Vraxious- Kings Road

  Vrax stayed low, letting the scraggly bushes beside the road cling to his form like a shawl of darkness, hiding his movements from the distracted defenders. He swept his predator's gaze across the golden armored figure on the wall and...the toad. The haughty church member was thankfully not an insurmountable powerhouse, [Frank Mullis Tier-1](lvl39) [Paladin Of Rembrand] [Threat: Moderate] Alright, he's very much so beatable, especially with Torvald and, sigh, Jonathan here to help.

  The other soldiers scattered around were all in their early twenties to mid-thirties in level and had an absolute mishmash of martial classes; there was no sign of the earth mage yet. Vrax nearly stumbled when he inspected the toad. [Wide-eyed Toad Tier-1](lvl9) [Forest Tender Of Vurune] [Threat: Low].

  Oh shit, they were smart enough to pick their own classes, and the fucker got offered something by Vurune, so, so many concerning implications that I just don’t have the time to process right now.

  Vrax held off on summoning his garden for a moment, sneaking right up behind a twitchy guard who had his shield and spear leveled away from him. Vrax tried to make it quick; he looped his hand around the man's open-faced helm, yanking him back into the bushes at the same time he activated smite in his palm. The man’s strangled shout was muffled by Vrax’s hand before the smite straight to his face overcame his resistance and hollowed out the man’s skull sickeningly.

  Vrax used the empty space left by the guards' absence to sneak straight up to the side of the earthen bulwarks and clamber through a pair of the jutting stone spikes. A guard made eye contact with him as he made it right to the edge of the wooden platform between the defenses. His eyes went wide in realization at the sight of Vrax’s malignant green and black armor. Vrax activated his ever-thirst cape, and it shot up, ripping the man down from the platform, instantly drinking deep from him. Vrax dived on his struggling form, covering his mouth the best he could and hoping no one heard the thud.

  Frank above was busy monologuing loud enough to cover for Vrax’s rather imperfect stealth. “Last chance, monsters, Go back into the woods and frolic around in your stream, or I'm going to be having frog legs for dinner!” He let out a forced laugh that boomed unnaturally.

  Surprisingly, one of the drivers on the nearest caravan cart stood up in indignation. “Hey, don’t be a fucking asshole! They have been keeping the road clear of bullshit for us every time we have gone by lately. They even chased off some bandits for us once! What the fuck have you done to help?”

  Frank rounded towards the elderly cart driver, his face seething in indignation. “SIT.” His words shot out with a physical presence, shaking the air slightly in a waver of golden mana. The cart driver sat back down like he had been shoved, and the nearest guard on the platform did as well, suddenly plopping down onto his backside with a thud.

  Oh...if he’s invested heavily into that, he might have a real bad time with good old paranoid, high-mental-resistance me. The fake laughter had dripped off of Frank, and he turned to the toad again. “LEAVE” Echoed out like an attack. The closest toad shook for a moment before slowly turning around and taking halting, struggling steps away from the blockade back into the woods.

  Vrax silently oozed up onto the platform behind Frank, who was utterly focused on the toad he had compelled to walk away. The disgruntled chatter from the line of merchant carts had gone dead silent. A few curses and whispers broke free after a moment; Vrax could barely hear them with his talent.

  “Umm, Gramm, is that who I think it is?” An elderly woman’s voice whispered.

  “Gods above, honey, I think so; either we are all about to die, or we get to deliver our baskets after all.” Her husband whispered back.

  Farther back in the line of carts, a gnarled middle-aged cart master made a hushed but urgent statement: “Get the fekking horses turned around; that’s the damned paladin you see the green glow. Everyone over there is about to get eaten.”

  The closest guard to Vrax, who was still sitting stupidly on the platform, looked up at Vrax in realization. “Well, shit,” he said softly.

  Vrax looked around to make sure there were enough scraggly plants nearby for him to use his stigmata. He could see Torvald in a sprinter's stance, hammer in hand, waiting for the signal. Vrax walked behind the gloating paladin and tapped him on the shoulder. The other couple of guards on the platform were frozen in a mix of indecision and fear; they obviously realized who he was up close.

  Frank turned around, his features twisted in annoyance. “What!...Do your…job.” His wrathful rebuke sputtered out, seeing Vrax’s glowing eye slits directly in front of him.

  “I am doing my job...”” Vrax put a hand on the paladin's shoulder before he could react and spoke loud enough for all the bystanders to hear him. “Do you want to take the blockade down for the good merchants, or am I going to be thinning out the church’s roster even further?”

  “KNEEL” Boomed out explosively from Frank in a thunderclap of force, everyone within ten strides of the barricade that was standing dropped to their knees suddenly. Vrax felt the compulsion’s claws against his mind scrabbling across the barrier before sliding past ineffectively, only making his legs feel weak for a moment.

  Vrax stepped in so his helm almost touched the Paladin’s nose. “No,”” he hissed out and summoned his stigmata garden. The stigmata’s drain flensed pieces of flesh from the paladin’s face as he recoiled away. Chaos exploded as the platform rotted into a slurry of woodchips and sludge.

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  A mauler tree ripped from the ground directly behind the paladin and duchess burst into reality behind Vrax, crooning excitedly as her eyes locked onto the nearest Duchy troops. The caravans began a panicked, disorderly retreat from the blockade. Yeah guys, I can probably keep these two from eating y'all, but more distance is better!

  Vrax could hear the boom of Torvald's charge, followed by a nearby explosion of stone as he launched some poor fucker through both sides of the stone defenses. Gods, whatever is left of that guy must have just misted the carts. Torvald grabbed the guard nearest him and exploded upward as crimson wings made from a mesh of veins unfurled from behind his spine. The sight even made Vrax stare for a moment; it was fucking terrifying. Someone that big shouldn’t move that fast.

  Frank was squarely grabbed by the mangler tree all across his body; before it could heave him apart, he shouted a command with such force that Vrax’s step stuttered momentarily: “STOP.” The mangler trembled as it tried to power through the compulsion, but it gave Frank the time he needed; his lithe long sword swirled in a dizzying loop that trailed embers as he cut his way free of the branches in a shower of burning bark.

  Duchess was busy seeing how many guards she could impale on her tail blades at once, so Vrax charged at Frank. All the other defenders were very preoccupied with dying. Vrax was really tired of losing in close combat fights, so he engaged with a bit more savagery than he normally did while casting his reservoir into the road to give him plenty of life for his stigma armor shield to drain.

  Frank expertly spun to face Vrax, thrusting forward with a picture-perfect stab. Vrax partially deflected it while he lunged, letting his shield shove it the rest of the way past his face. Frank shifted to the side with a duelist’s grace, Vrax’s speartip sailing past his face. Vrax unexpectedly swung his spear like an axe horizontally at Frank’s chest. He contemptuously stepped in to block the haft of Vrax’s spear. Drawing a dagger with his free hand to plunge into Vrax’s exposed face.

  They locked weapons briefly as Frank pushed against Vrax’s spear, entangling it with the hilt of his sword. His free hand descended viciously with the dagger into Vrax’s eye slit. It hit a shimmering green barrier over and over as he mercilessly tried to power through the stigmatas shielding. Frank doubled down, looping his sword tighter behind Vrax’s spear to prevent him from easily pulling away.

  Instead, Vrax’s entire weapon erupted in a green-black miasma shaped into penetrating spikes. Frank stepped away from the haft, but the spikes pushed into his hands, and the armor all along his body searing against the enchantments his armor held, briefly before breaking them with a golden-hued pop. Vrax didn’t let him escape, holding the bind tight as he pushed more and more mana into the smite, morphing the spikes into a single lance that began rusting away layers of golden metal impossibly.

  Frank went to shout another command as his armor failed. Instead, the everthirst cape dove into his open eyes and mouth, completely shattering his defenses. Vrax shoved his smite into the man's chest cavity as the ever thirst pushed towards his brain. There was a definitive give in Vrax’s smite as his mana ran low and the miasma sputtered; by then it was too late. Frank sagged to the ground limply, and the cape drank its fill.

  Ha! Fucking won a duel against a melee fighter finally! Thank you, Martha! Vrax then guiltily looked at the murder tree he was including in the duel as well as the very much so living cape currently drinking the paladin. Still counts—that's just how I fight!

  Vrax rushed forward two steps and slapped a hand on the tree, sending it back to his garden in a flash, then spun to see how the rest of the battle was faring. Holy shit, this isn’t even a fight. I was hoping making a show of breaking the blockade might earn me some goodwill from the merchants, but this...this is just going to make things worse.

  Duchess was looming over the top of the stone wall, trilling madly in the direction of the retreating merchants. She had three screaming guards hanging from her tail above her head, dripping blood down into her maw, and another guard in her hands that she was currently impaling on the wall's sharp edges. Her eldritch scrawlings were fully lit, powered by the surrounding fear; if you looked too long, you could see things in the lines that should remain unseen.

  Torvald impacted the ground a few dozen strides away like a diving hawk made of rocks. His opponent blocked the downward hammer blow, but all that did was make it so instead of dying from the hammer, he died when his shield was catapulted through his body with the arm still attached.

  Come on jonathan, you are the least likely to be doing anything too awful. Where are you? Vrax scanned for a moment and found him on the other side of the road near the guard camp; he was currently single-handedly holding off what looked like all of the remaining low-level guards.

  It was beautiful to watch; he toyed with ranges, dashing in and out with deceptive blows, and then would suddenly change direction mid-swing to remove an arm, and then a head, and then another head. And then one poor bastard lost both his legs and his head in a swift twirl. All the while gracefully evading a myriad of skills, he even deflected a sword that flew at his face nearly untraceably fast.

  The road next to Jonathan was literally running in rivers of blood towards the merchants after just a handful of seconds watching. Alright, fuck it, I give up. No matter what we do, I don’t think we are going to come across as the good guys. Also, Jonathan, man, slow down. You didn’t even need to chop that guy’s arm off; he was already headless. I get it, you are auditioning, but maybe don’t do it on people in front of a crowd!

  At this point the fight was decisively over. Vrax went and added Duchess back to his garden before she could start in on the merchants and then walked towards the toad, who was still lurking near the edge of the road. Oh please don’t let this get weird.

  The shawled figure bowed respectfully at Vrax as he approached. “Guardian of Cycle, thank you for aid.”

  Vrax rubbed the back of his helm awkwardly. “Well, it’s the least I could do since I apparently made you guys a bit too…smart…before just leaving.”

  The toad made a sound that might have been a laugh, but hell if Vrax could tell. “Agency was given freely by your hand; from the lord of the cycle it came; all after is our choice.” The toad gave another pleasant nod before leaping towards the forest line without so much as a goodbye. Did I make a cult? I think I made a Vurune cult…

  Torvald watched the toad leaving with a curious expression. “You know, I noticed a distinct lack of dragonflies tearing apart this part of the road when I came by…” He said in a knowing tone.

  Vrax ignored him and gestured towards their mounts. “Alright, guys, let’s get going. We won’t have long before that gets reported.” Vrax gestured at the bloody remnants of the road blockade. “And now we gotta figure out how to get around a whole lot of piss-scared merchants without being noticed to get to town.”

  Jonathan shrugged. “I’m not really a plan guy,” he said while wiping blood off of his halberd.

  Slev, of all people, piped up from his bundle on the bear, “I have a good way to get us into town; I want concessions though!”

  Vrax walked over and dropped his bound form from the side of the bear. Slev hit the ground with a thud and a grunt. “I’m listening.”