The Great Crestmaster

The fire birds collided with the Necrotic Hawk and released several small explosion in their wake. The impact pushed the Hawk some distance away.

A smoke screen resulted from the attack which allowed the injured man to escape a good distance away. But he was limping and bleeding badly from several holes in his body.

If he wasn't a Crestmaster and a Knight he would have died long ago, the mangled flesh made it easy to see the bones. He was riddled with several such wounds.

After a moment a radiant light engulfed the man and he seemed to breath out in relief. After the light dissipated Aldrich saw a miraculous scene the man was no longer bleeding and his injuries were healing at a rapid pace.

Aldrich looked away to the woman in the group who were black and white faith robes, she closed her eyes and her pure white crest shined. He could see her symbol, it was the holy circle which made her a cleric.

The man being healed had a crest too, it was bronze and his symbol was of a lance and a shield which made him a knight.

The Catoblepas was probably his mount. Speaking of that monster after the party had dismounted it charged in the direction of the Hawk.

It stopped right before the smoke screen and breathed in deeply as it dug its feet into the mud.

"Breath of decay!"

The knight ordered from behind. A stream of green foul smelling air was released from the monster's mouth and it broke into the smoke.

The Hawk released an anguished cry, after the smoke dissipated Aldrich had expected it to be scorched badly, though it was burnt in some places it wasn't as bad as it should have been.

Aldrich saw that attack clearly, a dozen fire birds shot a that speed should have charred half of it at least.

The breath of decay caused it's once beautiful feathers to grow white and several green and red bumps like acne popped on it's skin. The didn't look good at all.

The Necrotic-Claw Hawk's eyes glowed in creepy green and it cried deafeningly. The sound of cracking bones echoed in the vicinity.

From the mud that the were standing on, skeletal bones emerged one after another at frightening speed, the bones rearranged themselves magically to form short humanoid skeletons.

The skeletons reminded Aldrich of the goblins that kidnapped him and tried to enslave him and Tarzin some time ago. The skeletons had green glowing eyes and held only short bone daggers.

They divided themselves and half of the summoned skeletons went to attack the party members in the back the other half targeted the Catoblepas.

"Go! Don't let it summon any more!"

Shouted the Knight who was being healed.

The Catoblepas charged at the Hawk and rammed into it with it's massive horns digging deep into its flesh and dislocating the bone lance which was logged into the Hawk's chest.

But moments after that dozens of the short skeletons had climbed all over its body and started stabbing everywhere at once prompting the Catoblepas to back away in frenzy.

The Catoblepas released some sort of energy, Aldrich wasn't able to sense it clearly but he could tell that it did something when he saw that the bone daggers broke when they tried to stab for a second attack.

The skin of the Catoblepas seemed to have changed color to dark gray and it became as hard as stone.

Suddenly an incredibly fast shadow darted over the battlefield, it was one of the party members. A man in light armor who had a blue crest. The symbol was unclear as the man was moving so fast he could barely make out his face.

The man got close to the Catoblepas and at this moment his crest shined and released a blue light that came upon the man's right hand. The light transformed into a bronze glaive.

The man was a Weaponsmaster and his weapon was a glaive, and it was evidently special as it turned the skeletons into dust the moment it came into contact with them.

The man then jumped over to the Catoblepas that was still being assaulted and with supernatural reflexes and strength he cleared out the majority of the skeletons that were bothering it.

Unfortunately he was still one step too late as two of the skeletons crawled upto the head of the Catoblepas and with their bone daggers they stabbed through the two eyes causing blood to spray outward.

*ROAR!*

The Catoblepas went out of control and the man was almost flung off of its back but he didn't let go instead he mounted the Catoblepas and slammed his ankle into the monster's abdomen bringing it down to a halt.

It was then, that the Hawk which was completely silent and unmoving for two minutes suddenly lunged with ungodly speed and with a wide open beak it bit into the neck of the unexacting Catoblepas.

But instead of meeting flesh it felt like it was biting into an old rock. The man reacted at last and slashed at the two remaining skeletons instead of targeting the Hawk.

Aldrich didn't know or understand why the man made that decision, he had a clear opening to kill the Hawk. For whatever reason, that delay was long enough that it allowed the Hawk to break the stone-like defense of the Catoblepas.

It managed to tear a hefty chunk off of the Catoblepas's neck. The man tried to attck the Hawk but by then it had rolled on the ground strangely.

As it rolled on the ground, from the mud several small humanoid skeletons emerged quickly and attached themselves to the Hawk. Their bones then rearranged themselves into what looked like a suit of armor that covered the Hawk from head to toe.

"DUCK!"

The woman who was a Pyromancer shouted at the Weaponsmaster. As the man ducked the glaive returned to his crest in a flash of light and a two meter wide fire ball collided with the Necrotic Hawk.

The resulting explosion caused the air to ripple like a water wave in a lake. Aldrich was pulled out of the scene when Gazeff pointed backwards and so they started retreating slowly.

So far none of the involved parties have bothered them, probably because they were too focused on the battle. And who could blame them they were fighting for their lives.

When the smoke had dissipated, the party had completely regrouped, the pyromancer was sweating bullets.

Clearly that attack was not so easy to pull off, there was another woman in the back she was dressed in half-plate and looked like a melee fighter but her face was pale and weak.

The Knight had retrieved his bone lance and was rubbing the head of the Catoblepas, the glaive wielding man was there too. The cleric was healing the fallen Catoblepas but as Aldrich saw it bleeding more and more he shook his head.

The Necrotic-Claw Hawk was curled up in the small crater that resulted from that explosion. This time it was hurt badly and bleeding profusely with charred flesh and smoking bones littering the earth underneath.

Aldrich swallowed down, by all rights that thing should have been burnt to a crisp, but then again it displayed a resistance to fire earlier and it had covered itself with layers of bone armor before the attack.

The Hawk ignited with purple smoke. Thirteen skeletons climbed out of the mud and made a run for the party members. These skeletons were much bigger-human sized and wielded bone clubs.

"It's charging for an acid burst, I'll go in there and stop it, Carl you protect them here!"

"Can you do it?" The Knight looked at the Pyromancer but she shook her head.

"I'm out of Ether."

"We have to finish it off now, you guys back off as far as you can go. I will take the chance to attack while it's using acid bust."

"Are you thinking that you can tank it? You can't do that..."

"It's our only chance, I'm the only one who can resist the acid thanks to my stone skin."

The weaponsmaster released his glaive and launched it at the incoming skeletons, the glaive spun in the air and it released a powerful shock wave as it destroyed five skeletons at once and it even flew back to the weaponsmaster.

The Knight rushed to dodged the remaining skeletons as they tried to grab into him by he cleverly dodged any attempts to drag him down.

At last before he could reach his goal several pores seemed to have opened in the body of the Hawk and a purple liquid gushed out. Everywhere.

In a radius around the the Hawk and in every direction, where it landed trees withered and the earth itself burned and corroded in a matter of seconds.

Aldrich and Gazeff were not far enough to escape the blast range and were engulfed in the attack.

But not a single drop landed on the two of them. Aldrich looked at Gazeff but it didn't seem like he was doing anything special. Above their heads, there was the silhouette of an invincible shield and the acid seemed to have avoided them of its own accord.

Aldrich looked at the center of the battlefield and saw that the Knight had pierced the Hawks head with his bone lance at some point when it was unleashing its attack.