"Sweat, Strong Drink & Rotting Flesh"
The Liche Chronicles / Restless Dead / Silent Threat verses Shornaal's Beastmen / Beastmen Raiders with Mark of Shornaal / Scion of Chaos
Wyrdstone Hunt
An old crone cackled softly to herself as she hung some goatsweed up to dry next to her window, for that window gave her a good vantage point of the surrounding area. If a gale hadn't been blowing, Ursaltia would have gone outside for a better view, but her withered frame did not take kindly to the biting wind so she pulled up a rickety stool and propped her elbows on the window sill in anticipation of the following show.
Ivan snorted, and though the chill wind stole the sound, Rasputin's warm ale in his belly and his shaggy hide were more than enough to dispell the cold. Ivan barked a few orders through the wind, and tightened his grip on his sword as he strode forth into this little valley. There were rumours that a lucky warband might find some treasures if they look hard amongst the burnt-out ruins of this once-quaint little out-lying village, and with the ale making Ivan brave and itching to fight, Ivan was hoping that he wasn't the only one to have heard the rumours.
Magnus shivered with the chilling wind, but found no sympathy with any of his company even though he was second-in-command. For undead, of course, do not feel sympathy, let alone feel the cold. Lestat de Lioncourt, once a great magician and now a great liche, had surprisingly left Magnus in charge of the undead horde in order to search an abandoned building by himself. Magnus was now on his way to a smaller building next to a large patch of forest in the middle of the valley, but even with all this backup around him, a feeling of unease started to add to the miserable chill he was feeling.
The normally eerie voices of the forest did nothing to daunt the beastmen this day - even the hounds had lapped up their fill, and even even having one of his Gors and he himself find a treasure each did not satiate the bloodlust that Ivan was now feeling. Unfortunately, there didn't look like there would be much blood split, for one a straggly-haired, rat-faced human looked like the only opponent that would spill any blood. Never mind, for the zombies and wights accompanying him would provide for some spirited gore-flinging.
A smile spread across Magnus's face as he held up the gold ring that he had found, but the smile slowly faded as he realised what he was looking at through the ring. "Company!" he yelled, as a warhound and Gor charged through the large burnt-out opening in the forest side of the building. His sword whipped out quickly to parry the Gor's clubs, while the zombie next to him engaged with the chaos hound.
Warned by Magnus's shout, Armand the grave guard and two zombies rushed to attack a couple of warhounds who were sprinting towards them from the forest. The power of the wight blade was then seen, as a warhound felt it's energy-sapping strength as was taken OOA. The other warhound, though against two zombies, managed to avoid injury and knocked down a zombie in retaliation.
A stalemate seemed to ensue and Magnus and the Gor traded hit for hit, but with neither managing to find a damaging blow, though the tables seemed to turn in Magnus's favour when the warhound was stunned by the zombie. A short-lived lull in the wind caused Magnus to cough, as the overwhelming stench of sweat, strong drink and other nasty (for humans anyway) odours quickly filled his nostrils in the confined space. Magnus was used to the smell of rotting flesh though, so he was not put off and kept up his defense without pause.
Outside, more join in the battle, though the slowness of the undead hinders their cause. A Gor knocks down a zombie which is then taken out by a warhound, while two other warhounds kill another zombie and knock down Armand. Gabrielle, once a famed local beauty but not a ghastly wight, is lucky enough to kill a Gor and Nicholas, another grave guard, knocks down a warhound, but this does little to stop the carnage as one of the warhounds kills Armand.
Inside, the tide has swung the other direction as the zombie takes out the warhound and Magnus stuns the Gor and manages to reanimate a zombie into the forest - the dark shapes watching on hadn't escaped his somewhat distracted notice.
Ivan snarled - his version of a smile - as a zombie appeared nearby. With a roar that ended in a growl, he charged in and knocked the zombie, but was soon sounding a roar of frustration as Rasputin took the zombie OOA. Ivan stared murderously at Rasputin, but Rasputin was not worried, for he knew how much Ivan needed him. He was under no disallusions however that if he had been anyone else his head would likely not still be attached.
Lestat did not at first pay much attention to the sounds carried on the wind, for he was distracted by the little trinket he had found. As he looked out the window to see a handful of beastmen rushing to the very building he was in, he quickly cast his spell of doom on a large bestigor, who dropped down stunned. Seeing that his warband was in trouble and he was likely to soon be standing alone against against multiple enemies, Lestat quickly called for a retreat.
"Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha" cackled Ursaltia as she clapped her hands and rocked back on her stool after the entertaining show. Now that the show was over, she slowly ambled over to the fireplace to stir the frogs-eye stew she was cooking for dinner. As the fire put some of the warmth back into her bones, she silently congratulated herself and decided that she would make sure a few more rumours were spread about - for her personal entertainment of course.
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