ORIGIN

The shadows that shrouded him were twofold: the voidblack of his corrupted Light, and the darkness of his void. He was standing just beyond and beside the inner mouth of the Aperture, alongside the wall and perhaps difficult to see; his odor might reach Effluvium if it had the ability to scent, a dim but oily, canine odor.

He observed, at first, unaware if it had spotted him as yet; he saw it lick the ground and begin to squelch its way inside.

The Sentinel stepped out, raising the halberd vertically alongside him. He was an adult now, or very near: some nine feet tall, lean and lithe, trained now though by no means perfect at his task. He had learning yet to do, but there was one lesson he had taken in: that an enemy far larger or stronger than he was best struck quickly, and with surprise.

But it wasn't showing itself to be an enemy, as yet. So the Sentinel moved away from the wall, and a few steps toward Effluvium: but he kept his distance as he called out his formal challenge.

"The Sentinel guards the Forge. What is its purpose here?" he rasped, his voice carrying but hollow, empty.

His many blue eyes fixed on Effluvium, their glow dim beneath the shadow, but unblinking. He was tensed, ready, because this meat-beast was an enormous one, and like nothing he had fought before. Was it enemy? Or was it one of the Master's allies, come to speak with him? Or was it mindless, a monstrous Lesser incapable of speech?

He could not ambush a thing if he was unsure if it were enemy, and so he gestured: and the area plunged into pitch darkness. A darkness through which he could see; but could Effluvium? He didn't know, but it was, he hoped, a preemptive advantage should it come to combat. To control the battlefield was another lesson he had learned, in his travels through the caves.

His own gaze--shrouded by shadow--tracked Effluvium as it rushed blindly past. He studied it, for a moment.

There were no immediate weaknesses that he could see. And his vision, in the black, was perfect, honed by the corruption that ran rife through his blood. There were no major limbs supporting it--instead, a tangled, haphazard mess of them. He was unsure where a heart, a brain, or even a major artery might be.

The twinned lessons of James and Dewberry were flickering through his mind; that in order to keep an upper hand, against a foe that seemed as though it might be dangerous, he would need to strike hard and decisively. To cripple or seriously maim, even kill, it before it could kill him. And a mass of writhing muscle as tall as he was presented something of a problem in that regard. He did not second-guess himself as to whether this were a threat, or not. It had lunged blindly in a clear attempt to attack. It was refusing speech.

It was a threat.

He would call for Master Vargas once calling out would no longer give away his location--once he had made his strike.

The moment the meat-beast paused, pushing back onto its hind end and blinking (blindly? he hoped so) around, the Sentinel burst into motion. In that instant, the chaos that had been held so tightly-controlled within him abruptly burst free. Savagery, violence, a heated bloodlust, poured up as if to consume him, so that his strike was aimed with sadistic exhilaration.

Rend. Destroy. Consume. The whispers of his magic--of his halberd--became his own mind: three swift strides forward, as quiet as he could make them, as the halberd came hurtling around in a massive swing. The aim was not a bruise, as his practice sparring had offered: the aim was a sleek black blade-head hacking toward meat and bone, aiming to find, to damage, even to sever, the area near Effluvium's many limbs.

Could he cut off a leg? Break the bone? Destroy more than one, perhaps?

Effluvium had a great many of them; he was unsure how much this would even damage it but in the moment, it didn't matter.

He had been created to sow chaos. To destroy. That is what sang through his veins; it's what resonated with a roaring thump from the Black Spire not so far away.

The Sentinel stared, for a moment. His darkness might not last much longer--a few moments, perhaps, without concentration--but the meat-pile was now dragging itself in an inexorable, bloodthirsty rush that might have been horrifying if he had the sensibilities for such things.

He did not, but he did find himself briefly at a loss; how could he put a stop to something that simply refused to be stopped..?

The Sentinel defaulted back to plan one, and stepped forward, bringing the halberd down to smash at the dragging-leg. Maybe if the fleshbeast could not drag itself, then it would be unable to move..?

His eyes scanned over Effluvium, and he found that there were, in fact, quite a few limbs that he'd have to chop through. And that required getting close--halberd-length, to be sure, but he had a feeling that the fleshbeast's lurches could cover that distance in a heartbeat.

He was on dangerous ground, but he took that slam for the limb, and prepared to quickly step aside. Instead, the halberd clanged loudly onto rock, just missing the shuffling limb--and likely (and unfortunately) giving away his location.

The sudden shambling sweep and lunge was monstrously fast. He hadn't expected this meat-creature to move so terrifyingly quickly. It launched itself for him, and in the waiting dark it was a vision of horror gleaming red and fleshy.

The Sentinel took a sharp step back despite himself. Fear was unfamiliar, but-... this was as close as he had come. Horror, perhaps. Disgust? -No, but then, he hardly had time to analyze his emotions in this moment.

He would later, if he survived this encounter, come to realize that it was best-called 'alarm.' ...Deep, thrumming alarm.

He brought the halberd up, more by mindless instinct than trained experience, though certainly he had practiced this sort of maneuver before--with Vargas, for example--and attempted to jam it between himself and the meat-beast.

It still threw him back, and down; he still wound up on the rock, face-up, with Effluvium likely crashing down above him and the wind knocked wholly out of him. But if he were lucky, Effluvium would bite halberd-blade, the metal axe head--and its foot-long spike--and not his own flesh.

This--this was bad.

The creature's much greater bulk was atop him, and though the Sentinel was large, his pure mass nowhere approached Effluvium's own. The weight was impossible to wriggle out from under; the only saving grace was the halberd thrust point-first toward the fleshbeast's maw.

It was tearing at him, and he felt claws rip at his limbs, his torso--pain that spilled bluish blood to leak across the rock. But could he prevent the jaws from closing on him; from tearing out chunks of his body-? The Sentinel is to guard the gateway. The Sentinel must not fail its purpose, he thought, and attempted to thrust the halberd deeper into Effluvium's jaws and throat--both to keep it at bay, and to do further damage to its rending maw.

It skidded to one side, clanging down to the rock, and he felt the jaws close on shoulder, on (thankfully scaled) neck; teeth punched through flesh and gristle, and a choked roar of pain and anger escaped him. But there was nothing he could do, for now: he was utterly helpless beneath the flesh-beast's onslaught.