It looked rather pretty, all things considered.

They probably kept it mowed with magic and weeded it frequently, but the expanse of green before me would not have been out of line on a golf course. Of course, this was Dream, so things were both more and far less perfect, and the rolling slope going down to a glittering wide river certainly looked inviting.

There were walking trails, what looked to be a Hedge Maze off to the side for fun, a pond for ornamental fish, white marble walking trails, and just a whole bunch of green to set it all off, in two flat areas between slopes leading down the river some distance away.

I looked out the windows at the oversized beech trees providing a canopy to the sides, the statues scattered here and there of fantastic beasts, the dreamy twinkling of the river, and the shockingly clear and beautiful blue skies above.

Uh-huh.

Tremble was peeking out from my hip. "My, doesn't that look all idyllic and peaceful."

"Yeah, not a damn thing looks threatening at all." Except for the statues, but we both knew that.

"And when we step out the door.."

"POW! Right to the moon!" we said together.

"Shall we get it over with?" I sighed.

"Sure! What's a little dying on such a beautiful day?" Tremble agreed.

I wasn't fresh, I'd used two Vigors up, and some Healing Soul. Battle Vigor had restored a huge amount of Soak, but it was useful, and I was aware I had only the normal two-minute downtime before something happened to attack me.

I had to hop up again to grab the lever-handle to the door outside, hauled it down, kicked off the frame to open the door, and dropped down to step outside.

The path I was on earlier was off to my right, but the piles of ants were gone, and the hedgerows I'd cut down were all restored, it looked perfectly normal. I rolled my eyes as very abruptly the sight of a lot of dogs playing out in the yard were presented to me.

They hadn't been visible through the window, but now I could see a big kennel off to the right side of the lawn, tucked in behind the massive stables I had not been in yet.

There were five colors of them.

The black ones with flaming eyes and jaws were Nessian Warhounds.

The white ones with blue eyes dripping frost were Canian Warhounds.

The oily brown ones dripping acid from their jaws were Stygian Warhounds.

The yellow ones with dark bronze metallic plates were the Ironeater Warhounds of Dis.

The ones with ashen hides trailing greasy smoke were Avernian Warhounds.

There were four of each of them.

"Fudge me!" we both said, as all twenty hounds the size of small elephants turned around to look

at us at the same time.

"Hellbane format is up!" Tremble said decisively, as the Hounds of Hell broke and headed for their newest chew toy, and not to be outdone by these literally Damned Dogs, I charged out at them.

-------------------

"Huh!" I sat up, blinking and grabbing Tremble automatically, injecting Essence.

"Well, wasn't that exciting?" he murmured. "Thanks for killing the Ironeaters first."

"Don't mention it." They were the most armored and the strongest, but they didn't have a breath attack, either. Carving through armor was a thing with me now, so I hadn't been all that off-put by the plates. "Damn, that was a lot of breath attacks."

"And strong!" agreed Tremble. "At least they didn't have any devils riding them.."

"It's not night time," I agreed sagely. "Imagine if we jumped out the window at night.."

I could hear his mental blink. "Really. We could really change things up, couldn't we."

"Yeah, get to deal with giant bats, and vampires summoning monster rat swarms, too, no doubt."

"It would be interesting to try it.."

"We can do that, once we find out what else is going to hit us in the back yard, right?"

"Yeah." Unfortunately, going outside and leaving a bunch of giants alive behind us to pour out and attack us at the same time as the dogs was absolutely the height of stupidity, and wasn't going to happen. Tight quarters restricted them from using teamwork and multiple attacks, so staying inside was a much, much better option for clearing the giants out.

Damn Curse!

I flicked over Expert/7, slotted all the expected Knowledge Skills, and eyed my choices for General Feats as I poked over Crystal Dragon Mastery/4, so I could get Way of Iron/4 tomorrow.

Two General Feats. Mmmm. Did I really have any I needed with a MAB+7 requirement?...

Wait a second.. Finish and Hew came online at +7, but they needed my Weapon Mastery to be up for Spear and Axe.. which they were.

Hah. Ha ha ha ha ha!

Oh, my offensive power just took a big leap in group situations.

My Grandmastery allowed me to take Feats for any Weapon that a Sword could sub for, as long as I had the appropriate Mastery in that Weapon. I had originally spent a lot of time and effort cross-training and paying time and Karma for weapons I would never really use, just to prove my point.

Two of those Feats were Finish, and Hew.

Finish was not that impressive. Basically, it allowed you to spend a swift action to coup de grace an opponent that you just reduced to 0, basically turning a drop into a crit as you wrenched the spear in the wound and made damn sure they died, effectively blowing their injuries past what a quick heal or innate fast healing or regeneration might be able to mend.

Hew was a bit nicer. It was an axe Feat, and once a combat cycle, you could transfer the excess damage from a hit on an enemy you dropped to the opponent you Cleaved off the hit, meaning the surprise second hit could be bigger then the first one.. or you could turn a huge hit into something that could take down two, three, even four people. It was a happy feat for Axers who were in range of lots of people, were taking the Cleave tree, and had really good static damage.

Naturally, they were never meant to be used together. Because the combination of the two of them was basically a guaranteed crit on kill, once a round. And since you already had to drop the enemy to trigger the crit, it meant all the crit damage went to your NEXT target, stacking.

Kill the minion, crit the boss. Charge one target, overkill it, kill the second. All they had to be.. was close enough together. The damage multiplier from the combo was quite sick.

I knew, I had used it a lot in-game.

It actually wasn't likely to happen much with giants, as all the vitals were too far away, so unless they were fighting literally chest-to-chest there was no way I could Cleave from one to the rest.

But for the night horde, for mounts and riders, for set-up charges and ambushes..

Hah! Ha ha ha ha! I was going to be a blood-spraying horror of chain Cleaves and deaths! Oh, were they going to hate me..

----------

I was chomped, and I was chewed, but the dogs were dead as I administered first aid via Vajra and patched up all the new and interesting holes in me. That acidic poison from the Stygian Warhound was particularly impressive, them wounds oozing little black clouds of smoke as I burned the venom, and the wounds sealed behind them.

Ahhh, that was a right tasty poison, it was..

I had gotten to this point with a lot more healing then before, which was keeping me on my feet as I gasped and cursed the Curse. Canines are natural pack attackers, and the Curse had happily doubled up on this, giving me nowhere to narrow the odds down unless I could get back inside.. and the door was closed, of course. I suppose I could have crashed the windows, but the dogs would have just followed.

Still, they were all dead, mostly by having their eyes pierced or necks half-severed. A lot had the tops or bottoms of their jaws lopped off, which hadn't been pleasant for them or me, as it usually came with a crushing bite to help things along. I could run faster then they could, sure, but there was nowhere to run to.. and anyways, I was here to kill them and see what was next, more than anything else. I could try running around after I knew what I would be facing.

The statues hadn't come down off their plinths yet, after all. But they were watching me..

Battle Vigor labored to return a modicum of my Soak as I looked down at myself with a grim smile. A normal person would be dead now, but Die Hard and Die Harder had effectively given me a 'death point' of -70 Health, and using Ferocity I could fight at negative Health, although I'd be bleeding out as I did so.

The dogs were One Striking, just like the giants, so their nasty bite damage base was happily tripled for my benefit, which I didn't really appreciate.

We both heard it at the same time, and turned to look at the side of the mansion, where a long and gentle slope cut through the two levels of the back yard, designed to bring wagons up or down from the river.

Or, you know, bring a bunch of giant knights down around the corner from the stables, riding advanced nightmares, or cauchemar, big enough to actually carry them, great plumes of burning smoke jetting out their nostrils. Of course, they were all in normal colors for horses, instead of the creepy black of normal nightmares, but there was no mistaking the clawed hooves, burning eyes, and that smoke they exhaled.

The knights were all done up in colorful patterns, knight heraldry with the symbol of a black rose in the upper right corner tying them all together. Barded war-cauchemar draped with more colors, a fine and upstanding group of heavy cavalry on mounts bigger than mammoths.

Damn..

Pennons draped from the lances as they turned the corner, spotted me, and their deep booming shouts of rage at seeing all the dead Damned Dogs burning away in my immediate area swept past like a peal of thunder.

"Wow, that is SO impressive!" Tremble admitted. "Uh, what config?"

"Evilborn, horses first. Gots to start a tally on nightmares, right?"

They were heavy cavalry, so they weren't nearly as fast as the cauchemar could potentially be, and I counter-charged, confident I could avoid the lances, veering closer to the mansion wall in order to be able to Dragon Walk for height and to avoid them being able to hit me with multiple lances.

The first one tried to snap at me, equine jaws with a tiger's teeth, missed as I rolled past and buried Tremble in his eye, its scream laced with blazing flames undertones. The Banefire pulse liquified its brain with vivus, and I bounced and let its momentum slide past me as the giant's eyes got very big, his wall of a shield rose too late, and he drove himself right onto the point of Tremble through his helm.

Things got very wild and messy as the leading knight and his mount went down, and there was nowhere to go in the press. Me, I had to work twenty feet off the ground and more as I moved from one cauchemar in strawberry roan to a bay to a sorrel to a wonderful red chestnut, then to a really ferocious pinto and an overeager black.

It was a good thing I had lightfoot and could jump so far.

They dropped the lances and unlimbered their sabers, cutting and slicing at me, trying for a surround and finding it rather hard with the house right there. Maybe two could reach me at a time, three if I was dumb, and they were hacking on one another and the horses as I avoided frantic blows and deflected them into other targets.

But it only took one successful hit from a sword to send me flying, almost cut in two, smash into the ground, and before I could possibly get up, a clawed hoof a yard across with probably a hundred tons of mount and rider behind it came down and flattened me.

Dealing with huge extremes of damage was such a bummer in here..