strangetrip | Inn-world Combat: The Dread Reign

At the crest of the mountain, Coc'zac sat atop Nazu's head looking through a glass that Hotor held to his eye. Vokva sat beside them, little more than a pile of bones atop a pile of rocks, and Hafur paced behind them, holding the troops in check. They milled in the pre-dawn gloom, skeletons, wights, zombies, wraiths, and all manner of undead creatures. Periodically, Nazu swept the space behind them with their tail bowling over anyone who'd gotten too close.

The first pinpoint of light had Coc'zac's teeth chattering with excitement in his disembodied head. Today was the day he'd been planning for. Soon, soon the Inn and its occupants would be his. Nazu unleashed a heavy sigh tinged with poison and necrosis. Fortunately the troops were all dead already, and Coc'zac didn't have anything in the way of arms to hit them with.

It fell to Hafur to gesture the troops forward as punctuation to Coc'zac's 'rousing' speech, and together they crept through the portal, avoiding its fizzing and popping edges demarcated in what would be neon blue, if they could still see in color. They couldn't properly hear either, but they were aware of the noise and the danger it marked.

Once they were all through, the advance scouts, four bands of skeleton archers swept quietly as they could through the shadows to take up position around the main buildings, prepared to pick off anyone who exited--for example for a pre-sun jog. And once they'd settled into wary, silent waiting, occasionally interrupted by the pop of a joint or the clatter of toe bones on stone, the next wave rolled in finding shadows to hide in until the residents emerged with the wights taking point.The bone naga and three flameskulls slipped through the lobby doors and stealthed toward the offices, assuming to find the command center there.

It wasn't long before the invaders caught the notice of the residents, and then shouts began to echo through the grey light and journals filled with messages and reminders of siege plans. Several strongly worded messages urged the kids and those without weapons or fighting skills to head for the Temple where the Hallow spell would protect them from unholy undead things.

And so the battle for the Madonna Inn began...

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Vovka was turning around, looking as if it were trying to flee.

Mary was not about to let that happen. Mary switched her aim for the head, having to reload again. She didn't have a lot of bullets left.

Dean had to like Xavin's style using its own limb against it. If he was closer he might have joined him. Instead, he moved to help cut off the son of a bitch's exit and fired one last round toward its knee joint.

Sam kept firing off psychokinetic blasts, but he also sought out Dean's attention and jerked his head in the direction that the creature was trying to retreat. He lifted a brow in question, Let it go so we can see where it came from?

And then tried to quietly speak the same question to Xavin when next they came Sam's direction. Dean would have to relay the message to Mom.

Xavin wanted to kill the thing. He really did, if only because they'd already made such progress in actually doing that. But he had to admit: not killing was almost always better, and Sam made an excellent point.

The creatures had come to the Inn from somewhere. If they were not stopped at their source, they could come again. And again and again.

He threw the arm he'd been using to beat on the bone creature and moved away just far enough to switch powersets one more time and take to the air (not too high up, more like take to the hover) wreathed in the Human Torch's flames. Fire was likely not an effective tactic against the bone creature, but perhaps it would be fearful of the heat or sudden light.

Dean knew that even though their mom had been around Sam for a while she probably hadn't got up to speed on Sam's different looks when they were hunting. This was one that was very familiar to him so he picked up his pace to get closer to Mary. Plus it was an added bonus that he could see for himself how she was since he was an old hand at fighting through his own pain.

"That lifted brow, if you can see if through Sam's shaggy hair..." Dean smirked because he would never let a chance to jerk Sam's chain about his hair go by. "means let's let the thing go so we can follow it back to its lair, den or whatever place it came out of. Sound good?"

Mary looked briefly at Dean, then back to Sam and gave a nod - she only had four bullets left anyways and would need to use them when it counted anyways.

Vovka took this moment that she assumed was confusion from her scream. She backed up a few paces and then turned and started to sprint at her full speed into the desert towards the mountain.

Xavin flew a few feet higher to ensure very little heat reached the ground, then took off after the bone creature, pursuing it at an easy distance. He could fly more than fast enough to keep up, after all.

Fortunately, without its arms for balance and with many of its joints splintered, the creature couldn't move terribly fast even at a full out run. Still, Sam was grateful he'd been running to stay in shape; it made it easy to fall into a long, ground-covering lope and occasionally direct a force blast at the bone creature to make sure it kept running instead of turning around to fight.

It seemed to be heading up the mountain. Interesting. There was always something that pinged his instincts at the top of the mountain. And he knew he was totally not alone in that.

Of course it was the mountain. Dean huffed a breath in frustration. Why didn't bad guys every have their den or lair somewhere convenient? He took his cue from Sam and shifted where he was going to run to make sure bone thing didn't turn back around to the inn before they figured out where these things came from.

And more importantly how to get the hell out of here since they seemed to have a door.

With all of them running after Vovka, including the woman who was keeping pace with her boys easily, Vovka knew she was in trouble. The armless monster climbed the mountain like she had been this way before. At a summit, she moved to a clearing in the middle. She turned, and then turned again, as if searching for something.

Vovka let out a loud, frustrated cry into the sky.

"Let's retreat and see what happens," Sam suggested to the others when they came together at the edges of the clearing. If there was some kind of door or passphrase, the creature wasn't going to use it with them practically on top of it.

And if there wasn't and nothing came for it, no reinforcements, they could try to negotiate (if it could even speak), or put it down.

Inn-world Combat: The Dread Reign

Re: Vovka - Boss Fight

Re: Vovka - Boss Fight

Re: Vovka - Boss Fight

Re: Vovka - Boss Fight

Re: Vovka - Boss Fight

Re: Vovka - Boss Fight

Re: Vovka - Boss Fight

Re: Vovka - Boss Fight

Re: Vovka - Boss Fight

Re: Vovka - Boss Fight

Re: Vovka - Boss Fight