<span style="font-weight: bold">((OOC:  I haven't gone anywhere.  I was actually waiting for Heretic to post before I did again.  Typically I try to give everyone a chance to react to my latest post before I go again, just to keep everyone involved.  Since I'm the one who started this thread and maintains it to a degree, I feel that's my obligation.  I guess Heretic just missed my last interaction with him.  Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere, and a few days' delay shouldn't be too much of a worry.  This is practically the only thing I do here at the Portal... or anywhere online, for that matter.  So don't be at all concerned about this thing going idle.  Believe me, I have big plans.  BIG ones.  And some lovely presents.  I'm working on some secret projects about this thread.  You will all be getting the product of these projects at some point in the future.  This thread is very important to me.<br/><br/>I do have concerns over the number of characters in the RP.  We will have one more player joining us soon, and it seems everyone is branching out and creating new characters at a time when the action is really starting to heat up.  We have multiple plotlines going on right now, and I'm afraid someone is going to get "lost in the fray," as it were.  I don't want to feel like I'm reining anyone in, but during the upcoming action, maybe we should have a bit of a "thinning of the herd."  I'm not asking any players to leave - not at all!  I love what everyone is doing.  But if you're thinking about bringing in new characters about now, please give it a second thought.  Send me a PM if you have any ideas or concerns.<br/><br/>This is an epic, and we're all writing it together.  Leave no one behind.<br/><br/>That being said, I have some catching up to do...))</span><br/><br/>Feldana squeezed Sherra's leg under the sleeping bag as the wagon slid off the road.  The grain truck barreled past, continuing to honk its horn.  Hanging from its sides were tattered white cloths, painted with the symbol of the Five Gods in red, and the word "Humanity" written beneath.  The men screamed and whooped as the truck withdrew into the distance.<br/><br/>When the wagon swirled to a stop in the road, Feldana screamed and lost her grip on Sherra, sliding along the floor and bumping her head on the door.  She whimpered and rubbed it, feeling a bruise already starting to form.  Though she was frightened of humans still, she asked, "What's happening?"<br/><br/>The truck was long gone behind them, but it would not be wise for the wagon to linger in the road.  The plume of smoke Dreamer had seen earlier was closer - not by much, but enough to tell that it was not a single plume but many entwined together as they rose up from the horizon.  Around them, the fields of grain waved idly in an errant breeze.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>Halvorson and the medic were drawing slowly backwards when they suddenly heard the "ka-chunk" of Baz's shotgun and some exchanged speech ahead of them, around the bend in the tunnel.  Halvorson nearly leapt out of his skin - he hadn't heard Baz's whisper.  He whirled about, looking for the short rat, and there was no sign of him.  Somehow he had sneaked away.<br/><br/>Baz's shout erupted from around the bend ahead of them.<span style="font-style: italic">"The enemy of my enemy is my friend!"</span>This time, the medic jumped.  Halvorson grit his teeth and waved him to follow as he crept up to the bend in the sewer line.<br/><br/>O'Toole saw Halvorson and the medic stride past her.  She was puzzled.  What the hell had just happened?  Halvorson gave her a hand signal to stay put, and she did, despite the creepy crawlers all around her.<br/><br/>Halvorson peered around the corner and saw Baz holding a strange man up at gunpoint.  He'd heard what they said - what Baz had said.  He wanted to clamp the rat's muzzle shut.<span style="font-style: italic">"We're going in,"</span>he had said.  Sure, there were plenty of places to go here, but...  Mother of the Five Gods, what was Baz doing?  They didn't know who this guy was.  This was the last place Halvorson wanted to run into anyone.  He didn't care what story this man told, Halvorson wasn't in a charitable mood anymore.  They were going right into the maw of the enemy.  There would be no distractions.<br/><br/>He strode around the corner, silently motionin for the medic to back him up.  He didn't know what he was going to do yet, but he needed to get in control.  He walked right up to the strange man, aiming his sword's point under the man's chin.  "Stop talking," he ordered in a low, firm voice.  "Drop your weapon and ammo.  Now.  Baz, keep him covered."<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>The creature before Faust laced its tentacles around Faust's throat and torso, even as its one eye was slashed through.  An unearthly howl permeated the darkness, and the suckers bit into Faust's flesh, latching on with tiny sets of teeth embedded in each.  The tentacles contracted, attempting to cut off his breathing and circulation.  The eye oozed luminescent blood into the runoff of sewage below it.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>Before Heretic could reach for the door, it burst, sending boards everywhere.  Janus reflexively squeezed his trigger, piercing the pair of cultists that were coming through with dozens of bullets.  As they fell in a bloody heap, he surged forward into the hallway, shooting down a few others and calling behind him, "Come on!  We gotta get out of this building!"<br/><br/><br/>The medics drew slowly back, pulling the doors half-open and shuffling the crates aside, their faces a mixture of fear and awe.  They had never seen power the likes of what Iln had just displayed - few of them had ever even heard of drakes and their kind.  Outside, just beyond the mass of downed cultists, others were drawing back, truly afraid of her.  Behind those, the chaos still raged.<br/><br/><br/>The First Sergeant was bringing his pole around for a slashing attack, but the bulldog was charging at him before he could strike.  Instead, he reflexively pulled the pole back towards himself, trying to use it as a shield.  The bulldog's weight slammed into it, pushing it into him and knocking him backwards.  He felt his knees buckle and saw the bulldog's teeth, just inches from his face.  The pole caught in a floorboard and he lost his balance completely, falling onto his back.  Members of his platoon were rushing to him, trying to get past furniture to help him.  He heard a distant scream from above.  Emiko...!  A Resistance soldier, the one the bulldog had first gone for, was the closest, and he lashed out at the bulldog with a switchblade, his strike being a jab at the eye.<br/><br/><br/>The major and his boys were rapidly reducing the archers' numbers, the stable men keeping would-be escapees from leaving the clump the zerked-out men were ravaging.  Nearly three-quarters of the archers had fallen.<br/><br/>This was when the major and the three others decided to sate their hunger.  One by one, then in a sudden frenzy, archer were lifted from their feet and stuffed into grotesquely widening human mouths, disappearing in series after series of powerful gulps.  Bows and quivers were the only things left on the ground of their owners.  In a very short span of time, not an archer was left.  The street was empty.<br/><br/>The four men, gorged beyond the capability of movement, lay in varying positions on the pavement, their unbelievably huge guts heaving and throbbing before them.  There was a pause.  Then the major howled in pain.  A long red line appeared on the skin of his belly, a glint of silver showing in the blood.  Then, with a sickening wet noise, his stomach was torn open from the inside.  Five gore-covered cultists, one of them holding a small dagger, spilled out onto the street, half-crazed with panic and desperation.  Horrified, the stable soldiers charged and cut them down.  The major flopped dead to the ground, his entrails slipping out of the gash in his torso.<br/><br/>Anger consumed the three others that were gorged, and they rapidly downed handfuls of the yellow digestive pills they had been supplied with.  Muffled screams filtered through the skin of their bellies as they rapidly digested the remaining archers.  Though it would be a few minutes before they could move again, their prey's struggles were quickly ended.  The stable men guarded them in the meantime.<br/><br/><br/>Colonel Merelli knew he couldn't hold the enemy in a frontal assault for much longer, but he had noticed there were no more volleys of arrows coming from behind the hospital.  His eyes darted to the main doors of that building, suddenly seeing bolts of what looked like electricity erupt into the crowd of cultists, arcing from one to the next, causing the whole group to fall as one.  The doors opened, and there he saw Iln, looking out with a grin on her face.  She had digested her first meal already, and already looked much better.  Merelli smiled.  Now she would feast and grow strong.<br/><br/>A soldier beside him was suddenly snared in a rope.  He jumped and whirled, unable to react in time as the helpless man was dragged powerfully away.  Others leapt upon him, pulling back on the rope.  It was then that he saw the one on the other end - a large anthro-elephant, his trunk decorated with hundreds of piercings, his massively muscled arms straining, pulling all the men on the other end of the rope toward him.  An elaborate headdress sat atop the elephant's head.  He must have been important.  Though the Resistance line had held on the east flank, this one must have broken through.  Merelli brought his sidearm to bear on the elephant's bulbous head and fired off his whole clip.  The elephant jerked backwards, his forehead exploding as he fell onto the grass, letting go of the rope.  In triumph, the Resistance man he had originally ensnared disentangled himself from the rope and ran over, injecting himself with Vore Juice and beginning to devour the elephant.  Merelli set his teeth grimly and turned to check his center line.