NOVEL NEXT Chapter 63 - Rocks Fall, ...
The rumbling quickly intensifies, shaking my domain to the core with each iteration, until all of a sudden it suddenly stops. In its wake, an anticipatory quiet is left.
The cultists have not been idle in the meantime, gathering their monstrosities. Some more have descended from above, both creatures and humanoids, and they are getting ready for a violent altercation, it seems, though the lead necromancer is utterly unhurried as he moves through the flurry of activity.
I can tell he too is preparing though, the roiling miasma whipped into a frenzy as it forms a vortex around him, greedily drinking in essence from the surroundings.
I can’t help but worry. What is going to happen out there? Is there a chance we might be saved? Whatever the case, I should inform the Adventurers and my monsters that something is going down out there.
Juliette swiftly relays my thoughts for me, but in the meantime, the ground shakes once more, violently to the point of my monsters and several of the cultists outside being knocked down.
In the wake of that quake, a figure descends through the chasm into the large open space. I would describe it as humanoid, but it is encased in rock and stone entirely and as tall as two men.
The tall figure moves into an opening that is surrounded by creatures and cultists alike, before a voice rings out, echoing around the cavern.
“Hey there friends, you don’t happen to see a couple adventurers out here? I have a delivery here for them.”
“Your arrogance is boundless, it seems, giant. Tell you what, we will accept the delivery on their behalf and hand it off when next we see them.” the old necromancer responds with a dry chuckle.
“Yeah, not happening.” the giant bites back. “But you know what? Since you clearly know what I am talking about, I guess I’ll just have to ask your friends about it after I bury you, cultist scum.”
“Pah. Prattle. Bring it on, you brute. By the grace of my lord, Argevos, I shall bind your soul in eternal torment.” the Necromancer counters with the subtlety of a brick that's thrown at someone’s face.
The giant somehow pauses at that.
After a moment of silence, he responds in a strained voice.
“So you’re that prick’s goons… he was one of the assholes that messed with our friend. Skye was the best of us and your patron helped turn her into a monstrosity. And now you assault her son and our daughter? You’re dead!”
While most of that barely carried across the area, his voice became a thunderous roar at that last part, as he draws the greatsword hefted to his back and surges into action. With a leap, he clears the distance between the two quickly and brings down the greatsword with a sharp crack of metal on stone, as the necromancer turned into shadow and shade and disappeared from the course of the blade.
He reappears nearby a moment later, but the angered man is already moving, bringing up the sword that embedded itself in the rock below alongside said rock, which showers several of the nearby cultists and creatures in fragments.
Unlike the negligible damage I would expect from that size of stone however, the force of the shower of debris completely pummels the unfortunates caught up in it. What’s more, the fragments in flight do not stop, instead they accelerate and curve to form an orbit of debris around the solitary figure, as it turns towards the necromancer and roars a challenge.
A glowing aura of red engulfs the individual, the familiar signs of what I have come to associate with a berserker’s rage. The ground trembles and shakes under the fury that can be felt rolling off of him in waves.
The necromancer hisses, and with a word of power and a wave of his hand, shadow and darkness solidifies as a curtain around him, shielding him from the pummeling debris even as the screams of bound and tormented souls echo throughout the cavern and the various undead creatures glow with necrotic power.
A beam of sickly energy emerges from his wand at the berserker, which is swatted away by the pitch-black blade of the ridiculously sized greatsword, and their clash begins in earnest.