The Heavenly Host

A deep chill suddenly fell over the battlefield as the temperature began dropping fast. As he gained confidence in removing Fire, he upped the mana-draining net. He was going to suck any excess mana away from his enemies as well. He needed all energy to go. Anything the knights could use to focus chaos.

If he was doing things correctly, the DoomNet would not only be draining excess mana that was generated or released, it would be draining Fire. Actually, it should be draining fire even more effectively, since it would suck up all the Fire that was present in the region. That meant it should be draining the knights of Fire. He himself was actually getting cold. Given that he was a demon, he should not feel normal cold any more than he felt heat. He was therefore reasonably certain the reverse portal was actively draining Fire and energy. Draining chaos.

The rain that had been falling suddenly turned to sleet and then to snow.

“Holy shit!” he heard a D’Orc yell. “It’s snowing in the Abyss!”

There, finally. Tom had the portal completely reversed. By default, it would have drained Fire from the entire DoomNet, but he worked feverishly to restructure it. He wanted to focus the Fire drain to this region so that it would drain faster.

∼

Lesteroth’s current D’Orc stopped ripping his right wing off in order to try and grab the snow that had started falling. Lesteroth used the brief lull to reseat his wing. Ouch! That hurt, but it would regenerate faster this way.

Lesteroth glanced down to see Talgorf sticking his tongue out, trying to catch snow on it. His D’Orc had also stopped squashing the smaller demon under his hoof to stare at the snow. All around them, D’Orcs and demons were stopping in amazement at the snow and the rapidly increasing cold.

It was suddenly a very cold day in the Abyss. Everyone knew to expect amazing things when the Abyss finally froze over. Of course, no one actually thought that would happen, but it seemed to be what was going on. Lesteroth laughed, looking at the snow.

“Wah hhabbaahnning?” came Bellyachus’s voice from a few feet over. “Asz gold!”

Lesteroth wondered why the demon’s voice was so muffled, but looking over, he quickly understood. Bellyachus’s D’Orc had shoved the demon’s head up his own butt. It looked to be a very uncomfortable position for Bellyachus, but it did explain why his voice was muffled and why he couldn’t see what was going on.

VOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM!!!!!

Sekhmekt killed her second knight, but no explosion happened this time.

“That is pretty impressive,” Lesteroth said.

His D’Orc tormentor nodded in shared amazement before hugging himself. “It’s damn cold here,” he complained. Lesteroth had to agree even as the snow turned to painful shards of ice, slicing at his skin.

∼

VOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM!!!!!

Morok killed another knight. It was getting easier as the temperature dropped. It had to be far below freezing at this point.

Tom charged one of the knights being shot at by the D’Orcs. He came up on the knight and smashed at it using the Rod and both hands.

Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! CRRRAAAAAACCCCKKKKKKKK!!!!!

CRUNCH! FFFOOOoommmshhh!!!! A sphinx squashed another knight.

The knights were slowing down quickly in the cold. Tom had no idea how cold it was, but if he were to guess based on the previous cooling rate, it was probably closing in on one hundred degrees below zero Celsius; as cold now as it had previously been hot.

THUD! Voomphsss... Everything went pitch-black for a moment. The gravity cannon had taken another knight.

Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! CRRRAAAAAACCCCKKKKKKKK!!!!! Tom took out another knight. The more he did this, the better he was getting, or maybe it was the ambient cold.

Wham! Wham! Wham! CRRRAAAAAACCCCKKKKKKKK!!!!!

CRUNCH! CRACKLE! CRACKLE! The sphinx’ stomping was getting better. The knights were losing their energy to fight.

Foom! Talarius killed another knight.

Foom... Foom... Sekhmekt killed another knight, quickly followed by Morok. Only five more to go.

CRUNCH! Crackle. Another sphinx.

CRUNCH! Three left.

CRUNCH! Two.

CRACKLE! The final knight fell to Talarius and Ruiden.

Lacuna

Arg-nargoloth made his way down the dark corridor. He was tired; he’d been up since the start of the party, staying sober and alert. He had been heading to bed when the klaxons had gone off. Then chaos, planning and rousing his troops. Then the battle.

The fact that they had buried the demon army and forced them to dig themselves out had given them a huge advantage. They had been able to get into position above most of the demons before they finished digging their way out of the ground. At that point, between fourteen hundred D’Orcs and seven hundred D’Wargs, it had been more of a fun afternoon of glorious mayhem than a full battle.