Grunvan was going to die. It had become such a common feeling that she was almost able to ignore it. Almost. The flaming boulder the size of a large horse that whizzed by within inches of her nose however was new enough that her survival instincts were still able to urge a few drops of adrenaline into her system.

“We gotta get out of here!” Angwin said. “The [Wraithwings] can’t take hits like this.”

That was a partial truth. The more accurate statement was that the [Wraithwings] they and the rest of their attack group were mounted on couldn’t take very many hits from the [Meteor Storm] that was currently obliterating the land below them. For seemingly fragile flying creatures, the [Wraithwings] were proving to be far hardier than Grunvan would have ever believed they could be.

If she’d ever fought them, she would know that they were in fact several orders of magnitude tougher than they had ever been before the world started falling apart. That she was ignorant of this change in the fundamental nature of [Fallen Kingdoms’] resident monster population was perhaps a good thing for her nerves though.

“Caves, there!” Grunvan shouted, even though her voice was primarily being carried to the others in the attack group via their telepathic links. “The mountain can take more hits than we can.”

While that was technically accurate, it was proven to be a moot point a moment later when the entire mountain collapsed under the impact of a meteor of roughly equal size to itself.

The shockwave that followed turned everything upside and inside out. Grunvan felt solid ground hit her from several directions before she was blinking in a cloud of dust and struggling not to drown.

She made it to the back of the [Greenling River], dragging her half conscious [Wraithwing] pal with her before she was fully cognizant of the fact that she was in a river and that the blast from exploding mountain had knocked her at least a mile back along the perilous path she’d been flying.

“Huh, dead at last I guess,” she said since an ordinary person like she was surviving that sort of devastation was entirely impossible, even with a much bedraggled [Wraithwing] buddy around to absorb most of the impacts.

Gruvan tried to stand and felt her knee twinge in a remarkable unpleasant fashion.

“Not supposed to have bad knees when you’re dead are you?” she mumbled to herself.

“You’re not dead idiot,” Angwin said. “Now get over here and get this tree off me.”

Grunvan felt a mild disappointment pass through her. Being alive meant more work and she was so damnably tired.

And how the hell was supposed to life a tree off Angwin?

How had Angwin survived a tree falling on her for that matter?

With a huff of annoyance Grunvan got back to her feet. She checked on Flappy – buddies needed a name, and if they didn’t give you one, you were obligated to give them a stupid one – to see if he still had any fight left in him.

Flappy looked as wrecked as Grunvan felt, but like her, he rose to his feet and shook himself.

“Not up for flying just yet? Me neither,” Grunvan said and called up the magic map that showed her where the rest of the attack group was.

The good news was the survivors seemed to be relatively close to each other.

The bad news was that while the blast had knocked them out of the [Endless Wrathstorm’s] radius, the meteor spewing cloud was growing rapidly enough that it was going to reach them again well before Grunvan could get to them all.

“Everybody, get mobile again if you can, call out if you can’t. I’ve got Angwin. Check your maps and help anyone who’s close to you and needs it. Anyone who’s got [Sun Bombs] left, we need to get around that cloud.”

The orders weren’t the height of tactical genius but when the options were stay where you were and get pancaked by mountain destroying meteors or move somewhere else, it didn’t take the height of strategic genius to figure out what the right answer was.

Grunvan reached Angwin and found her friend was both very much alive and also hopelessly trapped.

A tree whose diameter was easily twice Grunvan’s height had crashed down and only avoided splattering Angwin because of a rock beside her it was embedded on. Angwin’s [Wraithwing] mount had landed some distance away and escaped being pinned by the massive tree. It was struggling with her to move the massive trunk, though neither seemed to be coming close to moving the massive object.

“Finally,” Angwin said. “Come on, help me lift this.”

“Me and what army of [Giants]?” Grunvan asked, though she did stomp over beside Angwin and put her shoulder against the tree in order to show how pointless it was.

The tree budged.

Which must have been the ground shifting.

Grunvan leaned into the effort.

The tree began to move more.

Grunvan hopped back.

“What the hell is this?” she asked, more startled by the tree than she had been by multiplying [Death Shadows], friendly [Wraithwings], or an apocalypse storm of meteors.

“Get back here!” Angwin said.

“No! This is just wrong,” Grunvan said. Everyone had their breaking points and Grunvan was dimly aware that she’d passed hers long, long ago. This was everything catching up with her.

“Move the tree, or we’re both going to be meteored to death,” Angwin said.

“Good! Let ‘em come,” Grunvan said knowing she was racing in the opposite direction from rationality.

“Grunvan, I am going to kick your ass if you do not help me get this tree off me right now,” Angwin said.

“Can’t. You’re stuck, you can’t get to me,” Grunvan said.

It was silly. She couldn’t lift a tree like that. It was physically impossible.

Flapper nuzzled at her leg. Which was totally normal. Because a [Wraithwings] pal was something that a [Goblin] would definitely have.

A pal who was asking for her help.

Something twisted in Grunvan’s guts.

She couldn’t let Flappy down. Not after everything he’d done for her. Not with everything they had left to do together.

Like pals did.

Grunvan found she was shaking.

Her friend, her best friend, was under a tree.

Was going to die, for real, as soon as the death rocks started falling on them.

All because of one stupid tree?

Something spoke within her, a voice that was so familiar and yet one she’d forced herself not to hear for so long.

Level 50 achieved!

Class: Folk Warrior transformed to Folk Hero!

The tree wasn’t an obstacle. It didn’t just move when she pushed it, it launched into the air and crashed to the ground a hundred feet away.

“Took ya long enough,” Angwin said. “You done with all that?”

Grunvan wasn’t done with anything.

Not yet.

She dragged Angwin back up to her feet and hugged the surprisingly un-squished [Goblin]. She thought Angwin would protest, but instead Grunvan felt strong arms wrap around her and squeeze back just as tight.

“Come on,” Grunvan said after what was probably too long, “We’ve still got work to do.”

“Yeah, getting out of here being the first thing,” Angwin said as the two [Goblins] and two [Wraithwings] began to run far faster than they ever had before.

“Apple Plate flight leader, do you copy?” Ryschild’s voice was crackly. “Our primary contact spell shattered for reasons unknown, but we have you on a secondary relay now. Report on status and available armaments.”

“Apple Plate flight leader here,” Grunvan said. “We were caught in the middle of a new apocalypse, it’s an [Endless Wrathstorm] and it destroyed the [Giant’s Knee] mountain. We lost four out of twenty fliers and only eleven of the remaining still have their [Sun Bombs]. Also, the [Endless Wrathstorm] is expanding.”

“How fast,” Ryschild asked.

“Faster than our [Wraithwings] were able to fly when they were in good condition and we’re all pretty well beat to hell at this point,” Grunvan said. “Can you advise on any strongholds we could take shelter in.”

It was a nice thought, but given that she’d seen the [Endless Wrathstorm] destroy a mountain in a single hit, Grunvan was hard pressed to imagine any castle or fortress that would serve as a safe harbor. That didn’t mean she was ready to hear Ryschild confirm the fact though.

“Apologies Apple Plate flight leader. [Giant’s Knee] was the strongest position within flying distance of you.”

“We’re not going to survive long once that thing catches up to us,” Grunvan said. “What are we supposed to do?”

“When defense and escape aren’t options, all that’s left is to defeat your foe,” Ryschild said, clearly quoting some mentor who had never been rained on by world ending meteors.

“How, and I ask this with all due respect, the ever loving hell do we defeat a gods-be-damned storm of Death ROCKS!” Grunvan didn’t regret letting her voice rise as she spoke.

She also wasn’t expecting anything resembling a real answer from Ryschild. There were questions for which no answer was possible. Situations where there weren’t any good paths, only ones that came to short and unpleasant ends.

The trick was you could never really know the difference between a situation with no good outcomes and one where hope still remained if you gave up.

“You ask for backup,” Ryschild said.

Grunvan resisted the urge to scream.

“Do you have any backup to send us?” she asked instead.

“Not exactly,” Ryschild said as the first of the meteors began to shatter the landscape around them.

“Then what’s the point of asking for backup!?” Grunvan screamed.

Lightning crashed down in front of her, a bolt wider than the tree she’d thrown reaching down from the heavens and bringing with it something unbelievable.

“Because sometimes your prayers will be answered,” the [Lord of Storms] said with a voice strong enough to shatter the sky. “Just a moment please,” he added in a less divinely supreme voice.

Raising his hammer to the sky he cast forth a thousand bolts of lightning at once, each of which blasted the falling meteors to dust.

“Oh I like the design on this guy,” the [Lord of Storms] said. “He fits my domain like a glove.”

“Uh, what?” Grunvan said.

“Sorry, I’m borrowing this body,” the [Lord of Storms] said. “He’s usually tucked away in the end boss room one of the raid dungeons. Doesn’t get out much so I’d guess you’ve never met him.”

“No, I can’t say that I have,” Grunvan said, mystified at this turn of fate. “Are you with Ryschild?”

“The [Lord of Storms] falls somewhat outside my command hierarchy,” Ryschild said.

“Call me a freelancer,” the [Lord of Storms] said. “God knows Egress treated us like that.”

Grunvan had no idea what any of that meant and had a far more important question to ask.

“Whatever you are, can you stop that thing?” she said, pointing to where the heart of the [Endless Wrathstorm] was rapidly changing direction to close with them.

“Hmm, probably not alone,” the [Lord of Storms] said. “Even overleveled and amped up, the [Storm Tyrant’s] not going to be outpace that things regeneration – that ‘Endless’ bit in it’s name is no joke – and I’ve got no tools to suppress its regeneration.”

“Ryschild, will [Sun Bombs] keep it from healing?” Grunvan asked.

“No. They’ll be effective in damaging it, but you don’t have enough for the sustained offense required to permanently destroy it.”

“What do we do then?” Grunvan asked.

“We borrow another apocalypse,” Ryschild said.

“Excuse me?” Grunvan said.

“Your original mission was to destroy the [Death Wings],” Ryschild said. “You need to fly to the far side of them within the next two minutes…”

“I can buy them at least fifteen,” the [Lord of Storms] said.

“Within the next ten minutes,” Ryschild said. “You’ll use the [Sun Bombs] to drive the [Death Shadows] towards the [Lord of Storms].”

“How is that going to help?” Grunvan asked.

“The [Endless Wrathstorm] will be grounded by then,” Ryschild said. “Drive the [Death Shadows] into it and they will burn in its heart, but their necrotic energy will disable its regeneration. If there are enough of them.”

“That’s not going to a problem,” Mellisandra said, joining their conversation. “The [Death Shadows] gone fully exponential in their breeding here. If the [Endless Wrathstorm] can’t stop them I don’t think anything else will.”

“Good,” Grenslaw said, joining as well. “Our projections show that’s exactly what we need here.”

“But why will the [Endless Wrathstorm] be grounded?” Grunvan said. She and Angwin were already in the air, Flappy and Angwin’s mount making the same heroic effort everyone else was it seemed.

“We have some new allies who can handle that,” Grenslaw said.

Far above them, through the gaps the [Lord of Storms] was blasting in the [Endless Wrathstorm], Grunvan caught sight of the strangest flying crafts she’d ever seen. Sleek metal with wings in a strange X configuration, they were launching bolts of light that seemed to do as much damage as the incarnated god they’d left behind.

Grunvan didn’t know if their plan was going to work, but as the rest of the Apple Plate flight joined her and Angwin in the air, she felt a strength surging through her that nothing to do with her levels or the power of the [Wraithwing] beneath her.

Broken Horizons – Vol 13, Ch 17