Shadows & Sorcery #55
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This week, we join two warriors rooting out a sinister cult in Hammer of the Serpents, we take a daring look into what happens under a Fullmoon Shadow, we learn all about the secrets of the Cathedral Valley, we talk a little about the mysteries of the Crucible of Shadow, and we ascend into the strange heights of the Mountain of the Sorcerer…
Hammer of the Serpents
The three greyfolk clans quite organically settled into their now ancient homelands. The Steelfolk warriors found adversity and growth in the mountains, the Stonefolk found unbound freedom and wildness in the rock-strewn steppes, and the Silverfolk found mysticism and higher order within the deep woods. After the unshackling of humanity from the dominion of the dragons, they too discovered the wonders of the greyfolk lands.
The greyfolk revered their ancestor-gods, the Great Grey Ones, the giants who warred with the draconic enemy in elder times. But man had no gods or lords, not after the dragons, and they instead revered their sages and heroes, their wisdom and the mark they left on the world. And yet, despite all this, the humans of the Woods were not immune to the fervent faith of the Silverfolk—they held all the spiritual revulsion of the dragons the greyfolk did, and then some.
To the greyfolk and men of the Woods, no more potent a vileness was there—apart from a true dragon—than a serpent-man. They represented the fall of humanity back into its slave existence. The Draconian dragon-men were born as such, but the serpent-men were turned of their own volition into crawling mockeries. To all greyfolk, they are yet another aspect of their race's ancient enemy, but to a righteous human, they are corruption incarnate. And so there came to be, among the humans of the Silver Woods, the Order of the Hammer of the Serpents.
The head of a great, heavy maul came crashing through the half-rotten wooden door. From out of the dark within there rushed two figures clad in filthy robes, wielding wicked daggers. The downward arc of one of the blades was caught on the long hilt of the warhammer, and from behind the maul-wielder Shinnok, there dashed in another warrior, Ulkawan, with two short, heavy mallets that found their mark in the face of a half-serpent assassin which had aimed its knife-tip at Shunnok. The first mutant was knocked back, and before it could issue a piercing cry, the head of the maul sent it flying into the wall beside it.
A serpent-man cult. The Stone Steppe scouts had been right, and bless them for their swift report, thought the two Hammers. An insidious but dreadfully straightforward threat. Somewhere in this village, abandoned since a basilisk had poisoned and consumed every resident, there lay a piece of true dragonflesh or blood with which the serpent-men were corrupting and transmogrifying those poor souls they could coerce with dreams and thoughts from the roads and other villages. And somewhere in here, too, likely guarding their unholy relic, was a fully fledged serpent-man, the dark mentor of these degenerated fools. The Hammers would brook them no quarter.
It was close, they could feel it. A high ranking Hammer wizard had supplied them with devices designed to quiver in reaction to dragon remains. The distant kinship the serpent-men bore to those terrors wouldn't produce anything, so the warriors had been forced to get close to really know. The devices themselves contained minute measures of the wizard's own precious store of dragonblood. It was risky—if the serpent-men prevailed, they would claim the blood as their own, thus affording them greater power. But the Hammers spared no expense in the slaying of serpents.
Before them was what seemed to be a spacious antechamber, perhaps a temple of greyfolk gods. People, both greyfolk and human, would gather here as a meeting place, before offering gratitude and veneration to what were to them ancestors and saviors. The perfect place for serpent-men to perform their dark rites. The two Hammers threw open the sagging doors and looked upon a terrible scene. Four figures, barely human, were crouching before a great golden bowl of steaming dragonblood. Presiding over this was their master, the full-grown serpent-man, its crooked spine and taloned claws curling with vile delight at the sight of the Hammers.
The four cultists rushed the warriors. A mighty arc of the maul cast three of them on their backs, and one was crushed under its follow-up strike. A muscular, scale-laden fighter with a broad-bladed sword flung itself at the Ulkawan, who desperately blocked a vicious slash at the last second. The blade clanged off the heavy iron heads of the mallets and in the second's reprieve, a flurry of deadly strikes crumbled the mutant's limbs and sent strange gore across the dusty wooden beams. Shunnok dispatched another mutant as his comrade slew the other who was just unhooking a wicked axe.
The serpent-man didn't waste a moment. It jumped over the brazier of blood and gave a rasping roar. Its limbs were just beyond human, the musculature all wrong, the neck long and ending in a short snout like a drawn-out human face, but with a far-too-large maw and fangs. The tail writhed and beat against the floor. Wide eyes with thin slit pupils flared, and the creature lunged. Shunnok met it with a tackle, but the creature's strength stayed him. Ulkawan went to aid his fellow, but the serpent-man swung out a wiry limb, sending the warrior skidding across the floor. Claws raked across Shunnok's chest and the serpent-man turned, and arched its neck. A dark art peculiar to serpents, a jet of black venom was spat towards Ulkawan who was only now regaining composure. The ichor stuck to the arm and sent an immediate dead ache across the whole limb.
Charging in with a battle-cry, Shunnok drove his pommel into the serpent-man's head, and went to follow with an almighty downward arc, but the serpent-man fell to its four limbs and sought escape. It wasn't expecting to meet the leaping form of Ulkawan who brought his hammers down upon the thing's shoulders as the maul crashed through its back. Its vile heart extinguished, the corpse heaved, and was still. The devices on their belts thrummed as dark blood called out to dark blood, the Hammers were glad the horror hadn't attempted to call up any dragonmagick.
Another nest cleansed, one would remain behind to guard the bowl of dragonblood and pray, while expert help was procured to utilize this spoil of war against the dragons it had once spilled from.
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