Ember Wind: Corrupted

Storming the Castle

Across the plaza, through the city streets, and up the steps, the small army marched. Much to their surprise, their efforts remained unhindered beyond a some localized resistance. As they neared the castle, the sky grew ever darker. Red lightning streaked across, releasing rumbles of thunder. A reddish hue offset the coal black clouds giving worry only to what nightmares lay in wait.

At the foot of the steps to the landing where the castle stood, the army readied itself for the quickly tiring climb. Stairs were the recognized enemy of heavily armored players. Tangurple struggled to get up the massive flight; a total of 156 steps. Once at the top, however, it was all flat. The landing that leads to the castle was large enough to hold all two hundred soldiers at once.

Tullus approached the big castle doors and yanked on the handles. The doors did not budge. "Hey! Creoft!" He yelled for him. "What's with this door locking thing?"

Creoft sighed and knelt down in front of the doors. "Don't you people ever use the lockpicking mechanic?" Creoft's focus was solely on the lockpicking interface. He twirled the pick and the torsion wrench making slight adjustments with each tap. He kept his ears close and watched the interface for the shaky movements. As the turns became looser and less shaky, he minimized his adjustments until it was aligned. The lock turned and clicked when it reached the rotation point. The interfaced faded, Creoft grinned and gestured towards the doors.

Tullus grabbed the handles once more and yanked as hard as he could. The doors swung wide open with ease turning his heavy pull into an over-exaggerated backward tumble. Creoft chuckled and helped him onto his feet.

From the doorway, light flooded into the first hundred feet of the great hall. The hall itself was quiet, eerie and scattered corpses decorated the place. Many of which were fallen guardsmen who wore the Jarl's tabard. Creoft was shocked, not by the sight but rather the idea that the once invulnerable guards and law keepers of the game were slaughtered. Creoft immediately equipped a familiar looking two-handed maul.

Suddenly from the shadows, a ghoul came running forth. It charged right at them and as it approached, Creoft swung the maul like a bat and instantly killed the ghoul.

Tangurple and Falcher stepped up beside them. "What's the holdup?" Falcher asked.

Creoft mumbled something incoherent to the others. He squinted his eyes as if to peer further into the darkness ahead of them.

"Ya seeing something? I just see darkness." Tangurple commented.

"Shush..." Creoft stared harder. "Get back," he whispered. "Get back! Swarm incoming!"

Just as Creoft called it out, a thousand red eyes appeared in the darkness and with them, came several hundred bodies. All of which were possessed by pure rage and hunger. The swarm bum rushed past them and collided with the unprepared army. The four of them got swamped in the rush and became victims of a mass beating.

However, they jumped onto their feet with much resilience and retaliated with their own attacks, beating back on the ghouls. Tangurple scrambled to equip his sword. Once the hilt was in his grasp, he ripped it out of its sheath and quickly swung it wide clipping several ghouls at once. They were quickly slain in rapid succession. The army finished off the wave.