Enzer's Game



Now pushed into a brutal corner, Enzer's fate surely seems near. But even pinned against the hill-slope and dazed from the concussive force with which she was thrown there, she manages to block and parry with equal determination, letting not a single attacker get the better of her. Regardless it will all be for naught if she is not able to strike back, and at the moment she has failed to draw even a drop of enemy blood.



Finally, she finds an opportunity - beating a goblin's axe away with her own, she swings out, seeking flesh - but her strike was mis-timed, and she leaves an opening. A silver blade flashes forth, tearing across her exposed throat. Blood gushes in thick bursts from the wound, spraying as the axe twists out and Enzer's composure is broken. The fire in her eyes fades away. Her shield hand falters - a pommel strike catches her in the leg, but her steel mail softens the blow, and nullifies the axe swing to her chest that comes shortly after.

Then, her grip on her axe-hilt tightens for but a moment. Another axe-strike glances off her sturdy shoulder-plate, but it seems almost as if she let it come, for she immediately lashes forward with her blade, cleanly severing the head of an axegoblin in a single slice.



Raising her shield to block again, she strikes twice, three times, but is too crowded, and fails to find a mark. Suddenly, a streak of silver catches her offguard, but only just - a dwarven finger spins into the air, and Enzer's left hand spurts blood, but she does not drop her shield nor let her defense falter. She takes an axe-blow to the side of the head, but suffers nothing beyond a ringing in the ears, striking out again but failing to feel resistance. Then, from behind, a great toothed beak clamps onto her leg, straining at her chain leggings just the mouth of a cave crocodile latches on to her gauntleted right hand in the same moment. It finds flesh - and more, for with a crunching of bone and a tearing of ligament, Enzer's weapon-hand hangs loose, and her axe drops to the mud.



Enzer cries out in pain as she is pulled at from all directions - desperately, she puts her shoulder to her shield, but nothing protects her when the beaked fiend pushes her to the floor with a terrible clawed foot and cruelly rips off her leg in a fountain of blood and pain.



In the next moment, her right hand is torn off also - bitten from its joint by the crocodile on top of her, its rider laughing with blood-maddened hysteria. Even so, she raises her shield to block strike after strike, though her arm grows tired, and her face grows pale -- and, very soon, she gives her last.



Enzer Furnacetoned, the Bejeweled Jungle of Mobs, has fallen.

Sirocco wrote :-

The dwarves solemnly carry the remains of their greatest warrior back to Gemclod. Despite their grief and the possible danger, three of the survivors - with astonishingly similar voices - begin to sing a sad and sombre lament...


(Click here for lyrics and tablatures.)

Enzer wrote :-

From the final thoughts of Enzer Furnacetoned, the Bejeweled Jungle of Mobs

Regret. Regret is that which fills me as I lay here body broken, my very being torn to shreds by the vile greenskins. Regret that I was unable to defeat them, regret that I was unable to take more down with me, regret that the future of Gemclod's safety now stands on the brink, regret that I failed Leperfish, and my people, and Gemclod.

Part of me burns with anger at our Overseer, Boing. Though her want for safety and security for our weakend people is admirable, she has taken steps too far, wasted too much precious time modifying what need not be touched and pressed many who could have been entered into the honor of Gemclod's military, an honor she herself abandoned, into menial tasks. Now here I lay, unable to part any more knowledge to my brethren, unable to give the lessons that good CommaToes, forgotten at the gates, taught me those few years ago before his maiming, if only he had pulled through to continue to teach. Yet I cannot blame Boing, only myself for my failings.

But alas, there Gemclod sits. More befit a a sealed tomb then the last bastion of our people! Its military small, shaken and weak! Its people worried and afraid from so many "accidents"! There has been too much death of our remaining people not by the hands of our enemies, but I fear by the hands of those who hide their true deeds. And though I feel the call of Kudust Axematched to join him in the Great Hall, to join my fallen brethren in arms, and the soft urging of my patron, Etur, to take my reward as a warrior of the Famous Palisade. I wont. I cannot. Gemclod still needs her Champions. Though the enemies we have faced so far are many and strong, they are nothing compared to the might of the Arrogant Ones. My soul will not rest till Gemclod is forever safe, or our people no longer live within the embrace of the earth. We, the fallen valiant will collect in the very living earth that cradles Gemclod, and with each death grow stronger, until our collective rage washes over the land and scourers the filth of our greatest enemies from the lands!

PureRok wrote :-