We return to not quite a Dream in Leng...

The ziggurat behind me was heaped with the dead. Tremble had snickered as he told me about how they were screaming in disbelief about how a hairless monkey could be killing like this, even as he howled and jabbered and mocked them ceaselessly right back.

Likewise, the plaza was carpeted in serpentfolk. We had killed thousands of them, a huge blow to whatever kind of population center this was. Serpentfolk didn’t reproduce quickly, so butchering so many of them was going to be harsh on the ole sustainability index. Pity, pity.

“Let’s go, Esco. Honor guard, draw up!” My sword and board company ran up, their magical Blades and Shields lighting up impressively, the hyn refugees warded between them. We lined up smartly, and headed back up the ziggurat.

Most of the corpses were burning away, and an easy kick exploded them into ashes. I could sense a lot of eyes on us, and Tremble informed me there were a lot of hissing curses being ladled down upon my head, which terrified me to the bone, truly.

Unobstructed, passing layer after layer of the ziggurat heaped with the dismembered corpses of the serpentfolk, we headed to the top one more time, and the way home.

They hadn’t tried to do something clever, like come up the opposite side of the ziggurat. Maybe the mounds of dead going vivic deterred them. Reaching the top, I walked right through the Vortex to the other side, and yeah, there were snakes gathered up at the far side of the plaza beyond and down over there, looking back up at me with whatever passed for hate in their slitted eyes… but they weren’t getting any closer.

My previous Interdiction had dissipated, so I just held my Null in tight as I walked back to the hynfolk, who had paused just at the top, staring at the Vortex.

“Go. There’s hard reality on the other side, probably where you came from. Without the Priest to control it, it should shut as soon as you are all gone. And I just might rip it apart, to make sure.” I winked at Esco. “I hear you won’t be going back home empty-handed.”

He flushed. The hyn had volunteered themselves for the vital duty of looting the dead to the skin, and if they got to knife a few who weren’t quite dead, well, cathartic release of stress and all that, we forgave them. Pretty much all the hyn were clutching bundles of gold, jade, and obsidian trinkets, and if some gemstones worked their way into the mix, I still didn’t care.

Esco solemnly stepped forward to take my hand. “I-I’ve never even dreamed of seeing a hero like you, Sage Sama,” he managed to blurt out, as awed and overcome as the rest of the hyn after seeing me slaughter so many serpentfolk so fast. You just don’t piss off someone who can take out an army solo, after all.

“Dream?” I cringed, and being a hyn, he got it instantly, and smiled despite it. “Alright, quit poking fun at me. Off with you. Make sure you either sell ALL of that shit, or preferably melt it down. You don’t want them using magic to track the stuff to get a lock on you again, right?” I looked over all of them, and they nodded quickly. “Good, then. Off with you, and don’t you ever dream of this place again!”

I made a shooing motion, and Esco turned, indicating that the nearest of them should step forward. His fellow hunters took deep breaths, and trotted forwards into the Vortex. The yellow mists swirled over them, and swallowed them up.

“Go! Time differentials, go go go!” I ordered, and the rest of the hyn fairly jumped, dashing forwards with all their might.

“Thanks again, Sage Samaaaaaaa-“ Esco began, and I grabbed and threw him after his fellows before any magical hijinks could separate him from the rest of them.

They all vanished, and I whipped out Tremble and Cut. The threads of magic holding open the dimensional breach shattered, and I Interdicted. The Veil slammed together like solid steel closing, the vivic burst as it did so making sure that there’d be no holes punched in the Veil here for a long, long time.

I looked around the top of the place, back at my men, who were staring at the place where the Vortex had swirled with strange expressions on their faces.

The hyn had escaped, but that was not their fate, and they knew it. If they took that Portal, they’d just fade into the mists of dream once more… except they probably wouldn’t come back at Renewal.

-We have won this day.- Thousands of inner eyes turned my way. -More than any fight, more than any slaughter, we WON today.- I surveyed them all, letting them know how much I approved of what they had done, what we had done. -We fought for a reason beyond the Curse that makes us do so. Hopefully, we have done something Good. We have saved those who needed to be saved, and delivered them home, at the same time we put our boots on the throat of a great and terrible Evil and let them know what we think of them.

-I have never been so proud of you.- Chests came out, heads went up, and eyes almost teared.

-Now, what are you all standing around for?! Loot these bastards clean!-

They roared out happily, and went scampering gleefully for plunder.

Dead, and real Karma. The Glory Award of delivering the hyn home and closing the Portal ghosted over my soul with some real decent numbers, that would surely be useful when actual reality came around.

I let the boys scoop up magic Staves and Armor and whatnot, while I walked over to the altar there, stained red by the blood of countless sacrifices. I put my monkey hands on the serpent-carved stone, and totally ignoring the wave of blood magic that tried to reduce my mammalian ass to ooze, heaved it off its foundation with a crack, and dragged it in a dead run for the edge of the landing.

Giant Power for the win!

I hurled it over the lip as hard and fast as I could, and it sailed out a good long way over the pyramid that dropped away at forty-five degrees beneath it. When it hit, it was loud, and stone went flying everywhere as it cracked, bounced, tumbled, hit again, and more shards went spinning away as it rolled and thundered its way down the steep incline.

Not all of it reached the bottom, because it broke into a good many parts before it got there, but I didn’t mind. The serpentfolk watching back there could only get so pissed, and if they thought I wasn’t going to desecrate this place, they were out of their gourds.

I considered fighting my way into the ziggurat and whatever warrens were beneath it all, but elected against it. If there was one way to kill me, it would be to have something this big and heavy fall on me, and I wasn’t sure how dying here at the borders of Leng would work.

-------

Bats, huh.

The serpentfolk had slunk away after some eerie, warbling horns had sounded in the distance, quickly overwhelmed by shriller, shrieking horns that sounded like wailing souls. In the distance, bats and pteranadon fliers skirmished, but the scalefolk broke off quickly under the superior numbers of the invaders.

Good intelligence and good organization to get here so quickly. Or had we been brought here at just the proper time, gutting them from behind the lines just as they were attacked?

I glanced back up at the ziggurat, where the Vortex had been placed.

A way out, that was no longer there. Whoever these new guys were, they weren’t going to be much happier with us than the serpentfolk.

I quirked a smile, and the lads laughed knowingly.

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Krovboynyar. ‘The Death of Flesh’, a race of negative-energy lifeforms with transparent flesh, the black blood of their veins visible through their bodies, wrapping around their phosphorescent skeletons. They had definite ties to the Lower Planes and daemon-kind, for all that they somehow called the mortal world home.

Definitely not a mortal race, with an evolutionary chain that led to great bat wings, horns, bone-spikes, three-inch canines, and all the good stuff. Those little glowing circles of iris-scanning orbs floating there in their eye-sockets were always a good conversational piece, too.

They didn’t try overflying us, because several bat riders had come crashing to the ground when they got too close to us. It was not too comfortable, what with the visibly broken bones and all.

They did come marching up all proud and arrogant-like, decent formations, traipsing into the plaza as if they owned it. Given how little fighting they’d had to do to get here, that was understandable.

Seeing a few thousand humans in a battle formation on the far side of the plaza probably had their commanders all puzzled and whatnot, but they were more concerned with the remnants of a very large fighting force scattered all over the place, and all the white spots that were creeping them out to look upon, extending all the way up the old basalt of the ziggurat like an ominous disease infecting the stone.

After the bats trying to act all cool ended up spiraling haplessly down out of the sky, they opted to just get into position around us, containing us nicely on the plaza with a fifty-yard safe zone, while an elite crew marched up the ziggurat to the top, plugging the main doors as they did so.

They didn’t seem too happy, as they came stepping back down, fangs chomping and trying to look even more intimidating in their spiked armor.

A big fellow in dire harness, with shoulder guards higher than his glowing skull and bony wings like an overarching cape behind him, rode out of the press on a big nightmare, holding his three-skulls banner high on his lance, waving it around a bit just to make sure I couldn’t help but notice the sign. He rode out into the safe zone as if he was invulnerable, calling out for someone to speak with.

Oh, this was going to be fun!