The pulsing cadence of sacrificial Gaian energy that was gushing forth from the construction of this herculean task of building a spiritual focal point on the face of the Mother, washed over Zas in waves. To say that even the air was tense, would have been the greatest understatement ever imagined to the philodox. Being as close to the area as he was actually began to make the Silent Strider nauseous as his insides shivered and quaked from the sheer overwhelming power being funneled to and through the wild countryside. It was then that Zas B'ul began his patrol, as standing still seemed impossible. He toured the full circumference of what he hoped would be a caern and made note of where each of his pack mates and the other defenders were positioned. Zas had also noted that the night had been relatively easy going-which was all the more unnerving to him.
Building a caern was supposed to be nearly impossible, yet for some reason it seemed as though the Wyrm did not intend to intervene. That was greatly troubling. Zas's uneasiness continued to grow as all around him, the eerie chanting and howls of the collected garou continued their bright but ethereal cacophony that resounded across the area.
His fears and worries finally relieved themselves in a torrent however, as the strange dark-green fires began to appear in the sky and there was movement that stirred in the ruins of the lost city. At last, the Wyrm had chosen to make it's first move. He watched as each of his pack-mates began their respective pursuits and scattered through the surrounding areas. He however, had a different task. Similar to their plans back in Nacogdoches in defending the Camino Real, the party had elected to divide and conquer, leaving a few behind to protect the ritualists and the heart of the caern itself as the rest took the fight to the enemy. The decision certainly had its risks, but there were not many options. The other higher ranking garou defenders felt that at least with this plan, the fight would be kept further away from the caern for a longer time period and once the battle weary garou were forced to fall back, they would have fully powered allies ready to hold back the tide of enemies that would be on their heels, as they tried to rapidly recover. The prodigals reasoning "Well, it worked once" did little to reassure the others.
Unfortunately, the plan did not work as well as it did in Nacogdoches, as the area surrounding the caern was much more difficult to protect and defend. It also didn't help matters that at some point fairly early on in the enemies’ assault, the defenders lost contact with one another due to the loud volume of noise coming from both the caern construction and the approaching enemy forces battle cries. Zas B'ul tried to reassure himself that what he had thought to be Zoe crying for help was merely the wyrm attempting to trick him into leaving his position, but had little success in doing so as he saw the vast numbers of approaching wyrm slaves and had little faith that the others would have been able to get to her if they even heard her cry at all. He chose rather than to dwell on his potential loss at this moment to retaliate in the best way he knew how.
The first few creatures that managed to get passed the prodigals who were on the offensive, were people...at some point. They had of course been wildly mutated and mutilated by the wyrm's corruption and deserved as quick a death as he could provide. He helped them accept their death by unleashing volleys of arrows at them which he had been wise enough to set up in key tactical locations that enabled him to both move and hit with speed and accuracy. Although with as many wyrm spawn as there were, he wasn't worried about accuracy, as just aiming forwards was guaranteeing a shot. He kept his pace up fairly well but elected to not use his Gaia given fury until he had to as Rends the Gar was not around to keep replenishing him.
This was to be a smart move as after the first wave of enemy troops were brought down, Shrike popped his head out of the umbra and howled to Zas for aid. Without a thought elsewise, Zas sidestepped. When he reached through to the other side, he was greeted by a dangerous sight. Directly in front of the two garou, stood a single lone spirit buffalo. The creature was without a doubt the cruelest looking monster he had ever seen. It had glowing red eyes, and horns that shined in the moonlight. It stood some 20 feet from the two werewolves, but towered over them menacingly from a height of 40 feet. It's legs were covered in some type of metal that left a trail of brown powder with each step, and it's spit caused cracks to begin to form in the umbral ground. The large creature scraped it's hooves on the ground in such a way that sent hispo formed Shrike to the ground cowering.
Zas glared at the beast in homid form and then without waiting for Shrike to recover, charged it. The animal glanced at the crazed Silent strider for a moment before taking off into a charge of its own. Zas waited until he was millimeters from the tips of the creatures horns before shifting into Crinos instantaneously and upper cutting the creatures exposed throat. The Buffalo stopped it's stride midway and toppled to the ground on its side. The creature landed so hard, that Zas was thrown to his knees and as he fell he landed on the hillside in front of the caern rather than umbral ground. The creature itself lay nearby. Shrike materialized a few seconds later atop the wyrm spirit and begin to tear at its spine. The creature, recovered from Zas's blow after several seconds albeit slowly, and attempted to charge headlong at the Silent strider again, but Shrike's bites caused it to change directions and jerk to the right suddenly in an attempt to toss off the Red talon metis.
Zas was just about to jump atop of the distracted buffalo spirit to finish the creature off, when from seemingly out of nowhere the philodox is railroaded and trampled by a set of cloven horse hooves from a terrified black steed fleeing the area. The Silent Strider is able to shrug off the damage from the beast, but is baffled by the sudden appearance of the animal. His bewilderment doesn't last long however, as his focus is drawn towards a more concerning threat.
30 yards in front of him moving in organized unison and marching in groups of ten towards him slowly was an army of silver saber-wielding cavalry, each with a horse of a different color. The trained force kept rigid and total control of both their mounts and themselves despite seeing Zas in his war form. The Philodox stood nearly dumbstruck. He had no idea a force this large had been so close to the area and certainly was surprised by the fact that he had not been able to even hear them. He also knew that there was no way he stood a chance against this many foes by himself. He howled out for reinforcement, but heard no answering calls. He was on his own.
The troops surged forwards in masse all poised to make the killing blow to the single Garou that was now all that stood between them and the defenseless ritualists creating the caern. Zas willed himself to action, and moved to meet the tide of soldiers by plunging into their midst. He tore into their center line, taking no breath and wasting no action. Every move he made was a calculated swipe. He clawed through the horse's saddle straps on both sides of him. Soldiers riding these horses fall off and collapse to the ground. The horses they were riding continue to move forwards regardless of them now being master less. Zas takes this into account and leaps atop the animals backs and begins ripping the other nearby enemy soldier from their saddles. Seeing that his actions do not seemed to have fazed the remaining troops, he activates a gift and the entire area for 100 feet in any direction becomes covered in a grey mist-like fog that is impassable and unable to be seen through. The troops then stop as they are unable to continue forward momentum. It is only then that Zas noticed that mere feet from the closest seated garou ritualist, is a lone figure with a raised hand about to take a swipe. Zas makes a leaping jump from the horses entrapped in the mist and lands directly behind the figure and grips with both Crinos claws a clawed hand that was inches from decapitating a defenseless garou stopping the attack.
Without a beat, the figure spins around and punches Zas in the jaw with a blow that sends him reeling. Zas recovers after a moment, but not before the figure is on him again striking and slashing at Zas's exposed throat. Zas realizes at this point, it’s a matter of life or death, and activates the fullness of his rage. He brings up his right arm to strike at the figure while at the same time kicking the man off of him and leaping to his feet. The man, who at this point had remained quiet and breathless, removed his hood to reveal an extremely pale face and a brightly colored vest. The man spoke with a foreign accent to Zas as he says, "I expected more from one of your kind. You fight like a child with a temper problem." Zas at this point notices that his clawed strike which had torn into the man's face, had started to heal.
Zas looked at the creature and said, "What sort of mad beast are you who so brazenly challenges my kind?"
The man looks back at him and with a bit of a yawn says, "The beast speaks! I'm surprised. That's an interestingly worded question, but I think the most simplest answer is, I am Brishen Chal Dorien. That should suffice the formalities."
Zas growls at him and sniffs at the man as he uses Scents the true form. His immediate response to the being in front of him is to surge forwards and try to rip him limb from limb as he screams "Vampire!"
Brishen deftly manages to avoid Zas's first swipe, but takes the full brunt of the following three that nearly result in him loosing his upper torso. He says back to Zas in a mocking tone, gesturing towards Zas's arms "You should be careful with those things...somebody might get hurt."
Brishen then swings a blow back to Zas and scores a deep gash down running down the full length of Zas's face crossing over his right eye and chuckles menacingly.
Zas howls out in pain but activates his gift to ignore the pain as he shifts into hispo and leaps at the vampire's neck snapping like a mad man hell bent on his own destruction. He had finally met one. He now had to kill this creature-no matter the cost. For Gaia, for his tribe, and for him...this creature had to die.
Brishen dove to the ground narrowly avoiding Zas's open snapping jaw, and manages to land another solid punch to the philodox's body, that causes Zas's right side of his rib cage to snap from the damage.
Zas ignores it, and wheels on the man, now out of rage and attempts to envelop the creature with his gift. Brishen however, is too quick and moves closer to the werewolf as he says, "Sorry, friend-it's just not your day..." and proceeds to slash a gaping wound across Zas's chest resulting in a spray of blood.
Zas without thinking immediately shifts into Glabro form and even though his rib cage isn't finished attempting to rebuild itself, and he is losing blood at a phenomenal rate, takes the Vampire in a moment of surprise and gripping him by the hair and yanking down pulls the vampire's head over his knee as he takes his free hand and grabs his tomahawk and says, "You will not be my death--weakling!" and scalps the long brown pointailed vampire clean.
Brishen wails in pain and fury and loses himself in frenzy as he turns to assault Zas's body. The Philodox turns to face the hits and says while being attacked, "You disgrace Gaia by walking on this ground. You leech off of the living. You will suffer your fate." Zas then activates his gift and punches the vampire in the chest which causes it to stumble backwards as a crater sized impression is now in the Vampires chest. Zas then ends his final assault by shifting his hand into a Crinos claw and cutting off the creatures head. Looking up as he does so, he also notices that the entire army of cavalry men and horses seems to vanish into nothingness.
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The prodigals eventually find one another back in front of the caern facing the town of Perdido. Rends the Gar, Hears the Song, and Mocks the night making their way up the hill slowly-fighting off a horde of weaver spider's that seemed to never have an end as Hears the Song is regaining her footing from the poison while at the same time Leper Friend comes bounding up from a different direction entirely and is followed closely by Face-in-the-Dirt who in turn is being pursued by an amassed collection of banes and corrupted evils that they'd somehow managed to piss off so badly that the gather forms of evil aren't even heading for the caern but for them instead. Zas B'ul-who'd had managed to hold off the vanguard forces of the Wyrm thus far but only just, was more than pleased to see each of his pack mates still alive and coming to his aid, even if they were bringing their own troubles with them. Shrike and Ear-Killer had also been forced to fall back from their own escapades, but no one seemed to have heard from Raises-all-Hell.
The gather Caern defenders decide to keep their forces in concentrated groups in order to hold off the approaching enemy forces, and set out into two groupings. They form a bottleneck in front of the steep hill using the rocky outcrop as a wall and the steep drop off as sides as the wyrm and weaver spawn attempt to plow past them and into the caern. The collected army of evil slams into the two groups like an charging team of horses carrying a heavily loaded wagon full of iron resulting in the parties to actually slide back several feet. However, Rends shouted out orders to brace the group as Ear killer did the same. The parties held their ground. Zas then suggested the garou each take turns bearing the assault and move in a spinning circle in hispo form to snap and bite at the foes as they approach similar to a hurricane. Both groups try out the strategy and it works extremely well initially but it wears down the defenders over time as there are just too many creatures out and about.
Kefka then attempts to taunt several of the beasts to draw attention to his group in an effort for the other group to try and regain lost ground as they had started to falter. He does this in one of the most audacious displays imaginable-stepping outside his group for a moment, stripping down to his bare skin and giving the approaching evil masses a full view of his butt. The strategy works, and the other group manages to get a bit of a reprieve as they resituate themselves, however Kefka's group suffers the full brunt of the martialed enemy might in exchange, and a single bane spirit managed to nibble a little onto the Ragabash’s left cheek which did not feel very pleasant .
Zoe's rifle came to be a saving grace as well as she started taking aimed shots into enemy weak points and managed to bring down some of the larger foes from concentrated fire that resulted in the larger foes collapsing onto the smaller foes and crushing them. She also was able to hold several of the bane spirit's in place using one of her gifts, just long enough for Rends to smash it down to the ground with his club. Eaton ended up frenzying from the damage he sustained as he had suffered some more serious wounds early on in the battle but when he frenzied, he managed to cut a large hole in the right flank of the enemy forces, which allowed time for Rends and his group to recover however briefly and lead an counter charge deep into the fray-his war club and Crinos claws never failing to law low any that approached.
All in all the two groups managed to stem the waves of wyrm forces for about an hour, before the weaver spirits began to recede back down into the town and the Wyrm spawn began to slowly siphon themselves down to nothing. As the enemy numbers began to thin, the two groups broke up into hunting parties of two garou a piece. Rends and Shrike worked to chase off the few lingering larger foes who thought they still had a part to play. Zoe and Eaton ended up finding a badly hurt Raises-All-Hell in some nearby underbrush, as Zas and Kefka created some unorthodox strategies of their own to take down single foes that involved sideways attacks from opposing directions. The defenders of the caern had been successful and had held the enemy forces from assaulting the Caern....or so they thought.
Sounds of scurrying feet and shrieks of evil joy emanated from the edge of the other side of the Caern as a large untouched, innumerable force of Payaya braves closed in. These new foes teamed with banes and pain spirits, some mounted on horseback but a scattered few were riding heavily mutated buffalo mockeries. The defenders of the Caern rushed to the opposing side of the area to face the new threat as quick as their legs would carry them when they began to notice the size of the force, their wounds however were already beginning to heavily effect their movement and speed. The wyrm’s army poured down over the rocky face to destroy these few targets who now stood in their path. The two forces rammed into one another in a clash and a sea of black and red blood began to form as the two sides collided. The defenders held their footing initially but began to get overrun, having to fall back closer and closer to the caern. Shrike was the first to be affected. He fell back to the edge of the outer ring of Garou in the caern and seemed to grow in size and ferocity as nothing managed to escape his reach or his bite. Ear killer, for her part leapt into the fray and lost herself to frenzy-never to be seen again. Raises-All-Hell and Dirt did as best they could to watch each other's sides, but were forced to fall back to the caern's outer ring of ritualists, where they too became twice as dangerous and deadly to any who approached, as all Rat's children do when cornered. They too grew tired quickly from the overwhelming numbers and never ending strength of their foes. The prodigals however, adopted their own form of defense. They grouped up into a tower formation wherein Rends remained in an armored troll skinned Crinos form complete with razor sharp claws and everyone else shifted into their wild and feral hispo form. With Rends at the center, and the rest of the pack having their flanks facing Rend's legs, the pack was a force to be reckoned with.
Eaton summoned forth the swarm as the pack formed their ring of defense. Mocks the night clapped his hands once sending a great majority of the foes to the ground for a few moments, just long enough for Zoe to heal some of the pack and allowing Zas to summon forth the coil like tentacles once more to hold off as many of the forces as they could from reaching the caern or themselves. Rends readied his club and as the others huddled around his feet, he looked up to see the sea of foes surging towards him and grimaced for he knew the odds were certainly not in his favor. All the pack could hope for was to take out as many as they could before they fall.
The wyrm corrupted natives smashed into the groups tower formation, but failed to shake the prodigals apart. They were here to stay, and so was this caern if they had any say in the matter. Rends's wide arm reach due to his war form coupled with his war club gave him long arcs to wield his deadly weapons as he defended the pack's sides and rear, which only further fueled his pack mates rage below him who protected the ahroun's legs and torso. It was a dangerous combination and one that caused countless numbers of the wyrm’s servants to fall.
Time continued to drag on however, and the beleaguered garou defenders knew that unless there was some miracle, they stood to lose the caern as soon it would likely only be the prodigals defending it. The enemy forces began to eventually overcome the tower by attacking in timed attacks. Raises all Hell and Dirt were buried beneath a pile of natives, and Shrike was doing all he could to not collapse from the grievous numbers of injuries he had sustained.
The defenders were undone by the wrym's forces. They had fought long, and they had fought smart, as well as hard. The enemy just was too great. They would not go quietly however, and though it was likely to be fruitless, Eaton howled out a cry for help up to Luna’s face which was stained with blood.
Much to his and everyone else’s surprise-he received an immediate answer, in the form of a loud and powerful unified cry of rage filled fury coming from directly in front of him. The leading most loudest howl was none other than Roaring Jack. The Get had returned.
The Wyrm filled native forces turned to face the new threat for just a moment, before then trying to flee as fast as they could for the Get had come in great number and were all filled with unsatisfied bloodlust. All that could be seen by the prodigals initially was the horrific sight of a gigantic and towering Blood covered Wolf that with every step turned the native warriors to putty and sent Bane spirits into a panic. Roaring Jack’s horde bolted across the open rocky outcropping with lightning speed and tore into the Wyrm’s forces like a can opener. The gather natives turned to try and run down the hill towards the Lost city, but were overwhelmed by a late arrival of even more Get packs who were more than eager to rip the natives and wyrm spirits to shreds.
The Get of Fenris had saved the Caern, and all the bloodied defenders-shrike included, were invigorated by their sudden appearance. This new force quickly turned the tide of the battle and allowed the few able bodied defenders to go on the offensive once more, and eventually be able to claim the success of having aided in the creation of the new Burned Rock caern.
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