Sir Roderick bellowed out a battle-cry and heaved his broad-sword into the air. The edge caught one of the minions squarely in the middle. Roderick twisted his body pulling the blade across and through. An expression of terror and surprise crossed the imp’s face as his body was cleaved neatly in two. Blood and effluence spurted and bubbled from both halves. Roderick carried his swing in a circular arc around him. He let go of the hilt with his left hand allowing the mighty length of tempered steel to slide to the pommel in his right. The tip of the blade caught the other man (if they could be called men) squarely across his helm. The beast let out a stifled scream, evidently not realizing it was still in his range. Its helm made a satisfying popping sound as it lost it’s pressure to the vacuum of space, blood and vitreous humor spewing out the gash.

Sir Roderick surveyed the battlefield as he began to feel weightlessness returning to him. He stabbed his sword upright into the ground and steadied himself against it as he pulled a vial from the stash at his waist. He smashed the tiny glowing stick onto his chestplate, it’s purple contents erupting in a cloud of smoke. The magical potion enveloped him delivering another fresh dose of gravity and breathable air.

The battle was mostly over as the body strewn landscape around him bore witness. A few of the bodies still moved- scrambling to patch their hopelessly punctured suits or merely the after-twitches of magically induced nerve activity. Roderick poked his sword into one such at his feet, ending it’s wriggling. But still Roderick’s innate sense of danger continued to tingle at the base of his spine. Something was approaching.

Roderick reacted milliseconds before the flash engulfed him, pulling his sword from the body and whipping it around and upright. He braced it’s flat against his gauntlet and pulled his body behind it. The highly polished metal shunted most of the energy blast but he felt the residual heat wash around him. The smell of burnt hair reached his nostrils and he quickly patted out his smoldering beard while searching the horizon.

From across the crater a warlock raised it’s staff, the crystal at one end beginning to glow again as it gathered power for another blast. Roderick quickly grabbed the hilt of his sword with both hands, pointing the tip at the distant light and leaning forward as he uttered the magical words: “Eptis Experendi!”

The spell launched him forward closing the gap between him and his target in a fraction of a second. Roderick’s eyes met those of the warlock as he drew near. It’s skeletal visage mirrored his own rage and hate. It lowered the now brightly glowing staff at him and shrieked, but all too late. His sword tore through the tattered robes and frail body as his suddenly stopping momentum transferred to the evil being sending it spinning off into the darkness.

Only then did Roderick glance down and realize he was holding the warlock’s staff under one elbow. He carefully used the edge of his blade to scrape the dangling arm from it, before drawing the staff’s now full charge back into the nether and stowing it on his back. “Might come in handy,” he muttered to himself.

Somewhere over the horizon a low rumble resonated through the ground. Roderick closed his eyes and stretched out his senses, allowing his magic to gather and surge. He reached out to the source of the rumble, touching it ever so slightly with his mind. The briefest of contact shocked him alert violently! It left a rancid taste in his mouth, metallic and toxic. Roderick spat. There had been something familiar about it… something mechanical… something dark.

The sensation connected with a distant memory, a terrible memory… Sir Roderick felt something he hadn’t felt in a long long time. And yet it flooded back into him with unwelcome ease. The sense of helplessness and despair threatened to overwhelm him. He pushed it down, swallowing hard. That memory had been a long time ago, when he was but a boy.

Roderick was no longer a boy and he certainly was no longer helpless…