FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

As it turns from night to morning I dream... I dream of a much different situation than what I'm in... I wake up, and see the keep being rebuilt by content laborers, whom are better garbed and safely working, no rags and skinny chest, no monsters and no paladins forced to fight them. I walk to the walls of the Keep, and look beyond... instead of scorched land I see thriving forests on almost every direction of the keep, the only thing existing otherwise being roads for travel and farmland... this place is well... I wake up to the realization things are not so... I have a meager breakfast and so does Ebeis. I walk to the Keeps center and see everyone with grim faces, and a select few people have even had empty bellies before it would seem. I walk to the gates and look beyond, some patrol is coming in from yesterday, and they have wounded. With the blighted landscape easily seen beyond, its fortunate they don't have dead. I could go straight towards doing my goal, but I feel sympathy for the squad coming back. As they enter the keep I offer to cast some magic to heal their wounded, and they are made capable of walking easily on their own. Apparently clerics were called in to aid them. They were already prepared to deal with serious wounds, but now they are quite minor, and they thank me for my assistance. "Your a blessing in times as dark as these, please, take this, it could be put to use in your future endeavors." I am given a mundane Healer's Kit. I can use this to tend to injuries without magic, with varying degrees of success. I thank the clerics and wave farewell to them and the soldiers as they proceed to the parts of the keep they are most wanted at. I go to were I now know I would be most useful... the Craftmen's Guild is a massive structure surrounded with several dilapitated buildings and walls of the keep that have faced damages extreme enough to be passed through by wandering occasional Undead and Plaguechanged. There are already a few soldiers going about finishing killing monsters who entered from last night, and workers are going towards the walls at a speedy run. Apparently the Paladin Captain here alerts me to the situation. "You, Ranger! If you truly wish to help you can go ahead of the open hole in the wall! Defend the workers with the other soldiers here so they can repair the wall! If you are truly capable in aiding us we might actually get the wall repaired beyond schedule, tomorrow at best, but if you and the others fall as wounded it is likely that it will take as long as a week to fix that wall, and we've already had too many setbacks with wounded, fallen, and lost resources to allow that... not get moving! I'll watch over the workers from behind you all and make sure if any abominations get past that the workers can at least flee to safety!"

I approach the gaping hole in the wall and look beyond... it's mainly fields of soil, bones, and the occasional corpse of a soldier, and lots of dead zombies and plaguechanged. I look around me, I have a dozen different men and women who will be fighting alongside me... half of them are Archers... and the other half consist of melee combatants, a mix of Fighters and Paladins. This isn't much to fight an army, but we won't be fighting an army, we look off in the distance and notice there are not even a hundred of the unholy freaks about these fields. Suddenly, I hear a great deal of noise from directly behind, and there are almost two dozen men and women working to fix the breach in the wall... as they repair the wall, numerous monsters take notice of the noise and begin to move forward to our position... I can only hope that they do not all charge the wall, as that would be way too many hostiles for us to kill off without any passing by us. The Plaguechanged move faster than the zombies, and move quick enough to reach our forces first... there are over 16 plaguechanged that move in to fight, thankfully they consist mainly of Raiders and Screamers, apparently weaker than things like Berzerkers and Warpseers. We ready a defense, the paladins and fighters move in and take on the Raiders while the archers support them from the flanks. The raiders charge straight forward hitting the melee defense head on, while the screamers support them with long range sonic attacks. Since the only downside in this fight is our inferior numbers, I decide to try taking on the Screamers and decimate their own support forces. Ebeis casts invisibility on me while I attempt to move around the melee battle going on. I descend upon the Screamers, but before striking and breaking the invisibility spell, I choose to Shapeshift and break invisibility through that means. The screamers take notice of this and deal quite a bit of damage on me, and I am left moderately wounded before finishing entering my WereWolf form. Even in my werewolf form I am only at a slightly better state than my human state, and I am bound to fall if I get barraged by a ranged assault again. Thankfully, entering melee takes less than a turn from where I am, and I force the enemy into engaging me in melee, which they are inferior at. After they engage me in melee with their claws, I am only reduced to a seriously wounded state when I finally fell them all after a few rounds. The Paladins and Fighters are still in melee, but they have killed most of their enemies without losing much of their own. Only one of their own has fallen and is in need of aid or he will die. I move in to attempt to heal him, alas, this leads to the enemy striking me as I pass by the combatants, and I am reduced to critical injuries. I heal the wounded soldier, but only enough to ensure he won't die. He retreats out of battle to avoid death. I am left with one less ally. With a few rounds of battle, the remaining Raiders are slain, and I am un-needed to intervene to ensure victory. I stay on the side of the battle, regenerating health to the point of being Seriously wounded. I still won't be of much use in battle if I get attacked in melee or ranged. The next approaching enemies include a small force of Zombies and smaller plaguechanged that are weak, fragile, but quick and accurate called Changelings. I head back behind the melee combatants and make use of my bow to aid our melee forces. "Ebeis, please, I'm too wounded to engage in melee right now, aid our warriors with magic!" Ebeis follows his orders, but he seems unwilling... I don't blame him for his feelings... While I and the Archers are hailing arrows upon our enemies Ebeis focuses on putting the Changelings to sleep with Sleep, rendering them vulnerable to us. The warriors seem to focus on the Changlelings first, which might not be a good idea with the zombies approaching... the Changelings fall to us after only 3 rounds, but suddenly zombies descend upon both of our forces, both melee and ranged... the result of a lack of direction and stragety. With the zombies divided between us, Archers are forced into melee with Daggers, while the Warriors enter melee with heavy weapons and shields. I do my best to combat the zombies and defend the Archers, but it is impossible to prevent the Archers from taking damage. After a few rounds, onl 4/5 zombies attacking Archers are dead and 1 Archer is on the ground dying. The Warriors also have one of their own on the ground wounded and dying, and as a result two Paladin remain with their wounded to heal him while the others aid the Archers I'm with. I attempt to heal the dying Archer with my magic and am successful, but make use of the last of my healing magic for the day doing so. The Archer flees... the remaining zombie is also slain with no further injuries occurring. A Fighter is forced to leave to survive. Our forces are now 9. We have 5 Archers and 4 Warriors. The wall has repaired enough that with a bit more repairs it will be restored enough that the undead and plaguechanged can no longer pass through, as well as us. It is midday, more hostiles approach as our escape behind us is covered up... the only way to safety is through the Keep entrance, which we must fight through. "Hold you ground and allow these repairs to be finished and you can re-enter the keep!" We could listen to the Captain, but we would risk people dying. The next force consists of a force of zombies. There are 10 of them. This is too big a risk if we are going to have everyone survive, and if we flee into the keep the zombies will simply prevent the current repairs being done. As a result, I try to reason with those alongside me, and ask if they on a majority would rather stay to fight or escape to safety. They choose to fight, and I with this situation, am forced to fight with them. It will be unfortunate, but it is quite likely that we will be bringing one of our own into the keep dead, and thats at best!, we might have 2 or 3 dead... The Warriors charge the zombies head on, defensive posts abandoned, however the Archers still have their backs to the walls... I decide to charge with the Warriors with Ebeis. I and Ebeis fight alongside the 4 Warriors. The first round of combat has us dishing shots out at our overwhelming enemies. They have the advantage, the numbers, and the lack of injuries. The Archers are supporting us, but the damage is not enough to outright kill a zombie each round... The next round of combat is completed, with round 2 leaving 2 zombies slain, 1 warrior critically wounded, and 1 Warrior Seriously Wounded, the other 2 Lightly Wounded. My Wounds however are no longer bad, I'm Moderately Wounded. I purposely intervene, positioning myself and Ebeis in front of our most wounded soldier, who takes notice of the safe way back to the keep... he flees... the other soldiers take some loss of moral as a result of this... another round of combat passess... another 2 zombies slain... another 2 Warriors need to retreat or die... I am already back on Serious Injuries, and Ebeis has Moderate Injuries... I ask the soldiers to flee to the Archers positions... they act on that as an order, performing such an act... as they do so, 2 zombies head in their direction, slowly heading to the archers and them... this is advantageous, as it leaves me and Ebeis, with less danger to fear. Yet another round of combat passes... We take down 2 zombies near us... the 2 zombies moving to the archers take damage as well... the Warrior, and Ebeis, are both Seriously Wounded, I am Critically wounded at this point... I could potentially die if I stay... but if I leave the Warrior will certainly die... there are only 2 zombies we are in melee with... so I decide on remaining... I survive with Ebeis and the Warrior... We notice the 2 zombies headed to the archers are also dead... alas... there was a casaulty... one of the Paladins is slain... we return to the Keep victorious. At the Keep Gate, I and Ebeis are greeted by a few clerics, but they immediatly take notice that behind us numerous injured return with a slain Paladin. They dely me and Ebeis from being healed while the Paladin is brought to be given last rites. The Archers and Warriors that returned with us grimly nod at eachother taking time to say the typical "You did what you could." and "He died a matyr." and all that junk. In the end, I still feel that this could somehow be blamed on us all, that we did not fight to our best. I remain silent on this matter to everyone but Ebeis... the one person I explain my feelings too... he sympathizes with me... "Master, you did your best, but sometimes the best is not enough. You managed to save other lives though, and for that, you should be happy. You even stayed to fight with me." I cannot smile to Ebeis, but I do nod in his direction and say, "Thank you for your sympathy Ebeis..." Back at the Keep, at as it is sun-down, I am allowed to be at the messhall where various soldiers, mercenaries, paladins, and clerics await their dinner. And yet, before we are allowed to eat the Paladin Captains decide to each give a speech to memorialize the successes, and losses, of this day. They all speak heavily of the battle recently fought by me and my fellows at the Destroyed Wall of the Keep near the Craftsmen's Guild. They even mention the heaviest of work, and sacrifice, made by two people in particular... they mentioned my name... apparently my acts to heal those dying on the battlefield was noticed... but also that of a Paladin, whom was mortally wounded and slain defending other wounded... the wounded I know I was not protecting at that moment... if anything... everyone prays in memory of the slain Paladin and raises glasses in his name... soon afterwards... we finally begin eating our meals... even Ebeis is given food... thank goodness... It is nightfall, and the Captain from earlier that was watching over the Breeched Wall stops to talk with me. He exclaims how impressed he was at my participation in combat earlier today... but he was also impressed by my humanity and leadership... something he says is not commonplace in Werewolves and Rangers... he asks that I visit him tommorrow at the Craftsmen's Guild... apparently he has something useful to reward me for my aid and having proven my devotion to a 'true good'. I agree to such a thing... and continue to my room. I notice a letter in my room... "Your aid and benevolence shall not be forgotten defender of the wildlands, and your past has been forgiven... visit me at the Keep Chapel if you wish to serve a force of greater good that seeks to maintain peace and order with your own..." I'm intrigued by the letter... tommorrow the Wall should be fully repaired by midday... no more attacks on the Keeps residents... and apparently I can now go and finally focus on better more important things than devoting my life solely to aiding these folk... until then... I sleep...