The panther had clawed the shale adder horribly, but the summoned Life fox had healed most of the damage before fading away. The adder was bleeding in spots, but its health was almost completely preserved. Despite the massive buffs on the puma, the fight had been over as soon as Richter’s tamed snake had gotten a deathlock around the cat’s neck. The undead knight had continued to attack, chipping away at its health, and Alma had remained attached to its head. With a last feeble swipe at the snake choking it to death, the puma fell to its side and lay still.
Since the first creature had been born to The Land, blood had become the medium of life, passion, and rage. The death of the panther broke something inside Radg-or. A voice that he had heard since first touching the Bloodstone, a voice that at first he had refused to admit even existed, increased in volume from a whisper to a shout. <<They have killed your beloved pet, Radg-or! They rejoice even now. Give yourself to me, and you will have vengeance. Honor the sacrifice of Scor. Give yourself to me!>> Only the Druid could hear the voice, but to him, it was as loud as a howling hurricane. At the same time, it was as seductive as a lover’s dark whisper. Since Radg-or had first touched it, the Bloodstone had been slowly exerting more control over the caster. Its approach was insidious and fueled by a confidence born of having corrupted countless magi through the millennia. The death of Scor left the Druid spiritually vulnerable, though. The Bloodstone struck ruthlessly and without hesitation, feeding upon and manipulating Radg-or’s loss. The goblin’s will crumpled and he relinquished himself completely to the Bloodstone’s malevolent will.
The Druid’s personality was immediately suppressed. What replaced it was a will that had existed since the gods had walked The Land. The black blood in the goblin’s veins grew hot. Every artery, vein, and capillary could now be seen standing in stark relief against his leathery green skin. The greatest change was to his eyes which no longer simply glowed red. They had changed completely.
Smooth round stones sat in each of his eye sockets, the same red color as the sentient item. The fact that the goblin lacked Blood magic still limited the Bloodstone’s powers, but the orb had enough power to destroy the rabble in front of it. Once everyone on the field of battle was sacrificed to fuel its magic, the stone could begin fulfilling its mandate again. It was true that the body of the Druid would burn out in mere weeks, but by then it could simply secure another vessel. Magi were always easy targets. The Bloodstone had learned long ago that those who manipulated power were easily seduced by the promise of more.
Taking over the Druid’s body took only seconds. Then it turned its gaze toward the fleeing goblins, the pursuing allied soldiers, and the troll mercenaries. They would all add to its power. The Bloodstone accessed the caster’s strongest magic, a spell Radg-or had never had the skill level or the willpower to fully master. For the age-old stone, casting it was child’s play.
The Bloodstone floated into the air. It settled into place one foot above the possessed Druid’s head. The relic shone with a baleful light, promising death to all who dared look upon its majesty. The entity inhabiting the caster’s body began to move both arms whilst words of Power spilled from its lips. Yellow light appeared on both its hands. The hue of the light shifted to red, green, blue, and back to yellow while it cast the Talent-purchased spell, Storm of Judgement.
The active spell was only limited by the mana and skill of the caster. The sky began to darken again and devastation fell from the sky. All of the elemental forces of the Druid’s Profession descended like a verdict from heaven. Spheres of ice that Froze enemies on contact, balls of fire that made goblins Burn, bolts of lightning that Stunned and golf ball sized rocks that Poisoned anyone unlucky enough to be near the impact craters began to fall from the sky.
The frequency and the strength of the attacks increased as the Bloodstone fed more mana into the spell. It expended the life energy of more than twenty sacrificial victims to advance to the second rank of the spell. Each level that the spell reached made it more powerful, but also cost exponentially more than the rank before. The strength of the spell began at weak, but within seconds it had progressed to minor. Even from the beginning, though, weak was a misnomer.
The spell’s AoE began in the middle of the battlefield, so it was the goblins trapped in the webs that were struck first. The lucky ones stayed unconscious as they were burned, frozen, poisoned, and electrocuted. The falling balls of fire began to burn through the webs, but any goblins hoping for freedom found it to be a false hope. Soon every one of them that could still scream was raising his voice in agony, victims of the Bloodstone’s spell. The AoE expanded as the spell grew in power.
The black clouds flashed with the colors of the four elements, yellow, blue, red and green. The flares came faster and faster, bursts of light accompanied by ear-splitting claps of thunder. The wind picked up from a breeze to a gale in less than a minute, until no one could hear even the shout of their comrades. Everyone on the battlefield looked up at the maelstrom in fear, but none felt terror as much as the fleeing goblins. Suddenly, their escape route was cut off, and they were confronted with a terrible choice; death by magic or death by blade.
Caulder blew on his horn, signaling a halt to his soldier’s advance. It could barely be heard over the wind, but the villagers started a hurried retreat away from the magical onslaught. Their shields and weapons remained pointed at their enemies, but they backed away from the Bloodstone’s spell as quickly as they could.
The goblins, lacking any leadership, did not fare as well. They scattered. A few tried to run through the magical maelstrom, but none of them were fast enough. They died in seconds. Soon, the living goblins were stuck staring at charred, frozen, crushed and bloated bodies of their comrades. They all came to the same conclusion. There was only one choice. The remnants of the goblin army charged toward the shield wall of the villagers, some screaming, many panicked, and all hopeless.
Caulder blew on his horn again, one long blast, and the villagers stopped their retreat. While madness fell from the sky, the shield wall reformed and they prepared to receive the attack. Goblins threw themselves at the soldiers, without plan or strategy. That is where they died. Many of the guard’s weapons were depleted of enchantment, but they didn’t need magic to finish the battle. The goblins were bashed, cleaved and pierced.
They fell in bloody messes and were trampled by their fellows wanting to escape the spell’s torment as well. Soon, the goblin army lay in utter devastation. When the last goblin died, Richter, Sion and all of the other allied forces sprinted towards the tree line. When they got there, they were greeted with the unhappy sight of unconscious bodies. Hisako and all of her magi lay in a mana-drained torpor.
“What happened!” Richter screamed over the wind.
“The last spell took everything from her!” Yoshi shouted back.