Edward Lorn- Occupied Snowcrest Township

  Edward pulled his bow across the violin with intensity; the note screamed across the darkness of the room filled with all the impotent rage and fear he was finally giving voice to. [Dance Of Death] was an odd choice of a skill for someone like him, but it was practical. He could use it to cast doubts and fears into his listeners, a reliable way for a performer to make money by scaring away vermin during the lean seasons.

  As he had leveled it, he had increased its potency and, more importantly, added the ability to let it share the vivid emotions of his listeners. Normally he used it for the sweeping finales, letting emotions roll across the crowd, bouncing back and forth, amplifying each other. But tonight he was using it for its far darker application. The horrible beast skulking through the darkness clamped onto the head of the filth that was ravaging his town, and with a long final draw, he cascaded that man’s dying moment to the mind of every opponent in the room.

  Edward powered through his revulsion at the sickening crunch of bone and desperate screams that cascaded throughout the room as everything exploded into utter chaos. Malay’s golden mana lashed out as he struck out at the forsaken paladin with his words, “Kneel!” washed in a golden wave over the forsaken paladin, sending him tumbling from his dash towards a nearby opponent. He struggled his way back to his feet; his armor seemed to be burning brighter every moment.

  At first Edward thought It was the forsaken Paladin doing something, but then he saw the green light being pulled from the armor in thin threads and flowing towards the now free Arthur. The light illuminated the room like a hazy fire, casting everything into an ethereal green that flickered madly off the armored men.

  Malay’s attention flickered towards Arthur, and he cast his power at him to interrupt whatever he was doing with the coalescing light. “KNEEL, boy!” the moment Arthur clattered back down onto his knees. The forsaken paladin struck, a haze of necrotic energy lashing out nearly invisible in the darkness. Malay Barley managed to fend it off with a glittering golden shimmer of his own that he cast from a raised hand.

  Edwards gaze was wrenched back to the panicked melee happening across the room. The beast had slunk from behind the bar, still dragging its limp prey towards its next opponent. A man in resplendent plate that Edward assumed was another fully fledged paladin. Edward focused all his pain, his suffering, and most of all his fear into the song. Black mana lashed with each pull across his violin, and even from here he could see the paladin’s eye growing desperate and crazed in the low light.

  Edward ignored the crazed clash of green and golden light happening strides from him and stood from his chair, eyes locked onto his target across the room. The demonic creature’s eyes drew across him appraisingly. It made an amused huff that morphed into a wrong, dark perversion of each note he played mixed with the cries of dying men and women.

  The Frightened Paladin of Rembrand lashed out at the beast in a brutal mix of blasts of fire that rocked the very room and sweeping swings of his sword. He barreled forward, each heavy step cracking the floor, trying to catch up to the nightmare as it scurried backwards suddenly. He ended his charge with a blast of fire from his hand that blanketed the bar the creature had dipped behind. He screamed at it with a voice tinged with desperation, “Come out, Abomination, I know! You…Wait…what…what am I fighting?” The beast used the moment to slink into the deepest shadows, circling around the edge of the bar. Edward focused every bit of his hate, every bit of his mana, into a single powerful final note. That staggered the paladin briefly mid-search as he clawed desperately across his body in fear, searching for wounds that weren’t there.

  The nightmare used his distraction, oozing through the shadows. It slit the throat of one man with its massive claws, nearly beheading him as it shifted around a table behind the panicked paladin. There was a poignant pause as it slowly loomed up on its tail behind him, eldritch scrawlings lighting up with a dull haze. The nearby warriors could only look on at the execution about to take place.

  It pounced forward with its full body, slamming the man into and through the bar, holding him down in a puddle of burning liquor with all six of its bladed claws. Looking around slowly at every other warrior that even thought about coming to the aid of their pinned companion, letting the sounds of his sizzling flesh sink into their fears. For a moment it looked as if the paladin might escape, pushing himself up with one hand and stabbing his sword back through the nightmare's claw.

  It only chortled in pleasure, licking its own wound with one of its haunting tongues before its tail flicked forwards, pinning the man back into the simmering fire by his guts. Edward's gaze snapped back to his stage, and he stumbled back. One of the warriors of Rembrand had realized what chaos his song was sowing and was charging towards him with murderous intent. Edward tripped ingloriously over his own chair, barely keeping hold of his violin as he fell hard onto his back.

  The warrior flashed up the stage stairs faster than Edward's eye could track and drew his arm back to skewer Edward. Edward was proud of himself as he held the man's crazed gaze, trying to meet his end with some semblance of dignity.

  The blow never fell; the man stopped suddenly, looking down in terror as a slit that led to something inexplicably evil spread across the stage, and the demonic nightmare suddenly burst upward through the portal, grabbing him by the face with a claw that wrapped all the way around his skull. It contemptuously plucked his sword arm from his body with a sick tearing wrench before turning its gore-coated visage towards Edward.

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  His breath hitched as he looked down its quivering gullets, each big enough to swallow him whole, and the maws were snapping in sequence as it continued to chew down torn bloody pieces of what must have been the paladin’s legs. It reached out towards him slowly, and Edward held his breath. At least he had fought back; he had made them feel some of what he had suffered.

  There was no pain, only a warm, sticky sensation as a claw, still trailing sinew and entrails, gently patted him on the head. The awful creature cocked its head at him in amusement before speaking in a strangely inebriated tone that didn’t match its appearance. “Encore! Encore, someone bring me a stein. This fucker is good!”

  Vraxious- Occupied Snowcrest Township

  Vrax nearly missed a step in the seemingly fucking endless back and forth between him, Arthur, and the piece of shit mind-controlling Bishop when he saw Duchess willingly save a civilian. What the fuck is happening!? I mean, his music was pretty fucking epic, but Duchess doesn’t do saving. Agh, need to focus on this assho... “Kneel!” Rolled from Malay's mouth again, causing Vrax to tumble mid-strike into a table in a clatter of cups.

  He pulled himself to his feet amidst the swirl of Arthur pulling light from his armor. “Stop fucking doing that shit; it’s annoying as fuck!” Vrax raged; he had lost count of how many times the fucker had stopped him and Arthur mid-swing with that trick, and he didn’t have enough vegetation here to drop sunshine on him. Malay’s only response was a sharp hand gesture that sent a golden dagger-like sliver of sound screaming towards him. Vrax cursed as he dove to the side again.

  Arthur stepped in, taking two sweeps with his blade wreathed in green fire before the third struck another of Malay's barriers in a shower of emerald sparks. Vrax tried to use the momentary distraction to squeeze behind him and instead caught another sudden flash of golden mana to the chest, piercing dangerously into his lung. “AGHH…” Vrax growled, using his cistern to stymie the bleeding. The direct approach wasn’t working, but he had an idea.

  “Lantern distract him!” Vrax wheezed while leaping a few strides back and ripping open his bag to pull out a few jars.

  “What do you think I’m doing, you cold-hearted HRRK?” Arthur's response was cut short as Malay bludgeoned him with a sudden expansion of the golden barrier.

  “Kneel!” Boomed from Malay again, sending Arthur tumbling, and Vrax had to awkwardly engage again with mana-wasting smites for a moment with a bag awkwardly in his hand to free Arthur from the compulsion. The second Arthur had his attention again. Vrax started dumping an ungodly collection of seeds and moss spores all around him, letting them swirl in the wind kicked up by the intense waves of force being sent out by skill after skill.

  Vrax jumped right back in, throwing a jar of smelter moss against Malay’s obnoxious barrier to stop him from compelling Arthur again. The second Malay spun towards Vrax, stepping closer to batter him with the full force of his voice. Vrax smiled under his helm. “Gotcha, you evil fuck!” Vrax went all in, pouring the rest of his cistern into the tangle of seeds now swirling all round them.

  Moss exploded out like a rolling tide across half the room. White dungeon-born rose bushes sprung to maturity and flowered in a flurry of petals and thorns, snagging against Malay’s robes mid-step. Deep green vines with intense yellow fist-sized eyes crawled up every wall in the room, casting eerie light from their irises down onto the battle below. “Arthur, now do your smite bullshit!”

  Vrax immediately ripped sunshine from his garden; it rose in a flurry of torn moss and rotted boards from the ground beneath Malay’s feet inside his dome. His scream was shrill as its tendrils wrapped around his ankles, digging into tendons and flesh as it dragged him towards the awaiting maw. “STOP!” Malay screamed out. The force of his command caused Vrax to nearly fall over; Sunshine froze with the bishop halfway into its mouth.

  Arthur wasn’t idle, gathering every scrap of light in the room greedily; his free hand wove back and forth, grasping at each source, summoning it to the building maelstrom of green and yellow above him. Oh fuck…is he going to hit Sunshine again? Malay struggled violently against the tendrils, nearly escaping before Sunshine started moving again, and he had to command it to stop once more before it pulled him the rest of the way into its maw.

  A look of realization dawned on Malay's face as he looked at the mass of power swirling above Arthur and the vegetation now surrounding him that Duchess stalked through, toying with the few men still in the tavern. “You...you won’t get away with this. They will find you!”

  Vrax scoffed. Keep him talking for the lantern for a second, Vrax... “Are you joking? They already found me. I just fed a tier two asshole and twenty of his best friends to a fucking tree a few weeks ago! I literally couldn’t escalate this any harder if I tried. I am already at war with you bastards; this isn’t even going to be a footnote in the history books of what happens before it's all over.” Malay went to answer but was cut off by Sunshine suddenly yanking him brutally across its teeth.

  The entire world went white for a moment as a focused column of energy flashed into existence as Arthur unleashed his focused maelstrom of light. It tore through the roof above and the floor below in a snapping crackle; the drifting snow flashed steaming with a scream on contact. Malay’s shield only held for a fraction of a second. His resistance kept him alive for another second as it burned through him, melting flesh away layer by layer. His attempts to raise another barrier were shattered by Sunshine’s greedy tendrils snapping into his flesh even as they burned.

  Suddenly there was silence and darkness. The freezing air wafting in through the simmering hole in the ceiling was a refreshing current against the now sweltering tavern. Vrax and Arthur looked at each other for a moment. There were still the faint sounds of combat outside as the rest of Vrax’s companions fought those who had fled from Duchess or run for the prisoners.

  Arthur wiped a smear of blood from his cheek. Vrax walked closer and added Sunshine's smoldering, twitching body to the garden. Ehh, it wasn’t nearly as bad as last time; sunshine will be fine.

  “So what now?” Arthur asked in a steely tone, keeping his weapon leveled at Vrax.

  Vrax surprised Arthur by thwapping him in the face with a tossed mark of Vurune. “I know I’m probably going to regret it, but…put that on…then let’s…talk,” Vrax said with obvious trepidation, keeping his own spear firmly in hand.