Battle Commences

	Viri peered at them.  They were sequential, she realized, and depicted the passage of time.  In the first few, it was the Lady and a few others, dressed like adventurers, posing dramatically or laughing in joy as they accomplished quests and accumulated wealth.  The next few were the same people, older now, save the Lady, who looked the same age, defending the walls of a huge, graceful tower that seemed to be a part of the trees all around it.  Not this tower, Viri realized.

	The next was the same group of people, a mixed bunch, kneeling with their eyes shut on a sandy beach somewhere with beautiful, rolling green hills behind them, and their faces turned to the sea.

	The next was the same group, plus a pair of people with horns and tails, on the deck of a big ship, sailing over choppy waters and clashing blades with pirates.  The Lady looked different, though.  Before she had been as emotional as every other person in the beautiful paintings.  In this one, she looked flat and unemotional, even as she fought a skeleton pirate with a great staff.

	She looked the same in all the others, except the very last one, which was her and the horned people and a dwarf, looking sadly over a peaceful forest grove, with an image of a bow and arrows drawn over the sky.

	Was it the Lady’s life?  Viri didn’t know.  She looked around and saw another ladder, and she climbed that one, too, all thoughts of propriety or fear forgotten from her innocent mind.

	She emerged in what had to be a shrine of some kind.  The stone was bare, save a large sandbox in the middle with letters in the elf language drawn in the sand with a little hook.  The walls had cream-colored paint on them, in the shape of misty clouds or fog.  Viri looked around nervously, but there was nothing else there save a ladder to the other floors.

	Viri peered at the sandbox, but it had no obvious meaning to her.  She noted a faint divot on the manicured surface.  Maybe that was where the Lady sat?

	On a whim, Viri walked to the edge of the box and bowed over it, and to her surprise, she felt the breeze from the magic stone walls halt.  She looked around nervously, but there was still nobody else there.

	Viri gingerly climbed into the box and sat on the edge, resting her hooves in the sand.  It was unaccountably calming, actually.  She closed her eyes and imagined that she was sitting on a sandy beach, waiting for the sun to burn the fog away so she could dance with her flock to the beat of the waves.  It made her smile.

	Maybe this was why the Lady became a monk, Viri thought to herself.  Maybe she could feel like this whenever she wanted.  She gingerly lowered herself into the sand and sat down properly, looking around.  Still no changes.

	Then, she started as the hook started moving.  She watched as it drew a tiny symbol on the sand beside her, and she looked around for any source of its motion, but there was none.

	“I, uh… I can’t write,” she said to the air.

	Nothing happened.

	She sat there awkwardly, but nothing changed.  She rose and dusted off her furry legs and bottom, wondering belatedly if wandering around in the home of a mighty adventurer was wise, when the hook started moving again.  She watched nervously as it made a new glyph on the sand, and this one seemed vaguely familiar.  She leaned over it and squinted, and the sense of familiarity grew.

	She would never know why, but Viri reached down to touch it, and when she did, a feeling of peace and calm flooded her mind.  She closed her eyes and listened to it, basked in it.  “Oooh… that’s nice,” she said to herself.  “Hmm.”  She lifted her hand and made for the ladder.  “I shouldn’t be here,” she said to herself.


	Linus roared a curse in Celestial as he cleaved and slashed from the back of his mount.  Noble was tearing around the clearing at maximum speed, well above the reach of the satyrs.  They were throwing things at him, but they just bounced off his armor or from Noble’s muscled flanks.  He slashed with his mighty sword, and the chains and ropes holding the gibbets up snapped to fall on the clearing below.

	Gillint hurled a ball of black flame up at Linus, who deflected it with his marvelous clockwork shield.  The Paladin slashed laterally once, twice, thrice, and three more gibbets dropped to the ground below and shattered.  Satyrs ran to and fro, avoiding the impacts.  One didn’t, and collapsed under the impact.

	The Dance Lord snarled and drew back his claws.  He projected a wave of shimmering black energy from them when he brought them together.  Linus rolled in the saddle and fell from Noble, who howled an equine howl and disappeared back to Mount Celestia.  Linus fell, his cloak billowing behind him and sword raised high, and landed like a comet on one hapless satyr.  The satyr all but liquefied as Linus crushed him, then Linus immediately rolled aside to dodge another wave of black fire.

	Slicce sprang from her cover to tackle the Paladin before he could close with her lord.  Linus saw the swell of her pregnant belly and his eyes widened.  He drew back his shield and crashed it down on her shoulder, dropping her to the ground with a screech of pain and a horrible crunch.  To Linus’ shock, however, she came right back up, making a fist with her working hand.  Linus felt his throat close, and he realized with a pulse of awareness and astonishment that she was using magic to seal his windpipe.  He lashed out with his sword and took her head clean off, and his throat opened again.

	He gasped for air once, then a wave of lesser satyrs crashed against him.  Deprived of his height and mobility advantage, he was an easy target.  Hammering claws and hooves rang against his armor as the Abyss-tainted fey tried to pull it off of him.

	Linus swept the sword at waist height and fed some of his divine power into the swing.  One satyr all but disintegrated with a shriek as Linus cut him in half.  The next blocked the blow and flung it aside, though Linus was able to keep his grip.  The one who had caught the blade punched Linus in the forehead, driving the prong of his helm down over his eyes.

	If he had been hoping that had blinded Linus, however, he was mistaken.  Linus simply thrust his knee forward into the spot he had seen the satyr filling and felt something soft give way under the blow.  The satyr gasped in agony as the armored kneestrike pulped his genitals, and Linus thrust the edge of his shield at the sound, shattering his skull.

	“Back, slaves of Yeenoghu!” Linus roared.  He suddenly ducked as low as his armor and back would let him and heard a set of claws whip over his head, and he used the instant’s clarity to adjust his helm.  He twisted aside to avoid the inevitable kick that would follow such a gesture, and a hoof bounced harmlessly off his backplate.

	Gillint grinned as his subordinates restrained the Paladin’s movements.  He took one long step forward when a force like a stone from a catapult slammed into his back.  Gillint staggered and swung around.  There stood a barefoot elf woman, advanced in age but still beautiful, with strange silver lights in her eyes.  She had a strange robe on and a simple staff in her hands.

	A monk?  A priestess?  Either way, a snack for later.  The Dance Lord grinned with his great fanged maw.  “Ah, and so the thug produces an aide to-”

	The staff caught him square in the throat, and he gagged.  He staggered again, raising one claw to fend off more blows, but inside he felt stunned.  He hadn’t even seen it move.

	Then all he could see was movement.  The woman was a blur, even to his empowered eyes.  He stared in astonishment as she seemed to suddenly be in three places at once, not from moving quickly, but by projecting some kind of afterimage.  The blows she was landing on him were quite real, however, and he felt them through his demonic protection.

	Gillint lashed out with his flame-shrouded claws, raking lines across the woman’s chest.  She vanished in his hand and delivered a brutal smack to his forehead that sent him reeling.  Three more blows next, lightning-quick, to his solar plexus, one after the other, bam bam bam.  He swept one muscular arm aside and finally felt it connect, and the woman somersaulted backward.  He saw her land twenty feet away and disinterestedly put out the flames that licked at her clothes.

	The Dance Lord chuckled deeply.  “A fine whore for the holy man, but now you are in the Dance Lord’s court,” he proclaimed.  “You should go run while you still can, or I’ll chase you down for my tempt’s sport.”

	The woman whipped three darts out from under her robe and hurtled them, so quickly that her arm seemed a blur.  Gillint felt them prick his chest and looked down, then looked back at her with a raised eyebrow.  “Really?” he asked drily.

	She snapped her fingers and they exploded, scattering boiling-hot water over his body.  He roared in sudden pain as the holy water burned him.  “Fine, you elven bitch, I’ll deal with you in the Dance Lord’s style,” he said as soon as he had wiped the water away.  It drew steam from the tainted earth.  He threw his arms wide and he glared at her in lustful fury.  “Your soul to drink, your flesh defile, I’ll sow my seed in elf flesh fertile,” he sang, and the air rang heavy with the magic of his music.

	Linus gasped in horror as he felt the wave of magic music slam into his mind.  Heedless of the grasping claws pulling at his armor, he slapped his hand on his holy symbol, and invoked Protection from Good and Evil.  It had done nothing when the satyr had played before, but he hadn’t been tainted by the Abyss then.