You are victorious.
So this is it, comes the quiet, tired voice of a man on the wind. You almost think you recognize that voice… Could it be the man who spawned this creature? This is how I finally meet my end. Heh. I suppose I should have figured.
You drop to your knees, weary beyond imagining. You are burning, and it is killing you. You have used so much of the fire, so much of this power, and it is taking its toll. The majesty of the sun cannot be held with mortal hands without consequence, and you know payment will be given in suffering.
You are a legend now, boy. Or, perhaps, the continuation of one, the voice continues. It doesn't really matter, in the end. My story is finished, but let me give you some advice from one legend to another.
The power… You need to stop the power, push it down before it devours you whole. But you pulled out so much, gave so much of yourself to it in order to grasp victory. Will you be able to force it down again? And if so, how much agony will it bring you this time?
It's a terrible road you'll walk, and it will crush you if you aren't careful. If you remember nothing else, boy, remember this, the voice says as it begins to fade away, dying in the rising wind that comes with the burning of the Shadowspawn. Legends rarely end happily.
He laughs as the final parts of the Shadowspawn are consumed, and then the voice finally vanishes. All around there isn't even a single piece left of your enemy, no trace of the Nothing that blighted this mortal realm. The lesser monsters have been vanquished, destroyed by other hands even as you broke the power of their master. The world is safe, at least for now.
And you burn.
[] Push down the fire. (Roll Willpower)
[] Write in.
Sosuke has taken 18 Wounds. He is still considered in the "Healthy Bracket" for now, but these wounds will linger once he lets the fire fade.
[x] Focus everything on the Giant Shadowspawn.
Attack Roll: 10k6= 42, 49
Damage Roll: 10k4 +10= 50, 64
A smoldering anger fills you at the sight of your enemy standing tall again, looming over the world as it resumes its march even as it feeds. Even through the fog that chokes your thoughts, it does not strike you as right that this abomination should recover so easily from the punishment you have inflicted upon it. Your grip tightens on your tetsubo, further cracked and revealing even more of the light you have infused into its substance.
The darkness shall burn! A thought that is your own, but at the same time is not, resounds through your mind. It must be purged lest its foulness spread.
There can be no other recourse, not in the face of the monster that even now directs its attention back toward the south. It cannot be allowed to venture into the Empire, into the lands given to mankind. That it exists here, on the edge of civilization, is an insult. To allow the Shadowspawn to venture into the heart of Rokugan would be a blasphemy.
You charge forward to meet your enemy once more, the fire within you burning even brighter in response to the muted anger growing within your heart. As you do, the Shadowspawn pauses in its march and ceases its consumption of its underlings and turns back to you. It holds no expression that you can read, and its body is but a vague shape that is barely an outline upon the world, but you can still perceive the faintest echoes of frustration coming from your foe.
Roaring a battle cry as you charge forward, you leap up high into the air and slam your tetsubo into the lump that makes up the giant Shadowspawn's head. It twirls around with the consistency of mud, a corona of fire bursting around and trailing across the monster's body in a torrent of devouring flame. Great chunks of its form, made entirely from the utter lack of substance, burn away beneath the terrible might of the inferno that consumes you even as it empowers your flesh.
Then your enemy responds. Shrieking out with utter silence, the barest edges making the shape of sound that has never existed and never will, a pillar of utter darkness shoots forth from the Shadowspawn and smashes into you. A scream tears out from your lips as the earth embraces you, the terrible strength of the Shadowspawn tearing a groove into the ground with your body as the essence of oblivion pushes against the raging sunlight that leaks out from your soul.
New agony blossoms as once more the darkness attempts to annihilate you, distracting you from the pain of your own flames eating away at your body and spirit. Your fire pushes back against the violation of your existence, but this time the Shadowspawn does not cease its attack. It keeps pushes against you, pressing you down into the earth beneath a pillar blacker than the darkest night.
That terrible weight is greater than anything you have ever felt, at once physical and its exact opposite. The paradox is crushing down on you, choking the very air in your lungs as it tries to force its way into your mouth. It is creeping down into your eyes, your ears and your nose. It keeps pushing to get inside, to rend you apart from within and leave no trace that you ever existed at all.
Before it was needles, but now it is knives that tear into you from all sides. You struggle against it, slowly gaining ground as the Shadowspawn unleashes everything it has toward the effort of erasing you from the face of Ningen-do. But even as you move step by painful step toward you enemy, your fire exuding from you in torrents to hold back oblivion, you are unsure you will make it in time…
The crash of thunder overpowers the howl of the Nothing battering against your body, and the assault suddenly dies. You slam your tetsubo into the earth before you to keep yourself from falling over, and looking up you see great fists made from lightning slam into the Shadowspawn from the heaven's above. It screeches as the energies rip into its form, incinerating great chunks as it arcs from the monster's body and into the ground.
The ground shakes as the Shadowspawn stumbles away beneath the onslaught, leveling one of the hills beneath its giant foot. Then, even through the fury of the heavens battering down upon it, the creature turns toward its latest enemy. It is the man in bright robes, chanting with his arms held out as the kami respond to his will.
Bellowing another cry that deafens with its lack of noise, the Shadowspawn answers the assault with a torrent of dark spears. The large man next to the one calling down lightning tries to intercept, but the sharpened tendrils of shadow merely snake around him and stab into the Shugenja. The priest screams as his flesh is pierced, and the torrent of thunderous fire fades from the sky.
The man's companion responds by slamming his sword down upon the spears, pushing with all the grit and muscle his body can muster. Sweat beads down his brow as the tendrils resist his efforts, but with a scream he takes his other hand and rams it onto the back of his sword. The curved blade cuts through the dark appendages, and separated from its source the Shugenja burns off the shadow blades embedded within his body, falling to his knees as his robes are soaked with blood.
All this happens within the space of a moment, but a moment is all you need to regain your balance. The priest might live, or he might not. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that your foe, smoking and scorched, still stands before you. This is a mistake that must be corrected.
You burn, and in that burning you draw power. But that power comes with a price, and that cost is killing you. This fight has to end, here and now, before the inferno within your heart leaves nothing but ash behind. You cannot do what must be done if you perish. You cannot fulfill your duty if you die before it is complete.
And duty is everything.
The ground ignites behind your every step as you charge toward the enemy of all that exists. You pick up ever more speed as you barrel down the groove your body tore in the land, fire trailing behind you like the tail of a comet. You raise your tetsubo high, and the illumination coming from within is blinding with its intensity. It is as if you hold a solid bar of light in your hands, rather than any weapon crafted of earthly materials.
The Shadowspawn notices you, of course. There is no way it couldn't with the heat and light you are releasing, the power that leaks from your frail mortal flesh. It turns, and it knows just as you do what is going to happen. It knows that this will be the final clash. Either you will die, or it will. There can be no other answer.
Legs tensing, you leap once more into the air and shoot toward the Shadowspawn like an arrow made of sunlight. It crosses its arms to block you, a solid wall of non-existence to bar your way. It is massive and implacable, a barrier beyond anything that has ever been made or ever could be made. For what material thing could match something that exists in opposite of everything?
You strike at those arms with the bar of light in your hands, gritting your teeth as the monster resists your assault. For a moment your strength and its own are equal, the opposing forces of creation and absence pushing against each other…
And then you let out a roar that echoes across the sky. It is a roar of fury and sorrow, a roar of joy and triumph. It is a cry that you fill with every feeling you have ever had, from happiness to sadness to anger to fear to bravery to love. You pour everything that you are, have been or ever will be into that shout, and bolster it with your flame.
The world explodes in fire and light as you pierce through the giant Shadowspawn's arms and deep into its chest, a corona of power and majesty that for the barest instant resembles the sun. The monster's essence burns away as you dart through its form, its body shattering as the purifying light rips it apart from the inside.
Then you tumble out the other side, and the world returns to normal. The ground shakes as you smash into it, cratering around your still burning form. Exhaustion such as you have never known eats away at your limbs, fatigue bleeding through even the superhuman resilience of the inferno within you.
But you cannot let that stop you. You don't know if the battle is complete, not until you see your adversary dead and broken before you. Biting back a groan, you stand up and turn to face your enemy.
The Shadowspawn is falling apart, flames licking away at the edges of the enormous hole you made when you blasted through its chest. It sways once, then twice, before falling over with a booming crash. The ground cracks beneath its terrible weight, sending great plumes of dust into the air. With its collapse the fire spreads even faster about its form, the shadowy Nothingness burning away into flecks of ash that disperse on the wind and vanish.
The fight is over. You are victorious.
So this is it, comes the quiet, tired voice of a man on the wind. You almost think you recognize that voice… Could it be the man who spawned this creature? This is how I finally meet my end. Heh. I suppose I should have figured.
You drop to your knees, weary beyond imagining. You are burning, and it is killing you. You have used so much of the fire, so much of this power, and it is taking its toll. The majesty of the sun cannot be held with mortal hands without consequence, and you know payment will be given in suffering.
You are a legend now, boy. Or, perhaps, the continuation of one, the voice continues. It doesn't really matter, in the end. My story is finished, but let me give you some advice from one legend to another.
The power… You need to stop the power, push it down before it devours you whole. But you pulled out so much, gave so much of yourself to it in order to grasp victory. Will you be able to force it down again? And if so, how much agony will it bring you this time?
It's a terrible road you'll walk, and it will crush you if you aren't careful. If you remember nothing else, boy, remember this, the voice says as it begins to fade away, dying in the rising wind that comes with the burning of the Shadowspawn. Legends rarely end happily.
He laughs as the final parts of the Shadowspawn are consumed, and then the voice finally vanishes. All around there isn't even a single piece left of your enemy, no trace of the Nothing that blighted this mortal realm. The lesser monsters have been vanquished, destroyed by other hands even as you broke the power of their master. The world is safe, at least for now.
And you burn.
[] Push down the fire. (Roll Willpower)
[] Write in.
Sosuke has taken 18 Wounds. He is still considered in the "Healthy Bracket" for now, but these wounds will linger once he lets the fire fade.
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