Domr

Ch. 3.49

49.

“RUN!” Santi screamed as he leapt forward, morph stretching out into a shield as Mercy walked through the ruins of the wall. Chad rose to meet her, stringing together arrow after arrow, skills glowing as they launched at her from only feet away. The woman rolled her wrist and a torrent of blood flowed around her, spinning like a whirlpool, catching the arrows and drowning them.

In the space between Chad’s prodigious fire rate, Mercy lashed out...

Bloodsworn Bk. 2 Ch. 3

3.

The palace was solemn, a heavy weight draped across it as slowly a set of pipes wailed a death dirge. The death of the capital, of their world, the fall of an Empire. It stretched out, haunting the halls, the courtyards, and even in the throne room where generations of Emperors had sat. 

Erak straightened, the dark of the dawn brightening as the sun began its ascent. His armor gleamed, polished and hammered free of dents, and he had the oversize...

Bk 3 Ch. 48

48.

The cursed warriors swarmed over the wall and into Yessi’s first trap. With her current power and skills she didn’t have the pure power to simply eradicate the cursed inside of her spell circles. Santi and Yessi had put their heads together to figure out the best way to lay a large scale trap to kill as many as possible as efficiently as possible.

Best way to do it, they had agreed, was to use the cursed warriors' own energy against them. Simila...

Bloodsworn Ch. 2.02

2.

Even with the invasion ongoing the palace had a sense of opulence that staggered Erak. Marble and endangered hardwoods, gold and silver trim and ancient antiques filling every corner. The wounded and dead lining the halls were a stark contrast. The scent of burnt flesh and blood filling every hall. 

Medics and non-combatants were prepping them to be moved, stacking people on to litters and changing bandages before the final fli...

Bloodsworn Ch 2.01

1.

“Erak, are you clothed?” Queen Victoria’s voice called out through the wooden door. Erak rapped his knuckles out twice on a wide, darkly stained dresser. The reverberations rang out and covered the sound of the door being opened as Victoria walked in, Lady Torpin only two steps behind her. 

The room they had found him was a diplomat's suite, long since abandoned. A wide bed that looked much too soft with diaphanous peach curtains. Furnitur...

Bk 3 Ch. 47

47.

“Buy me a few minutes, Santi. I’ll get everyone stabilized as soon as I can and back to the wall,” Tank said as he split off from the main group. Santi grunted and headed toward the wall as the rest of his friends and family fanned out behind him. The walls had been hastily made but the skill of the dwarves was on display as the construct was sturdy, thick, and had good fighting platforms to stand on top. 

Chad and his hunters were spaced...

Bloodsworn Ch. 65

65.

Erak moved, bursting free of the ruins of the estate and crashing into the turned backs of the horde of demons. His dragonbone blade slashed horizontally at waist level and three demons were bisected from the singular blow. His shield was tight to his body and he ran without thought as yells from Sammus and the rest of his squad rang out behind him.

Erak had eyes only for that figure on the wall. It had paused, sword in the air as its head locked fi...

Bk 3. Ch. 46

46.

Santiago V. Silva

Level 52 Air Mage

Strength: 40 (75)

Durability: 40 (75)

Stamina: 40 (75)

Vitality: 40 (75) 

Perception: 40 (75)

Intelligence: 126 (161)

Mana: 170 (205) 

Willpower: 138 ( 173) 

The jacke...

Bloodsworn Ch. 64

64.

The streets were silent. The crackle of flames and the cracking of stone and wood distant as further parts of the city still burned. The route to the Eastern Wing of the palace was clear of any of the hellspawn or the armies that had been so fiercely waging war just hours ago. The collapse of the portal had sent shockwaves through the invaders as they fled to the darkest parts of the city. 

Erak knew it didn’t matter. The city was lost. The f...

Bk. 3 Ch. 45

45.

Santi hit the still steaming hot trunk with both feet, his overhead strike blowing apart the charcoal-like exterior of the dryad like a bomb. Burning cinders and blackened wood burst apart in a spray and Santi hung there as the axe blade bit into the toughened trunk. He ripped and pushed off, tearing apart a chunk of the main trunk as he flew backward just as the dryad’s arms struck hard. 

The force of the blow did even more damage as Santi w...

Bloodsworn Ch. 63

63.

Erak Bloodsworn lvl. 23

Strength: 60

Vigor: 35

Durability: 35

Perception: 22

Processing: 21 

“That’s not right!?” Pomp’s voice shrilled in Erak’s ear as he entered the cathedral again. The Priest looked up at the duo and rose from the pew he had been sitting on, striding across the desecrated s...

Bk 3 Ch. 44

44.

“Right on time,” Santi whispered to Yessenia as they watched the squad of Duncan’s fighters racing through the edges of the town, a horde of cursed warriors behind them. It was like watching hares running from rabid dogs. The vanguard of Mercy’s horde were nearly frothing at the mouth as they ran with reckless abandon toward the ambush.

“Alright, time for you and your golem to go hide,” Santi said as he turned toward the dozens of people...

Bloodsworn Ch. 62

62.

Erak watched with bated breath as the prow of the Sword of Empire lit with crimson energy. The lance of energy raced across the sky in the blink of an eye and slammed into the guardian above Erak’s head. Heat crushed him,driving him to his knees as the world burned red for long seconds. 

A clarion scream broke out and black-gold blood splashed down upon the scorched earth, buckets of it splashing about to sink into the scoured ground. The Swo...

Bloodsworn ch. 61

61.

The tank boiled away, evaporating in a burst of heat as Erak was forced to use his Invincibility to stop himself from being baked as the blast of heat lifted him off his feet and threw him backward and into the Iron Cathedral. His hearing disappeared, the thunderclap ringing his ears as the darkness of the cathedral welcomed him. He bounced hard, skipping across the polished stone like a pebble on water. 

Erak slammed into...

Bk. 3 Ch. 43

43.

Mature Dryad lvl. 68 

Dormant

“You sure about this Santi?” Yessenia asked as she worked efficiently at the base of the Dryad’s tree. She drove spikes of steel into the roots with a wooden mallet, hammering away while keeping a fearful eye up on the massive monster. 

“Uhhh…it should,” Santi said. He was focused on the level of detail needed in drawing the lines of chalk on...

Bk 3 Ch. 42

42.

“I thought this was going to be that other dude’s job?” Delilah whispered next to him. The rest of her team was scattered about with Hana on his other side. The five of them had moved quickly, following the terrain of the rolling hills until they were in position to watch as the leading edges of Mercy’s following came pouring out of the mountains.

“It is. But we don’t trust him. I need to know the true numbers,” Santi said as he looked...

Bk. 3 Ch. 41

41.

“Those aren’t beetles, Daniel,” Santi said, turning to stare at his scout. The other man shrugged as they stood on a small hill looking down to the gulley. It had taken them almost three hours to find the nest and now that they were looking at it, Santi was reconsidering some of his earlier thoughts.

“They’re bugs. Right?” 

“Why do you sound unsure if they’re bugs? Of course they’re fucking bugs. It’s just that they’...

Bloodsworn Ch. 60

60.

Heads had been mounted on spikes and they ringed the Iron Cathedral’s walls. Hundreds of slack faces, dirt and blood staining them as their vacant eyes peered out into the world unseeing. Erak recognized the Deathsworn, a cluster of larger heads in the middle, closest to the doors. Under their heads a creature sat on a mount of tough leather and bat wings that draped across the stairs leading into the cathedral like a carpet. 

The figure was ...

Bloodsworn Ch. 59

59.

The powerful treads of the tank turned broken stone to gravel as the tank lurched down the street. Erak stood tall on the back, his shield protecting Del as the man shouted down into the tank as waves of demons broke upon the war machine. It was not only stone that was crushed under the treads, but demon flesh and bone, turned to mulch by the progress of the march. 

It had taken only moments from them leaving the false safety of the broken walls of...

Bk. 3 Ch. 40

40.

Naomi looked around the wreckage of the small town and whistled. Whatever had hit this place had hit it hard. There was almost nothing left standing in some neighborhoods, everything torn apart to the foundation. Some buildings had lasted here or there, solitary homes that had missed the razing. 

Alan didn’t even look at them as he walked down a street of crushed cars, broken homes, and skeletons. His eyes were fixed on the cluster of houses ...

Bk. 3 Ch. 39

39.

Santi stared down at the lines that everyone had worked so hard to build over the last day. Chalk outline with an adhesive laid down that held salt in place, all of in combining to form one of the largest groundwork spells he had ever witnessed.

The complexity of the regression spell had admittedly been far more superior, but the sheer size of this one dwarfed what the Apostates had managed to accomplish. It spread across an entire town, from the ne...

Bloodsworn Ch. 58

58.

“It’d be easier if you had someone helping you,” Sammus said from the bed. The indulgent prince had flopped on the bed after finding a pouch of salted peanuts that Erak had squirreled away. Erak shot him a pointed look as he put more armor on. Now that it wasn’t smeared in blood and guts, Erak could see the damage it had accumulated throughout the days. 

The enamel that had coated it was nothing more than chips left here and there. Smal...

Bloodsworn ch. 57

57.

Erak spent the hours sleeping, eating, resting, and then finally being summoned back to the bridge by a runner. They had found him a small officer’s cabin that he had promptly taken over and for the first time in days he had taken the heavy armor off. His weapons were stacked neatly to the side and his armor was cleaned vigorously, the water in the basic growing black with every pass of the rag. It wasn’t the proper way to care for armor, but it was t...

Bk. 3 Ch. 38

38.

“You alive?” Cameron asked, leaning over Santi and blocking out his view of the warm sun above. Santi grunted as he squinted at his overly large friend and the large shadow he cast. Cameron was nothing more than a silhouette against the sun and even then, Santi could see the mocking smile he was wearing.

“Yeah,” Santi choked out, struggling to sit up. He felt as if he had been rolled through a press, drained of all energy and left to hand ab...

Bloodsworn ch. 56

56.

“You stink,” Illyria murmured from her corner of the elevator. The silent ride had been awkward with the princess wedged into a corner as Erak had shoved himself into the transport. Erak tried to take a whiff, but all he smelled was oil and steel.

“It’s the dried blood and viscera. Some sewer water too,” Pomp supplied helpfully. He had erupted from Erak’s neck to stare down at the princess who looked at the little dragon with a small smi...

Bloodsworn ch. 55

55.

The Armory’s broken walls had taken more damage, pieces of masonry crumbling along the ramparts. Two more holes had been blown clean through and piles of Infernal Soldiers were piled up on the ground in massive mounds that rose nearly ten feet high. A wave of gasps and shock spread out from the assorted crowd of party-goers, courtesans, and citizenry. 

Erak jogged up the road with Illyria and her guards right beside him, the barricaded front ...

Bk. 3 Ch. 37

37.

“Damnit!” Tank spat as he dodged a wide sweeping blow from the hissing mountain lion. Talons flashed by his face, splitting the air as Santi turned around in surprise as the mountain lion had arrived soundlessly. Santi dashed in front of them with [Windstep] as his blade lengthened into a spear. Santi stabbed the mountain lion through its chest before it could react. The lion coughed once and went still, legs going limp and collapsing...

Bloodsworn ch. 54

54.

The sewer grate broke free in a spray of stone and rusted steel, Erak staggering as the sudden disappearance of resistance sent him reeling into the muted light of the city. The familiar stench of the fires, ash and cooked meat, burnt fabric and smoldering stone, all mingled together in a toxic cloud. Erak coughed once as his lungs rebelled, used to the clean air of the sewers. 

“Times like this, I’m glad I’m a spirit and not corporeal. T...

Bloodsworn Ch. 53

53.

Pomp’s head came out of his shoulder pauldron, the dragon thin and ephemeral as he looked up at Erak. There was a sense of exhaustion radiating from the dragon, pulsing from the dragon to push against Erak’s mind. 

“The bond, Erak. If you choose the bond it’ll elevate our partnership.” Pomp whispered as they stood silently in the room filled with corpses. Erak arched an eyebrow at that, hidden as it was by his helm, and Pomp chuffed, ...

Bk. 3 Ch. 36

36.

They all stood there in silence, the only light coming from the doorway behind them that showed their way free of the dungeon. Trevor and Bo were looking at Tank with a lot more respect than they had when they had entered the dungeon. Saving someone’s life could do that. 

Duncan’s eyes were unfocused as he stared off into the distance. Going through the status screen and the notifications that were likely popping up. Santi wasn’t touching...