littlesilvertip / No fun in stalingrad. (Reply)

It started with the wards breaking. Our first warning was when fomori made it into the low valley before they burst into flames. It was my understanding that the fetish they made had a limited bank of power before needing to recharge its essence, and with the Dancers on the other side of the hill working their rites to drain it, I knew it was a matter of time. Everyone here knew unless help arrived, they were all going to die. I’d tried to look around for a way out, or find enough time to make an anchor from there to the homeland, but like before, everything seemed to conspire against me in planning. It was just after dusk when they came en mass, flooding the caern with disposable fomori, and waves of Black Spiral Dancers. I fought as long as I could, but the rest of them were slaughtered like fawns as the enemy just kept coming. Where does the horned serpent even find so many to corrupt? Is this really how much they have to throw at us? It was an ocean of blood, filth and bowels in the valley. Dead bodies were toppled like a cord of wood ready to be split for the winter. Grandmother save me, I can still smell all the blood, shit and poison mixed together.

Some of the defenders broke and ran when it was clear the caern was lost. When the Dancers began to run them down, I took the chance to break out of the battlefield, getting away from the mess. Somewhere there was a gateway out of this realm, and I was going to find it or die. This was the first time I’d had to explore past the siege lines, and the first thing I happened upon were caves. Some sort of anchorhead appearing as a cave lead me to Battlefield, so it seemed logical that there might be a second leading away. I did some exploring, but was exhausted, and needed sleep. The emanations of the realm weren’t interested in giving me a chance to rest, and I got woke by the sound of voices outside. Black Spiral Dancers. Or, the emanations of them. Their claws hurt well enough, though.

Again, they started with mobbing me fomori to soften me up, before the pack of fallen ones joined in. I killed a few of their junior members, before one nearly ripped off my arm, and took out my eye. This is going to scar; I hope it’s not the eye. I’ve fled deeper into the caves. They lead into tunnels, which might get me out of there. I’m starving and bleeding and I have no fucking idea where I am. I don’t have enough spiritual strength to go invisible again. If these tunnels are not a way out, I’m going to die here.