Stephen’s attack left the lake looking much as I imagined the Red Sea looked after Moses parted it. However, where Moses was granted the power from God, Stephen used his own power to release a rage and grief fueled beam of sun light straight into the center of the lake. It cut a shallow tunnel from the shoreline vaporizing all water in its path until it struck the massive shape of the Horror that had been sleeping in the murky depths.

Only the Horror’s silhouette was visible through the thick blanket of misty water vapor. We all watched, mouths agape, as the creature unfurled itself into a mass of waving tentacles. Then our view was occluded as the momentary surface tension holding back millions of gallons of water broke, collapsing the tunnel of mist Stephen had created.

I glanced back at the young man and noticed that his chest rose and fell in barely contained rage. His face was a rictus mask of hatred, his eyes were void of mercy. The fun-loving weird kid who’d joined me to chase down the worst inmates held at the nearby prison was, at a minimum, on an extended vacation, if not completely wiped out from the harrowing ordeal. He clenched and unclenched his fists while working his jaw as he contemplated what to do next.

The rarely used empathetic side of me wanted to reach out to him, the colder logical side knew now wasn’t the time. The big bad is coming, and its pissed!

“Holy shit! What the fuck is going on!?” Carly exclaimed as the once placid lake was churning from the sudden disruption. I thought there might be a touch of panic in her voice, but again, I held no time to address it.

“It comes.” Albert stated flatly as he slung my AK and removed my Heavy Plasma Machinegun from his inventory. He moved back slowly to the rear of our formation while Keeg stepped forward with a determined expression on his face.

Soon enough the already turbulent water began to bubble and splash as the creature emerged tentacle by tentacle. With the thing fully exposed I felt a slight shiver run down my spine. The Horror consisted of a large circular mouth filled with thousands of sharp pointy teeth that seemed to descend into the blackest depths of hell. Above the mouth were several lidless, bloodshot eyes that swiveled and twisted in every direction. The thing moved on at least a dozen thick tentacles, while the rest of its body consisted of dozens of regular sized tentacles that seemed to move as if they were independent parts of the whole.

It turned its many eyes on each of us before settling the majority on a seething Stephen. With a chosen target, a trio of long tentacles lashed out so fast I could barely track. Keeg’s sword flashed out to slice the elastic members to bits just as quickly. The creature flinched, then widened the gap of its maw, exposing the pointy teeth within so we could see them vibrate as it released a keening wail.

EEEEEEEeeeeeeeyyaaaaaaaaaaaaUUUUUUUGH!

The scream seemed to vibrate our very bones, leaving everyone at least a little shaken. We stared, momentarily stunned by the creature before all hell broke loose as my team finally found their senses and began to fight, myself included.

Dozens of tentacles lurched forward with alarming speed and agility. Ice, plasma, and blade returned the assault, barely keeping pace against the vile creature. We had slaughtered what seemed like hundreds of the offending tentacles, yet more came to replace their disgusting fellows.

“We keep destroying the tentacles, they keep coming!” Keeg practically grunted as he fought off a clutch of slapping tentacles.

“They’re fucking endless!” Carly huffed while drifting lightly away from another group of grasping tentacles, then immediately freezing them in the middle of their desperate reach. More spikes of ice lashed out from her position as more tentacle arms shot forward towards all of us.

There was no end to them, and there was no position that wasn’t covered by the damnably fast and strong wriggling appendages. The Horror was covered front to back with tentacles. Upon closer inspection I realized that as a tentacle would be injured, another would climb up from the water to take its place.

“It’s replacing its arms from the ones in the water! Carly! Freeze the fucking lake!” I hissed in realization.

She spared me a glance of confusion then her eyes focused on the same thing I was seeing, “Give me some cover! This will take a second!”

She floated backwards with her arms outstretched, seemingly grasping at the invisible currents of cold air around her. Like a maestro directing a symphony, tendrils of cold misty air began to condense into larger heavy clouds several dozen meters above us. She reached and tugged as she pulled in more energy and shaped the cloud to cover the entirety of the lake in front of us.

I glanced again to where Stephen had stood, finding him missing, along with what remained of Courtney’s corpse. I wasn’t given time to worry about the young man as half a dozen tentacles shot towards Carly as she worked her ritual. My plasma pistol snapped three times from my left hand before the axe held in my right became a blur of motion, hacking apart any offending members that made it too close.

A thin layer of ice began creeping forward from the shallowest water. The baby tenta-worms increased their pace to retreat from the encroaching cold. The Tentacled Horror doubled down its efforts to stop the young woman’s building attack by lashing out with over two dozen of its many elastic arms. We found ourselves hard pressed to defend Carly from the coming attack, so much so that Keeg interposed himself directly in front of the strongest grouping.

With a pained grunt he was sent tumbling backwards as we struggled against the monster's assault. Soon the sky opened up in a thick flurry of snowfall. The ice layer thickened and stretched as her spell neared completion, already the baby tenta-worms were finding themselves stuck in the quickly forming ice. Larger tenta-worms were crawling up from the rapidly freezing lake to attach themselves haphazardly to the main Horror’s body.

The Horror lashed out as her spell sped to completion when it suddenly collapsed into the water where it stood. A purplish glow enveloped the creature and lifted it quickly into the air and shoved it back into the deeper portion of the lake. I looked over my shoulder to see that Stephen had returned with a vengeance. Angry power radiated off of him as he sucked in more ambient mana to supercharge his spells much the way Carly had done the previous day.

Finally, the lake iced over completely with a loud crack. Stephen and Carly floated on powerful flows of mana, hanging silently in the air like superheroes while the rest of us stood waiting for the creatures return.

SnaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaPP!

The smooth layer of ice that blanketed the lake began to buckle and heave in a straight line towards us. After watching a line of jagged ice pop into being for a span of nearly fifty meters the creature exploded out of the lake in a thunderous crash.

The Horror was now missing many of its previously numerous tentacles, including the thick ones that made up its legs. Those were now stumps that refused to further detach from the main body, continuously leaking sickly grey-green fluids that froze as soon as they hit the frigid air. With its “legs” missing, the Horror now hovered several meters from the surface, looking more and more like a D&D Beholder.

The monster opened its mouth wider to let out another scream, teeth already vibrating, when a black beam of void energy punched into its waiting maw. The scream it intended died in its throat as the pressure from Stephen’s attack also ruptured several of its many eyes. The horror swayed in the air, but remained floating, its remaining eyes swiveling about in shock.

The monster slammed forward with a pair of heavy tentacles, sending a shockwave of ice and air out to slam into our position. Those of us on the ground were staggered, however Carly and Stephen lashed out immediately.

Carly unleashed a half dozen jagged spikes of ice, skewering the Horror’s arms to its bulbous body. Rather than release another [Void Beam], Stephen held out his hand to wrap the monster in an [Isolated Gravity Field]. The undamaged tentacles thrashed violently before they were pinned to the Horror’s body by the slowly constricting field of gravity.

Time slowed as Stephen held the creature aloft, trapped in his magical grip. Carly landed next to us and looked up at the young man with a slight hint of fear on her face. With a snarl forming on his lips, he brought his other hand up and began to slowly clench his fists.

The Horror squirmed for several seconds before the pressure became too great. Black energy flared from Stephen’s eyes and mouth as he struggled to crush the creature trapped in his spell. He moved closer to the creature; arms bowed out as if he were trying to squeeze a milk bottle with the lid still on. Its mouth worked in frustration as the half dozen remaining eyes spun wildly, searching for a way to escape.

Stephen’s hands suddenly came to a close with a shout, “DIE!”

The Tentacle Horror just as quickly stopped struggling, then was crushed completely. The spell held for a brief moment; the Horror’s pulped body hung in the air, reduced to a disgusting mix of grey flesh and pus-green fluids. A single bloodshot eye floated in the mixture, staring out at us as if the monster still held a shred of life.

Stephen limply dropped from the sky where Albert had already moved into position to catch the young and emotionally broken man. The spell holding the remains of the horror failed at the same time, releasing the sickly mixture to splash across the iced over lake where it froze on contact. The single remaining eye rolled to my feet like a morbid glass marble.

“Fuck.” Carly muttered to herself.

Keeg moved over to Albert and Stephen to begin administering what little healing ability he had. He had focused on his God’s vengeful aspect, therefore was a much more offensive oriented Paladin archetype. As for me, I simply stood amongst the growing snowstorm gathering my thoughts. Is this shit even worth it?

[Quest Chain updated! Sub Quest: The Horror of Fool Hollow Lake completed! All party members have earned 2.5 million XP, 250,000 UMC and one random loot item.]

Alyssa Nightraven, The First Challenger

Alyssa blinked at the notification she received after she claimed the Dilkon City Core. She had to dash into the burning City Hall to grab it, the memory of which left her with an involuntary grimace. Currently, she and her team waited for Tracy’s Raiders to assault the town in a bid to retake the core from her.Well, this is inconvenient.

You have claimed the Dilkon City Core in the name of SooHoo Military Outpost. Defenders are enroute to reclaim the Dilkon City Core. You must defeat them to gain full control of Dilkon City Core.

Alyssa spun on her heels to look out the window of the General Store building where her team currently waited for the Raiders’ first assault. From her vantage point on the second floor, she could see the townspeople scurrying for cover, shuttering windows, securing children who were too curious to know when real trouble was brewing, and bolting doors. The plumes of dust that she could see to the East were growing thicker and taller, reaching like lazy brown fingers into the sky. From Choox’il’s reports the same scene was taking place on the other side of the building as well.

Movement from an alley to her left caught her attention as something large and furry bolted across the street towards the side of the store they were hiding in. A moment later the noise of scuffling and a rough protesting voice could be heard as Feodr frog marched another errant beastman into the lobby.

“Stop fighting, we’re here to help.” He ordered while still holding the being’s arm behind its back. Getting a good look at the new arrival she determined him to be a kind of canid, though he remained mostly in his human-ish form.

“AAaagh! Who are you!? Please! Let me go! I...” the man protested in a hushed voice, eyes wide, darting in every direction at once.

The beaver woman came around from behind a shelf with eyes wide upon seeing one of her own kinsmen, “CAANAN! Calm yourself. These are friends. They are from the settlement that has provided Sanctuary to our Empress.”

His resistance slowly faded when he recognized the speaker as one of his own. Then he took a good look at Alyssa’s group and nodded his head in understanding. “M-my master, he said the Raiders are coming, you shouldn’t be here friends. They will kill you all.”

“We know, we have friends of our own on the way, they will not find us easy prey.” Feodr flashed the beastman a toothy smile. “On top of that, we fight beside a Challenger!”

Alyssa rolled her eyes and blushed. She shifted nervously as the Canaan’s eyes settled on her, then widened in reverence. She squashed her burgeoning discomfort and asked, “Where are the rest of your people here, do you know? I’d like to secure them before the Raiders arrive.”

“I- uh, we weren’t allowed to interact. I know there are many, I just don’t know where.” Canaan responded hesitantly.

The beaver woman jumped in, “He’s right, we weren’t allowed to interact at all. My people are spread across the town.”

Choox’il chose that moment to crush Alyssa’s hopes of protecting all of the beastmen, “They’re here, Challenger. Infiltrators are blending into the city as we speak.”

Alyssa dashed to a window and peaked through it, careful not to expose herself. A half dozen blurry shapes ducked between buildings and through alleys, only spotted due to her significant Perception. She watched as the rogue types worked their way down the road, believing they had gone unseen. As the figures continued their approach, Alyssa allowed the dark shadows inside the building to swallow her.

A moment later, the sound of quiet snarling, followed by a muffled scream indicated the first of the quasi-hidden scouts had overlooked Lulu hiding in one of the nearby alleys. Through their bond, Alyssa could sense a feeling of dismissive satisfaction as the giant coyote slipped back into the shadows to continue her hunt. A quick burst of images showed her at least two more of the Raiders were working their way into the General Store.

Two incoming, one is mine, one is climbing the South wall. She sent to her team who didn’t respond back.

She silently drifted through the shadows, homing in on the location of the first intruder. In the darkness of the building she almost missed his blurry shape. Fortunately, her [Shadow Walking] ability was pretty much absolute. Only those with the same meteoric perception of Karl or Choox’il could discern her position when cloaked in shadows.

This ability allowed her to sneak up on her attacker completely unseen, resulting in both her blades suddenly protruding out of the man’s chest, piercing straight through his back. He tried to suck in a breath only to choke on the copious amounts of blood that flooded his throat. She twisted her blades a quarter turn then yanked them back as the man struggled to turn his gaze on her shadowy form. He fell forward as his legs failed him and his lungs flooded with his own blood.

The crash of shelving from above indicated that Feodr and Brondwyn had been engaged. Alyssa moved to join the fight when another blur slipped through the front door in front of her. Guess the fight is still here.

This rogue stiffened as she approached from behind him. He spun around and thrust his spear toward her position. She allowed the spear to slip through her shadow form, leaving her untouched, stepping through the blurry man to appear on his opposite side with both falcata’s whistling through the air. The man’s shoulder and neck sprayed blood into the air as both his spear arm and head fell to the ground.

Another man fell to the ground outside one of the large storefront windows, riddled with arrows. A quick mental count in her head indicated that they had killed all of the stealth type attackers she had seen previously. That didn’t mean more weren’t on their way right now, of course.

A loud crash of thunder rang out just as she was beginning to relax her posture causing her to tense up again. “DON’T YOU BE TRYING TO SNEAK ABOUT, YO!” Dany yelled at the top of her lungs as a man tumbled out of a building opposite of their current position, the facing wall crumbling behind him as he fell smoking to the street below.

“A larger force is on the move, Challenger!” Choox’il reported from her position on the roof with Dany.

Alyssa raced to the top of the building with the other two women, “Where from?”

“Fucking everywhere.” Dany blurted out.

Alyssa looked around and saw a few thousand riders racing around the small city kicking up a whirlwind of Northern Arizona dust that obscured their view to anything beyond. She silently began chewing her lower lip as she considered their unfavorable situation. Ok, maybe I was a bit hasty.

“As Miss Dany has so eloquently detailed, they come from all sides. Eli and his forces are thirty minutes out.”

“This looks familiar. I like it!” Brodwyn grinned as he and his brother joined them atop the building. Choox’il spared them a dubious look, but readied her bow all the same as groups of riders broke off from the main formation and began to advance into the city.

“Fuck it, they have to come to us. You all know what to do.”