This is part one of a two-part story requested by BrysonThrillher and written by Vanessa Foxe (breedorbebred)
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There were already at least ten pale corpses scattered around the cavern, twice as many as our party numbered, but still the creatures came.
"I hate morlocks," Wilhelm spat. He spat only figuratively, of course. Wilhelm van de Portio was every bit the noble, and would never lower himself to actually spit like some commoner.
"Less chatter, more killing," the elven assassin chided. She took her sword in two hands and pulled it apart so she was instead wielding two matching blades. Sylphanien Giltvine was an absolute terror with her butterfly swords in hand, although the battle had already worn on long enough that whatever poison she usually applied to her blades was long-since expended. A pair of the awful, pale humanoids lying motionless on the ground had reddened flesh and black veins, telltale marks of Sylph's lethal poison.
I clutched my sickle-staff in a tight fist, my white knuckles the only evidence of how hard I was fighting not to let myself shake as the enemy approached. My weapon was the bastard child of a shepherd's crook and a farmer's sickle, four feet of solid wood topped with a crescent blade.
The next group of morlocks was more cautious than the last two, circling our group of mercenary-adventurers instead of charging immediately. The subterranean creatures were emaciated and short, averaging only around five feet in height, but they were surprisingly strong and fast.
On the road to the narrow opening we had used to enter the morlock's domain, Vee had told us a story about the origins of the morlock race. The little gnome claimed that the monstrous savages had once been humans, but they had offended the gods with their profane rituals and wonton savagery. Abandoned by divinity, the morlocks had fled below the earth where they survived by raiding and stealing from the godly folk who walked the surface.
I didn't much care about where the morlocks had come from, I decided as the bravest of the bunch edged closer to us. All I cared about were their razor-sharp teeth and the crude weapons of sharpened bone they carried.
I stepped backwards until my shoulder bumped against a wall of solid steel. I didn't even need to look to know it was Khagrim Beastbreaker who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with me now-- no one else in our party was as massive as the stoic, black-furred minotaur beside me. I was the closest in size at just a hair over six feet tall, and he still had a full foot on me. And that was before counting his horns!
The knot of fear in my stomach loosened slightly as some deep, primal part of me thrummed with rightness at Khagrim's solid presence by my side. He was a master of martial combat, wielding a shield and axe each the size of a human man. He was normally clad in an unbroken layer of thick steel, but the Beastbreaker had been forced to shed the gardbraces and pauldrons from his shoulders, the cuisses and greaves from his legs, and even the couters off his elbows, just to be able to squeeze through the opening to the morlocks' lair.
Wilhelm had referred to the minotaur's missing elbow armour by its other spelling, "cowter", as a rude joke about Khagrim's bovine appearance.
The joke had affected me just as strongly, since I was cow-like in my own way. Holstaurs were a race of humanoids so rare that most people didn't even know what I was. I could pass for a pink-haired human woman at a quick glance, although I was taller and broader than most. I was much wider around the chest, too, with breasts so large that any top I wore had to be custom made to my size.
On closer inspection, one's eye might be drawn to the black and white pattern to my furry legs, which was reminiscent of a domestic cow's hide, and down to the hooves I had in place of human feet. I had a tail like Khagrim, although mine sported a pattern of black splotches on a white background that matched my legs, whereas his fur was dark from snout to hoof. The horns curving above my bovine ears were much shorter than a minotaur's, extending out a mere four or five inches.
Another benefit of my holstaur heritage was my heightened strength. When most people saw my luscious curves and more-than-ample breasts, they mistakenly assumed I was just a soft and lush woman. The morlock before me made that exact same assumption, marking my unarmoured form as an easy target.
It learned its mistake as I whispered a prayer to Xinea, the Father of Harvests, and pushed a mote of divine energy into my bladed staff.
My deity was the god of fertility, harvests, farming, and husbandry. While Xinea was more inclined towards peace and celebrations than fighting, as a priestess I was able to draw on his divine energy to protect myself.
I shaped that energy into a small rectangle of hard light that lasted just long enough to deflect the morlock's swing. It staggered, off balance, and I swept the bottom of my staff up into its sternum.
The force of my swing pushed the morlock backwards, and it didn't even have time to blink before Khagrim split the creature in half with a negligent backswing of his huge axe.
"Did you see that?" I squealed, unable to contain myself in my excitement.
"A superb strike, of that there can be no doubt, Nesraya," Vee's nasal voice piped from beside me. We all called the little gnomish inventor Vee, because Zar'zevee'beck Gylmebist was just too much of a mouthful.
Vee was too clever for his own good, and quite adept at putting that cleverness to devastating use. As if to prove that fact, he aimed his newest contraption at a pair of morlocks coming in from the left and pulled the trigger. His weapon was sort of like a crossbow, with two outstretched wooden arms and a metal wire pulled taught between them. When he squeezed the release, the arms snapped straight to sling the leather cup attached to the wire, launching the bottle that had been loaded into it.
The vial of alchemist's fire exploded in a bright bloom, engulfing the two monstrous humanoids in a sheet of flame. They screamed loudly as they perished, and the nauseating smell of burnt flesh joined the reek of viscera and blood. Gylmebist's spikes of bright blue hair waved in the rush of air pushed outwards by the explosion, but he looked more bored than anything else. Another day, another successful experimental weapon.
"But perhaps you would benefit from spending less time on self-congratulations, and more time on evisceration?" The little gnome was lucky he was so damned useful, or one of us would have thrown him face-first off a cliff by now.
I gripped my weapon tighter as two more morlocks charged towards me. I split my focus between keeping my distance from the two savage fighters and on continuing the prayer I was chanting to Xinea. My prayers formed the words of a spell that would unleash a burst of light to hopefully these creatures whose eyes were adapted to subterranean darkness.
The sickle-staff in my hand was essentially a combination of two farming tools, both sacred symbols for the church of the bounteous Harvest Father. It glowed now as magic began to spill from me. I took another step back, trying to buy just a few more seconds, then I would be ready to--
What magic I had been gathering dispersed in an instant as my hoof came down not on rough stone, but instead on something slippery. My foot kicked out as I slid on the puddle of blood I'd inadvertently stepped into, and I pitched sideways. I had gotten too cocky and forgotten to pay attention to my environment. I stumbled over the holy words in my sudden shock, and lost hold of the divine magic I had been channelling.
The morlocks pounced on my sudden vulnerability. They were stupid savages, but they were very good at killing the surprised and vulnerable-- that was why our party had been hired to clear out their den, after all.
I landed on one knee and tried to raise my staff to parry the first creature's blow, but I already knew I was too late.
Everything seemed to move in slow motion, my hand lifting with glacial slowness as the morlock's spear drove down towards my chest. The thick quilted armour I wore over my robes might turn aside cuts from a knife, but that spear would punch right through it--and me--with ease.
Before I could even blink, a dark shape moved in front of me. Khagrim! He lunged sideways, throwing himself between me and the attacking cave-dweller.
Even as I fought to rise, I watched the bone tip of the morlock's spear emerge from the back of Khagrim's shoulder. In his full armour, the minotaur would have been able to deflect the blow without fear, but tonight there were gaps in his protection.
Hot blood flecked on my face. Khagrim's blood!
"Grim!" I screamed, panic turning to righteous fury in my chest. "No!"
The morlock before me staggered as the unexpected weight of the minotaur pulled its weapon sideways, and I slashed the curved blade of my staff across its throat with enough force to nearly decapitate the monster. I kicked its lifeless body, my heavy hoof staving in its chest and launching it at the warrior behind it to tangle the second morlock's legs.
One of Vee's launched phials caught that second one, which fell to the ground with a scream as the gnome's acid began to eat away at its chest. I ignored the nearby combatants as I dropped to my knees at Khagrim's side.
My vision blurred as tears threatened to spill down.
I blinked fast, fighting to keep my vision clear as I knelt beside our fallen defender. In my peripherals, I could dimly make out the blurred outline of Sylphanien as she cut a path towards us to stand guard over me. Behind her, van de Portio bandied with his thin blade and his cutting words. He either hadn't noticed Khagrim's injury, or just didn't care.
The spear had snapped when Khagrim fell, and I grabbed the splintered haft and yanked it out. Khagrim grunted in pain as my rough motion tore his wound further. It said something about the severity of his injury that he would even give that much of an indication of his pain. Usually our stoic minotaur took injuries soundlessly, enduring harm without even flinching.
I laid my palm over the exit wound on his shoulder, staunching the flow of blood with my fingers. I reached deep into my connection to Xinea, tapping into the font of life energy the fertility god readily gave. Divine energy built up in me until my skin nearly glowed with it, and I pushed that power out of my body, through my arm and down into Khagrim's wounds. I didn't have the finesse or mastery of the elder priests of my order, but I had raw magical strength, and I pulled from that now to mend Khagrim's wound.
