Surubi rushes forward toward the remains of the well, launching a reckless arrow at the next closest rooftop attacker before dropping being the edifice for cover. Her shot flies right into the gut of the man, doubling him over in pain.
Omen takes a less hostile route, moving a little closer to the rest of his teammates while using a wand to throw up a shimmering extra layer of protection.
Brennan finishes his movement to come around the building, trying for a closer vantage against the enemy, while keeping to cover. Chephren, however, continues his bold advance on the enemy. Except he asks for a not quite as bold layer of protection from his deity.
Emboldened by his last hit on Omen, the thug braves a closer position along the edge of the building in order to take another shot at the masked man. As he moves to the corner, he takes aim, but gets startled by noticing Surubi there as well, thinking she had just rushed past.
The one Chephren is following, turns back and takes a pot-shot from down the alleyway. The arrow soars through the gap to sink into Chephren's thigh. The thug lets out a whoop in excitement, as he draws his khopesh. The magically frightened one of their group regains his senses, stopping where he is, and turning back toward the battle.
Chephren moved himself forward into a dangerous position, and the group of thugs takes advantage of his separation. Firing down on him from above once again, the man's arrow sinks into the soft flesh between the clavicle and trapezius muscle. The muscle itself stopping the point from driving deeper into the man.
The victim of Surubi's gut shot hobbles away from the edge, moving back toward the center of the building. He leans down and then vanishes from sight, possibly by laying down on the roof.
Surubi peeks up from behind the well, looking toward the man she just shot. Upon seeing neither the man nor a body, she stands, steps to her left at the well, and nocks an arrow--clearly seeking a good target.
;
Surubi gets back to her feet, trying to eye a clean shot nearby, as she steps slowly around the well closer to the larger group.
Omen gestures at the thug lurking around the nearby wall, calling a column of voidstuff to cascade over him, threatening to steal his breath and chill his bones.
HP: 8/16
AC: 16 (11 T / 15 FF)
CMD: 10
F/R/W: +3/+2/+5 (+2 vs death effects)
Resist 7: acid, cold, fire, electricity
Omens used (swift demoralize): 0/1
Black Motes used: 1/8
Shield charges remaining: 14
Spell Slots Used
Level 1: 0/7
Ongoing Effects
shield (2/10 rds): +4 AC
Brennan, unable to see Chephren now that the man had run so far out in front, saw an opening in the building across the street and ran for it. He ducked and weaved as he ran, trying to make himself a harder target for the archers, then slid into the relative safety of the building. Looking around, he tried to spot any danger, or any way to the roof.
Omen moves up to be closer to either Surubi or the cover of the well, while calling forth his connection to the deep void. The motes of inky blackness dance around the man, and in turn he nervously dances around them, managing to avoid whatever it is that seems to float about him.
Brennan dashes across the open ground of the ruined street to dash into the gap of a half-toppled building. As soon as he enters the space he startles, and is startled by, a man standing at the base of a rope hanging down from the roof above. The man has a large bleeding arrow wound in his gut.
As Chephren lies on the ground, bleeding from multiple arrow wounds, the sand on both the ground and in the wind helps cake over the injuries.
The man around the corner, that had been firing upon Omen, continues his assault on the masked man. His shot chips just off the edge of the well beside the two members of the group.
From back where the larger group of them have collected, one of them comes up from around the corner. He has put his khopesh away, and once again wields his bow.
Following close behind him another of the men, the one previously scared off by Chephren, comes out to stand over the fallen man's body. He already has a bow in hand, and angles around the man he followed, to fire at Surubi. His shot fires uncommonly straight to pierce her left forearm. The shot is so hard and fast, that it goes clean through, which is probably better than if it stuck into the wound.
The one atop the far roof shifts his angle, no longer aiming down at Chephren, instead he lines up a shot for where Brennan slipped. Brennan is slightly startled by the force of the hit, and glad to find that although it hit, it didn't make it through his new armor.
The man inside the building where Brennan entered, turns suddenly, winces at the arrow wound. Seeing the man standing there with blades drawn, looks slightly worried, before slowly raising both of his hands in a sign of surrender.
Omen mutters darkly, "Empty void take you, cur." He gestures again at the man firing upon him, and pair of black, inky orbs ripple through the air, striking the man squarely in the chest.
HP: 8/16
AC: 16 (11 T / 15 FF) (includes +4 shield)
CMD: 10
F/R/W: +3/+2/+5 (+2 vs death effects)
Resist 7: acid, cold, fire, electricity
Omens used (swift demoralize): 0/1
Black Motes used: 1/8
Shield charges remaining: 14
Spell Slots Used
Level 1: 1/7
Ongoing Effects
shield (3/10 rds): +4 AC
"Face down on the ground right now, unless you want to see what your insides look like."
If he complies, then nonlethal coup de grace to knock him out.
If he does not, then gut him
"Oh no, Mister Chephren! He is this one's responsibility!" Surubi half-whispers her surprise, her voice full of trepidation, as the two thugs step over Chephren's still body. She charges toward them and fires at one as she nears, impaling his leg with her arrow. "Get away from him!" she screams at the men.
;
Surubi adopts her protective stance by moving closer to the fight standing just over Chephren's inert form. She fires an arrow at the lead of the two men, leaving a large gash in his leg where the flesh wasn't thick enough to hold the shaft of the arrow without tearing.
Omen resolves himself to a more unerring effect. Coalescing two motes of the darkness he called forth previously, into longer darts of cold blackness, which he then fires them into the chest of the thug nearby. The man opens his mouth in a cry of pain, but is just as soundless as the void where the motes originated.
Brennan steps up to the wounded man with a demand of surrender. When the man, with his hands raised, begins to get down on the ground, Brennan smacks him hard with the butt of his dagger.
The man made silent by Omen's magics steels himself and draws and fires once more at the strange masked man. Once again, the edifice of the well proves to be a useful patch of cover.
With Brennan moving into the building, out of clear line of sight, Surubi is the unfortunate recipient of the violent intentions of the remaining three men. With the sudden rush, and subsequent success, of Surubi's attack the three men fire too hastily. The two on the ground try to move out to positions of better cover.
"You will pay for your insolence with your life!" Omen gestures again, beckoning the void to claim his attacker.
HP: 8/16
AC: 16 (11 T / 15 FF) (includes +4 shield)
CMD: 10
F/R/W: +3/+2/+5 (+2 vs death effects)
Resist 7: acid, cold, fire, electricity
Omens used (swift demoralize): 0/1
Black Motes used: 1/8
Shield charges remaining: 14
Spell Slots Used
Level 1: 2/7
Ongoing Effects
shield (4/10 rds): +4 AC
"This one's down!" shouted Brennan as he darted out of the ruined building and headed back to take care of the one Omen was pointing out. He moved quickly, keeping low to avoid arrow fire.
Surubi dashes to Chephren's body, yells "Brennan, can you bring that potion here?!" and shoots at the man closest to her.
;
Surubi rushes to her final position, standing protectively over Chephren's prone form, before launching an arrow into the chest of the man hiding nearby within the ruined building. The blow pushes him hard back into the wall behind him as it sinks deep into the space just below his right pectoral.
Omen once again launches unerring bolts of vacuous blackness from the void, striking the man once more. The cold black does not strike the man as hard as last time, but it still sucks the voice from his lungs.
After dispatching the man from the rooftop, Brennan runs out and around to the one still back threatening Omen. He arrives just after the man suffers from Omen's spell once more, frozen dead flesh surrounding four small wounds.
The cold of the void appears to be too much, as Brennan approaches the man drops his bow while raising his hands. His mouth moves soundlessly, confusion on his face as nothing comes out.
The man at the top of the stairs fires down at Surubi, but it seems that whatever level of proficiency they brought to bear to down Chephren were not present in their shots against his ally. He moves further back onto the roof become a harder target himself.
The one trapped in the corner with an arrow in his chest drops his bow, and tries to put both hands up, but stops and holds the arrow wound with the arm he can't raise because of it. His left arm still gowes up in surrender.
The one originally hidden on the roof, steps up to the edge again and fires hastily down on Surubi. The shot grazes the back of her left shoulder, leaving a small cut along the length of it.
Looking at the man pierced with her arrow Surubi yells, "You! Lay down on the ground!" She quickly turns and makes a couple of "demonstrations" toward the man that just grazed her with an arrow.
;
;
Confident Brennan will put the jackal down, Omen turns his gilded gaze toward Surubi and trio of thugs still harrying her. He strides across the center of the square boldly, an angry, imperious air suffusing his steps. He comes to a stop and raises one clenched fist before gesturing downward, ripping a hole in the fabric of space above one of the ambushers. A column of swirling blackness spills down in a column, swallowing the man in churning riot of achingly cold voidstuff.
HP: 8/16
AC: 16 (11 T / 15 FF)
CMD: 10
F/R/W: +3/+2/+5 (+2 vs death effects)
Resist 7: acid, cold, fire, electricity
Omens used (swift demoralize): 0/1
Black Motes used: 2/8
Shield charges remaining: 14
Spell Slots Used
Level 1: 2/7
Ongoing Effects
shield (5/10 rds): +4 AC
The advantage of the roof's corner lies purely in the hands of the archer atop it. Surubi hedges her bets, and chooses to fire once to avoid any recklessness that could cause any of her shots to miss. The focus pays off as her arrow lodges itself solidly into his left shoulder.
Omen moves up from around the well, heading down the center of the avenue. He reaches into his power to open up the void once more, but realizes he can't quite get close enough to unleash it. Instead, he holds it until a valid target becomes available.
"Get on the ground and stay there, or I'll open you up and you can ambush your own entrails!" Brennan snarled at the surrendering man, and helped him on his way with a blow to the head with the pommel of his dagger.
"One more down!" he called out.
As soon as he was sure the man was in no condition to fight back, Brennan sprinted back across the way to the wall where the archer was standing.
Brennan clocks another of the surrendering men, causing him to drop unconscious to the ground. With another man dropped, Brennan rushes off toward the building he encircled previously.
As the man just hit crumples to the ground, one of the two remaining on the rooftop steps back up to the edge to fire down at Surubi. He manages to just barely graze her leg, but it's enough to draw a thin line of blood on her thigh.
The one with her arrow sticking out of his chest tries to follow Surubi's command to get down. He gets halfway, and decides to lay on his left side so as to not push the arrow in deeper by laying down on to it. The other man on the roof also chooses to fire down at Surubi. He tries to get a solid pull on his bow, but the arrow wound she just gave him keeps him from being able to do so well enough to hit her. He backs away from the ledge himself. He decides to step back and give himself better cover from her.
"Stay there and we'll do first aid once your friends are taken care of." She gives the man on the ground a harsh look before she dashes off up the stairs. As she approaches the rooftop she takes cover behind a small wall and shoots at the man with the least cover from her.
;
Brennan dropped his knives to the ground, took a few steps, and leaped into the air, kicking off the wall and clutching at the edge of the rooftop. In a smooth motion, he pulled himself over the top and drew another blade from somewhere.
Surubi takes off up the stairs toward where the last two enemies remain. She uses the edge of the roof to steady her shot as she fires at the man standing in the center of the rooftop space. She hits his calf, and although the shot is just a grazing one, it's enough to make him stumble, almost dropping to a knee.
Not sure Brennan would take that action, then. 15' is pretty high.
Instead, Brennan would stop at the base of the wall and hurl a dagger at the guy up there, assuming he could see him.
Okay, totally missed that. Can we turn the prone ones upside down or something? I can't tell on the map what is what. Obviously I missed the map designations on the tracker.
Can I redo my whole move? Or am I stuck out int he open?
I appreciate it. The color coding doesn't work for me as I am colorblind. Up to this point it hasn't been an issue, but suddenly our opponents aren't fighting to the death.
As the rooftop figure stumbles from Surubi's shot, Omen advances and calls down another column of voidstuff to finish the job.
HP: 8/16
AC: 16 (11 T / 15 FF) (includes +4 shield)
CMD: 10
F/R/W: +3/+2/+5 (+2 vs death effects)
Resist 7: acid, cold, fire, electricity
Omens used (swift demoralize): 0/1
Black Motes used: 3/8
Shield charges remaining: 14
Spell Slots Used
Level 1: 2/7
Ongoing Effects
shield (6/10 rds): +4 AC
Seeing that he was wasting his time with the ones at the back, Brennan sprinted up beside Omen.
Omen casually strides forward, confidently calling forth motes of cold darkness once more. The man's determination to stay on his feet, despite his injuries, makes him ignorant of the falling blackness. The motes hit and chill him to his core, dropping him to the roof.
Seeing that the fight has culminated at the end of the alleyway, Brennan rushes up to be both closer to the fight and his allies (or maybe just the enemies).
The last remaining combatant drops his bow onto the rooftop beside him, as he moves up toward Surubi. He draws the odd-shaped blade, common to the region, known as a khopesh. As he nears the edge of the roof, he swings down over the corner down toward where Surubi stands. It's her crouching below the edge of the wall that causes him to hit the corner of the roof, and nothing more.
Surubi takes a step back from the man and says "Last chance. Drop the weapon and surrender."
;
Omen storms forward, sweeping past Surubi then reaching out with one hand to call forth another small storm of swirling orbs of choking dark. "Time's up. Now suffer for your treachery."
HP: 8/16
AC: 16 (11 T / 15 FF) (includes +4 shield)
CMD: 10
F/R/W: +3/+2/+5 (+2 vs death effects)
Resist 7: acid, cold, fire, electricity
Omens used (swift demoralize): 0/1
Black Motes used: 3/8
Shield charges remaining: 14
Spell Slots Used
Level 1: 3/7
Ongoing Effects
shield (7/10 rds): +4 AC
Brennan moved quickly to engage the last of the attackers, printing past Surubi and Omen, and wondering how he had ended up at the back of the group.
As Surubi offers the man an opportunity to give up, Omen takes no precautions. Whereas she backs down the stairs, he rushes up them to launch more of his unerring bolts of icy blackness. The things strike the man hard, causing him to reel a little.
Brennan follows up by rushing the stairs as well, to stand with blades drawn right in front of the last enemy. Where before the enemy looked to disregard Surubi's offer, the change in health and presence of the other two men seems to have changed his mind. He looks between the three of them before dropping his weapon and raising his hands in surrender. Meanwhile, the other man on the roof continues to bleed out from his injuries.
Omen turns to regard the ruined courtyard behind him and the forms lying still throughout. "Surubi, tend to Chephren. Do what you can for him." He then turns his masked gaze to the man before him and offers quietly to Brennan, "Break this one's knees then throw him from the corner of the roof. Make it clear what becomes of those who wrong the Architects."
Brennan listened to Omen, then smiled. Reversing his grips on his blades, he said to the man who had just surrendered, "You're about to take a short nap. Don't struggle, or I'll make sure it's much longer than you care to think about." Then, he brought both daggers down pommel first on top of the man's head.
Brennan hits the man hard with the pommels, so hard in fact that he even draws a thin trickle of blood from the man's skull. The wind continues to blow sand at everyone, but there is a sense of stillness that comes over the group as the fight comes to a stop.
"Stop," Yodi intones quietly to Ciradyl. "That looks like it could be trouble. Jackals fighting for the scraps from the tombs."
The man stops himself, seeming to teeter to a halt. He shrugs the rope harness of his travois off his right shoulder, then retrieves his spear with that hand. He props it against his right shoulder. A few more awkward motions ease the harness from his left shoulder and then it follows the right hand harness back to its home. Yodi hefts the spear.
"I'm not sure if they've seen us. If we try to avoid them we'll look weak. What do you think?"
At the end of the street stand two figures. One is a tall armored man with a cloak draped over his breastplate. A sword rests on his left hip. A spear leans against his right shoulder. He's busy rearranging the straps of the litter he was dragging behind him. When the loops are over his left shoulder, he takes the spear in his right hand and stands in conversation with his companion.
Even at this range, he looks shabby. His wild hair is the solor of sand. A veil covers the lower half of his face. His chest seems outsized compared to his arms and legs that are obviously cadaverously thin, even when seen through his cloak.
"You there!" the tall, androgynous figure grasps a bow pointed down the street at the two newest interlopers. As the shrouded person backs up to where one of the bodies lays on the ground, it yells again "Are you associated with these thugs?" The figure glances down at the body, but does not stop aiming toward you.
Surubi points her bow down the street and yells "You there! Are you associated with these thugs" as she backs up toward where Chephren's body lays on the ground. She looks at him momentarily, but does not look away from whatever she sees down the street.
As Surubi moves over the prostrate form of her fallen companion, she calls out to the lurkers at the end of the street to the Southeast. Her fears are confirmed, as Chephren appears to have bled out from his many arrow wounds, the last couple having caused significant damage.
The one conscious enemy laying down behind her on the ground, with the arrow still in his shoulder, props himself up on his elbows to use his hands to shade his eyes from the sun and blowing sand. He tries to peer down the street, also wondering if the people she calls out to are associated with him.
"We can't avoid them now. Besides, they were obviously fighting. They won't be a threat to us" Ciyradyl looks towards the figure that she hears calling to them and stomps her back feet in anticipation of a possible confrontation. "They are too far from us. I cannot smell how many are up there. We can't let them know that we are by ourselves.
"No! We are just passing through. Is there a problem?
Ciyradyl appears to be a centaur-like creature, but not quite as large. She appears to have a normal upper body and has a green headband across her forehead. She has a bow and a quiver slung across her back.
Brennan moved to the survivor of the ambush party, his blades held ready, even as Surubi called out at the presence of newcomers. In a low voice, he said, "I've killed three of your fellow thugs already today. If you want to live, you'll sit nice and quiet while we handle these others, then answer our questions. One of the only people I have ever thought of as a friend lies dead over there because of you. Don't think that I will hesitate to cut your thumbs off and shove them into your eye sockets if I even get a whiff that you aren't complying with my orders or telling me the truth when I ask questions. Now, nod slowly if you understand me."
Omen drags the thug Brennan knocked out over to the south-western edge of the roof then rolls him off with a push of his sandaled foot. As the body kicks up a small cloud of sand after crunching into the ground, he mutters, "Treacherous dog," before turning around striding back to the eastern edge of the building and fixing his gaze southward.
He stands with his feet at shoulder width and hands clasped behind his back, his fine, ochre robes and gilded mask combine with his posture and stance to give him the appearance of true Osirian royalty.
His heavy, commanding voice then bellows through the choked and broken alleyways, "If you are not with these wretched curs then declare yourselves. We have suffered enough treacheries this day already and our patience wears thin." True pharaoh or otherwise, the masked man on the roof speaks with great authority as the stoic visage of his mask follows the newcomers' approach.
Ciyradyl glances at Yodi before shouting out to the man whom she could only assume was the leader, "We are members of the Grim Prospectors! We are just passing through here. We don't want any trouble."
Ciyradyl remains looking forward towards the strangers as she whispers "I think we need to tread lightly with them. They could still be dangerous even if they are hurt."
"You are right. We must be strong, but not threatening." His mouth tightens.
Pivoting slightly from the waist, the man swings his spear in a slow arc that lands its haft on his shoulder with the point away from you. His hand stays on the haft so that the hanging weight of his arm balances the spear horizontally.