A Viper's Nest

"Hmm." A comet. "You had a wife? I guess that makes sense when you think about it, but I generally don't ask you questions..." Thinking of this man taking, or more accurately dragging, a woman back to his cave gave Bliss more insight into this creature past. "because I fear the response." Wanting to keep things from getting to personal Bliss flashed an overly toothy smile to alleviate pressure. "Big chunks of ice floating through the skies give these bitches massive power trips." She could relate to many of the words she just said, but let the moment slip while she gazed at the charting of the skies on her phone.

"What did you think everything up there was made of when you were with your tribe?" Closing the silence between the two passed the time while she tried to make heads or tails of all of the numbers pouring through her head. Women had a knack for multitasking; she read it in a magazine while making breakfast once. For Bliss the stars began to align. She gazed over to the corner top of the ruined building and saw how it aligned with the vectors of the how the lines ran behind them. "Saturn." She turned to let the to gain a full perspective on the constellation. "Vindemiatrix to the right, and Spica to the left..." Compiling the information kept her searching for something other than the names of stars. "That's Virgo, and the star Vindemiatrix from this spot would form a triangle with these coordinates just as any three points would, but that comet is moving towards a different angle than Spica."

After giving a brief yawn from her exhaustion, whether real or magically induced, she found a more relevant shape to the feature. "That comet is moving to create a star shape. The comet's coordinates don't really relate to directly to the angle of where these witches are, but it does signify a time table. If I can figure out the angle of this point to the stars, I can find the angle of the congruent triangle that will point to where we need to go next." Her counterpart gave her all she needed to know to get the solution to this problem, now she needed to finish it up. With her greatest superpower.

Math!

"Okay Primo, the exact location of this is something I'm not going to get us, but it looks like the second point is in the Grand Canyon." She looked up to her companion who may or may not know the names assigned to things from his time by newer humans. "Judging by the angle of that comet we have about half a day before that comet gets to its approximate angle."

As he was calming down from the earlier fighting, Gwharr felt a strange warm, tingling sensation in his gut and limbs. His thoughts where strangely muddled and cottony, making him having a harder time to think than normally. Strangely enough he thought the ambient temperature was slightly to hot, but he didn't know why. He had survived the sunbaked deserts of the middle east without feeling any discomfort, so why was he feeling it now? He remembered feeling something similar when the snake-woman had stung him with that iron-thing, so it was probably something from that particurlar meeting. Still, right now all it made him was a bit confused and sluggish, not nearly enough to pose a significant threat. The fact that he had not noticed it earlier was probably because of the adrenaline-rush that had surged through his body throughout this little endevaour on account of the fighting and running.

However, despite his lack of intelligence the Ponderous, Primitive Primordial had already decided exactly how to deal with this particurlar problem. He had always used a special plan for dealing with things he could not fully understand that had never let him down before, and probably would not do it this time either. That plan was basically to ignore it as much as possible untill it went away. After all, he had survived so many hardships and battle without sustaining any damage that lasted for more than a few seconds.

Just as he had settled for this particurlar course of action, Bliss aided him unwittingly by asking about his wife. It caused a slight raised eyebrow at first, but the Crude, Carnivorous Caveman attempted to shrug nonchalantely to smooth it over, but the fact that his massive shoulders were so oversized compared to the rest of his body made it look less "nonchalantely" and more like he was trying to flex his shoulders for some reason. "To had many wives. To live a long time, you'se people no live long. To grow old, die." The caveman responded with his deep, gravely voice uncharacteristically flat. "To has many childrens too, but think they'se all dead too. To think some alive. Old men now. Gray men. To think children of Primordial live longer than most, but still die." The caveman blurted out, as if unable to contain this little piece of information within him.

Gwharr was glad to have a change of subject as Bliss asked was his old tribe had thouht about the stars. " To Dunno. stuff? To remember Shaman says it be spirits, but shaman stupid. To used to think they's stuck up there, in the dark like dew sticks to flower." The caveman said wit ha slight shrug as he gazed up towards the stars once again. He didn't really think about what thye were anymore, since the modern people had told them they knew. They had gone up there to take a look and had found it out, making philosophising about it rather pointless.

His thoughts where once again interrupted by Bliss, telling him she had figured out where they aught to go next. Somewhere called "Grand Canyon" apprantly. It sounded like some sort of Canyone that was also Grand for some reason. This little revalation caused the Agressive, Adrenaline-fueled, Atavistic Apeman's spirits to raise slightly. He didn't like to stand around thinking about stuff when there were evil afoot. "To wonder how get there." The caveman said excitedly, obviously eager to set out.

Not only did the wonder of the past ages provide her with insight into advanced anthropology he gave her reasons to understand him as the anomaly. "That many wives huh?" Regarding the statement to her question came with some hesitation. During her processing Gwharr continued his speech over the mortality awaiting all and his release from the sweet taste of death. The same sweet fate Bliss would probably avoid herself now. Her attention diverted itself with the slow roll of her gaze over to Gwharr. "You think your immortality could have been passed on to your kids?" At first she hinted towards minor inquisition, but the thought of this power running through the blood of others peaked her interest. "I wonder how we would go about looking into that. Maybe we could find a trace of your DNA if we ran them through government data bases that we happened to get into because there are ways into secure databases." Bliss hinted with the guile she liked to provide herself with.

As the conversation began to divert back to the original premise of where they needed to begin heading, Bliss gave Gwharr her knowledge of local geography. "I know it's north of here." Getting through the American Southwest only required someone to know the difference between even and odd numbers. Following the interstate system took out all of guess work, but the grid didn't go everywhere. "I followed I-40 heading east, but going east won't help us get up there. Grand Canyon is about fifty miles northwest of here." In all the time she diverged into this misadventure she could feel the chance to find the member she continued to look for pull farther away. Too late for this really to take place as a decision and not a certainty though.

"We can take my car and try to find Highway 160, but that's going to take sometime." While looking through her phone Bliss began taking the steps towards where she left her car. In the wake of destruction of the building no remains of the building perforated from collapse. The warmth of the desert air felt smooth and vacant of debris from which any of this collapse would expunge into the air. Any light radiating in the night shown from unnatural places as the moon hung in a placid darkness. For once witches used astrology for power and neglected to allow the moon into their rituals.

Full frame trucks parked in compact spots overshadowed the small Camry like an opal pearl tucked inside of a clam. "Okay, so if we get started we should be able to find some sort of access road to cut across the desert and get to the highway leading up to the Grand Canyon." How the larger companion would fit between the car and the oversized truck would only be a problem until Bliss pulled the car out, but given her lack of orders anything could happen to move the process along with Gwharr. "Let me pull it back for you so that truck won't get in your way."

Gwharr scratched his beard thoughtfully as Bliss asked wether one of his many children might inherit his imortality. The one thing that had allowed him to remain on this planet for so long and sire thousands upon thousands of offspring. He had felt a slight sting of dissapointment when his first children had been born, since even though they where human, they looked somewhat like him. the jaw, the thick red hair, and a rather stocky build, but only about one out of eight had exhibited any superhuman abilities, and even then, only about half of them had exhibited a superhuman ability similar to his own. And never to the same degree as him either. Even the ones blessed with regeneration did not manage a four-didgit lifespan. He had loved them all, though. Even though he could barely remember all of them today. There were simply too many of them stretched out over too much time. Faces blurred together, just as the days and years blurred together.

"To have had many, many children. None have been like Primordial. Similar, yes. To have had some live longer, some stronger, but always more human than primordial." Gwharr said with a shrug. Some of his children might still be alive, but he doubted it. Besides, he was somewhat uncertain wether he wanted to see them now. He remembered visiting one of them two or three decades ago, and being kindly but politely asked to leave and not come back. It would be hard to explain having a wanted, fuguative neanderthal monstrosity for a father to your wife, children and grandchildren

"To think so at least. To maybe exist descendants not known to I." He continued, his voice still flat, devoid of emotion, as if he was reciting the exploits of some historical figure, rather than his own life. It felt like so long ago, that it might as well have happened to someone else.

The change of focus to the mission at hand was a welcome thing to our Ludriciously Long-Lived Leviathan. The joy of the hunt was much preffered to the melancholy wich was the defining trait of most of his memories. He did not understand one iota of what bliss said when she explained how to get where they where going by driving on various roads and whatnot, but despite this he nodded eagerly, so that she would not think he was a dullard, even though he was. One has to keep up appearances, ya know.

The caveman would probably be able to cram himself into the car, even though it wouldn't be comfortable, but he would not be able to do so, if that big-arse truck was in the way. He had no idea why it had decided to bar his way, but he was going to show whoever it was that had placed it there, that no truck, no matter how big was safe against Gwharr, The Petty, Pragmatic, Primitive Primordial. As bliss offered to pull back for him, the caveman merely shook his head lazily, and slowly knuckledwalked up to the truck, and with a sluggish, effortless movement, almost lazy, he slapped the veichle so hard that it tumbled out into the desert, coming to rest about ninety feet from its starting-area.

"There! To think Stoopuhd truck learn lesson!" The caveman said with a slight chuckle. before climbing into Bliss disturbingly minicscule car. Even though it was less than comfortable it was a whole lot better than spending a millenia trapped under hardened magma.

Seeing the truck removed from the spot gave Bliss fulfillment she wished to see for years. Sometimes you just needed a large caveman to triumph over small inconveniences. "I like how you think." Bliss moved to the side of her car and opened the door. The other truck blocked the full width of the door, but Bliss could still fit through the opening to plop herself in the driver seat. "That seat goes back." While grabbing her seat belt, Bliss reached to her side console to demonstrate the usage of the knobs that moved her seat forward ever so slightly. "Give you a little more leg room."

After the soft buzz of the engine came to life the duo pulled away from the half destroyed hotel. Moments like this made her glad Gwharr retrieved her credit card. Bliss pressed her finger to turn her GPS on, by passing the initial warning of operating the GPS while driving with one hand keeping the car as straight as she could. "Um?" She thought of the end point and swiped across the screen to move to a section for tourist stops. "Grand Canyon." Headlights flashed over the dashboard accompanied by an alerting horn. Responsively, Bliss jarred the wheel to the right to pull the car back into her lane. "Watch where you're going." Her comment hang in the air directed at the other vehicle, but her eyes never looked up to acknowledge the near death experience.

"Turn left ahead." An eerie recorded voice gave a soft request.

"Shut up, shut up, shut up." Bliss spoke under her voice while she fiddled with her cruise setting. "I don't need your help yet."

"Recalculating."

"Shut up, shut up, shut up. Oh shit. That was my exit." Anxiety brought out a rough breathe from Bliss. "Should have told me sooner."

After the ensuing U-turn and the final course direction moved them closer to the route they needed, Bliss found herself moving north west to find the Grand Canyon. Her exact whereabouts in the general area rested with a robotic voice speaking on behalf of a satellite in which Bliss constantly critiqued for not telling her to turn soon enough. "So, what do you do when you aren't being a large primordial? Have you done anything to get used to Civilization or anything?" Over the constant Feminist diatribes of Ani DiFranco Bliss decided to try and garner a little more knowledge about her oversized companion. "Maybe you should try to understand the world you're in now, since you'll probably be here longer than anyone else. You could add a whole new dimension of things to add to talk about in a few hundred years when you explain to others about the past."

The Massive, Musclebound Monstrosity that was untill recently known as 'The Primordial' squeezed himself together as much as he was able, even going so far as trying to hang his left arm out through the window, to get more room, but unfortunately his forearm grew too thick too push out about midway. His right shoulder narrowly managed to avoid pushing Bliss as she drove on. No, this situation was not going to be feasable for all that long unless some approapriate changes where applied. After a few minutes of thinking the caveman decided what manner of change would be neccesary.

"To think this no work. To be too tight. To fix. To no worry, keep driving!" He said as he opened the cardoor from the inside, reaching out, opening the rear door, aswell, before extending his massive arm, opening the door to the packseat aswell, reaching in and and discovering a promising nook where his fingers where able to find a grip, more than good enough for what he had in mind. Securing his finger around the nook, easily pulling himself into the backseat before closing both doors behind him. It was far more comfortable here. Far bigger, and even though the roof was too low to allow him to stretch out his back entirely, it more than made up for it in width. Back here, Gwharr didn't need to squeeze together to save room for bliss. Back here, he could at lest have some literal elbowroom. The caveman breathed out, and flexed his shoulders to get the blood-circulation going. Now that he was not trying to make himself small, they spanned almost from door to door, but still left him some room to move his arms about if he wanted too.

Gwharr couldn't help but to notice that Bliss did not seem to enjoy driving as an activity. She was shouting a whole lot at the weird voice that talked to her. Apparantly, this veichle was some sort of semi-intelligent robot. Like in the movies, when people build robots that gradually became insane and started killing people. However, this robot seemed to be more annoying than murderous, presumably lacking the ambition to kill humanity, but rather to make their existance a relly bothersome task by introducing buerocracy and whatnot.

"Hmmm. . .To mean when no fightin' and stuff?. . . Well. . .To hunt is fun. Cook. Eat. Paint. Watch TV. Tv with robots is best." The caveman said, smiling slightly as the robots came up again. "To do more stuff, but not that often." he continued, fearing that his initial reply would make him see boring in the eyes of his ever so cool friend. However, the question about civilization brought up conflicting emotions within the big beast. He grunted dissaprovingly as she seemed to imply that he should get used to civilization and not the other way around! After all, he was here long before civilization!

"To learn talk. You'se language weird-like." he said with a slight shrug. He couldn't really think of anything else he had done to fit in to civilization. He had adapted to survive in it, but he had not really done anything to really 'fit in'. "To no really see point. To think you'se Empire break soon, then all will be like it was. To be like it supposed to be. " the caveman continued, the tone his inhumanly deep voice suggesting a mixture between indifference and displeasure at the civilization of today.

"To no place for Gwharr-types in you'se world. Strange place. Wrong." he continued, feebly trying to explain that he felt.

"You watch TV shows with robots? Never pegged you as the couch potato type, but I guess that's better than you telling me what you hunt in urban areas." Miles now separated them from their initial starting point and the gaping hole left behind. For the past hour they curved and slithered their way through the rugged canyon side of the northern boundary of Arizona. "Just because empires die doesn't mean they get forgotten. People today still can't get enough of the gods and myths from Greek and Roman times. You never know, maybe one day when humans colonize space the legend of Gwharr will reach the stars."

Lights flashed off of the sides of the jagged rocks lining the cavernous walls. On the other side of the mountain road lay the deep crevices of the canyon, draped in darkness with all the secrets lying within its depths. Whenever the beams of the light broke over a turn, the edges of the upper canyon gave up their secrets and showed the darkness of their inner crags. During the light of day, the canyon would sprawl out across the horizon with each individual crack of ground leading away from the spine of the canyon strengthening the beauty. Each peak of the canyon harbored an assortment of tourist stops to glass bottom walkways or rental of personal vehicles to reach the bottom of the canyon. Bliss only needed access to the ledge and then she could take care of the rest.

Nothing awaited them in the parking lot before a polysynthetic building built to corral people into walking out over the ledge of the glass overlook. Bliss stepped from her car and began walking and formulating what her next series of events would entail. First she needed to know where these witches wanted to perform this ritual, and two she needed to know how to stop them. Bringing Gwharr stacked the odds in her favor, but knowing nothing about what she planned on stepping into took all the odds away. In her recent adventures she thought she remembered him using a keen nose once, but she could have remembered wrong, either way she based her plan on it. "Okay Gwharr, here's the plan." Ice began cracking over the ledge of the mountain in the brisk desert air. "I need you to get to the bottom of the canyon and start making lots of noise." Steps began jetting out of the large ice block resting over the ledge. "Get someone to step out and then try and track down where the scent is coming from. Once you got that then we can find where these witches are." Ice spiraled down fifty feet to a worn walking path more than capable of taking Bliss to the bottom. "I don't know what they are planning, but it can't be good, so let's not screw this up."

Gwharr nodded thoughtfully as Bliss laid out the details of the plan they had at hand. It seemed like sound strategy to Gwharrs ears. After all, making enough noise here in the very center of the area that the Weird, Wicked Witches had claimed as their own would surely cause them to at least investigate what was going on, if not even outright attacking them. Especially since Crude, Courageous Caveman and his Aggresive, Asian Accomplice had managed to foil their villainous plots on two separate occasions before comming here. They were probably considered a genuine threat to their entire organisation at this point!

Gwharr opened the door carefully, taking great precautions so that he would not get frustrated by the teeny-tiny mechanism being quite difficult to operate by his massive, trashcan-lid sized hands. After a few seconds of fiddling and a display of uncavemanlike coordination the Great, Gruesome, Grunting Gargantuan Giant managed to get the door opened. He wasted little time in squeezing his way out of the cramped veichle, stretching himself out into his full height, raising his oversized, massively muscular arms to the sky, to get the annoying sensation of being trapped out of his system once and for all.

"To wonder what you is do?" the caveman asked Bliss, his inhumanly deep, almost beastial voice, uncharacteristically calm and thoughtfull, entirely devoid of the usual brutal howls and bestial snarls that spiced up his speech. He waited a few seconds for a reply before leaping into plain sight of any and all that might be hiding in or around the canyon, right in front of the strange, insanely deep, roadrunner-like fissure in the ground. As he reached his destiantion, he cleared his throat and cracked his knuckles before letting out a monstrously bestial roar of such magnitude that the thundering echo of it traveled down the canyon, and flew through it and bounced of the walls, sounding as if there was an entire army of caveman outside declaring war upon whomever was present. As he let out this terrible roar, Gwharr beat his chest, as if he was some sort of monstrous ape, the canyon amplifying the echo of the chestbeating, turning it into something resembling a drumbeat.

Drums of war.

“That’s a good question.” During the thoughts of planning she really only took time to figure out how to get the witches to show themselves, and less time on what to do when the witches did in fact show up out of the cave. Things like this would normally place Bliss in the role of the infiltrator, but time and again she failed at performing in that role. “I think I’ve got an idea on what I can do if you can get all of their attention on you. I can ice over the part of the canyon they staked out as their domain, and with your brute strength you can bring down the walls on them.”

After explaining herself to Gwharr, Bliss made her way down to the canyon floor to hide from sight. The deep crags offered a cornucopia of loose debris and discarded rocks for her to take refuge behind. Quietly she shuffled behind rocks and to an opening allowing her just enough vision, but maintaining her stealth operation. Her knees dug into the hard dirt as she tried her best to remain hidden while keeping up her guise, all the while glancing over to see the progress Gwharr made in his efforts.

In between glances over to Gwharr and her open surveillance, she could hardly make out any features of the canyon. Shadows faded into shadows, and what could look like a deep crevice could only turn out to be a small nook in the face. Making assumptions based on these findings did not make Bliss feel confident in her plan, but she knew she could not change it now once they already went into action. She remained vigilant, but watched.

Moving from rock to rock with webbed hands and a slithering mouth remained as silent as needed as a wide faced spelunker surmised the plan from her sentry spot. Twice now she ran into occurrences with Bliss, but could only offer a peripheral role to her sisters dealing with Bliss. Now she wanted revenge for the death of the others brought on, and with each crawl and step she edged closer with harsh knife strapped to her forearm.

Slowly the witch came to a spot of power where she could lunge out to attack Bliss. Her hands retained their strong grasp over the course rocks as she took her right hand away to pull out the shiv from her left forearm. Grasping the blade with murderous intent, the witch flew forward with her right arm pulling back to angle the vicious blow with complete indiscretion for either life in the mix.

Hearing a subtle noise coming from just behind sounding like a gentle pitter of suction cups, Bliss tried to focus on keeping her gaze on the task before her; Gwharr would get ready to sound the alarm into the dark, and Bliss needed to stay sharp. Her gaze focused, but her mind rested on the sound from behind her.
As she turned to look the dagger flew right by her shoulder, slashing a fresh cut by her neck. Bliss parlayed by placing her hands into the course skin of the woman’s torso and pressing a jagged ice blast into her stomach. Bliss gained the advantage as she momentarily incapacitated the witch, and sought to follow up her action by growing the ice up to her chest to destroy the witch from within.

Standing guard over the canyon opening twisting back to where the final séance took place, two shadowy figures examined the happenings of the area. One possessed the features of a lion while the other the rough ensemble of a bear. Both would take extreme measures to guard the secrets of oblivion and would strike at anything alarming their senses.

As Gwharr was busy creating noise to get the attention of the Sorcerous, Snake-charming Slithering Sluts Bliss seemed to go off to do her own thing, wich was probably for the best. Even Gwharr knew about this tactic, as it was standard hunting procedure. He had done it in the past, in a time wich felt as it was an eternity away. The Primitive, Pre-historic, Pragmatic Primate had made lots of noise in order to get bull-mammoths feel riled up enough to to attack him so that more stealthy warriors could kill the off the calves and drag them off to cook for dinner whilst their protectors where elsewhere. This whole operation was pretty much the same tactic but in a more modern enviroment. He was the distraction, and on account of him being an almost eight-foot more than half-a-ton heavy loudmouth with enough strength to bring down a mountian before it was time for tree he was a probably rather good at distracting them from whatever his trusted companion was up to.

He once again reflected over the fact that him and his literally cold-hearted companion worked so well together. She took care of the brainy stuff whilst he punched people and roared loudly. Time and time again she had been capable of unleashing his abilities in way that were far more effective than he ever had dreamt about. He might be an immortal caveman and one of the toughest, strongest beings on this planet, but he had no doubt that Bliss would beat him if they ever ended up on opposite sides. No matter how powerfull he was, as long as Bliss knew what his powers were. She would simply figure out a way to utilize her own powers effectively and minimize the impact of his own abilities, so that she came out on top. She was the master of plans

The Great, Grungy, Grunting Gargantuan Giant himself on the other hand, was not all that fond of making up plans, and it was not only because of stupidity. He might be dumb, but he was still far more capable of devising sound strategies for hunting than most men that technically had double his reasoning-power. It was more about the fact that making plans made him restless. He did not want to spend time talking about how to take action, he wanted to take action! Grab the enemy by the throat and punch his way through their eventual ranks in honest-to-god combat He really hope Bliss would call him soon, though, so that they could rip these stupid witches into pieces.

However, something unexpected brought his attention back to the outside world. The air was filled with something that felt like static electricity, in the way that it made his hair stand slightly on end, and caused small, harmless sparks to erupt here and there, however, Gwharr knew that it was not electricity. It was magic! He could feel it in his bones, somehow, almost by instinct. The magic seemed to be drawn straight into the air, and converged on one point, wich started to glow omniously, with some sort of strange, dark light. It reminded him somewhat of the first Villain him and Bliss had fought, because of the way she seemed to radiate light, but all she truly did was create more darkness. However, this "bright darkness" seemed to be a more primal, sinister version of her ability.

small rocks and pebbles where drawn towards the epicenter of the darkness, skidding on the ground, like nails drawn to a magnet. As they reached the Epicenter, Gwharr was rather shocked to know that they flowed together into a perfectly shaped ball composed by liquid rock, not melted, just strangely liquid. Gwharr knew he should probably intercede, smash the epicenter for all he was worth, but he found himself unable to move or take action, too mezmerized by the unnatural phenomenon occuring in front of his eyes. As the rock-ball reached sufficient mass it startled to wobble, stretching upwards, slowly morphing into a humanoid-shape, looking slightly like a nine feet tall, half-baked ginger-bread man. more detailed features, like fingers and toes started to appear, but seemingly not hair, toes, genitals or ears, anything that protouded from the body that wasn't entirely nessecary seemed to be skipped. The face of the creature slowly formed from nothing by a ball into the face of a man with slightly elongated features. Many would have called it a beautifull face if it had been true flesh and blood. However, the most disturbing feature of this rock-man was the tranquil expression of his face. He looked calm, at peace and completely relaxed.

He looked down at Gwharr with his relaxed, almost infinately kind face and parted his full, perfect lips and spoke. "Woe Unto thee" he said with a voice that sounded a bit like rocks grinding against one another as well as the rumbling of thunder, and raised a muscular arm, pointed at Gwharr.

The caveman roared and leapt towards the strange creature, but the monster merely kept his finger pointed at him, somehow discharging a bolt of lightning, complete with the rolling, ear-deafening rumble of a true thunder-storm. The bolt hit Gwharr straight into chest, throwing him back, even managing to create a slight burn in the middle of his chest. The newly created golem-like creature walked towards him slowly, his kind, tranquil appearance seemingly unchanged from when he was first created. Thick-stormclouds had seemingly swarmed around him, giving him the illusion of a billowing cloak of robe. Small sparks of electricity moved in the clouds, illuminating the area, as the disturbingly kind-faced golem slowly advanced on him.

Tingling with the release of blistering force, Bliss could feel her opponents blood dripping down to her shoulder. Blood pooled up just under Bliss's neck before draining through a crevice created by her clavicle to the dirt ridden ground below. A vile tongue coiled with a wicked slither of the jaw. During the relapse of the tongue her wide brimmed mouth twitched in a manner announcing a spasm in her muscle relapses. As ice filled her chest, and turned her hopes of exercising one last thrust, The tips of her tongue began to turn to a solid state. Her breathe slowed and began to become visible in the far from freezing valley.

While Bliss came to allow the pressure from her hands to flow freely, she looked into the eyes of the creature as panic and despair came into eyes. Veins began to cause the skin below the lids to discolor, acting as a harbinger to the crystallizing of the outer lids of the eye. Slowly the ball cracked over and a small drop of ice fell onto Bliss. With her deeds completed she tossed the creature to the ground and crawled to her feet.

No longer in danger from an ambush coming from behind, Bliss darted from behind the ledge and shadowed the ledge until she moved closer to the opening in the rock wall. Gwharr pulled the guards away just in time to give her free reign of the narrow causeway. With intentions to destroy the ritual as her ultimate goal, Bliss still harbored desire to know what brought her so close to death so many times. Her ice began to seep into the walls of the crevice as she continued down to the illuminated opening.

Hidden from the view of the large canyon, the witches established their final seance within a small cove perfect for concealing light. Three witches took their places at a point of a triangle adorned with runic markings surrounding a lifted platform within the center of the triangle. Bliss remembered the three witches vaguely, but could not register the identity of the fourth witch in the middle of the platform. She kept her back to the opening and assumed a kneeling position with her hands touching the ground.

Before Bliss could finish running her ice through the walls of the canyon, an eerie glow began to come over the walls. She monitored the surrounding area to see if she could detect any lights coming from the markings, but her view became obstructed by the wall she used to hide herself. As her head turned back she saw a soft light bathe the edge of the canyon in a red light. Whatever lit up the canyon did not come from the witches, but came from above.

The Humungous Hare-brained Hooligan let out an ear-deafiningly loud, particurlarly bestial roar, that echoed throghout the canyon as the massive, kind-faced Golem-like behemoth ponderously made his way towards him, the storm-clouds surrounding him omniously grew louder and darker as the Cannibalistic, Crude Caveman bravely stood his ground, facing the bigger adversary and his mystical and omnious storm-clouds. He snarled viciously at his oponent, as he dug his fingers into the ground,ripping out a quite impressive chunk of rock brandishing it over his head in a threatening manner.

The golem seemed to be unnaffected by this rather menacing display of agressiveness as it made its way towards the caveman, not increasing it pace, or anything of the kind, as it moved forwards. Gwharr could not help but to worry about this seeming lack of acknowledgement, or even agressiveness. Was this strange creature even properly alive in the first place, or was it simply some other, more powerfull variant of those strangely animated magical dolls like those that the first evil witch they had faced of against had used against them when they had met earlier. However, the caveman was still uncertain of how he would fight against this strange creature. The storm-clouds made it hard to see the creature in detail, and the fact that it could launch thunder and lightning at him on a whim made it even more complicated. However, this attack would be different from his first one. This time he had a plan!

Gwharr leapt into the air, hurtling towards the Statue-like rock-creature who made no effort to get out of the way, or indication that he would brace for the impact. Before the collision however, Gwharr hurled the stone towards him, wich his opponent brushed aside with almost insulting ease. However, this action left him open for Gwharrs patented, flying overhead smash-move. Said and done, Gwharr brought his fist down on the creature, now almost entirely hidden by the billowing storm-clouds, little more than a shadow being hinted at within the centre of the cloud. Gwharr felt his hair stand on end from the electricity as he flew into the cloud, and he started to briefly wonder if this had been such a good idea. However, his doubt left him as he collided with the creature and gave way to tri- . . . Pain?

As he made contact, a jolt of electricity made its way through his body, and he was hurled back, out through the stormcloud. However, as he collided he was fairly sure that he had heard a cracking sound, thus causing him to realize that he could indeed damage the golem, even though it hurt to do so. However, being an immortal caveman with regeneration, Pain was not a very efficient deterrant to the likes of him.

He landed on the ground, still twitching slightly as the golem once again spoke, invisible inside of the ever-growing storm-cloud in front of him. "Woe Unto Thee" it said in a monotone voice so deep, so gloomy that it was the very anthithesis to cheerfull manners everywhere. The caveman quickly got onto his feet his hair standing on end, making him look like some sort of 80s rockstar. He roared once more, and was just about to take another go at the Golem, when a sinister figure dropped from the sky!! It looked as an idealized verson of a lion crossed with a man, somewhat in the style of an historic egyptean diety. Its head was that of a lion, with a proud, haughty expression and a long, flowing mane that shone like pale silver in the moonlight. Its body was heavily muscular, and its hands where equipped with long, curved claws at each fingertip. However, the most noticable feature of this ceature was the massive, almost angelic wings that grew from its back, and presumably was the reason whilst it dropped from the sky, so unexpectedy.

Gwharrs eyes where darting between his two opponents, when he felt an intense pain in his back. The caveman started to spin around, but before he had time to do so, the creature had punched him with such awesome strength that he had flewn straight into the mountainside. Gwharr quickly got up, not feeling all that much pain from the blow. This newcommer was strong, but he had met stronger. His back still hurt like hell, though.

The second newcommer was a being in line wth the lion-man that had arrived a few secons ago, and even though they shared the style of dress and wings, this one had no Lion-like features, but looked like it was part bear instead. It was far larger tha its companion, its limbs heavier and stockier, its back broad and whilst the lions face was concieted, haughty yet noble, this one looked brutish and destructive, as if it was just looking for an excuse to go on a rampage. Even though its torso was that of a human, it was covered with hair so coarse to see where its human bits begun and its bear-parts ended. Its arms where obviously those of abear, lacking the dexterious didgits of man, but instead having massive, brutish claws, one of them wich was covered in blood. His blood.

Gwharr quickly realized that he would have a hard time fighting all three of these creatures at the same time, and soon devised a cunning plan to decrease his enemies. Cunning for him anyway. He roared loudly as he heaved his fists into the air, and brought them down, causing the platform they stood on to shatter and fall into the canyon. The bear-creature just laughed hoarsly as he took to the air on his wings,but the lion cursed in an unknown language as he realized what this would mean.

Gwharr quickly leaped alongside the wall, landing on another small plateu on the cliffside, as the earlier place tumbled into the ayss, taking the abominable cloud-fiend with it into the depths. Now it was only two on one, and the caveman liked these odds alot better!

Nothing felt right. Her ice turned the stillness of the crevice to a frigid point of awareness. No one within the canyon could go without noticing the sudden turn of events and no one let the adversary within the air sit stale. Springing her trap, Bliss watched as her ice arced and encapsulated the four witches, granting her victory, but leaving her without any reasoning behind this string of attacks. Now she needed to finish this fight, but she found herself overcome with knowing she could never ascertain the secrecy of this group without direct answers.

Slowly, she set her foot forward out of the narrow path leading to the circular outcove of the crevice. Dirt gave way under the imprint of her flat soled shoes while rocks slid along their paths over the ice peaking through the floor of the canyon. Moonlight reflected up from the glistening surface of the crystalline ice invading the seance. The moon stole light from the sun, now ice stole the truth behind the ritual and flaunted the true meaning of the ritual for all.

"Now you know..." A feint message arose from the witch with the stature of leader. Ice kept her back presented to Bliss while an impending doom kept the words frozen on her cohorts. "Was it worth it?"

"It's not a question worth asking." Bliss gazed over the icescape; her feet could feel the rumblings within the faltering of the ice. Paying the price for overkill would buy her the complete destruction of everything within this alcove. "What do you see now?"

"Nothing." It rang hollow while the collapse rang violent.

Gwharr carefully climbed and bounded along the rock-walls, doing his best to stay attentive to the flaps of the flying fiends that circled overhead as if they where some sort of demonic vultures. He began to question the wisdom of sending the platform tumbling into the depths of the canyon, sure he might have gotten rid of one opponent, but there was still two of them hovering overhead. His muscles tensed as he felt a sudden gust of wind, and heard a pair of wings slapping a bit faster. He could bet his left foot that one of the Monstrous Miscreants were attacking him in this very instant! He wanted to turn around to face his opponent, but it was impossible, since he would fall if he let his grip go. He felt a searing pain along his back, as the long, almost blade-like claws of the bear-creatures slashed his back multiple times, even though they drew blood he felt somewhat relieved that they did not penetrate deeper. After all, this prooved that he could stand quite a few attacks like this before they actually did any lasting damage to him. However there was still the problem with fighting back. All he could do now was letting go of the rock wit hone hand and flail inneffectively behind him, not having the leverage or good enough visibility to actually throw a decent punch. The bear-creature laughed boisterously in contempt at his feeble attempt and said something in his native tounge, presumably a witty taunt of some sort because the Lion-man chimed in with an arrogant chortle that oozed with conciet.

Gwharr threw himself upwards, hoping to reach somewhere where he could make his stand, but he was met with nothing with the pawed foot of the lion-man kicking him off course, sending him tumbling down the cliffside. The disdainfull sneer of the face of the lionman and the boisterous laugh of the bearman as theywatched Gwharr fall hurt his pride more than any blow or kick could. They where toying with him, like a cat with a mouse, entertaining themselves before dealing the final blow. As he managed to dig his fingers into the cliffside to stop his downward descent, the bear-man was there again, kicking at his hand, his massive clawed foot slicing through the skin and drawing blood, but The Stubborn, Stalwart Stoneage Strongman refused to let go, even though he could feel that the cut went to the bone. He quickly tried to grab the leg of his attacker, but the bearman deftly flew off, cursing loudly in his native tounge. The lion-man immediately started laughing at his companions mistake, and Gwharr judged from the increasing rythms of his wings, that he was preparing to show his crude companion how you did this sort of thing.

However, This time Gwharr was not as easily taken by surprise by the creature. As he felt the lions claws bored their way into the back, he let go of one hand and tensed his back-muscles as much as possible, causing the claws of the lions foot to get stuck. The lion tried to pull them out, but they where in to deep. and as Gwharr grabbed ahold of the lions left foot, his opponents arrogant, almost kingly vaneer of arrogance was broken as he let out a surprised yelp. It would be a lie if I said that Gwharr did not enjoy squeezing the Lions Fully Functional Foot into a Bloody Bag of Broken Bones. He felt it was justice for the arrrogance and contempt with wich they had treated him. he then hurled the lion away, for this was only the first stage of his plan. He had already realized that if he managed to hurt any of them seriously, they would stop playing and do their best to finish him off as quickly as possible, and he could already hear the swish of the bearman as he dived towards him, still laughing, seemingly finding something incredibly funny about the crippling of his colleague. Gwharr decided that he would have to surprise the bear shaped warrior, and so he kicked off against the cliff-wall propelling him towards his opponent at a speed far too quick for the bearman to dodge

The bearman was extremely muscular and quite heavy, probably about 600-750 pounds, but Gwharr was in a class of his own when it come to weight. His 1190 pound frame collided wi th the Airborned Antagonist, quickly wrapping his arms around him, thus preventing him from staying airborne. The Bearman laughed for a few second afterwards, before Realizing what the Caveman had done, his laughter then turned into a hesitant grunt, and then it turned into a shriek, as the two of them plummeted into the depths of the grand canyon. Gwharr knew he could survive something like this without taking much damage at all, and judging from the panicked shriek comming from his Ursine companion he suspected that he did not think much of his own chances.

As they fell Gwharr made a point of staring into the terrified opponents eyes, doing his best in making him understand that he brought this upon himself at the very moment he decided to fight the Caveman. As they crashed into the earth, Gwharr could not see a thing. He was covered in blood, and his opponents well-built hairy body had been flattened and his silence and lack of breathing suggested he had died at the impact. He could hear the frenetic flapping of the lion-man's wings, but there was something else too. . .a scraping of rock against rock. . .

"Woe Unto Thee" An inhumanly deep voice said emotionlessly, and Gwharr caught himself wondering why that particurlar phrase sounded so familiar. . . Before he was hit by a lightning-bort and sent flying backwards. It Was the golem, seemingly still wrapped in stormclouds, he could only make out his silhouette, but there was no question about it. However, the sinking feeling in his gut was somewhat mitigate by the fact that his enemy seemed to be dragging one leg behind, uselessly his knee bent in a way that knees where not normally supposed to bend. He also seemed to be missing half of its left forearm. Even though his opponent was not dead, it seemed he that he had still harmed it a great deal.

As the dust and turbulence of the ritual rested the clear sounds of battle continued to ring out through the valley. Her plan culminated in what she could see as an acceptable means, but her companion would still need assistance with his troubles. Whatever secrets she buried in this rubble would come to her, but she needed to keep whatever team she made together long enough for secrets to be told. Bliss took off back towards the opening of the crevice while picking up ice around her body. Frozen water began weighing down on her, but the momentum she picked up kept her moving forward with the weight acting as a counter balance to keep her stable.

Once the long path came to the large opening Bliss accumulated enough ice around her torso to carry out the next part of her plan to deal with anything the canyon and its cohorts could throw at her. She continued to lean forward while growing the large block on her back to keep her steady, but also to prepare for a full on siege assault against whatever Gwharr faced in the canyon. A thick cloud covered a vaguely human form that spoke with an unworldly authority. Given the look on Gwharr's face and the tone of its command, Bliss could tell she needed to put a stop to this guy.

Ice shot out from her body and grew in intensity as it took large pieces of the block surrounding Bliss. Boulders of pure ice flew through the air towards the golem with reckless aim, not aiming directly at the golem, but in his general vicinity to score a successful blow at the creature. Each boulder from the sky would pack a powerful blow with enough force to disorient the creature within the clouds.

With the boulder attack launched, Bliss still held a good deal of ice around her sides, just where she wanted them. After the barrage lifted a good deal of her load she found moving her arms much easier to allow her to begin sending her access build up out in a spiked trail making a "V" shape. Sharp tendrils erupted from the smooth path she laid out with her hands as she absorbed the rest of her ice into the attack. The spikes would shoot just to the sides of Gwharr in an attempt to remove the lion creature from taking a shot at Gwharr.

Wanting to finish off the lion creature, Bliss let loose the remaining ice against the lion creature once her spikes ensnared a good enough grip to keep it in place. These boulders would land with enough impact to destroy the lion creature once and for all. From her position behind the shrouded golem, Bliss laid out a perfect attack route for Gwharr to follow. With the raining barrage she even bought him an opening to finish what her frailty would not allow.

The caveman snarled as he leaped towards the golem-like rock-man, even though he could barely make out his sillhouette from within the dark, forebodingstormcloud that envelopped him like the dark, omnious black smoke that heralds the comming of a volcanic eruption. However, there was one important difference between the two, and that was that no volcanic smoke-cloud that he had ever seen had been crackling with electricity like the way this magical stormcloud did. He could not help but to squint as he approached the thick, almost solid-looking surface of the cloud, and even though he was half-expecting to bounce back as he made contact, it seemed that this was not the case. However, as he broke through the surface of the cloud he felt a moist sort of chill surround him. Like being draped in a wet blanket. He could smell the static electricity in the air, and could feel the ample amounts of hair on his arm stand out straight.

He felt sand underneath his feet as he landed, a sure sign that he had not managed to hit the target of his attack directly, but there was still a chance he could find him and pummel to gravel. After all, he had not yet encountered any type of rock that he had not been able to punch into dust if he had been sufficiently antagonized. The sillhouette of the rock-man was less than ten feet in front of him now, a multitude of sparks and occasional small bolts of lightning shooting from the stump on its left arm where its hand had been severed. Gwharr rushed towards it, raising a massive fist to punch it, its body getting clearer as he approached it. Hairline cracks was spread all over it, like an intricate tattoo, and here and there its once perfectly sculpted body had been chipped and cracked. Its left side seemed to be more broken than its right, indicated that it had landed on it when it fell. Despite its damages, its face still had that expression of extreme serenity and un-fathomable wisdom, although the timeless, eternal quality of it had been ruined by a rather nasty-looking, jagged crack that ran all the way across the face like a small canyon of its own.

It quickly raised its remaining hand and lo, a lightning-bolt shot out of it, zapping Gwharr violently, sending him flying backwards, out of the cloud. Although, to be honest, the dry desert-air made him feel alot more comfortable than the heavy damp atmosphere that seemed to prevail within the stormcloud. As he rose from the ground he heard flapping from above, it was the lion-man, one of its legs crushed into a useless bag of broken bones and unmendable muscles. It was swollen and shapeless, almost like a club-foot, and Gwharr could not help but ot feel a slight ting of sympathy for the once-arrogant flying fiend. The loss of its companion and the ruination of its leg seemed to have robbed the creature of its concieted, haughty expression of contempt and replaced it with a mask of pain and uncertainty.

Gwharr quickly decided that even though both of his remaining opponents were crippled the remaining target should be the golem. He was the most powerfull of the three, and despite the heavy damage he had suffered his determination seemed to be all but unnaffected. The Lion-creature in comparison seemed to have most of his fight squeezed out of him by Gwharrs earlier attack as well as the untimely demise of his bear-headed companion, and he was fairly certain that the once royal-looking, humanoid feline would have fled already if he had been able to.

Suddenly, Gwharr heard a loud crashing sound lying somewhere between a broken boulder and a wine-glass being dropped. And as he looked towards the sound, it seemed a rather impressive blocke of ice had hit his primary foe. Bliss! It had to be bliss! Gwharr gave out howl of joy at his friends intervention, as this meant that she was still alive, and not only alive at that, but good to give these poor suckers what they've earned too! The cloud surrounding the golem seemed to be somewhat disturbed by the ice-block that had collided into it, causing it to dissipate just slightly enough for him to see the sillhouette of the monster that was just about to get back on its feet again, slowly and awkwardly turning around to see what was happening to it, its slightly gimpy leg seemingly limiting its movement a bit. Gwharr leapt towards it once again, since it was now otherwise occupied. He once again felt the static and heavy damp of the cloud, but it was not botherering him, like it was before. He landed just behind the creature, and as it clumsily turned around once more to face him, Gwharr grabbed ahold of its bald, serene-looking head with one hand, to prevent his punch from simply sending it farther away from him again, and utilized his other hand to deploy a devastating bodyblow, wich was forcefull enough to shatter the torso of the golem, sending bits and pieces flying out into the canyon. He then proceeded to clench the hand in wich he still held the head of the golem into a fist. Sand and gravel poured between his fingers and as he opened his hands nothing remained but dust and shattered, uncrecognizable stone.

He heard a bestial roar behind him, and as he looked to see what it was, he found that the cowardly Lion had seemingly managed to get itself trapped in the ice. He quickly looked away, having no desire to watch the pain of the creature, nor did he felt that he had the right to mercy-kill the poor crippled creature. This was Bliss kill and she had the right to perform it as she wished.