Sanctum

The vanguard of Sanctum stared into shadow.

As constant vibrations rocked their home, and the runebound entrance to the Hybrid lair was sealed by their Magi, Borlor's trained warriors, supported by monsters controlled by Mara's Thaumaturgical talents, stood shoulder to shoulder as the assault on their home began.

No one knew how they'd made it here. But their collective sight could not be denied.

A flash of smoke filled the entrance tunnel, bathing the darkness in a grey pall that set the waiting Hybrid crossbowmen on edge. They readied their weapons, affixing Mithril tipped bolts and aiming at the faint black shadows that moved within the smokescreen.

Black shadows with silver eyes that glinted in the darkness of their tunnel. Of their home.

And the Hybrids of Sanctum knew: the Greycloaks had finally come.

The vanguard launched a flurry of bolts at the approaching soldiers while the Magi summoned a grease slicks and spells of [Holding] to halt the movement of the warriors. In return, the Greycloaks sent spears of light through the air, slamming them into the palisade wall and tearing pieces of it apart.

The first line of Hybrids called back to the waiting militia, and as the Greycloak frontlines surged forward, seeing this as a retreat, they were suddenly met by a wave of dark, angry shapes that launched themselves over the palisade wall and directly into their silver ranks.

"MOVE!" one of their lieutenants screamed.

His voice was stopped by the runic axe of a minotaur that sliced his jaw apart. Next, a tamed Cyclops landed like a boulder launched from a catapult right into the mix, disrupting the Greycloak's formations and sending them into disarray. More followed suit, the Hopla Magi imbuing their skin with [Infernal] enhancements so that they could soar through the air and send waves of fire through the enemy's ranks. Explosions rocked their lines, and the Greys were forced to play defense – not their strong suit, especially considering that most of them were used to conquests and monster hunts. Never had they encountered such fierce, organized resistance like this.

The Greycloaks, however, were still undeterred. They were trained to fight monsters like these since birth. Their blades hacked and hewed into the hardy skin of minotaurs and the slick eyeballs of cyclops in equal measure. For every monster that was launched against them, they pushed back inch by bloody inch.

But what they weren't used to was the combined tactics that the Hybrids of Sanctum, with the help of Borlor, Fraxx, and even little Mara, had managed to instill. As the Greys fought tooth and claw against the hulking monstrosities that came against them, the crossbowmen on the vanguard palisade reloaded, aimed, and let their bolts fly, targeting the limbs of the Greycloaks specifically.

They struck true, crippling the Grey warriors and disrupting them just enough so that the bulky monsters of Mara could land a decisive blow against the little men pouring into their home. Because, when all was said and done, the monsters and hybrids of Argwyll had more in common than they did with the pasty human invaders.

The narrow nature of the First tunnel was being used to their advantage. The Greycloaks had to dig their way through the packed earthen walls laden with smoke-bombs custom built by Fraxx himself. They stumbled into the tunnels already disoriented, and even at that could only fit a few of their warriors into the space and proceed inch by bloody inch. This, as Borlor had devised with his Dixit builder squads, had made sure that the enemy was funneled into a chokepoint, and when they emerged into the wider section of the main tunnel, they could be easily gunned down man by man by the archers on the walls.

Borlor watched from his vantage point atop the frontal palisade, noting how well their defensive strategy was working. He was surprised to see that even the Greycloak Magi were having trouble, and looked back to see the Minxit and Hopla mages behind the palisade were hard at work in meditation, focusing their efforts on keeping the Grey mages neutralized. He couldn't help but smile to see their confusion – to see in their hooded faces that even these Hybrids could be a match for they, who bore the blood of Krea.

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"Minotaur!" he bellowed. "Focus on keeping their vanguard occupied! Archers – aim for the Grey Magi!"

He saw the archers obey, but as for the minotaur forces – it was impossible to tell what they were thinking. Yet, when he saw their heads rise, their cow-like ears perk up, and then their bodies fly to obey his command, he knew that someone had heard his order and communicated it perfectly to the beasts.

He looked behind him to see Mara standing among the Hopla and Minxit Magi, her eyes closed and breath coming in rasps.

"Shit," Borlor groaned. "Keep up the pressure!"

He leaped down from the main wall just as a Greycloaks severed head came flying over it with him.

"Little lass!" he shouted in Mara's face. "What in the name of the Archons are ye doing here girl!?"

The little Hopla seemed barely even cognizant. Her closed eyes twitched. Her little ears shook. And from down her button nose a thin red line of crimson was tricking down.

"Damn it!" Borlor muttered, wiping the blood off the girl's face. "Why didn't you stay in the Inner Tunnels?"

In a whisper that was barely more than a raspy exhale, she finally replied.

"I'm sorry, Mr Borlor. But I can't leave them. This…is their home, too."

The old Dixit looked to the other Magi, who turned away, too focused on fighting their own battles in the mindscape of the Greycloak Mages.

"Little lass…" Borlor sighed. "This world is no place for a lady like you."

A distinctive boom suddenly reverberated through the vanguard tunnel. At first, Borlor didn't know what the sound was, but as soon as his ears stopped ringing, he began to understand what the din represented.

It was a clarion call. A horn.

"Commander Borlor!" shouted someone from the battered palisade. "It's a general retreat! The Greycloaks are falling back!"

Borlor hopped right back up to the wall to see what seemed like the impossible: the Greycloaks were inching back, some of them having given up their blades, into the smoke-filled recesses of the tunnel entrance from whence they had come.

A cheer of victory went up from the crossbowmen on the walls. The Minotaur and Cyclopes, smothered in the blood of the invaders, turned their snouts to the ceiling and bellowed in triumph.

But Borlor didn't join them. He was counting the Greycloak dead. And he was watching as the warriors moved. Slowly. Deliberately.

"There…there's no enough of them."

He scanned the bloody killing field that the entrance to the First Tunnel had become, seeing the limbs of monster and Greycloak intermingled in crimson, charred heaps.

And something wasn't right.

"There's not nearly enough of them," he muttered. "If they finally found our hiding place, they'd have taken every able-bodied Greycloak with them down here. Warriors from Caer Krea, from the Capital. But…we've only slain about 100 men…"

Borlor's fears were confirmed by a tugging at his back. He looked down to see Mara. Her eyes were open, staring, face aghast at the swirling miasma of smoke that still filled the entrance tunnel.

She pointed a shaking finger at the shadow that was rising within the smoke.

"…He is here."

Borlor looked to the girl and then to his comrades, who had suddenly stopped their jolly cheers.

Silence descended on all of Sanctum. The tunnel vibrations abruptly ceased. The din of combat totally evaporated.

And from the tunnel entrance came a blinding, pear-white light that threw itself across the entire underground, bathing the Hybrids and creatures of the abyss in its unnatural luminosity.

Mara cried out in pain, dropping to her knees and forcing Borlor to grab her so she could steady herself.

"L-little lass!"

"They hurt!"

The Dixit's eyes flashed towards the killing ground, trying to pick out what was happening in the blanket of white.

Slowly, his eyes began to see the dark shapes of the monster vanguard as they crawled on the ground, their weapons discarded, their skin peeling from their hides.

The light was burning them, and Mara could feel all their pain. All their terror as they were singed was being transferred right back at her, and she cowered against Borlor's side, shaking like a leaf.

"Sever yer connection, lass!" Borlor yelled at Mara. "Stop it now, or else –"

Amidst the mad cries of the wounded monster warriors, another series of sounds then emanated. The sound of wings being unfurled and sending a stream of gilded feathers through the tunnel. The sound of a chorus of voices chanting in unison.

And the sound of a single blade being drawn from its scabbard.

All of Sanctum's first line of defense looked towards what had just emerged from the darkness of the tunnel.

"B-by the Archon," Borlor stuttered. "What is that?"

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