Creeping closer you are able to keep an eye on things as they progress. The youths spend time socializing, drinking some from their bottles, multiple grimaces all around, and generally acting like teenagers on the verge of becoming adults.
Eventually a sandy-haired lad calls the others to quiet, standing on a stone as a sort of podium. "We can't wait for the others any longer. I think its time to get down to the real reason we're all here. How do we convince the adults to throw off the shackles old Archie has put on the town? This Glorious Reclamation may be able to help but they're too wary to talk with anyone individually. Any ideas on how to get them to trust us?"
Cimri curses under her breath and thumbs in the youth's direction. "Paydirt."
Trevor whispers. If we acquire that speaker I believe the others will quickly behave themselves.
"Good call, Trevor. Any ideas, or do we do it the old-fashioned way? Penance, do you think you could conjure up some allies to help corral them--especially the blonde?"
"Give me about a 20 second head start" the little gnome said with a mischievous smile on his face.
"When you hear the screaming, that's your queue. Don't worry. I'm not going to kill anyone. I won't promise no one will get hurt, but no one dies this night...at least, not by my hand."
Vokrin, perhaps by nature of his race, sneaks rather effectively along with the smaller beings.
Vokrin begins casting, hands moving in arcane gesture. He reinforces the spellcasting with additional power, to cause the young people to fall prey to his will.
Trevor mutters some words and the images of inner terrors begin to form on his fingertips, ready to send the youths fleeing.
Vokrin specifically turns himself somewhat to angle towards the leader, hoping that Trevor will direct his spell towards the rabble. It would be better to capture the instigator and send the peons fleeing.
Creeping forward a few more feet, Penance moved with an almost unnatural grace, stepping past dry leaves and over sticks barely making a sound.
Once in position, he gripped the spiked chain around his neck and squeezed again, droplets of his own blood forming on the links and slowly running down through his clenched fist. He chanted a few arcane words and a duplicate chain exploded from the ground and immediately tried to wrap around the blonde's feet.
Trevor sends out whispering terrors at one youth to send them running
Penance and Trevor's spells go off, a chain whipping out from the shadows and attempting to pull the blonde off of his perch, but only grabbing the stone instead, while the youth targeted by Trevor screams and runs toward the other end of the old abandoned temple.
Rurisa and Cimri take the opportunity to rush forward demanding their surrender. The screams of fear and surprise are shrill and loud, though it is not that which disturbs the plants at the other end of the temple.
Instead it is the one hit by Trevor's spell. As the young lady goes crashing through the bracken the vines around her start to tighten up, lashing around her in an attempt to hold her close.
She manages to pull through the first few vines, but the next set securely wrap themselves around her legs, dropping her to the ground and knocking her out. The vines begin pulling her closer to their roots.
The other perpetrators scream for help. The blonde steps forward, threatening Cimri with his dagger while a young man rushes to save the girl from her captor.
The dagger he is using doesn't do much to the rubbery hide of the vines as he tries to cut the girl free.
Cimri, sap in hand, tries to knock out the leader as he threatens her.
She gives him a good boxing, but he remains standing as his friends try to scatter.
The vines take the opportunity provided by the young man to try and wrap him up as well, temporarily dropping the girl.
The vines squeeze him unconscious rather quickly and pull him down as well.
"S+*$, that's not normal!" Rurisa's focus snaps to the ambulatory vines, now ignoring the screaming youths. Speaking a single dread word her hellrazor is wreathed in black flame as the warrior springs into motion, closing with the vine-thing even as here eyes darken again into hellish, inky pits.
This is odd, a defender of this temple?
"Don't get too close. That's an assassin vine!" Penance grumbled to himself as he moved a little closer. He closed his eyes for a moment and focused his attention elsewhere. Mentally reaching into the abyss, he plucked a fiendish dog out of it's own reality and brought into existence near the vine.
The dog wasted no time and immediately charged for the vine, it's vile jaws snapping shut just inches away from the vine.
The vines wriggle and writhe under Rurisa's blade, large chops being taken out of it, though her black flame smothers whenever it contacts the rubbery hide of the plant. Penance's dog does not fare better as it can't get its teeth around enough of the plant to do damage.
Vokrin's power surges and coalesces around the yellow individual, hoping to knock him asleep.
He moves up and sees the vine, and prepares energy to strike it.
Unsurprisingly the youth falls victim to Vokrin's power and crumbles to the ground in a heap.
Trevor sends a sling stone at the nasty plant
1 point minimum
Trevor's stone just misses, crumbling to the ground instead of in the plant's vines.
The boy and girl still up and about continue running away while Blondie does more than threaten Cimri with his knife, he actually tries to stab her, a look of hatred stretching across his face.
The dagger skitters off of the studs in Cimri's new armor leading to a cry of outrage. "Hey, that's my new suit! Hands off!" She looks over at Rurisa's hellish and smoking countenance, calling out, "Be right there 'Risa!" before smacking Blondie again.
She knocks him out and rushes the plant, pulling out her kukri and dropping her sap.
The plant drops its latest victim 'turning' to the woman who has hurt it so badly, vines continuing to squirm in agony.
The vines smash into Rurisa, then begin wrapping her up, ready to do to her what they did to the youths.
As the vines tighten around her limbs, a berserk scream tears free of Rurisa's lips as she thrashes and tears herself free . Gripping her greatsword tightly she edges away from the plant warily as the hellfire along its edge winks out.
Cimri gapes as Rurisa pulls herself out of the Assassin Vine's grip, but readies her kukri to put some hurt on the plant.
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Trevor moves up behind Rurisa and heals her
The vines continue writhing and wriggling their way forward, ever eager to grab more prey.
Vokrin advances slightly, unleashing his power on the vines. "Not today," he sneers.
Vokrin points at the plant and mutters arcane words. Frost springs to life where there was none.
Vokrin's missiles and ray of frost pound into the vines, curling them back into themselves, but still lashing out.
The fiendish dog continues to snap at the vine but struggles against the carnivorous plant.
Penance squeezes another few drops of blood out of his hand. Again the barbed chain erupts from the ground, this time near the vine. It lashes out at the vine but can find no leafy flesh to puncture.
Cimri slips forward, aiming to get the vine between her and Penance's dog.
She's not fast enough as the Assassin Vine wraps around her and pulls her close, dashing her against the rocks and flagstones of the temple. Cimri coughs up blood, "I've read enough black-binding lit to know where this is heading. You won't take me alive!" She slashes at the plant with her kukri, trying to bring it down.
Her dagger stands no chance of cutting through its tough exterior, especially with her spluttering blood all over it. She gives a final gasp before her eyes roll backward into her head and she slumps down.
The vine turns its attention back to Rurisa, dropping Cimri in the pile of young people at its roots.
Rurisa knows its tricks and avoids its lunging and slams, preparing to strike back.
The dog finally seems to find an opening as Penance unslings his crossbow and begins to load a bolt into it.
Vokrin wants to attack the plant, but sees his ally bleeding out. He knows better than to get too close to the plant creature, but also can't let her die. He pauses just out of what he perceives to be its reach and casts another ray of frost at it.
With a roar bone-shaking roar that is impossibly loud and deep for a woman her size, Rurisa steps up to the assassin vine and rips her blade through the swarming vines.
Trevor pauses to see what will be the result of Rurisa's blow
The vines flail at Vokrin and he discovers that he is indeed just outside of their range. Penance's dog and Vokrin's spell both manage to chew a bit more out of the Vine, but it is Rurisa who ends the thing entirely.
Her blade cleaves through the main stalk of the vine, as well as numerous subsidiary branches, and leaves naught but gooey sap and chlorophyll in its wake. The Vine struggles and writhes for a bit more before dropping to the ground, destroyed entirely.
Vokrin wastes no time, applying hands a bit of blood to the fallen cimri, infusing her with energy to heal. It won't bring her back instantly, but it should (hopefully) stop her from dying quite yet.
Trevor will stabilize the senseless youths if they still live.
Planting the tip of her blade in the dirt, Rurisa leans on it as the hell-fury leaves her, gasping for air in the immediate aftermath of the fight. She watches as her companions tend to the fallen. "Are they dead?" she asks Trevor.
Trevor moves to the most injured young people attacked by the vine. He stabilizes them just in time, though it may be a while before they wake up. Vokrin's spell also takes a hold on Cimri, closing her wounds and bringing her sputtering back to conscious. "Thanks V." When she looks at the remains of the plant she shudders, "What happened to that thing? Also, remind me to never piss off the person who did that."
Vokrin finds or acquires rope and secures the young people one by one, starting with the leader he had put to sleep.
Recovering her poise, Rurisa cleans off her blade and returns it to her sheathe. "That blond, he's definitely under arrest and can spend the night in a cell. The others we'll take to Gerya's, looks like we've bravely slain another monster threatening the good people of Longacre, gentlemen. Let's take the injured to Gerya's clinic, we'll get their names and addresses there."
Extending a hand to help Cimri to her feet, Rurisa catches her eye. "You okay?"
Cimri nods and takes the hand, "Better now that our archmage healed me up. I didn't know wizardly types could do that. I'll probably be even better with some food in me and sleep."
Gathering everyone up and lifting the bodies carefully from the temple the trek back to Gerya's place passes by rather quickly, though the moon reaches its apex before you arrive. Knocking on the good doctor's door leads to the woman herself in a large night robe answering with a hand-shielded candle. When she sees the plant matter covering you and the unconscious people in your arms she starts to full wakefulness. "How did this happen? Come in, lay them on the empty bed and I'll start checking them over."
Vokrin chuckles, looking bigger than he is. "Wizardly types cannot, but I am no mere wizard. I am an archmage, and through my blood flows power immeasurable. I simply gave you a fraction of it for a time, you gained my healing prowess." It was technically an actual demon's blood, and not his own, but that wasn't something he tended to emphasize. After all, why discount yourself?