Rise of a Monster

Screams tore the air and were cut sharply off one by one as the cadeijo's victims began to meet their ends. While something deep within Sean revelled in how quickly their side had achieved first blood, something felt… off about their deaths. There was a twinge of discontent from his non-existent gut and his midnight arm each time it happened, a feeling that wasn't quite anger and not quite irritation. Before he had time to inspect that further however, both he and Saren caught up to the enraged dog-beast and the battle was joined.

Gold Spire had managed to mount something of an organized defense in the middle of the night, which spoke highly of the structured lives they must live. Despite some having clearly been roused straight from their beds, the paladins' rank and file were doing admirably in the face of the type of panic and chaos brought about by an eight-foot tall, enraged shadow dog. Especially one with ear-piercing howls and lashing chains that earned even Gel's begrudging respect for their speed. At least, they were doing admirably until a fully armed and armored geladin barrelled through their formation supported by a glowing, golden wind and swinging a heavy, crimson axe as if it were a sharp scythe through wheat.

There was no mercy in his movements. Even if Sean might have held back against enlightened opponents on any other day, he knew he could not afford that luxury here. Hesitation would get him killed. More than that, it felt right to be fighting Gold Spire. Justified. Their mana was nearly as abhorrent as the order's own actions against them, giving his bones what felt like a nearly religious fervor as he knocked aside blades and opened wounds or severed limbs with every swing.

As if defeating these blasphemers was his purpose. His calling. The decree of dea–

"FOR THE POT!" Gel shouted furiously, drawing a confused look from the paladin they were fighting even as the man managed to parry one of their blows – if only slightly. "FOR THE PAN!!"

"FOR. OUR. LARDER!!!" The slime bellowed, his slime whip melting the man's confusion – and flesh – from his face.

Even in the face of the zeal that was beginning to cloud his mind, the sheer absurdity of his friend's battlecry brought Sean back to reality. He quickly finished the man off, and this close there was no mistaking it. Lines of hair-thin golden light wrapped the man's body as he died and pulled something below ground with them as they vanished. His reaper's arm sent a pulse of pure revulsion at the sight, but stopping to try and observe more proved an easily punished mistake.

Another paladin stepped in and took advantage of Sean's momentary lapse in concentration, striking him swiftly from behind. It was a good blow, bringing the full weight of the man's shining, golden halberd down in a punishing arc with enough force to crack the bricks beneath his feet.

You have been struck by Gold Spire Squire for 0 damage! (0 total, 34 base halved by light damage resistance, minus 17 due to damage resistance).

Sean turned to meet the man's dark brown eyes with his own blazing red orbs. Then he grinned as the paladin cried out in pain. Another paladin, warier now due to his friend's reaction, decided to stay his own planned follow up blow in favor of taking several steps back.

Perceptive. Sean noted. Then again they aren't mindless monsters, only makes sense they'll figure it out.

Words were exchanged, but whatever was said wouldn't help them. The source of the damage the first paladin had taken remained where it was in plain view at his neck. The first of Sean's prepared defenses. Its activation quickly brought up several desert sand-colored prompts with prickly vegetation serving as their border.

Your Cacti Necklace (Cursed) has reflected 15 damage (base 5, multiplied by 3 to reflect the number of expended charges) back at your attacker.

Your Cacti Necklace's curse has activated. Due to expending all three charges, you will receive 30 total damage dealt in blocks of 5 for the next 6 seconds.

You have been struck by Cacti Necklace Curse for 0 damage! (0 base, minus 5 due to inherent damage resistance).

You have been struck by Cacti Necklace–

The rest of the prompts were ignored as Sean spun on one armored foot to relieve the man's shoulders of the weight his fool head had put on them. His axe barely slowed as it sliced through, and again he felt that odd disturbance. A growing sense of discontent formed in his non-existent gut– but as he now found himself surrounded by yet-more squires and paladins, it was time to activate his next defensive "curse".

Reaching down to unhook the unassuming feather duster from the belt at his waist with a finger, Sean swept it and his axe in a full, 360-degree arc around him before quickly thrusting the duster into the air The men surrounding him had surged in again at the death of their friend, only to back out once more when he spun. When his wild swing hit not a one and his pose left obvious openings, they surged back in. Or at least, they would have, had two things not happened.

First, Sean's spin hadn't just been a distraction. It had sucked all the available dust, sand, and other small detritus within 50 or so feet straight into the duster. In the heat of battle, with abilities flying everywhere, this effect had, admittedly, gone mostly unnoticed. The second effect did not.

Double Duster (Feathered, Cursed): Spotlessly removes all dust and small detritus from an area. Owner may release it in a wide cloud whenever they wish, though with each use, an increasing percentage of the owner's skin falls off.

A storm of sand exploded out of the duster in every direction, creating a cloud of debris that lingered briefly in the air. In that brief moment, in the space between the falling sand where vision dropped to nothing for all nearby, Sean struck. His pulse sense left him unaffected by the cloud, though Gel remained inside his armored frame to avoid the salt-filled sand in the air.

Two paladins were cut down before sand had finished arcing through the air. Another three died as it fell, and four more were still trying in vain to rub the sand from their eyes when the geladin's axe ended their lives. The final paladin of the squad of ten he had been facing seized his chance, blasting the feather duster to pieces with a single-handed beam of intensely bright light.

Stolen story; please report.

Sean sighed internally. He had hoped to get more mileage out of that one. The geladin raised his axe and pointed at Mister Laser Beams in a clear you're next gesture.

The man gulped, combined both of his hands together this time, and shot a blast directly at Sean's chest. There was no real dodging it, as Sean had learned while fighting them. Maybe if he could guess the angle before they used whatever ability that was letting them go full Kamehamehadouken, but that had a… poor… success rate. So the geladin relied on his other defence. His armor.

The opaque, crimson plating that covered Sean from the neck down took the beam dead center.

You have been struck by a Beam of Light for 3 damage! (3 total, 46 base halved by light damage resistance, minus 23 due to damage resistance).

Ordinarily, this is where the battle would have 'ended' for Sean. Whatever rage overtook him when he suffered direct damage might have then gotten the pair of them killed. In the midst of an enemy camp, surrounded by real threats with the capacity to coordinate, he couldn't rule that outcome out. It was something that was almost impossible to plan for. If not for one key upgrade that had come with his evolution.

The world's most beautiful prompt.

Damage taken has been absorbed by slime armor.

Mister Laser Beams got off two more blasts before Sean had fully closed the distance, though his fear-shook hands meant only one landed – to no more effect than the first. When the man's head parted ways with the rest of him, Gel gleefully dove into the opening Sean had created. To the horrified outrage and gasps of their remaining opponents, the blast-burned and partially melted sections of Sean's crimson armor began to repair itself as the slime feasted.

Slime Armor: Spend mass and mana to form armor with its own 'health' equivalent to twice the slime's toughness attribute. Damage taken will be absorbed by the armor first before affecting the slime.

Seeing as how the ability took Sean's toughness instead of Gel's, the armor was even better than it might otherwise have been. The fact Gel could 'repair' it by reusing the ability was just the cherry ontop of an otherwise perfect sundae. On a battlefield like this one, slime armor massively improved their already impressive staying power.

"Feathers is telling them to stand down." Gel said, interrupting Sean's internal armor-praise monologue.

"Wait, what?" Sean hadn't even noticed. Words in a language he was only beginning to understand by studying with Gel tended to fall by the wayside in the midst of combat. "Why?"

"Something about how they clearly stand no chance against how amazing we are, how they need to repent for their actions, how they're no longer on the side of the right– err, light? Right light? One of those." Gel explained, the slime talking fast and clearly still riding the same battle high Sean was. "He asked us to call off the Cadeijo, by the way."

"Did you tell him we can't?" 'Control' was a strong word for what they had going on with that particular beast. They had basically just pointed it at the paladins and followed. What it did now was on them.

"I have not, no."

Off in the not-so-distance the cadeijo roared in defiance at another small group of paladins that had tried encircling it only a moment before. Whip-like chains lashed several of its opponents as they fell back, the enraged beast all but unharmed despite the "ambush" and not backing down in the slightest.

Sean had originally been banking on the cadeijo holding the same disgust for those filled with light mana that he did. "Point angry thing at things it can take its anger out on" had been a great plan. A plan that had worked a little too well, perhaps, in retrospect. Between the rage-inducing food and the justified fury fighting paladins that all death creatures seemed to feel – the very same emotion that Sean had almost lost himself to earlier – it was safe to say the cadeijo wouldn't be stopping any time soon.

"Think he'll be able to figure it out?"

"Context clues will probably get through to him soon, yeah." Sean looked over to where Saren was speaking. The owlen was floating on a nimbus of glowing light fifteen feet off the ground, his hands gesturing grandly in the midst of the no doubt noble speech he was giving to a still-growing crowd. "Why does he care about these guys after they tried to kill him, anyway? I thought he was planning to fight them all with that oracle of his."

"Their leadership, not the appetizers." Gel pointed with his whip up at the towering Spire nearby. "He's after the main course, or at least that's what he's telling them. Not that I disagree with you. You have to clear the whole table, otherwise someone else might eat your appetizers!"

"Appetizers are meant to be shared, Gel." Sean said off-handedly, taking the chance offered by this temporary lull in the battle to stare up at the Spire. If the commander is up there, how are we supposed to–

Sean's thoughts slowed to a crawl as a dozen beams of crackling golden light arced down from the top of the Spire. He dove to the left, only to realize mid-roll they hadn't come for him. The cadeijo yelped in pain as the beams criss-crossed over one another like bars in a cage atop it, forcibly slamming the dog-like creature to the ground.

Saren's speech cut off mid-sentence. Sean gripped his battleaxe, straightened, and charged to its rescue. Gel's whips came out of both shoulders in preparation to fight, the three remaining paladins that had been fleeing turned and cheered as they raised their own weapons, preparing to dive upon a downed opponent as–

– as the cadeijo howled. Furious outrage spilled out of the creature in a deafening call that somehow caused cracks to form in the beams of light holding it down. It howled a second time, then a third, each new bellow of fury getting louder and louder as it struggled to rise, but the bars of its prison held.

Or at least, they held until Sean's crimson battleaxe came crashing down on them, empowered by black mana that danced along its edge.

You have struck Prison of the Righteous for unknown damage! Prison of the Righteous has been destroyed!

Beams of light shattered like glass before the first sweep of Sean's axe, cascading outward until the entire 'prison' fell apart. Sean turned, his blazing red orbs meeting the eyes of the trio of approaching paladins who suddenly looked like they wished they had run anywhere else. Behind him, the cadeijo stood – and the three men dropped their weapons as if they were suddenly made of red-hot iron.

Sean didn't need to know the language to understand that the sobbing words the three men choked out next were somewhere between "I yield, I yield!", "Please don't kill me!", and "I have made a grave judgement error."

Ignoring the trio for the moment, Sean quickly checked the cadeijo over for injuries while keeping one orb on the Spire just in case. Singed fur… a few burn marks. Not too bad really, all things considered. Just what the hell was that, though?

The cadeijo, for its part, stayed focused on the towering building's highest floors. It cocked its head to the side as if listening for something, sniffed the air, then stood up and met Sean's gaze with its own. It didn't speak, but Sean felt an instinctual understanding of what it meant.

Thanks. Enemy up there. It is mine. You stay.

Sean merely nodded in return, before making a "be my guest" gesture in the direction of the golden Spire.

"Save a piece of them for me!" Gel called as the cadeijo bounded away. It met the base of the tower in only a handful of strides and then… kept running. Right up the side of the tower, using its chains to puncture the brickwork and pull itself up faster. "I worry that it didn't hear me. Do you think it heard me?"

"I think the cavalry is here, so it's time to focus." Sean responded, resetting his grip on his axe as he turned to face the pair of heartbeats heading their way. "We can worry about who eats what later."

"Okay, but I call first dibs on everybody here and everybody in the tower, too!" Gel asserted, before a note of confusion entered the slime's tone. "Wait, I thought you said the horses were here. Those two are just humans. What's the big deal?"

"They're the only ones on the field on their side who are completely calm." Sean said, not taking his orbs off of either for a second. "Between that and the light show, I'd wager Gold Spire is finally starting to take us seriously."

"Oh? Good." Gel said, suddenly sounding bloodthirsty. "Don't get me wrong I love an easy meal, but sometimes the struggle really brings the flavor out, you know?"

"I do not." Sean admitted. "But where I come from, we call that tenderizing the meat."

"So, hit them until they taste good?"

"Pretty much."