Battle:Kelay mobilizes against the undead hordes

Part of the A Different Halloween Arc

All through Kelay, the sounds of men and animals moving through can be heard. This din is perfectly normal for the hustle and bustle of the town of Kelay. But there is a different note today, a change in the feel of the normally sleepy village. The sounds of metal ringing out regularly, hammer to iron, echoes through the whole town. Grindstones groaning, the rasp of steel being honed. All the sounds of war. But Kelay was not a town of war. Host to the endless bloodshed emanating from the tavern, of that there is no doubt, but the citizenry was far from the type to ride into battle. But, the threat of invasion by the undead caused even the citizens to rise up to form an impromptu militia. What had been a slight pest problem inflated literally overnight into ravenous swarms that tear down all in their path. While the worst of the swarm lay in Vailkrin, strays from the mindless horde threatened to encroach upon Kelay. A counter offensive was being assembled, perhaps even to fight its way to aid the besieged city of Vailkrin. There was glory to be had, a fight to be won, and a functionally unlimited number of zombies to be slain by any who would pick up a weapon to join the fight. The concentration of preparations seem to be emanating from the town in the trees to the east of the tavern

Ranok stands in the rough center of those preparations and the militia. He had some experience at handling large groups, proven in his rallying of the forces of Rynvale to repel the invaders from the Time Lord's minions. He was dressed as he always was, save for a pair of goggles that sit on his forehead and half of a crude gas mask around his neck. Those would be handy later, in the gag and the stench of the undead hordes. While he was in the middle of it all, he wasn't quite in charge of it. The militia was nebulous, leaderless. The people of Kelay were to defend their homes. Ranok offered advice, made sure the sharpened tools were done properly. Crossing the t's and dotting the I's, so to speak. It would be a little bit longer before any spear heading would be done, though a group of the horde could feasibly attack at any moment.

Mayumi walks into the area, having heard the sounds of the sharpening of weapons. Curious as she was, she wanted to investigate. She saw her dear friend Ranok in the middle of the crowd, helping people sharpen their weapons. The child silently wondered if she should join in the battle... She walked towards Ranok, frowning slightly. "Mister Ranok," she greeted him, "what's going on?" Ryuujin was curled around her neck as usual, wide awake and staring at the weapons being sharpened...

Xzarren can be seen walking among the throng of nervous men, his beastial heart still for the slaughter to come. His red cloak dances in tandum with his steps, his arms by his side ready to draw a blade at a moment's notice. He could feel the air hang cold with the impending death of those too weak to survive. While all the peasants gathered their weapons and their nerves, the vampyre walks straight ahead past them all, being the first among many to welcome the ensuing carnage.

Mayumi glances out towards Vailkrin, frowning. "I see," she murmured, thinking. She didn't live here, so normally she wouldn't care... but seeing the faces of the people who wanted to defend their homes, she reconsidered. "Where will you have me?" she asked, "Healer, or fighter? You choose."

Ranok pumps the wheel, producing a great arc of sparks. The sword was already quite keen. And glowed faintly in the light. The blessing on it would be mighty handy, here. "Gurl, Hy don' kare. Pick vun. Ve aren' gonna be liberating Vailkrin vith a ragtag group uf villagers. Maybe if ve hed zum more heavy hitters, but eh." To the north, stragglers of the horde were popping up. Lumbering, stinking, bloated limbs reach out for not just the living, but anything that moved. Ranok doesn't seem overly worried. Groups had been popping up here and there. The villagers, on the other hand, were a little more skittish. Improvised or actual weapons were raised to engage lumbering undead heading towards the group. "Go und kill dem, vould hyu?"

Mayumi glances up at the small groups of undead. "Alright, thn. Mind watching Ryuujin for me until I get back?" Ryuujin leapt off of MAyumi's shoudler and onto Ranok's. Mayumi moved with a certain grace that reminded one of a panther. As she approached the edge of the camp, a few of th villagers were eyeing her warily. Mayumi raised her hands, concentrating deeply. The entire area around the groups of undead started to grow very warm... unbearable warm. Suddenly, one of the nearby groups of undead burst into flame, screaming hellish screams that peirced th ears. Mayumi drew her sword, and without hesitation, the child dove into another group of undead, makign the blade of her sword catch fire before swinging her sword into the bellies of her opponents. The villagers who were nearby were watching with stunned looks. Mayumi was certainly a beast of the battlefield, at least against the undead.

The zombies were zombies. And pretty rotted ones at that. As Mayumi barrels into the small group, they don't put up much in terms of defense. The corpses toppled down, catching fire. Dead. Again.

Ranok points at the overly flashy display of Mayumi's, "Look. Dere. Ve hef dat on our side. Ve kan vin!" The man raises his sword up, prompting a slow roll of a rallying cry. The villagers were tough mofos under normal standards, having to live in Kelay, the most bloody town in all of Hollow, after all. But still, seeing such display of power on their side was usually a good thing. It was a good thing, too. More undead were trickling out of the passage to the north. Not just a single group, but a good chunk of horde. Ranok points his sword towards the group, saying in a remarkable clear voice, "Physical fighters, to me! Form a square! Pointy ends always at the zombies! We can't lose, men!"

Mayumi smiles slightly, hearing Ranok rallying the troops. She looked up to see the larger group of the zombies pouring forth. She glanced back to Ranok, and Ryuujin on his shoulder. "Ryuujin," she said, "Fly to the outpost. I'll come get you when this is over." Ryuujin nodded once, taking off towards the east. Mayumi watched him leave, gripping the handle of her sword tightly. "Time to kick some rotting butts," she muttered, raising her sword towards the horde.

Ranok sighs. "Hy schould hef told her to heal. Hold, men!" The man's duster is shucked and then flicked. The thing disappears. It was amazingly handy, but having loose things to grab when you fully intended to wade into the horde was a suicidal action. The goggles on the man's face go in place, as well. The villagers he'd half overseen and half guided form a sloppy square around him, as well. After a minute, the first of the lumbering undead reach sections of the line, and cries and sounds of hacking can be heard. The numbers weren't bad, not now. The men could manage the trickle, but soon, the trickle would become a stream, then a flood.

Mayumi grins as she watched her friend. As a few undead started strolling twards her, she attacked with ferocity. Several of the rotting bodies went up in flames, others were torn limb from limb... Mayumi's facce remained in a permanent, eerie smile - almost as if she was enjoying herself.

Xzarren breaks away from the main force of defenders taking a hold of his enflamed sword and charging the growing numbers of the zombie horde with a rising battle cry. He actively ignores Ranok's command, going in alone and without help, knowing he would fight better this way. His sword is gripped in both his hands and as he comes to the first of the undead it lashes out, spraying gore and limb across the walkway as the unlucky zombie is cut down quite mercilessly. Three, four dead walkers amble closer to his location, one's cranium being slice through to brain and body, Xzarren's sword cutting the dark soul in half as a gush of blood follows it's death. The others meeting similiar ends, but no matter how they are dealt with, the growing numbers only increase, ever more threatening for this small band of warriors, including the loner who fought by himself. The line would hold for now, and if need be he would rejoin, were lives in danger that could be saved from the occult flood of death.

A new horde of undead scrambled and crawled from the path farthest east. Heading the gory pack were the more freshly dead and others still crawled and limped behind. Blood dripped from distorted jaws or missing limbs and appendages as they moved steadily forward. The stench of grave soil and rotted flesh rolled in waves around the unsightly group. They were fixated on the group that had assembled with their weapons. They would be stubborn to going back to a grave as quickly, they were so hungry, and it would take a through bashing to the head to send them back to amore quiet slumber.

Mayumi grins wider, raising her hand. Fire erupted on one of the groups heading for her, who tripped and caught -another- zombie of fire... the result was a chain reaction of flamign zombies falling over and dying before they got the chance to come close. Once the zombie was dead, tought, the flames vanished... another part of Mayumi's magic.

Ranok didn't care about the lone wolves. They would survive, or they wouldn't. Flashy or not, every zombie put back into the ground was a boon to the more sane that stayed together. Ranok's rag tag group of misfits makes progress, slowly, with farm tools a-hackin' and the blessed few that carried actual weapons slashing and stabbing. Ranok himself was advancing forward, his blessed longsword doing heavy damage to any undead it touched. Even as the swarm pressed in, the group held in the rough square. Each side was protected sensibly. Swarm tactics wouldn't overwhelm as easy. Here and there an unlucky soul mistimed his jab with a spear shovel and the undead would grab him. Sometimes his companions would save him in time. A few didn't have the chance. But progress was being made, and the line held for now.

Klaie |The ranks of this rotted and slow army were quick to fill with other foul smelling animated corpse to pose threat, making up in quantity for what the clearly lacked in speed and tactic, all moaning or growling with unquenchable blood lust. The gashing of teeth and the thump of lifeless bodies filled the air alongside the howls of hunger. A smaller group broke from their mob and headed for the child of fire, perhaps perceiving a weakness that was not truly there in her small from, and began grabbing and fighting each other for her flesh in an instant. The loner who had broken rank would be immediately surrounded by the larger of this undead hoard closer to the line of civilians. Hands would be reaching and hoping to find purchase with a grip of supernatural strength. They were dead, after all, physics be damned. Mindlessness governed their movements as they clawed and bit and swung wildly at anyone in their path. Their numbers weren't limitless but for now the undead held their own as well.

Mayumi glanced around. It seemed like her friends were getting in on the fun... She smiled, raising her sword. A great flare of fire appeared around the sword, casting an eerie glow on the child. She then swung her sword towards a nearby group of zombies. An arch of fire magic soared through the air towards the zombies, causing them to catch fire andd be sliced in half. Mayumi wsas rapidly getting bored. Killing undead like this was just too damn easy.

Leifantiel 's arrival was only notable in that one moment he had been non-existent... and the next... he had materialized a few meters from Mayumi. Curiously, he turned in a full circle... unsure of what exactly he had teleported himself into.

Leifantiel 's pearly white mask ignited almost instantaneously, charred to a hue of molten black. Though his lips were hidden behind it, there was little reason to doubt that the elf was grinning sharply. "Oh..." he offered, canting his head to the side. "... so -now- it is acceptable to kill? To slaughter? Such counter-intuitive-" but... he didn't have time to finish. A particularly rotted zombie came hurling out from behind a plume of smoke, snarling and flailing with a broken sword in-hand. Immediately, the elf was a blur of motion, sprinting forward and full-speed right into the thing. At the last moment he jumped, swung his leg around wide, and tore it's head right off its ligaments. The body seemed to remain upright, perhaps not quite dead-again... but a single shuriken to the chest toppled it over for good. Leifantiel glanced over his shoulder at Mayumi and lifted his mask, laughing quite sincerely. "Oh, it -has- been a while since I fought the undead! There was this one time, though, when a Necromancer from the... oh! Behind you!"

Mayumi whriled in a split second, using her sword to cleave the zombiee attacking her in two. "To be completly honest, Leifantiel, it wasn't me who wanted to take away your fighting, it was Mister Ranok." She glanced at the elf. "If I wanted you to stop, I wouldn't be askign you for your help now, would I?" Another zombie launched otwards her, but she was ready. Whirling again, she pointed her palm towards the zombie, causing it to erupt into flames. With its peircing shreik, it fell to the ground and died. "There's three zombies heading for you," she said without looking back, launchign herself into battle against five zombies.

Xzarren slams forward with the hilt of his sword bashing an undead in it's face and caving it's rotting, decaying facial structure inside itself, soon following with his hungry blade, carving away any essence of false life these beings harbored. The thought bit at his mind, these abominations were just like him, living when they should be resting in death. And what drove him on to abide by this blashphemy? Knowing that he could still do good, perhaps was the only thing. This small course of action, fighting back the tide of death was perhaps one small glance at retribution, and if he died, he prayed his broken soul would be welcomed at the gates of heaven. The zombies surrounded him, clawing him and lunging after him, any spaces to escape quickly being taken by the all-consuming horde. But still he fought, his bloodied double-edged sword cementing these creatures minds and souls to silence once more. They cut and tore into his clothes, finally breaking the distance between him and them and slowly enveloping the man as he struggled to even swing his sword. The darkness closed in but he dared not to give up until his very last breath was used. Praying that the lifeline would not be broken Xzarren focuses his immense hatred into living flames, casting them outward to protect himself, the wave of flames turning even the most zealous of zombies into a pile of ash. With his wounds the vampire regains himself, the blood dripping from his weapon close enough to the reality of the man being covered in blood himself, but refusing to find an early grave to these abominations. The fight continues on.

Ranok wasn't exactly reveling in the slaughter. To him, this was a job, not fun. Then again, he was behaving sensible towards this all. Since the man stuck by with the militia, he wasn't being swarmed. He only had to look forward one way. The somewhat blobby square formation was holding its ground. The impromptu army was killing zombies as they came. Dead were literally piling up in front of the group. Unmoving as they were, that was what ended up happening, after all. The sound of agony can be heard about the din of steel smacking flesh. Another soul getting bitten or drug to the ground. One poor soul was wrenched in a tug of war between his companions and the horde. Lucky for said fellow, his friends won and he was drug into the middle of the square, were a small group of men were nursing wounds. Undead after undead fell to Ranok's holy blade, flickering in the night. Hot knife through butter or not, he hacked limbs and heads off alike.

Kasyr appearance is, effectively, a Cameo. For just a few brief moments, if one weren't entirely engrossed in the process of fending off undead that were trying to chew apart faces or brains, it would be possible to take sight of the Revenant, his trademark trenchcoat having been traded in for a pair of leathery wings. Even more particular is that Kasyr can hardly be considered alone, given his current company consists of a Terramancer in his arms, and twelve obsidian broadswords which are effectively hovering in his vicinity. Given their supernaturally 'dense' nature in this guise- they serve perfectly as improvised battering rams so that the vampire can effectively swoop in and punch straight straight into the building the undead are swarming out of. He does, after all, need to find out if a secondary insane tyrants' appeared in hollow- without the risk of wandering through a potentially trapped front door.

Leifantiel 's fingers moved faster than the un-aided eye. What began as one shuriken would split into ten... then twelve... embedding themselves deep into undead flesh. But that wasn't going to stop them, all on its own. No, these had been filled with oil... and the moment they came into contact with their targets, Leifantiel conjured up a wave of fire to set them alight. One zombie after another exploded... three, four, six, ten. The elf's mask had fallen back into position, but that didn't stop him from grinning ear to ear. "Mistress Mayumi! I must confess a deception... though perhaps now is not the best time." Chuckling to himself, the elf lurched forward into another wall of the damned corpses. He wouldn't waste any more of his explosive shurikens on these weaklings. Instead, he pried the broken blade from that first zombie's clenched fingers and went in swinging.

Hanan was farther up the road and deeper in town, atop her big but retired gray warhorse--not much of a warhorse at all--named Stormy, her spiked boarding axe in one hand and what appeared to be a silver flask in the other. She was watching. Perhaps she thought she was a rear guard. More likely she was pissed as hell that the road into Vailkrin, the next stop on her selling-contraband-goods route, was blocked by dead people. "Ruttin' he--" Shyte, was that Kasyr rushing past? Dressed like some kind of BDSM angel? Carrying an injured Dami? "...shyte." She eyed the crowd. She eyed that building.

Ranok does spare a moment to interally face palm. Kasyr would be Kasyr, of course. But, the literal line carved in the horde was useful. After a backhanded swing lops off the head of another nameless zombie, the stump smoking slightly from the interaction of the holy blade. Then, a bellow across the din, "Forward! Press the gap!" Kasyr was literally scything through the zombies in the route to Vailkrin. No more reinforcements would be issuing forth for some minutes, so Ranok intended to press home the advantage to hold the entry to Vailkrin. The rag tag group of farmers and would be warriors blobbishly moves forward, clambering over the group of bodies. "Go! Go!" The wounded that were sitting in the safety of the square move back into Kelay, nursing tears, bites, and in one case, a hopelessly shattered arm. There was consequences for their fighting, after all. Ranok, in his begoggled form, served as a beacon. The white plating of his armor stuck out on the field, as did the sword which flickers out here and again to engage a zombie.

Mayumi glances over at Ranok, cleaving the head of the last zombie. She glanced back at Leifantiel. "I'm going with Mister Ranok," she told him, "do whatyou wish. Jsut don't hurt the villagers in the process." With that being said, she rna towards the group of villagers that Ranok was leading, cleaving several zombies in half along the way. In a matter of minutes, she was at Ranok's side. "Having fun, Mister Ranok?" she said, catching a nearby zombie on fire.

Klaie |The hoard was beginning to lose the swiftness of recovery in numbers, now that an unseen force had blocked the main path used to flood into what was now a bloodied battlefield, but they never stopped moving. Their hunger was great even if the numbers were growing small. A young a bloodied face peered from the heading pile of bodies nearest the lone vampire who had just finished a large number of undead with flame, eerily filled with a defiant spark of oak hued life sparking out as quickly as it could have been seen… Or perhaps just to be missed. Most of the rotting zombies now dwindled and soon the moans of hunger would be carried back to a more permanent grave.

Xzarren stands tall, the clothing of his upper body in shreds, the hearty bulk of the chest plate near the only thing in decent condition and thankfully, his pants still fullfilled their purpose, lest he die an embaressing death. His crimson cloak had been ripped, now only a small tatter of dark red fabric resting on his broad shoulders. The various claw and tooth wounds marked his arms, shoulders, and body in a bloody mess of torn fabric and flesh. Thanks to his vampirism, such wounds, though greivous looking, became artificial as his natural regeneration kicked in and slowly worked to keep him pressing through the battle. The obsidian broad swords are one thing that sticks out to the vampyre, stuck in his world of life or death, and seeing the zombie's end up nameless piles of gore as if in a meatgrinder was admittingly priceless. The vampyre holds his sword out in front of him, closing his eyes to recover a small fragment of sanity for himself to hold it all together. Then the rest of the men were driving forward past him and suddenly he realized there were few zombies nearby and a counter had been launching. He lowers his sword and charges with them.

Leifantiel burst forth from within the cluster of undead he had been fighting, screaming in rage. At least one of them had been armed with some manner of blade, which was now buried far too deep into the elf's shoulder for him to identify. Still he pushed forward, the broken sword he wielded tossed aside in favor of the weapon which had pierced him. His emerald gaze scanned the horizon, searching for the next point of attack... but Mayumi had run on ahead towards Ranok, and there was little more than the odd straggler here and there where he stood. With a snarl, the elf hurled himself forward... eventually finding himself in stride with a sword-wielding male charging up towards the new front. The elf spared a few words. "It seems that we're moving forward, but what about the ones we leave behind? It would be unwise to take everyone on ahead... lest the undead repopulate their ranks behind us and attempt to flank."

The militia, with the aid of those that joined in, would push the remains of the horde to the very doors of the training facility they were pouring out of. The trail was bloody, strewn with broken bodies of undead, and one or two villagers, moaning in pain. But they were successful. Carts were brought from Kelay to form a makeshift barrier, thrown up against the doors to prevent another outpouring of undead so quickly. Once victory was clear, a ragged cheer would rise up among the villagers. As for Ranok, he ignored all comments and questions directed at him. He wasn't at a day time picnic, but fighting. He wasn't to be distracted. Only in the after math, with a rag in hand to clean blood off his blade, would be allow himself to be addressed. For now, however, Kelay was safe. Any counter offensive would need to be planned and executed in a separate maneuver.