Forgotten Realms based (D&D) - Writers Forum

The Revelator · 04-07-2008, 07:44 PM

This is a story I was working on for fun. It ends just where I got too busy to keep working on it, I cut the end off though where I had kept writing. Its based on Dungeons and Dragons or D&D. Just looking for some feed-back on how realistic the parts describing the combat are.

Chapter 1

Dorigota watched the city burn, the city that he was supposed to protect with his life. He and his warriors watched as the undead army, led by demons roamed the city, burning and destroying. There was now only one city of Twilight Elves left. The city of the Black Tree that Gives Life, Perth. The city before him, Stormhold, was lost.
Twilight elves were slightly taller than their northern cousins, for the Twilight Elves lived far to the south and east. Twilight Elves were also much stockier than other races of elves, almost resembling humans in build. Their ears would always show them to be of elven-kind, though. Most elves had the normal hair and eye color of the other elves, but some were part of a special race that was intertwined with the other elves, these elves were called Dori-Togei. These elves had hair in varying colors, often in more unnatural colors. Dorigota and his line were of these elves. Dorigota had forest green hair and green eyes of the same shade. His hair fell to just below his face, though he kept it slicked and parted from his face, though now it was matted from sweat and kept falling into his face. His cousin Raigo had a brilliant blue shade to both his hair and eyes. There was one other sub-species of elves, these were Midnight Elves. These elves were of pale white skin and black hair and pupil-less eyes.
He knew what he had to do. Die for his city, but he couldn't let his men die with him. If he lived, he would forever be shunned. That twisted advisor to the king , Dolmar, would see to that, and King Janube never held much love for him either. Dorigota had to much popularity with the people for his liking. If it wasn't for that popularity with the people, well...but after this he doubted he would ever hold much popularity again.
He turned to his field commander and cousin, Raigo, and said, "You're in charge now, I want you to take the soldiers back to the Nightwood and then take them back to Perth, there is only one course of action left for me..."
"No," Raigo protested vehemently, for he understood what his cousin meant to do,"You can't just leave your warriors like this!"
"I have no other choice," Dorigota sighed, they both knew it ",please don't make this harder for me than it needs to be, I beg of you."
"But...alright, may you find your peace, cousin" Raigo said in resignation as he turned to give the company commanders the orders.
The company commanders looked angry, because they knew they had failed as well and there was nothing they could do. The army's formations reformed facing the west to head back to Perth, which guarded the only way to get off the land bridge that connected the lands of **** to the Shadow Lands.
The Shadow Lands was the place where undead were created and material plane-bound demons resided. It was the Twilight Elves job to guard the land of **** from the evil of the Shadow Lands. The Twilight Elves were all but forgotten to the peoples of ****. They had been banished in ages past when they had turned to the darker magics of death, necromancy. They had also tapped into spirits of the elements and had imparted them to their greatest warriors to lend them strength and power. But now the Twilight Elves were dying out. They now had only one city left, the city of Perth. They were isolated from the rest of **** by vast expanses of grasslands and forests and then a desert after a towering mountain range. No scouts had ever returned from beyond the desert. The elves had since turned from the spirits when they had stopped answering the summons. Now only legends told of the spirits. There was also another legend of the Incarnations, they were spirits trapped within mighty weapons of legend. These weapons, along with the spirits, could be contained within a gauntlet of immense power. The gauntlet the Twilight elves had, but the weapons had since been lost. The true power of these weapons was that, when in tune with the gauntlet, could not only tap into the essence the spirits represented, but could also summon the actual spirit into a corporeal form that could fight and aid the wielder of the gauntlet. The king had forbidden any elves from searching for the weapons since so many had left to find them yet few returned.
Dorigota watched as the army, his army pulled back. He checked his hand crossbows that he kept strapped to his legs, one on each leg, right above his boots. He checked his swords as well. Dorigota was one of the greatest swordsmen in the entire kingdom, and his favored weapon style could not be matched by anyone. He dual wielded two-bladed swords. He was a master with many weapons, but he favored the two, two-bladed swords. They were short sword length each, any longer and they would get tangled up in each other, no matter how good the wielder.
Dorigota snook up to the main gates. The demons had posted sentries to detect the approach of Dorigota's army. The sentries were undead, so they were none too bright, but Dorigota still figured it was better to be safe rather than sorry. Dorigota was an elf, and any elf, whatever the kind, can climb better than almost any race, certainly better than any more common of the elves. Dorigota started to scale the wall surrounding the city. He had to pause several times and stay still to keep from alerting the sentries of his presence.
Dorigota reached the crest of the wall, looked over to make sure the way was clear, and swung over the wall. He grabbed his two kukri's from his belt and crouched down and stalked off down the wall. He saw the first undead sentry, standard skeleton, equipped with a longsword and a round shield, helm and shoulder armor. Piece of cake, he tucked away his kukris, those were only useful against an opponent you could bleed, or that had a throat you could slit. He slid out his tonfas from the back of his belt, they were hand-carved from the Ishibin tree, so they were nearly indestructible and wouldn't burn or break. He came up behind it, spun and smashed its helm in. and its skull. All of a sudden Dorigota realized that pretty much every undead he could see was rushing to where he was. He ran to the inside edge of the wall and leapt into the city.
Dorigota was a warrior trained in the ways of Chi or life energy, these warriors could, once in a certain state, perform stunts that would normally be impossible. He steadied himself as he fell, felt his chi align to his needs, and landed lightly on his feet on top of a building. He then immediately dove off the building and landed again, just as lightly as the first time. He let his chi realign back to its normal state.
He set off down the street, hoping to find a demon, or even the demon commander, which was his goal. Of course he's be more than happy to bash any skeleton into powder. As he headed down the street a demon, Glabrezu, no less, and ten skeletons came tearing out of a side street.
Dorigota dived forward and rolled up while spinning and smashed the first skeleton's ribs out. He brought his other tonfa around a sent another skeletons head flying off. But now his momentum had played itself out and he still had eight skeletons and a Glabrezu to contend with. He dropped his tonfas, those were fine for fighting undead, and drew out his two-bladed swords. He twirled them around and then snapped them into the ready position.
The demon laughed, "You must be the mighty Dorigota, it will be a pleasure to rend you limb from limb."
Dorigota snorted, "Demon, in all my rather short life, you are most certainly not the first of your kind I've seen, and destroyed, so we will see who rends who limb from limb."
Dorigota gathered his chi energy as he spoke, he was ready when the demon snapped out a pincher at him and he did a hand spring backwards with one hand and landed while managing to slice off the offending pincher at the same time with the other sword. The demon howled in pain and charged forward but stopped and sent the skeletons in while he started casting a spell.
Luckily Dorigota had a trick up his sleeve, he hurled his chi out in a ball and it slammed through the skeletons, destroying three of them and ripped open the Glabrezu's chest. The demon had a look of complete and utter shock upon its face as its blood flew everywhere. Normally demons summoned to the material plane, when killed simply were banished to the plane from hence it came. But not the material plane-bound demons, they died just like everyone else that lived on the material plane. The demon dropped onto its knees and tried to say something but all that came forth from its mouth was a bubble of blood. The bubble popped and the demon fell over dead. The other skeletons posed no problem and he quickly disposed of them.
Dorigota had to keep going, he had a few scratches but nothing to cause him anything more than a slight discomfort. He decided to fall into his chi again, so he could sense the demon lord commanding these forces. Every time he fell into his chi without resting, it drained him and made it more difficult to align again. Dorigota thought this was an important enough time to try it yet again, for he normally would not do it at all, unless he or a soldier was near death and was to badly injured for a cleric to do much good.
As he fell into the warmth of his chi he sought the area of it that would allow him to sense the presence of the demon or demons in charge. He found the area of chi he was looking for and almost immediately felt two strong sources of energy, and together so he would only have to fight one battle and not two. The energies were immense though, signaling him to believe that it was most probably a pair of Balors, the most feared demons of all, the undisputed lords of Hell. He fell out of his trance and headed straight for the demons.
He avoided all enemies on his way, often only barely spotting the undead or demons before the could spotted him. He kept up his frantic pace. As he went he noticed that the concentration of enemies was becoming greater and greater the closer he got to the demon lords. Finally, after hours and hours of avoiding enemies that needed a good killing, as it seemed to him, he saw the pair of Balors. And a pair of Balors it was indeed, in all of their hellish splendor, roaring out orders and cracking whips of lightning. The demons were in a small open plaza around in which there were a few broken merchant stalls and the broken bodies of some of the merchants who wouldn't part with their wares easily. He prepared him self, both mentally and physically. He readied his six throwing knives, three in each hand, to lead his attack. He also got ready to use his chi to increase his chances against the demons and their minions.
"Well, it's been nice knowing me," Dorigota mumbled to himself as he finished his preparations.
He dropped down into the plaza from his hiding spot on top of the roof. As he dropped he hurled his throwing knives at one of the demons. Four of them hit and got stuck in the demon. He landed gracefully and pulled out his swords. He didn't hesitate for even a split second, he immediately charged the wounded balor. Dorigota refused to give the Balors even a moment to collect their wits. But the demons were Balors, and Balors don't go down easy. The unwounded demon immediately sent a gout of flame shooting out, as an extension of its fiery aura, straight at Dorigota, causing him to dive to the side. Dorigota immediately recovered and went straight for the wounded demon yet again. The wounded Balor wasn't as wounded as Dorigota would have liked and a flaming sword appeared in its hand and it counter-charged him.
Dorigota's chi had worn itself out, and he didn't know how much he could draw form it before he burnt out. He would have to try not to use his powers for awhile. The demon was right in front of him ready for a mighty overhead chop when it vanished. Dorigota knew the demon's tricks and spun to the side and swung behind him, only to be parried by the demon's blade. He swung his other blade up only to have that parried as well. He brought the other blade slashing across and twirled it in a reverse slash. All of these attacks were neatly parried. Dorigota realized almost too late that the other Balor had vanished. He ducked as a blade of flame flew across where his torso had just been. His swing also caused the other demon to jump back.
"Idiot!" it hissed, " watch where you're swinging."
Dorigota took this opportunity to swing back around his body at the demons legs. The demon jumped up and flapped back several paces. It tried to cast a spell but Dorigota launched another throwing knife at it, disrupting its spellcasting.
The demon roared in frustration, " You little worm, I shall utterly destroy you and everything you hold dear!"
"You already have demon, that is why i shall erase you from exsistance," Dorigota growled back in a low dangerous voice.
Dorigota charged the demon and swung across and used the motion to carry himself into a full spin to parry the other demon's blade. He was forced to carry the swing all the way around to block the first demon's blade. He twirled his blade backwards and vertically at the demon that was behind him. At the same time he brought his right hand sword across horizontally. Both of these attacks were blocked. He didn't even pause before he followed up with several more attacks. He brought both his swords whizzing across the front of his body and spun them so the other blades followed up the first. The demon in front of him hopped back to avoid the blades. He kept the blades twirling around his back to go for the demon behind him. The demon behind him blocked both blades by swinging its sword upwards, sending Dorigota's swords out wide. Dorigota had to dive forward to avoid the follow up downward stab. Dorigota was up faster than the demon had anticipated and he slashed his sword back behind him, taking the head off the demon as it tried to pull its sword out of the ground.
The other demon just stared at Dorigota in disbelief for a moment. It then glared at him in absolute hatred.
"Ha ha ha, very good, but you shall have to do better to kill me," the demon roared in laughter as it flapped its wings and took to the air.
"Just means I shall have to try a little bit harder to kill you, I suppose," Dorigota said nonchalantly, as if it were no big deal to fight to Balors and win.
"Why you insolent little worm, I shall rend your body and torment your soul for the rest of eternity!" the demon roared.
"Ha ha ha, I have no soul," Dorigota laughed as he pulled more throwing knives out of his jacket that he wore over his vest. Inside though he knew he was in trouble. He was lucky to have killed one, and he rejoiced that he had. But they had underestimated him, and badly, this one wouldn't make the same mistake again.
The demon was spellcasting again. Dorigota threw his knives but it was too late, the Balor finished its spell. Dorigota felt his muscles freeze, he tried to move them but found he was unable to. The demon, instead of coming in to finish him with the sword, decided to cast again. Dorigota forced his will into a ball, he also drew on his chi a little. As the demon finished he forced it to disperse through out his body, allowing him to dive out of the way of the lightning bolt that came hurling at him.
The demon snarled in disbelief and started casting another spell. Dorigota knew he had to do something or the demon was just going to keep hurling lightning bolts and other nasty things at him until it finally hit him. The demon was floating about twenty feet in the air in the center of the plaza, he wasn't going to make this easy.
Dorigota looked around till he saw a still-standing stall. He jumped behind as several magic missiles flew at him, three still hit him in the back, burning him. One blade on each sword shrunk back into the hilt, so he could sheath his swords and climb to the top of the stall and jump onto the building it was against.
The demon had started casting yet another spell as Dorigota clambered up onto the stall. He jumped to the building and was singed by the fireball the immolated the stall he had just been on. He turned around to see the demon in the midst of spell casting again. He looked around and didn't see what else he could do. Dorigota began to call on all the chi he had left. He felt it gathering but also he felt unconsciousness fighting to gain control. He knew he was as good as dead if he let it take him. The thought came to him that he was going to have to die pretty soon anyway. He knew more demons were already on the way, because he could see them. Wait! the more demons, Dorigota knew he had to do something fast or he would be dead without being able to finish off the Balor. He felt he had enough chi, and if he drew any more he would be knocked out. He gathered his energy and leapt straight the demon as another lightning bolt came soaring in at him. He tried to cut through it with his sword, but still took alot of it. But it couldnt stop him, and the demon didn't realize what he was doing until to late. Dorigota's swords went straight threw him, with Dorigota still hanging onto them.
The demon knew he was going to die, but he decided to finish off this mortal who had killed him and another of his kind. He grabbed Dorigota by the throat and held him at arm's length. Dorigota spat in his face just as the Balor ran him through with its sword of flames. Dorigota felt himself falling with the demon. He grabbed onto his chi as he fell. He tried to ease the pain of the wound before he slipped into death. The last thing he felt was the pain before darkness took him.