Sul Doa

Sul Doa, god of strife and war, is feared and avoided by all reasoning men. They propitiate him in hopes of avoiding his wrath, and the destruction that he brings. Soldiers and heroes of a bloodthirsty nature go farther, offering him sacrifices in hopes that Sul Doa will favor their cause and destroy their enemies. And some - just a few - worship Sul Doa outright, seeking to aid him in mission of destruction in hopes of avoiding it themselves. These few, known as the Doa-Khine, are loathed even more than the god they worship for their senseless malevolence, and are hunted down wherever they are found. A small cult of the Doa-Khine have established themselves high above the earth, a half-mile up the great tower known as Mindon Elen; and as our story begins, a group of heroes have just reached them, climbing the shallow stairs to the open terrace upon which they perform some dark rite.

Two cultists go down as the fight begins - shot by the three archers Hvilming, Svortic and Welmer and knocked, screaming, off the edge. Most of the rest break off the rite, drawing swords and forming a line across the terrace. Three of the cultists remain, squatting, around the black-tinged fire at the centre of their ritual. The heroes show no such hesitation; Jordan and Gvolming charge, screaming incoherent war cries, at the cultists' line, while the archers draw back for another shot and the mages Keltsing and Korvig call ice and lightning upon the foe. More cultists die - skewered, frozen and blasted - and, though their line holds, they seem nearly ready to flee.

Then the squatting cultists stand up, pulling the blackened fire into their hands, though it blisters and burns them terribly. They hurl it at the heroes, blasting Hvilming and Jordan back into the wall of the tower and leaving scorch marks on the white stone of Mindon Elen itself. Keltsing and Korvig, reacting too late, call up a great shield between the cultists and the heroes - it shimmers prismatically in the morning light. The cultists beat on it with fist and sword, to no effect. The heroes tend their wounded and consider. "I think I could beat that fire if I saw it again," Korvig tells the rest of the group. "Everyone get ready - I'm going to lift the shield in twenty seconds."

The heroes have not been closely watching the cultists. Now they turn as a tremendous crackling noise comes from their direction. Black flame rises up, pressing against the shield, as the cultists are burnt alive. Some of them scream. Svortic, unable to bear it, turns away. When the last of the cultists are consumed, the flame, rather than extinguishing, begins to grow - forming itself into a roughly humanoid shape, with arms, legs, and a neck/head, and then growing, becoming thicker and higher by the moment.

There is a tremendous whoomph. Beside the tower, the face of the heroes' patron god, Ilvas the Wise, appears floating in midair. It's about thirty feet tall, and looks down on the heroes sternly. "The Doa-Khine have done it at last. Through their mad sacrifice, they have summoned their dark god - Sul Doa, the destroyer. The end times are upon us. You seven have been brave and true to my service, so I now come to take you bodily to Heaven, there to escape the Apocalypse to come."

The heroes stand, shocked, for a long moment. Keltsing breaks the silence. "Nah," he says.

Ilvas the Wise looks at the heroes uncomprehendingly. "Nah?" he asks.

Korvig, brother of Keltsig, stands beside Keltsig. "No. You want us to just sit out the Apocalypse? What happens to everyone else?"

Ilvas says, sorrowfully, "I will rescue the most courageous and virtuous among them, but... the rest are doomed."

The heroes are agreed now - all stand in the centre of the terrace. "No. That's not right. Look, we've taken down real nasties before, right? Greater Demons and stuff?" Keltsig rhetorically asks the others. "This guy's not so bad. Look at him." The shape of dark fire is roughly twenty-five feet tall now. The shield has stretched to match it. "We can take him. To hell with the Apocalypse."

With a look of regret on his face, Ilvas the Wise disappears with another whoomph. Korvag cries out, "Twenty seconds!" Jordan whirls a chain over his head, testing the heft, while Welmer picks out some of his best arrows, enchanted against demons and elementals. (Sul Doa's avatar probably fits somewhere in the middle, he figures.) Keltsig's hands glow red, sparking when they come near stone, and Gvolming's twin bastard swords are both in his hands, creating a subtle distortion as they wave through the air.

The shield goes down.

The heroes charge.