As Marikel inhales the thick smoke, he begins to cough uncontrollably. He forces himself to keep moving forward as quickly as he can manage.
Vhailor stumbles half-blindly after him, his eyes watering and lungs crying out for fresh air. Carbonel digs his claws into the gnome's shoulder as if to motivate him to hurry.
Dorn and Alicia continue to douse the burning tree. The flames are almost out now.
Vhailor:
Carbonel:
Both gnome and cat continue to cough, sputter and wheeze their way painfully slowly forward...
Marikel splutters forwards, searching the smoke for another figure.
Marikel trudges stolidly on, almost running into the scorched wooden door of a building before he sees it right in front of him. The smoke is still too thick in the air for him to see clearly, but it sounds as if weak calls for help are coming from the second story.
Vhailor continues to stumble forward blindly, feeling increasingly sick and weak from the fumes.
Dorn and Alicia succeed in dousing the last of the flames licking at the trees, but the smoke is still obscuring clear vision and healthful breathing.
"There's someone *cough* inside," Marikel croaks through the smoke.
Hoping dubiously for fresher air inside, he tests the door handle and struggles through if able. If unable, he tries to kick the door down.
Vhailor:
Carbonel:
Both gnome and cat continue to cough, sputter and wheeze their way painfully slowly forward... some blood mixed with the frothy spittle forming upon the small one's lips. But perseverance pays as the gnome somehow manages a second wind... though Carbonel messily vomits down his tunic as the cat continues to struggle.
Managing to hear the cleric, "Well... blast it all!" he rushes in and heads in the direction of the sound of his voice.
Ali dashes off after Vhailor and Marikel now that the fires are out.
Marikel just manages to yank the door open. The air inside is hazy with smoke that has seeped in, but he can see a staircase leading to the second floor.
Vhailor manages to find a lungful of relatively clean air beneath the burned tree and catches up to Marikel as he has just opened the door to the house.
Dorn charges, unperturbed, through the dispersing smoke, but Alicia once again gets a stomach-turning mouthful and can only stagger after him.
Marikel leads the way.
"Hold on. We're coming."
Marikel chokes his way inside and up the stairs.
Marikel rushes up the stairs.
Outside, as the smoke clears, the terrain nearer the gate to the Lower Quarter becomes visible ... and the party becomes visible to a trio of half-orcs who had been on the far side of the cloud of smoke.
Mildly miffed that the half-orcen are standing so perfectly together, but are too far away to be caught by his middling incantations - Vhailor pauses, hoping that they might draw closer and more susceptible to his charms...
Spotting more half-orcs, Ali dashes forward, using the tree trunks for cover.
Dorn hollers at Skyreaver to hold his position and moves up next to the tree before hollering at Skyreaver again to come to him.
Upon hearing the new command, Skyreaver moves up next to his dwarven companion.
Ali advances, taking cover behind the charred tree.
Vhailor watches the enemies warily, ready to duck behind the building if they make any threatening moves.
Dorn and Skyreaver advance cautiously toward the new threat.
Showing none of the dwarf's caution, one of the half-orcs draws a battleaxe and, with a shout, charges the roc, which, nevertheless, manages to flutter out of the way.
Frustrated by his own companion in getting a clear shot at the dwarf or bird, a second half-orc unshoulders a bow and moves nearer the Cliffside line of buildings to draw a bead on the gnome; however, when Vhailor sees the arrow nocked, he scarpers around the edge of the building, leaving the half-orc without an immediate target.
The third half-orc remains where he is warily, holding a shortspear and a shield so as to protect himself from attack.
Alicia darts out from behind cover and dives past the nearest half-orc in a somersault. Coming out from her roll behind him, she attempts to stab him in the back.
Surprised by the rogue moving deftly behind the half-orc, the dwarf grins. "Nice work, lass!" he compliments, bringing his hammer down toward the enemy.
Skyreaver then unloads claw and beak upon the half-orc, attempting to tear it to pieces.
As Alicia dashes around the tree, she provides a tempting target for the half-orc with the bow. His arrow zips through the flesh of her upper arm.
Unfazed by the pain, Ali sinks the business end of her rapier deeply into the other half-orc's internal organs before he knows what has stabbed him. He slides limply off her blade, his axe tumbling to the ground.
Marikel shoulders the furniture away from the door.
"Are you okay in there? We're friends."
Dorn and Skyreaver dash toward the bowman. The dwarf's hammer strikes a bone-crushing blow to the half-orc's leg, and the roc finishes the enemy with a vicious bite.
[ooc](Let me know when I get back... and maybe where too. :-)
Peering back around the corner to find two thirds of the half-orcs rendered into spare change and meat chunks, Vhailor measures the distance to the last and realises he's unlikely to make impact in short order. Instead he looks to jog forward and position himself for the unlikely event that the sole remaining enemy survives.
Vhailor moves up to take cover behind the tree trunk.
The only half-orc left standing wants nothing to do with the dwarf and his bird; instead, he circles cautiously around Alicia before stepping in and jabbing with his shortspear, an attack which comes nowhere close to endangering the girl.
Alicia happily retaliates by stabbing the half-orc in the face.
Noticing there's only one left and it's upon the rogue, "I'm comin', lass!" he hollers as he moves to help, calling Skyreaver to attack as well. Noticing the half-orc with a wicked cut upon him, "Looks like he's the one needin' the help, lass," he says with a wry grin before swinging his hammer down toward the half-orc.
Skyreaver follows and moves to flank with the dwarf and attacks the half-orc.
Alicia stabs the last half-orc, and he falls to the ground.
Dorn and Skyreaver stand ready to rush to Ali's aid but have no need. The three combatants and Vhailor are outside with no visible enemies, but Marikel is nowhere in sight....
"I'm comin', lass!" Dorn's just about to take off when he sees the last one fall. Impressed by the woman's warrior like ability, "Um, I'm thinkin' you got it covered, lass! Good work! I'll just do somethin' else." He looks around for any more and spots none, nor does he spot the cleric. "Okay, anybody know where the Padre went? 'Cause I'm thinkin' we've finished up out here fairly well." He nods as a matter of fact, shrugging.
Skyreaver lands and starts picking at something under his wing.
Marikel steps out the door of a nearby building and says...
"Up here. Quick. I need help."
He darts back inside but reappears a moment later, a puzzled look upon his face.
"Where did...?"
He shakes his head.
"Hurry."
Vhailor hobbles back to assist Marikel... but doesn't seek to slow the passage of those with longer legs than he.
Alicia dashes off after Marikel.
Dorn snaps his attention toward the cleric's voice and immediately heads that way - Skyreaver right behind him.
The group charges in the door that Marikel is standing in and starts upstairs. Skyreaver swoops in over everyone's head and perches upstairs on the landing, waiting for them to catch up.
Marikel rushes up the stairs to show the party a door blocked by a massive chest of drawers. It was once on casters, but they have been deliberately broken; it is clear it will take a concerted effort to move the furniture and clear the doorway.
Studying the blocked pathway a moment, "Alright, let's see if we get this junk out of the way, huh?" The dwarf then leans into it and heaves with all he has.
Alicia grabs a piton from her pack, and using it as a makeshift crowbar, attempts to force the furniture out of the way.
Marikel holds his hand out for the device that Alicia grabs from her backpack, but he bites his tongue as she applies it herself. His eyes widen at her efforts and he quickly lends his own strength to hers.
Figuring that he'd have little to add from a strength perspective, Vhailor stands a little back to watch... and keep a curious eye towards the possibility of new arrivals to proceedings.
Between them, and with Alicia's improvised tool, the three manage to muscle the heavy furniture away from the closed door.
Dorn quickly opens the door and looks within.
Dorn opens the door to reveal a room full of the greenish smoke that wafted from the burning trees. Outside, the breeze dispersed the cloud, but in this room, the haze has remained. Across the room, a rectangular smudge of light reveals the window where the smoke gained entrance; just visible on the floorboards is the crumpled shape of a collapsed humanoid. It is clear that entering this room will pose the same dangers entering the cloud of smoke on the road did.
Seeing the crumpled form, "We've got a body! I'm gonna try and get 'em out!" Dorn moves in and attempts to collect the unknown form and bring it back out.
As he clutches his stomach which has begun to writhe in pain, he fights through it as best he can and continues toward the body.
The dwarf begins to rush into the smoke-filled room, but the toxic fumes fill his lungs and leave him coughing desperately and stumbling weakly.
Calling upon his gnomish abilities Vhailor begins to make an attempt at not necessarily clearing... but at least minimising the poisonous fume. He tries to provide at least a bit of airflow first to the body near it's head.
Marikel prays to Iomedae that the fallen will slip no closer to death then darts into the room behind Dorn.
Alicia puts her nose and mouth in the crook of her sleeved elbow and dashes in behind Marikel.