NOVEL FROG Chapter 20 - Blood and Darkness
Chaos.
Absolute and utter chaos rampages in my halls. The fighting has devolved into a fierce melee under my sprite's ministrations.
Blood and guts splatter my walls and goblin corpses litter the floor. A vast majority crushed and beaten, some suffocated, with a few luckier ones dying to attacks from their own comrades in the initial confusion.
My monsters have not gotten away scott free either, unfortunately. The charnel house that is my dungeon has seen its fair share of wooden chips. The corpse of my sprite lies limp on the floor, pierced cleanly by a goblin scouts arrow. One of the triplet mannequins lies dead on the floor, its head cleaved off by the swordsman goblin, while another is missing an arm that has been bitten off by a particularly vicious goblin.
Sebastian is missing a leg and retreated to the stage hall entrance, where a heavily punctured Juliette and her now significantly ragged dress friend are whirling and twirling among a handful of goblins, dealing death with each graceful movement.
Siegfried is valiantly fighting against the second of the goblin scouts, the first one lying crushed amidst the bodies of its brethren. Alongside him two of the triplets still fight the goblin swordsman and shaman, having gone completely berserk at the loss of their third.
The purple aura that empowers the goblins only makes itself known when the goblins strike one of my minions, as a shadowy duplicate of their attack manifests and deepens inflicted wounds slightly. It has taken a heavy toll on my forces, and none of my monsters are in a good condition, but neither are the goblins.
Despite their sharp senses, fighting in complete darkness impairs them significantly, whereas my monsters aren’t even the slightest bit inconvenienced, though keeping the light completely erased everywhere taxes me severely.
As a result, of the originally 30ish strong force of goblins, exactly 7 remain. Aaaaand it's 6 now that Juliette landed a particularly nasty kick on one of her foes' necks.
The swordsman is panting heavily and being beset by one of my mannequins, the surviving scout is desperately attempting to flee Siegfrieds tireless assault, and the shaman has been thrown off by his ginormous spider mount as soon as my sprite deprived him of his bejeweled wand, and is now trying to avoid the lead triplet's furious onslaught.
Curiously, the spider seems content to simply wait and watch, making no effort to combat or flee, though raising its front legs to defend itself whenever one of the mannequins comes close.
My blood-crazed mind cannot register this as anything other than a potential problem turning out not being one, however, as the fighting slowly winds down.
The true end of the fight is heralded when Siegfried finally lands a telling blow on the scout, crippling him before finishing him off with a stomp to the face, and then teams up with the one-armed triplet against the swordsman.
Together, they quickly and brutally dismantle the goblins’ defense, and then team up against the shaman, who has been throwing around bolts of shadow blindly and dodging frantically since his undignified dismount, and is visibly out of steam.
One scream at a time, the sounds of battle fade from my halls, replaced with an eerie silence. With the last goblin dead, my calmness is restored, and I feel a surge of power all throughout my being, as well as several notifications making themselves known at the edge of my awareness.
It is not the time however.
My monsters gather together solemnly inside my stage hall, having brought over the bodies of the fallen.
Reverently, they lay out the corpses of their comrades, the triplets cradling their dead sibling and Sebastian carefully stroking the unmoving sprite's tiny head with his wooden fingers. Those seem to be a new development, a distant part of me notes, before I silence that part again and take in the scene before me in its entirety.
My monsters, littered in wounds and marks of battle, gathered around the brave heroes that allowed us to win this battle against all odds. The only sound is a quiet sobbing noise from Juliette, as we pay our respects to our departed and lament their fate.
It is my first time losing someone, I realize. I don’t like this feeling that wells up in me, drowning out my desire to create, to live and laugh, and leaves naught but emptiness and pain. But seeing my monsters, and feeling that I am not alone, gives me hope.
Before my first dead monsters I vow to do better. Though we are certain to come into conflict again in the future, I will do my utmost to be as prepared for it as I can, so my loyal monsters don't have to endure the crushing feeling of losing their siblings and friends. And just maybe, they will continue to watch over us, as we live on in their memory.
Without warning the bodies of the deceased begin to disappear from our midst. Their physical forms began to break down into something less physical, and a swell of power and warmth surged over my monsters and through me.
Goodbye, you two.