Awesome storyline! I enjoy the plight of The Carrot. And that bed-demon freaked me out something fierce.

I'm slow

As Terranus pulls the glowing essence from Abysson there's not a great deal he can do to resist. As its containing membrane breaks, the liquid composing his body loses its magical properties and just becomes regular water again, once again shackled by the accursed laws of gravity.


However even before the entire bulk of Abysson has rejoined the river Alluvion subsumes it into his own form, choosing to manifest himself as an enormous facsimile of his own face. When he speaks, he sounds more annoyed than angry at his minion's demise. The glowing orbs he has for eyes don't have any pupils, but he gives the impression that if they did he would be rolling them.
[size=12pt][color=lightblue]Arrogant fool... what did he think he was doing?
I gave him one rather simple task, sparing me from having to listen to your aimless prattling, and he decides that this gives him the right and power to challenge an aspect?
In different circumstances I would be forced to thank you... though that hardly seems appropriate here.
Alluvion sighs to himself, a sound that is a little odd coming from his cavernous maw.

[size=12pt][color=lightblue]Are you just here to kill my servants or did you actually have something to say for once?
I suppose we can end this all now if that is really your intention but even in my most ungenerous estimations of your strength (and believe me, that's quite low) I'd expected something a little more impressive than this as your last stand.

Meanwhile, Bloodaxe turns to rally his own troops.
"Have you buggers seriously been standing there watching this entire time? Did you not think that maybe teaming up to repel the invader might have been a good idea?"
There are a few mumbles along the lines of "not honourable" and "didn't want to get in the way" before one of them pips up "You broke the floor, how were we meant to get across?"
Bloodaxe examines the ledge, in the heat of battle he had managed to leap across it without a second thought but such heroic actions might not be reasonable to expect from new trainees.
"Well look, there's like a little ledge where that platform thing was hung, you can walk across that right? We've got more tiny bastards to fight."

A floor below, the armoured elemental is already doing just that. As the mud coats the hole in its armour, it is not only blinded by subject to an intense burning sensation until it can manage to prise it off. It swings wildly as pressure builds up behind the clump of magical dirt but succeeds only in smashing chunks of masonry off the roof. Perhaps its fellows sneaking up behind will have greater success.

Inside the castle, Dracoco turns to his Carrot friend and thinks up a better usage for him.
"I feel we may need more of my kin for the coming battle. I'd rather you stay here and see if the Seedlings can be saved, the spirits seem to be distracted with other things at the moment"
He stands at the edge of the castle and clings onto some dirt as a nearby Earth spirit begins to pull away from the castle.
"I'd rather be at your side fighting, but I understand. Should I save the seedlings I will use the rest of the resources in this castle to produces arms and armour. We should be able to get a couple of new barrellers out of it too"
Dracoco nods and is pulled off the side of the castle as the Earth spirit begins to fall to the ground below.
"Good luck, Grand Knight!"

The three Cocos at the entrance continue their fight, the staff-wielding one runs behind the Armoured WaterGoblin and fires another blast of earthen magic into its back while the sword wielding Coco stabs him in the chest. The other one is less fortunate as a piece of detached stone hits him directly in the face, knocking him off balance.

Above the Cocos the barreller, having no other option, throws his new axe at the Goblin in the balloon. It is unlikely it will hit or even do any damage if it did, but as it stands he has no arrows left and throwing is the next best thing. When in doubt throw an axe, a method which seems to have served both the Cocos and Goblins well.

Having now landed, the two Earth spirit go deeper into the Goblin fortress. Noticing the downed but still alive Barreller on the floor, the spirit above extends a mucky hand puts him up right.
"On your feet little one. We still have a battle to win, and you are more useful to me as a separate entity"
The other simple shoots a tentacle from his mouth, akin to a tongue, and wraps it around the nearby MagiGoblin's leg.

Terranus points his single eye in the direction of Alluvion and tuts at the large form the Water spirit has taken.
"You know as well as I that the forms we take have little bearing on strength, Alluvion. Your insistence on being this large will actually spread your energy over a wider area, I could collapse your current form in a single hit.

So I ask that you stop showing off to your pathetic servants and fight me as a true Lord of the Water. I'm sure you as well as I grow tired of these little games, the final decision on who is truly the victor never was, and never will be decided by those that serve us. It takes a lord of an element to destroy another"

"You wish to end this now?
I had wished to save you some small shred of dignity in order to create a more satisfying conclusion to our rivalry, but if you truly desire to do battle as my own strength waxes then on your own head be it!
I will crush you and your pitiful minions and then pluck the castle of your followers from the sky!"
With a swirl of currents, Alluvion vanishes beneath the surface and surges through the warring spirits in the river, sending them tumbling in every direction. While it isn't quite as clear cut as he makes it out to be, he truly believes that there is little that Terranus can do to stop him.
Gathering his strength for a final assault, he clambers up onto land and begins to make his way towards the Coco's castle.

Bloodaxe, meanwhile, views the scene outside his own fortress with a distinct air of confusion.
"What the hell is going on here?"
He honestly isn't sure which of the combatants is meant to be on his side any more, it's fortunate that Alluvion isn't quite in view yet.
"I hate bloody magic."
His troops continue to clamber over the gap to join him, though he isn't quite sure where he's going to send them yet.

On the floor below, the water mage rakes at the elemental's face with talons of ice. It is all very impressive, though conversely to the Coco's spells which are boring clods of dirt concealing deadly magics, it's mostly just for show.
Alluvion empowered him to impress the goblins rather than to fight, and thus much of the attack's power is wasted in a completely pointless light show appreciated by nobody but a lone spirit of water.

The armoured elemental succumbs to the combined attacks of the Cocos and collapses into a dripping pile of metal clothing. Rather predictably, once the controlling force is removed its spiked flail drops directly downwards onto the Coco that decided to stand underneath the enemy's weapon.
Its ally completes its flanking manoeuvre slightly too late to actually save its friend, but does make a rather impressive entrance by bursting out of the ground. A second possessed goblin corpse follows closely behind, though now the cocos and the elementals have basically just swapped places.

The goblin in the balloon watches this in some confusion, though he is distracted somewhat by the axe that has pierced the wood of the basket and found its way into his leg. The hapless carrotcopter begins to push it slowly off course, not that it was really going anywhere to begin with.
With a floating building covered in terrifying faces heading their way, the two tinkers on the roof set about trying to build a similar machine with which to effect their escape. A valiant peon prepares to fend off the invaders with his pick-axe, little knowing that the pair he is defending have no intention of saving him too.

Unsheathing his sword as he drops, the grand knight spins in midair and brings his blade slicing down onto the now-landed Earth spirit. It immediately loses its form from the magic in Dracoco's sword, its earthen remains collapsing onto the ground in a heap of mud.

The earth tremors and a nearby cave begins to fill in with mud. Several stones push themselves out of the mud and begin to glow as Terranus takes control of the large earthen form. A mouth begins to form with the typical look of strain from the sudden amount of energy needed to keep control of the earth. Terranus glares at Alluvion, it is now evident that this entire piece of earth is under his control.
"Despite the many negative things you are, Alluvion, I would not take you for an idiot. Your overconfidence disappoints me, and I do hope it does not affect your abilities, we wouldn't want this final confrontation to end in your utter embarrassment, would we?"
The Tremors stop and a strange sigh of relief comes from the large hole where Terranus' mouth is. His earthen form now stabilised, he prepares himself for defence.
"Enough talk now, Alluvion, I shall allow you to take the first strike. No holding back now!"

Satisfied with his swift dispatch of the Earth Spirit, Dracoco readies his sword to take on the next. He notices that the creature is preoccupied with the green fellows, that should make it easy to kill it from behind and proceed to finish off the goblins amidst the confusion. Said spirit fires a clump of mud from his mouth at the Pickaxe wielding Goblin. Filled with absolutely zero magic energy but plenty of phlegm like slime, the mud is made more to disgust and hinder than to harm.

Unable to do much for his friend, the Mage Coco watches as the heavily armoured night continues to helplessly plummet down the hole with his arms flailing after being hit by the brick. He can only assume that there are even more of these strange water creatures down there, so trying to rescue him would be a farce. He tries not to think too much about the fact his other friend has just been splattered across the floor despite wearing relatively tough armour. Deciding instead to focus on the closest threat, the Mage points his charged staff at the nearby possessed water Goblin. The crystal crackling with arcane energy is probably more impressive than anything the Coco will be able to cast.

Meanwhile the earth spirit laughs as the Goblin's magic tickles his face, simply obstructing his vision for a few moments.
"This is all you have? What sort of foolery is this!" he flicks his mud tongue and launches the rubbish magical Goblin into the air. Perhaps he might be able to use him as a weapon against the oncoming water elemental.

Ignoring the Cocos and focusing on the spirits possessing the Goblins, one of Calxas' minions fires two magically charged rocks at the recently-emerged water Goblins.

"You would really just hand me the first move? You're even more stupid than I ever imagined!
Who would just give up an advantage for free like that?"
Alluvion pulls himself fully onto the land. Now disconnected from the river his power is greatly diminished but he is confident that the strength he has gained in the very recent past is enough that he won't need it.
His form twists and changes to take on aspects of Incendis, as he taps into the Firelord's stolen power.
[color=lightblue]"This ends now!"

Having difficulty telling friend from foe, Bloodaxe vaults down a ladder and digs one of his knives into the back of some kind of amorphous beast that is clearly abusing one of his minions, though the man looks a little sickly. Is it that one that was talking about magic earlier?
The rest of his recruits are a little less enthusiastic.
The mage himself is doing his best to get the water spirit's attention, with little success.
[color=seagreen]"Help me, you fool!"
It seems that this particular elemental hasn't inherited any of its creator's much prized cunning.

The other water sprites are doing a little better. One of them catches the falling Cocoknight and, feeling suddenly curious, make an attempt to pull its armour off to get a better look inside. Maybe these would make good hosts too?
The one above is dealt a major injury by the hovering minions of Calxas, losing one of its magical limbs entirely and much of its essence. The fact that it is bound to a corpse seems to have dimmed its wits though, as it continue to ignore the far more threatening elemental, instead wrapping one tendril around the bareller's leg and sending another questing after the Coco mage. It started this trek to kill the intruders and it's going to finish that job before tackling anything else.

Inside the citadel the golden armoured goblin leaps across the divide to the chef's rescue, though that possessed goblin seems to be doing quite well enough on its own, having managed to sever the earth elemental's tentacle with its trusty knife.
On the floor above, the peon's reserves of bravado are extinguished by even the most harmless of attacks. Helplessly throwing his arms (and weapon) into the air he yells in terror, a stupid idea as it means he receives a mouthful of foul tasting mucus. Hopefully his flailings will serve as a long enough distraction for the tinkers to finish doing whatever it is they are doing over there.

The inferno from Alluvion disintegrates the grass and scorches the surface of the earth. The ground rumbles as more and more earth begins to form behind Terranus' mass. Feeling his energy being sapped at an Alarming rate, he pushes forward into the breath of fire and opens his mouth to draw it in. Many centuries ago, the Lord of earth defeated the Lord of Air in a catastrophic battle not dissimilar to the events occurring right now, taking advantage of this power Terranus is able to suck the flames deep into himself where they are instantly quelled due to lack of oxygen.

Though a lot of his energy has been lost, Terranus is now in a stable enough position where Alluvion is dealing no current damage to him. Using this opportunity he unleashes several attack intended to stagger the Water Lord. A horn of stone crashes out of his nose and pierces straight into the top of Alluvion's face, while to outsiders this would look like a feeble attack, the magical power of Calxas combined with Terranus can rip huge chunks of magical mass from an elemental's manifestation. In similar combined attacks, he drives a stone spear into the "chest" of Alluvion, luckily for the Water lord that Terranus is not quite in range to pierce his form fully.

"Oh how I have missed such battles, Alluvion! It is delightful to fight one more powerful than that fool of the Air, but of course all things must come to an end. Soon your power will be added to my own!"

As he speaks, the characteristic earthen tentacles of Terranus begin to form, one wrapping itself around Alluvion's Arm and shooting barbed stone into the areas where it contacts the water, the other simply growing bigger.

The two stone spirits are having just as much success as the Earth Lord, it seems. One grabs the nearby axe embedded into the Goblin balloon, whilst staring down its pilot. The other notices the Water spirit ignoring his attacks, and decides to fire himself into the Goblin form. The giant stone mass smashes the goblin's head with a sickening crack of bone and tearing of flesh.
Seeing the tentacles coming towards him, the Mage inside the Goblin fortress does what he does best - fires a stream of magic dirt at the oncoming water spirit.

However it seems not all is going quite so well, the Earth minion in the lower depths of the fort feels the sting of BloodAxe's knife in his back. The sharp loss of magic causes him to lose his concentration - he begins to squander his energy trying to use the Goblin to hit the oncoming water elemental. He ultimately fails this, however, and ends up hitting the poor Mage's head on the roof of the building.
More unfortunate for the spirit at the top of the fort, the Grand knight takes it by surprise and stabs his magical blade directly through it. This of course is enough to kill the spirit instantly, and while it still might look alive, the gaping hole in its chest and the blade sticking out of it makes it fairly obvious the creature is as good as slain.
The final Earth spirit intends to use the newly gained power from the posessed Coco's body to weaken and tire out the Goblin chef before killing it himself, however he didn't bank on the Glorious Gold individual bravely jumping into the fray.

[color=lightblue]"Aha! You are capable of at least some rational thought after all!"
Changing tactics, Alluvion bats the pesky tentacles away with one arm (though sustaining no small amount of damage to himself ripping it free) and jams the other one into Terranus' grinning maw, offering a few tentacles of his own.
His disconnection from the river, numerous wounds and the previous exertion of breathing large gouts of flame are already taking their toll. While he does his best to puff himself up and appear intimidating, Alluvion is already starting to get thinner as his own strength becomes unable to hold large amounts of water in position against the treacherous forces of gravity and evaporation.

His five-armed minion is doing little better, now reduced to only three limbs and putting up far less of a fight against gravity than Alluvion is managing. The combined attacks have left it on its literal last legs and send it toppling back down the hole, though it manages to flip the Barreler into the air as it plummets.
A little way below, unaware that his ally is now on the way back down, the other spirit seems to have pulled a little too hard on the Coco's legs. Oops!

A little way above, the archer goblin in the balloon finally gets over the crippling pain in his leg in time to notice the giant stone face in front of him. He unloads two crossbow bolts at it, getting dual headshots (though that's not really much of a feat in this situation) but failing to really do any damage at all.

Back inside, Bloodaxe starts to realise that he's got himself into a bit of a precarious situation. He can grab the ladder if this blob thing dies (although it doesn't appear to be bleeding or anything, how do you fight something with no blood?) but he doesn't really want to descend. He's pretty sure that guy who just got up and walked off with tentacles sticking out of his mouth was dead a moment ago, and the pool is looking back at him.
Magic isn't usually Bloodaxe's thing at the best of times but alliances or not, reanimation of the dead is pretty much where he draws the line. Especially if they're his dead.
The earth elemental itself seems to have finally caught its opposite's attention, though it seems more interested in the now deceased water mage than its primal foe, reaching out with an extraordinarily long tongue to wrest it from the earth spirit's grasp.

The glorious golden goblin lands a deadly blow on his target, knocking its head clean off! Yes, he saw that weird watery stuff crawling into this goblin's mouth, clearly it was some kind of terrifying aquatic vampire!
The severed head, made fairly aerodynamic by its rectangular shape and floppy hat, doesn't actually end up flying very far despite the force of the blow. It smashes into the earth elemental in a shower of dirt and gore.
"Worry not, strange creature of earth! Your turn is next!"
Apparently nobody ever told this goblin that gold is actually a pretty soft and useless metal, he seems to believe that his ludicrously shiny breastplate has made him invincible.

Deciding that taking a continuous barrage of water is likely to be more damaging than absorbing what is currently there, Terranus snaps his mouth shut and takes the water into himself. He instantly feels the sting from having effectively swallowed part of his enemy but does well to hide his discomfort. Unfortunately he is unable to rid of all of Alluvion's influence in such a short space of time, so the watery tentacles still protrude from his head, flailing around. Growing himself to levels equal to Alluvion, Terranus forms his grin once again.
"Sorry Alluvion, I'm not really all that thirsty at the moment!"

Feeling quite satisfied with his rubbish comment, he proceeds to continue his bombardment of attacks onto the water Lord. Once again he drives the stone spear into Alluvion, this time through the top of his head. Water coils around the stone weapon in an attempt to push it back but the power of rock and earth combined breaks through the water with relative ease. Of course all these attacks do indeed drain Terranus' power, but he figures that as long as he is dealing constant damage to Alluvion, the fact he is using his energy at a rapid rate should be equalised by the damage dealt to his opponent.

Meanwhile the Stone spirits seem to be having a lot of success, and for the one near the balloon goblin, a lot of fun. Seeing the flimsy rope connecting the large inflated object to the basket, the spirit decides that it would be more amusing to cut the rope and see the Goblin dangle from the basket, or better yet plummet into the ground.
Unfortunately the green fellow manages to cling onto the rope, but for a spirit who has been sitting deep in the earth for many centuries with nothing to do, this is awfully amusing.
The other seems more keen to use violence to satisfy his years of boredom, he grabs the two water goblin's tentacles and pulls with tremendous force. The limbs rip off and droplets of water are projected into the air, the mixture of blood and water is quite an impressive sight, if you're into that sort of thing.

Feeling quite empowered by this point, the Mage Coco decides to test his strength on the Green fellow a little way up from him. Giant green men wobbling their arms around with their mouths agape are perfect targets after all.
Swinging his staff around in a fancy swirling movement the mage fires his usual earthen clump at the Goblin, to his surprise the little motion seems to have made the magic a bit stronger - A spirit's eye forming on the muddy mass.

Unable to do much but grasp at the thing stabbing its back, the Earth spirit below relieves BloodAxe of his rather fancy hat whilst wrapping its tentacle around his neck. His focus is mainly on the Water spirit before him who seems to be trying to grab hold of his Goblin prey. Of course he's having none of that and a second tongue forms on his existing one, coiling itself around the Water elemental's own tongue. To outsiders this would look like some strange elemental courting routine, but to the two spirits it is far from it.

The other Earth Spirit's temperament has taken a turn for the worse, his mouth collapses to form a look of anger. The Goblin's head is drawn into the earthen mass as the spirit prepares to use it in a similar projectile fashion to Glorious Golden individual.
Unfortunately any serious look the Spirit could have had is now tarnished by the fact that the chef's hat has refused to be drawn into the mud. Of course the spirit doesn't realise this, and a good job too because he looks ridiculous.

Once again Alluvion rips himself free of Terranus's coils and once again he surges back towards the river, continuing to lose his mass at a steady rate. He isn't quite sure how Terranus has managed to weather his attacks so easily, to be honest Alluvion hadn't expected the battle to take this long at all. Could he possibly have underestimated his opponent? Could he have made... a mistake?
No, impossible!
"Don't you have any more tricks? Seeing the same ones over and over begins to grow boring! I may as well end this now..."
In a move inspired by both impatience and annoyance at his apparent lack of progress, Alluvion begins to collect all of the volatile power he stole from Incendis in one place to unleash in a single devastating attack.
It's a risky plan and frankly not even slightly advisable, consuming what remains of Terranus afterwards is unlikely to even allow him to break even with the expenditure let alone increase his power again so that he can defeat Calxas and destroy the Coco fortress, but at this point he's starting to feel like it'd be worth it just to remove the smug grin from his ancient foe's face.

Back at the fortress, one of the tinkers wails in dismay as not only is he knocked from his feet by the swinging of a peon from the terrifying earthen coils on the floating architecture over his head, but his partner-in-craftsmanship panics and steals their joint creation for his own. The other tinker is slightly regretful that he has had to leave his comrade behind but is really more relieved that he should (hopefully) now be safe from the advancing earth and stone edifice and its moaning eldritch faces.

Some people are having a bit more success dealing with elementals though; The gold-armoured hammerman doesn't even falter in his mad charge, repeating the move that worked so well for him last time. He knocks the barreller into the air and back into the earth elemental's face with a single mighty blow. The poor thing will soon be more rubbish than earth at this rate.

Just underneath him, Bloodaxe's small troupe of soldiers isn't having quite as much fun. The one in the lead is smacked in the mouth by a clod of magical dirt, moving at such speed that he crashes into the archer behind him and sends the both of them sprawling to the floor.
Bloodaxe himself is pretty much unaware of their plight.
He's suffered numerous indignities in the last few days, and this is the last straw! Taking his knife in one hand, he attempts to climb up the back of the mud creature and grab back his headwear.

On his right, the large but simple elemental keeps hold of the mage's corpse but grows a second tongue to deliver a powerful aquatic fist to the face to its competitor.
If you didn't know what you were looking it then this gesture could easily have been mistaken for a somewhat inappropriate gesture of affection, but I can assure you that for the elemental spirits this is all deadly serious!

The first of the goblin-possessed elementals is destroyed entirely by the final blow, the corpse it was previously using tumbling down the hole and missing the elemental following it by a mere hair, though as it is a being made of water it probably wouldn't have been impeded that much if it had made impact.
This second spirit seems far more focused than the first, focusing its attention immediately at the rock spirit and spurting a jet of flames into the face of Calxas' minion.
As it has an arm spare that can't quite reach its current target, it decides to put it to use elsewhere and jams it into the Barreler's faceplate.

The Balloon goblin can do little other than hold on and hope for rescue, though from watching the scene below he can tell that this isn't very likely to happen.

Realising the power that Alluvion is conjuring in his "hands" Terranus raises his spear high into the air and prepares to throw it at full force into the face of his foe. This is really the first time Alluvion has ever performed an act of desperation, something which Terranus had no plan for and did not expect to happen under any circumstance. While worried at the potential consequence of being hit by such a force, the ancient earthern lord can only smile at this action. Could it be that the Lord of Water is on his last legs, that after all these thousands of years he might finally reign over almost all elements? It seems almost disappointing that this is all it took, all this work to lead to a point where his old enemy would simply exhaust all his power in a single attack.

"You would risk everything in a single attack, Alluvion? Even command over my power would not be worth the amount you drain by expending everything you gained from Incendis

What use are you to me when I destroy you if all your power is sapped? It is time I finish this before you do anything foolish!"

His grip tightens around the spear as his eyes lock with Alluvions, his typical grin widenening he prepares to finish the job before Alluvion can fully charge his attack.

The rock spirit is taken by surprise as burning flames begin to heat up his underside. He loses control of the rocks around himself, the fire having sapped a lot of the energy he was using to sustain his elemental form. In hope that he can buy a bit more time he moves back to make way for his friend, who having noticed the water elemental, decided it was best he turn his attentions away from the amusing green man.
"You water-types have fought the minions of Terranus multiple times, but they are nothing compared to the strength of us stone spirits! While fighting you is a pointless excercise, my lord Calxas has a promise to keep. Hide behind your host bodies all you like, waterling, today I shall end your life!"

The highly successful mage Coco, having dealt with the green menace above him, notices two courses of action he can take. There is another green fellow in front, but he seems pretty busy with that clump of living mud. However behind him there seems to be another Goblin strange water arms laying into his Barreller friend. Unsurprisingly, he targets the water spirit behind him, summoning a large clump of magical mud to launch at it. It seemed to do a decent amount of damage to the last one, so this one will hopefully be no different!

The barreller in the fortress isn't really having much of a good day, he has been shot at with fire, slapped with water, possessed by mud and now launched straight into said mud. He sighs a sigh of relief at finally getting some sort of rest, now finding himself lodged into the earth. Hopefully this fight between the mudman and the Glorious Gold individual will last long enough for the poor chap to catch his breath.
Unfortunately this is hardly the case! Having been hit by numerous flying objects, and expending energy more on anger than on anything productive, the earth elemental begins to break down. He let's out a strange roar in a last ditch attempt to attack the goblin, unfortunately however what results is simply a clump of earthen mucus landing pathetically in front of him.

Doing worse than his friend further up in the fort, the elemental below takes a final hit from the water tongue. Combined with the strain required to keep his own tentacles functioning, the water spirit's attack is enough to kill the spirit before it has a change to ditch its physical form. The mud making up his body breaks down, his tentacles collapsing into small clumps and bits of earth dropping on top of the unsuspecting spirit below. It becomes clear now that this series of events was far from a routine performed by two spirits with heavy romantic feelings for each other. Or perhaps that's just how things are in the world of elementals.

Dracoco follows his victim's body down the long drop of ladders into the goblin fort, he hopes he can use his superior dexterity to cling onto a ledge, or indeed the ladders, on his way down. He ignores the other two Goblins, noticing that what used to be his castle is preoccupied with attacking them. It's a good job he jumps down there, however, as soon after the castle crashes into the top of the fort, yards away from where he was just stood literally seconds ago. The resulting collision allows the lowest earth spirit to break through into the top floor of the fort, much to his disappointment there are no orange or green fellows to torment in the immediate vicinity. How boring!

The ball of fiery energy continues to expand and grow less stable, sending tendrils of energy snaking in all directions.
[color=lightblue]"I don't need this stolen strength to defeat Calxas or your puny minions, if he thought he could take me in a fight he'd be here already to stab me in the back while I was dealing with you! What I do need is you out of the way, and if this is the only surefire way to do it then that's fine by me."
It is possible that Alluvion was not particularly careful when he absorbed his former ally, Incendis the Firelord. As well as obtaining his mastery over flames he also seems to have picked up some of his brash and reckless nature, attributes which (as we have already seen) aren't incredibly desirable when you're playing a long game with high stakes.

His own minions seem to be the same way, the corpse-carrying spirit by the entrance completely ignoring the rock spirit's threats and the approach of another elemental and just continuing to spit fire at its foe. At least the fact that the floating face has changed target means that it doesn't notice the baloon-riding goblin's slow descent to the ground, though if he wants to make an escape he'll only be able to limp.

Seeing as the elemental he was clinging to has started to fall apart, and that he has recovered his hat, Bloodaxe makes a leap for the other side of the passage, especially as one of those invaders is hanging out there on top of the corpse of one of his warriors.
On the floor above, rather annoyed about the whole "getting knocked over by a flying goblin" thing, an archer takes aim at the same coco and fires a crossbow bolt. Behind him, the goblin with his face covered in mud isn't actually all that injured but is milking his condition for all it's worth in order to avoid having to fight anyone.

On the floor above that, the gold-clad goblin finally stops his mad charge to watch what happens next. He isn't really an expert on the internal systems of mud demons, and so isn't sure if it's injured, dying, dead or perfectly ok. It honestly just looks like a blob of roiling earth with a hat from where he's standing at the moment.

The Blacksmith returns to his forge without having retrieved what he went downstairs for, deeply shaken.

Terranus' expression turns from cocky to worried as he realises Alluvion is not joking around, before his actions were amusing as he was bound to stop but now the Lord of Earth is not quite so sure.
"You fool Alluvion, can you not see you'll destroy us both with your ridiculous plan? You've gone too far for the sake of rivalry, the only way out of this is for me to finish this now!

It is a shame our final battle would end in such a display of desperation, but a weakling will try anything when cornered. You have disappointed me, Lord of the water!"

With these final words, Terranus launches the stone spear straight into Alluvion's face. The pointed edge rips through the physical form of the water spirit, smashing his gel-like eye into small blobs dealing horrendous amounts of damage. It is unlikely that any elemental, even a spirit lord, could survive such a devastating attack.

Just as the battle between the elements seems to be reaching its conclusion, the battle within the goblin fort has a small ounce of peace. The now-dead earth elementals collapse into piles of useless mud and the first rock spirit is defeated by the continuous flame of the possessed goblin below him. Not ready to be defeated like his friend, the other rock spirit fires a volley of stone at the unsuspecting water tentacle protruding from the Goblin's back, helping with the attack is the surprisingly lucky Mage Coco who has thus far survived every encounter (even that menacing bolt flew straight over his head! It did however hit the unfortunate barreller, who has so far had an unlucky day, what with now being dead)

As Terranus's magical spear drives itself into Alluvion's face, he experiencing a sudden moment of clarity. What the hell is he doing? What happened to his carefully laid plans? He let himself be taken over by an arrogance and impulsiveness that are usually far from his preferred method of operation, and now potentially lost everything.
The collected sphere of Incendis's sphere crackles wildly and starts to expand out of control as his momentary distraction causes him to lose hold of the spell and it taps into the reserves of power he'd been keeping safe for himself. Alluvion fancied himself a master manipulator and peerless schemer, but truly someone else has been pulling his strings for a good while now. In his haste to one-up Terranus, he wasn't quite as careful as he should have been.

[i]LIAR! TRAITOR! FRATRICIDE!

Now completely beyond anyone's direction, Terranus can only watch as the storm of power sucks Alluvion dry and starts on him, blanketing the valley their battle has carved in a sea of burning light.
[i]REVENGE!


"You're mine now you little bugger! If I kill you, will all your little mud golems die too?
That would certainly be bloody convenient."


"Hold on, what's that roaring sound?"


"Oh bloody hell!"




"I hate bloody wizards!"

Epic

Combined with his exertion in the battle beforehand and the might of Incendis' comeback, Terranus is unable to survive the explosion and is dispatched immediately. With the death of the lords of fire and water, and indeed the lack of a nearby Elemental lord to take on these powers, Earth, Air, Water and Fire are all lost. With only Calxas and stone remaining, the world is torn apart and floating islands of magically unstable elements drift the ruined earth. Though they had not realised it at the time, the Goblins and Cocos were the small tip of the scales which the lords had been waiting for. The small tip of the scales which would mean the destruction of all but one of the elements, and the inevitably doomed world that would result.

When there is nought left but destruction and chaos, what else could be done but to continue what had been started. Arising to a world massively changed from the one before the explosion, the Cocos within the castle groggily get to their feet, some quicker than others, but all with moans of aching muscles. Whilst some help the remaining Cocos up, the others survey the area to see that their castle has been ripped to pieces. Taking leadership, the most heavily armoured Coco picks up a nearby axe and walks through the castle.
"Chuffing heck, I have no idea what just 'appened but this is looking pretty grim"
The other well-armoured Coco follows and listens to his comrade, whilst giving orders.
"Aye, it looks like that explosion played 'ell with our castle...Oy! You there! Stop slacking and get this Coco on his feet, by 'er grace we need as many fighters as we can get"
The nearby Coco runs to assist the one stuck in the sand who still hasn't managed to get up yet. Much to his dismay, the downed Coco seems to have taken a bigger knock to the head than the rest, as he looks up into the roof and mumbles something about carrots and stars. Unable to get him up just yet, the Coco buries his face in his hands and shakes his head.
Nearing the edge of the castle, the knight sees a Goblin pointing an axe towards the castle and presumably shouting profanities at it. He does the same.
"Just wait until I get down there yer ugly green brute! I'll punch that stupid look clean of yer face and make sure you can never pull it again!"
"Erm, shunt we be trying to mek moves to ally wi' these chaps?"
"The world just got blown up lad an yer thinking about mekkin friends wi' the green chuffers who just killed a bunch of our mates?"
"Oh. Well when yer put it that way I guess that is a bit stupid eh"
"By her grace's wobbly knees you bet it is. Now get all these Cocos fightin' fit and lets show 'em whose boss of these buggered lands!"

Meanwhile, Dracoco awakens to the stern look of Calxas. He immediately takes a fighting pose to strike at the elemental should he prove hostile.
"Calm yourself, you crimson fool"
"Forgive me for being a bit weary of your kind, stone. You're not exactly the nicest bunch I've ever met"
"I had debts to pay, I have no intentions of killing any more of you. But I won't be helping any of you either"
"What has happened here, are you the last one left?"
"The other stone spirits live, but all the other elements have perished. I was not there to absorb the powers of Terranus or Alluvion, so the elements they controlled have become permanently unstable. What you see is the result of the world's biggest egos colliding headfirst and killing themselves"
"So Terranus is dead?"
"Yes he is. I am here simply to tell you that I will have nothing further to do with your kind, what you do is up to you and you only. Your comrade's powers will no longer exist, you are back to how you were before you entered this ridiculous conflict"
"I suppose that's a farewell then, I'd like to say it was an honour but I'd be lying"
"The feeling is mutual, little red flesh-thing"

"Alright then, this place has been properly arsed up so I'm thinking we're just going to have to settle somewhere else. No harm in giving the bastards who were responsible a bit of a showing to on the way, eh?"
"Uh, boss?"
"By the looks of things that's their flying house up there. Bit dilapidated isn't it? Would have thought they'd take better care of it to be honest.
Not quite sure how we'll get up but I think I can see an opening at the bottom. If we climb in then we can give them a good kicking and then maybe see if we can fly it somewhere else..."
"Boss!"
"What? What is it? Can't you see I am trying to think here?"
"It's just... there's some flying thing coming closer. Sort of looks like one of our guys is driving it?"
"Well well, that's certainly convenient. Try and flag it down."
"Aye aye, sir."

Seeing the wooden beast get up, the Blacksmith slowly backs away until his feet meet a yawning abyss. He's really not in a very good position at the moment.
On the island above him, the axe-wielding goblin doubts his ability to leap the gap onto the Cococastle and thus responds to the threats by hurling a chunk of fallen masonry at the hot-headed knight. It's not particularly well-aimed but it probably gets his point across adequately.

The knight laughs as the chunk of goblin fortress embeds itself harmlessly into the dirt in front of him.
"Yer call that a throw? Don't mek me laugh, lad!"
Unfortunately he fails to notice the rapidly dislodging earth under his feet.

Slipping down the side of the castle alongside the brick and the now-dislodged earth, the Knight lets out a curse as he throws his arms into the air and loses his balance.
"Bollocks!"
Seeing their short-lived Leader fall off the ledge and down to whatever might greet him below, the other Cocos decide that now is a good time to charge. The other knight and the Coco above him recklessly run full pelt out of the castle and leap towards the green man below, one preps his javelin in case he is granted an opportunity to throw it on his descent. Behind these two, the previously daydreaming Coco prepares his bow (equipped with some nasty looking long arrows) and his friend pulls out his chakrams, an unconventional but powerful ranged weapon. The Carrot and his friend move to the lower levels of the castle to see what all the fuss is about, they are greeted with the sight of two Cocos jumping into what to them looks like nothingness. Did the explosion make them suicidal?

In the base below, the Barreller ignores the terrified blacksmith and jumps down the hole to where Dracoco is, though to him he looks like the Grand Knight from legends (and rightfully so, he is wearing the very same armour, after all)
"By her grace...the grand knight in my life time? I am honoured, sir!"
"Save the wonderment, I'm Dracoco"
"You'll have to forgive me but that is no less exciting sir, this means MotherCoco deemed you worthy to wear his armour. That is a mighty huge honour!"
"Aye it is, but with the world in this state, you'll have to sympathise with me as to why I'm not feeling particularly honoured right now"
"I suppose when you look at it that way..."
"Aye. Well, have you got anything to report, our enemy is still active as far as I'm aware. The green ones though, not the bastard spirits"
"One of them is just above us but he seems to be frozen in a state of shock ever since he saw me. I can't really do much though as I'm out of ammo and I have no weapons"
The ex-mage Coco behind them clears his throat to get their attention and points to the wooden training dummy on the floor.
"You can make some crude arrows out of this. Then use the remains as some sort of bludgeoning weapon if you want"
"Good plan. Once I've got something to use as a weapon, I can get you two up to the castle with my barreller, let's just hope there are more Cocos than just us"
"I don't know about Cocos but there are more Greenies on an island just behind us, they could be coming down to us or leaving but we'd best not forget they're there"
"Okay, our situation isn't as bad as I thought it might be, at least we're not surrounded. Get those Arrows carved out fast and we'll get out of here, if that green fellow isn't a threat then we can just leave him. I dislike these individuals but we best not waste energy on the ones that aren't much of a threat"

"So what you just sort of... pedal? And it turns these wheels?
And that's seriously enough to hold you in the air?"
"Seems to be working"
"Isn't that tiring?"
"It's better than falling"
"How many people do you think you can support in this thing? Hold on, I'm climbing in."
"Hey, no wait!"
The flying machine wobbles unsteadily as Bloodaxe clambers on but it still seems to be able to keep itself up. If only the same were true of the goblin on the ledge, who finally loses his grib and starts to plummet towards the island further below.

On the other island, the gold-armoured goblin manages to pull himself onto the next level (no mean feat without a ladder in place) and takes stock of the situation; more of those tiny guys are leaping towards him. Surely they will fall as easily as the first!
His axe-wielding companion has similar thoughts. Nothing that small could possibly be a real threat! Raising both weapons he races to meet them in battle as they land.

The knight lands in front of the goblin and begins to realise that perhaps his charge wasn't the best of ideas, he notes the size difference between himself and his foe and raises his shield up. While the shield is indeed covering his face, it is so thin that beyond soaking up a bit of impact it is unlikely to protect him from pretty much any sharp weapon a goblin might use on him. A fact he was mysteriously unaware of until now. His friend has a rather more sensible position of attack, coming from above he might well be able to land upon the axe goblin whilst he is distracted, though possibly too late to save his friend. Seeing the Golden individual just ahead of him, he decides to throw his javelin as hard as he can - any fool knows gold is a rubbish material to make armour with!

While the Cocos are indeed smaller and significantly weaker than the goblins, in the case of the castle battle, they have numbers. There are still 2 more Cocos and a carrot to enter the fray, whilst the last Coco can simply stand back and fire arrows at the Goblins, and he does just that.

Having now made some arrows and crafted himself a nifty mace and (terrible) stone sword, the Barreller turns around to see what his Ex-mage friend is looking at. He is rewarded with the view of a flailing green man plummeting towards the dirt of the island they stand on -I guess it won't be long until he gets to try his new weapons!

"Steady now! Can't you keep this bloody thing going in a straight line?"
"It wasn't designed for more than two people! You're overloading it, it's a miracle I haven't already crashed!"
"And can't you go any faster? They could see us coming and attack, or just leave at any minute"
"Maybe if I could if you'd do some bloody pedalling yourself instead of sitting there heckling me!"

The falling goblin lands squarely on his back with an awful cracking noise. Fortunately that's just the bow he landed on, rather than his spine. Goblins are a bizarre mix of fragile and resilient, not incredibly difficult to kill but able to regenerate from non-fatal injury fairly quickly.
He'd probably be fine in a minute, if it weren't for the armed cocos surrounding him.
The smith peers down in trepidation, he doesn't have a snowflake's chance in a snowflake-disintegration-plant of besting even one of the three below in combat but he can hardly sit back and let them harm his comrade, can he? Besides, they'd come after him next anyway. It's not like there's anywhere to run to.

The shiny goblin's golden armour proves to provide about as much protection as you might expect, the javelin punches through it fairly easily. All this does though is provoke a roar of pain and a brandishing of gaudy metal hammer, maybe the point missed his brain? At least the weapon's made of the same useless ore as his clothes.
The other goblin has no more luck dodging projectiles than his brother, taking an arrow right to the arm. It doesn't score in time to stop him from bringing one of his axes down on the coco's head though, his superior reach basically allowing him to just reach over the shield of his diminutive opponent.

Not quite judging the size of his enemy correctly, the knight is now suffering the consequences. The goblin's axe pierces his helmet quite easily and deals a deep but not fatal wound, the strength difference between the two combatants means that the Coco is knocked off balance, losing hold of his shield and stumbling backwards.

His friend makes a fine landing, and seeing the less shiny Goblin as a greater threat, turns and slices his side with the sword he kept hold of. The archer slots another arrow into his bow and aims carefully at the twin axe Goblin. His charkram-wielding comrade is not having as much luck, unable to find a decent opportunity to attack, he decides to just relax his battle pose and wait for a bit.

Up stairs, the carrot hears some strange noises from behind him. He alerts his friend and they both turn to face the direction that the sounds are coming from, but so far they are unable to see anything. Soon though they would be greeted with the Goblin's flying contraption, proving that perhaps these green individuals aren't just all brawn.

Lower down, things are quite a bit less active, with one blacksmith Goblin doing nothing, and another one laying on his back looking surprised. The mage Coco decides to take matters into his own hands and raises his arms whilst shaking his staff into the air. Of course having lost his powers, the Coco is unable to conjure his so often used earth missiles, so resorts to simply kicking a bunch of dirt at the Goblin's head. His two friends stand and stare at the results, the dirt harmlessly bouncing off the green man's head.
"Impressive"

"Oh hell!"
"It wasn't designed for this many people!"
"Hold on tight lads!"

On the island far below, the warrior shakily gets to his feet. He's unarmed and fairly concussed, but slowly coming to.
Looks like he's going to have to punch everyone to death if he wants to get out of this, fortunately he's too dazed to realise how unlikely that is.
Behind him, the Blacksmith takes a half-hearted leap at the Grand Knight, squeezing his eyes tightly shut and turning away. He never asked for this!

Higher above, the axe-wielding goblin isn't doing well at all. The coco's swing not only gashes his side but cuts the end of his leg clean off, sending him stumbling off the side of the building alongside the other coco. The drop is perhaps not particularly far but it looks to be very painful, especially on top of his other injuries.
Seeing his comrade fall, the gold-suited warrior shouts a war cry and leaps the gap between him and the coco aggressor, swinging his gaudy warhammer high so that he can bring it down with a great impact and hopefully compensate for its inferior material.

Surprised at the effect his slash had upon the Goblin, the Coco on top of the fort instantly turns his attentions to the Golden one, who now happens to be flying through the air towards him. Gold may be ineffective as armour and weaponry, but its weight is one thing you can rely on. Not wanting to be on the receiving end of a giant hammer made from the material, the Coco decides to engage the Goblin up close. He knows full well he couldn't outrun the range of the hammer, so being up close prevents the heaviest part of the weapon from being able to strike him. He raises his sword in the direction of the flying Goblin, whilst giving him no other place to land but on top of his weapon or down the hole below.

Completely unaware of the blacksmith, the Grand Knight watches as the barreller shoves the mage out of the way and clonks the poor goblin on the head with his rather large stone mace.

In the castle, seeing the Goblins evacuating from the wooden machine, the Coco and carrot bring out their weapons. Only MotherCoco knows how and where the carrot managed to store a trident out of sight.

Bloodaxe and the engineer dismount, the goblin commander executing a perfect mid-air flip and landing squarely on his feet. The engineer is not quite so acrobatic. Quickly taking stock of the situation he bellows out commands. It seems that the enemy presence here is minimal, so getting rid of them should be first priority.
"You there! Engage the enemy, I'll be there to back you up in a second!
Rookie, you go and see if you can find the engine or some controls or something!
And you make sure to get this contraption fixed up by the time we're done, we might have to beat a quick escape."
Bloodaxe doesn't really understand machines very well. Even if he wasn't in a state of concussion it is fairly unlikely that the tinker is ever going to get his baby flying again.

The tinker isn't the only unfortunate man with concussion though, down below the Barreler's mace deals a rather heavier blow to the soldier's already fairly battered skull. It'll be a fairly long time before he wakes up.
The Blacksmith slowly pries his eyes open, surprised that he has yet to have been killed. He seems to have whacked a wooden-armoured Coco over the head with his mallet in a fit of patriotic rage. At least he managed to attack the least dangerous looking one!

The falling goblin and the coco next to him both hit the ground hard; The Coco smashes heavily into the brickwork, his armour weighing him down while the goblin bounces and continues tumbling into the abyss.
Up above the golden armoured warrior flies in the face of conventional battle tactics with a quick turn of inspiration, impressive considering the bolt embedded in his skull (perhaps it is stimulating neurons otherwise left untouched?) Obviously the Coco can see him coming and would expect a weapon swing, therefore it would never be prepared for a flying kick!

It was not.