Arianna will attempt to tumble over the dead kobold, between the other two and end up in front of the boy.
Acrobatics check:
Placing herself between the kobolds and the boy Arianna will swing at the kobold in square J-12
Attack roll:
Damage:
Lev turns to confront the kobold foolish enough to attack him. "Wrong move." He growled and brought the greatsword around to strike.
Alandra screeches in pain and anger and fires back at the kobold who hit her with another shard of ice.
Mawj smiles softly at the killing stroke of her arrows. She smoothly draws, nocks, and fires another.
Attack (Deadly Aim), target kobold at F16
Damage
Arianna tumbles past the two surprised Kobolds, barely catching them off guard to perform the maneuvre but succeeding none the less. She spins on her heel, bringing her sword around but mistiming the attack and swinging wide of her opponent.
Levs retaliatory strike on the kobold meets him mid stride. With its spear stuck in Lev's thigh, and being off balance from its reckless charge the big weapon manages to catch the creature, and its weight does the rest. A satisfyingly solid thunk follows the the blow as the creature drops to the ground with a great rend in its side.
Alandra's aim is not purturbed by the kobolds strike on her in the least. With a cry of rage, she unleashes the cold of the grave upon her attacker, again freezing the cold blooded creature in its tracks.
Mawj shoots with calculated efficiencey, easily striking her target but the arrows impact is heavily lessened as it strikes one of its buckles on impact. Heavily wounded but still standing, the creature looks terrified as his companions fall like nine pins around him.
In the swirling melee to the south the injured wolf lashes out at Anya, it's slashing teeth tearing into her calf as it tried to pull her down. It's age and the injuries it carried were obviously affecting it though, for it failed to trip the woman nor cause much damage to her
The boy now seems to have gone into shock and has fallen listlessly into the webbing binding him, small sobs escaping him as his hands cover his face.
The three remiaining kobolds look absolutely terrifed and are about ready to flee.
Arianna will swing again at the kobold in J-13
Attack roll #1:
Attack roll #2:
Damage:
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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Anya carefully circled the kobold, standing a little sideways to keep the vicious wolf in sight as well. She hoped the tactical advantage her risky maneuver provided Arianna was going to be worth it.
She slashed swiftly with both weapons, but did not risk committing to a more serious assault until the wolf was no longer as much a threat to her exposed side. It had very nearly hurt her, and being dragged down prone was a swift, if messy, death.
Primary attack
Off-Hand attack
Primary Damage (if hit)
Off-Hand Damage (if hit)
Fire at Kobold G16
Attack
Damage
Edit my earlier post, I hit the kobold with my off-hand attack, should just be a straight 1d6, if Anya provides flanking add
Sneak attack:
Elsbeth's focus in the battle changes to that of the entangled wolf. With an arcane word she unleashes a bolt of pure force from her fingers which strike unerringly into the tangle wolf. It yelps in pain, looking on he verge of collapse from the wounds it recieves. As the animal is struck, the boy again screams in fear from his place in the small den.
Anya in the meantime carefully shifts to make best use of Arianna's position. The kobold before her stands no chance as it tries desperately to split its defenses between the two deadly women. While it manages to defend against Anya's dueling sword, the short sowrd sneaks through its guard and it shrieks briefly as the blade sinks into its chest. The shriek ends quickly enough and the small humaoid slides from teh blade lifelessly to the floor.
The slinging Kobold takes one last shot at Elsbeth before turning and fleeing into the woods. The throw is almost perfect in its trajectory, but weak in effect as the creatures fear takes over its aggression
To the south, the last kobold realises it is in serious trouble but has no place left to run. It desperately stabs out at Arianna, in the hopes of clearing some space so it can flee but its attack is futile. The little creature wimpers at the missed opportnuity and a small spary of foul smelling liquid escapes its cloaca as the full terror of its impending death approaches.
Ignoring the smell, Arianna continues to press her attack, changing targets to the last remaining kobold. While her main attack serves merely to distract the little creature, again it is the off hand that proves fatal. The shortsword barely manages to beat his defenses, but the effect is the same as if she had easily done so. The creatures eyes open wide in shock as the blade slips deep into its groin, and the gushing blood that pumps from the severed artery as the weapon is removed does the rest, killing the creature in seconds.
Not wishing to see an opponent escape, Mawj takes aim at the fleeing enemy and releases. Her shot is spoiled as the little dargonkin weaves between some branches a little unpredictably.
Seeing Elsbeth's bolt strike the wolf, Lev glanced her way. "There's no need to kill the wolf, fool girl! It's as much a victim of these bloody kobolds as the boy!"
He then strode to the kobold nearest him, sweeping his greatsword in a great curve to strike it almost contemptuously.
"Anya, please step back from the wolf. It's suffering too greatly to know better." He called, already turning his attention back to the poor beast.
Lev charges across the clearing, slaying the last kobold with another vicious blow from his sword. The young woodsman was covered in red gore from the kills he had made so far, the size and damage potential of his weapon making it almost impossible for him not to be covered by the stuff.
With a great snarl the wolf to the south struggles desperately against it's bonds, tearing and rpping at the webbing but again failing to break through. With a whimpered yelp, it collapses to the ground succumbing from its wounds.
Heavy breathing and the sobbing of teh child in the entaglement are all that remains as the combat ends.
Edit- Hah! ninja'd by Alandra. You can retcon that action if you want Alandra hehe
Holding her left hand on her chest where the rock struck her:
"I was just trying to help your sister. Is that beast still alive?"
Breathing hard from his charge, Lev turned back to the wolf. "Anya, can you see if you can help the boy? I'd more likely scare him worse than he already is."
Pulling out a dagger, Lev cuts his way through to the wolf and looks it over, examining its wounds with a gentle touch.
He curses under his breath in disgust. "Alandra?" he calls. "Can you help me? Please?"
Alandra kneels down by the wolf and touches it with her holy symbol.
"Someone watch the little dragon men, the might not be dead yet, and anyone with injuries come over here."
"We might want to hobble the wolf first in case it wakes up."
"We're six. We should be able to take care of a single wolf if it comes to the worst - and I don't want to explain to some kindly druid why we cut his heels if it comes to that" Anya replied, as she moved away from the passed-out beast. She turned towards the boy, her weapons sheathed and hands open. "Hey. We mean you no harm." She greeted him, but kept her two paces distance. The kid was likely very confused and frightened. A blood-covered stranger wasn't going to win a hug.
The boy calms as Anya moves towards him, though he still sobs quietly. Even through the filthy clothes and unkempt hair, she can see it is Tristan, the boy from the shared vision the haunting provided. He is scrawnier than he was in the vision, much wilder looking too, but definitely him. How he managed to survive this long is anyones guess.
Lev carefully holds the wolf down while Alandra channels her magic. The hunter can tell this is no ordinary creature. It's fur, while matted in blood and what appears to be pus from an older infected wound, still clearly shows a colouration not seen in the wolves of these lands. While the local animals have greys and muddy browns, this creature is almost pure black in its colouration. It was an old beast though, and it had seen some battles in teh past. Many scars marred its hide, a number of them not looking like bite or claw marks ata ll, but the clean scars from weapons. If the creature survived this hardship to its body today, it would bear some new ones as well.
As Alandras healing magics wash over the clearing the creature stirs beneath Lev's hands, he feels the moment its muscles tense and leaps back just in time to avoid the snapping jaws. Old he may be, but this old wolf still had power in those fangs. It tried to stand groggily, but its legs gave out, and it fell snarling back to the ground, yelping as the old festering wound on its hind leg thumped into the ground. If any one was to tend the creature, they were going to have to calm it first.
Animals aren't really her forte;Elsbeth'll take care of Tristan.
"How are you Tristan? Because it is you right ? We are friends of your parents, Chresten and Lotta. Where have you been til now ? what did you eat ? Did you have any toys ?"
Lev shivers as Alandra's healing ripples through him, closing fresh wounds. With a grateful nod, he kneels near the wolf (but out of immediate reach of its jaws) and tries to catch its eyes. Digging into his pack, he draws out a piece of dried jerky () and places it nearby.
"We mean you no harm, old wolf." he says softly.
Mawj stays in the back, keeping a wary eye out for danger.
Lev shivers as Alandra's healing ripples through him, closing fresh wounds. With a grateful nod, he kneels near the wolf (but out of immediate reach of its jaws) and tries to catch its eyes. Digging into his pack, he draws out a piece of dried jerky () and places it nearby.
"We mean you no harm, old wolf." he says softly.
Tristan calms as the beautiful chelish woman approaches him. Her words are calm and soothing, and the other lady beside her seemed pleasent enough as well. "I'm stuck" He states in a desperately sad little voice "and those scalymen hurt my doggy"
As Elsbeth draws nearer to him, the wolf again try's to rais itself from the ground but the pain of the festering wound and its exhaustion from the fight are too much. It starts to belly crawl towards the boy, a low snarl mixed with occasional yelps coming from it along the way.
Keeping with soothing speech "Forgive me, i though that was a dangerous beast, not your beloved pet. Now if you please help us befriend him we'll be able to give both of you a nice meal"
Perception check:
Lev stops at the boy's words. "We need to be sure that the boy can reach the wolf. That's the best way to calm them both."
He turns back to the wolf and moves a few feet ahead, placing the jerky in the wolf's path. "We aren't going to harm him," he murmured as softly as he could manage. "We're here to help you both."
Perception
(27 vs humans)
"He's hurt pretty badly, Tristan. We'd like to help you both, but maybe you can calm him down first?" Anya said, as diplomatically as she managed. "We live in the trading post, maybe you know of it? There's food and warm beds"
Perception
Diplomacy
She smiled at him as invitingly as she could, and not because she wanted to get somewhere with him - the boy really touched her. She just hoped he allowed her to help both him and his animal friend. She had heard of children being raised by wolves out in the wilderness - maybe Erestil had smiled on this boy as he had on the children in the stories.
The food that Lev places in front of the wolf has an interesting effect. The creature stops growling and a strange kind of whine starts up instead as it stares intently at the food then flicks its gaze at the trapped boy.
Even as this is occuring, Elsbeth and Anya free Tristan from the clinging web like mass, talking to him calmly and asking him to sooth the wolf. As the last strands part, the boy dashes past the two women and grasps the wolf in a strangling hold around its neck. The animal presses into him and subtly maneauvres the boy so that it can then snavel the food that Lev placed for it. The tail wags both briefly and weakly as it does so and it then licks Tristan who giggles at teh feel. As quickly as that, the boys attitude has changed, showing the mercurial nature of children to their fullest.
Mawj
Tristan's Story
Tristan slowly tells his story to Elsbeth and Anya as the two women who freed him gently ask questions and feed him some of their food. It would seem that the wolf found him not long after he ran from the home and when one of the "bad men" came looking for him, it "made him lie down and stay still, just like you did to the scalymen!" Then his other two friend came and took him and the wolf to "the cave". Puppy (as he calls the animal) kept him warm during the "snow time" and his other two friends, "Bright wing and Long Legs" brought food and toys for him to play with. A few days ago the scaly men found he and puppy as they went looking for berries. Puppy made them lie down but some of them stabbed him and ran away. Then they came again tody and puppy was too tired to stop them properly, but you came and made them lie down instead.
The Den
"worth giving a try, if taking Tristan back to his house might put an end to this story"
Lev listened to the story with an impassive face, but as he searched through the den and found the buckles, there were growing signs of tension in the way he held himself.
"Fey must have been involved in this." He said finally in a cold voice. "I've heard stories of beasts in the wild caring for foundlings like this but with this 'Bright Wings' and 'Long Legs'..." he turned to look out into the forest, his hand tightly gripping the pommel of his greatsword.
After a few moments, he shook himself slightly and the tension in his shoulders released. "Well it's enough that the boy is alive, and that we've saved his protector. We should see about getting them back to the fort, though I worry what the bloody guard are going to say about the wolf. Along the way, it may be wise to stop by the boy's house so that he can...say goodbye...to his parents. We can clean them both up and maybe tend a little more closely to their wounds before returning to Oleg's."
Before leaving, Lev takes enough rations from his pack to see that the wolf and boy have had their fill of food. He also offers to set the boy on his horse and walk beside it, keeping the pace to one that the wolf can match and mind the wolf's wounds as they travel, assuming the wolf will allow it, anyway.
Elsbeth seems amused at Lev's word abut the bloody guards.
"I wouldn't worry about them, i'm sure i'll just have to ask them politely and we'll do as we please"
Knowledge (nature)
Mawj freezes in place and speaks very softly, not taking her eyes from the forest. "I caught a glimpse of bright coloring high in the canopy. A wing, like that of a butterfly only much larger, attached to the vague outline of a small dragon-like creature. It saw me, then disappeared. It is watching us even now. It is probably some harmless fey, but we should be careful. Lev, please control yourself for a moment? We don't know how powerful it may be."
Lev looked up and turned in the direction that Mawj was looking in. "I can control my baser natures..." he muttered as he looked off in the distance.
"It may well be one of the child's benefactors. The question is, will they let the child go now that he's been rescued? Or will they attempt to maintain their hold over him?"
"We will see" Anya replied, somewhat guardedly. "The kindly ones might consider him theirs, seeing that their aid brough him through this hardship. Or they might wish him well among his own kind." She bit her lip, searched in the family tales for guidelines. None were too helpful. The fairie idea of right and wrong was to mercurial and also too personal to nail down entirely - she could only hope Tristan had met some of the fae more human in outlook.
She kept close to the child, mentally chiding herself for developing what her older brothers would probably make fun off as picking up strays and mother-hen feelings. Yet the boy was clearly both too young and too shaken to fully comprehend what he had endured, his mind either mercifully or cruelly bewitched by the fae.
In a way, it was a mercy, intentionally or no. What mere boy could endure such hardship without cracking and breaking down? No, people laying down and being still was better than the truth. "Lev, I would rather go to his cave first. When he comes home, chances are whatever enchantment clouds his mind will not stand up to the agony that awaits him there. I wouldn't foist that on a child without at least some toy or bauble. After that, we'll see to his parents. But he's alive."
Despite their collective fears none of the party see any further sign of the creature Mawj mentioned seeing. If it were nearby, it was very well concealed, and most likely magically by the way it vanished on the elven hunter.
Tristan happily follows Anya into the den while the others gather gear and tend the wolf. He points out his favourite toys and takes a small stick man decorated with scras of bright cloth. As he cuddles it close, he says brightly "Bright Wings took my teddy. He says stick man is better and looks like my dad more and doesn't smell so bad, but I miss teddy a bit."
When the group have gathered everything they need, they quietly set off back through the woods towards the little log cabin. The wolf and teh boy move slowly, with the injuries slowing the wolf, and the boy generally meandering and picking interestedly at things as they go. As they reach the edge of the clearing the wolf stops, its hairs standing on end and a growl escaping its lips as it stairs intently at the house.
At first things seem as they were when the group left not too long ago, but then Arianna notes the herb box has seemingly repaired itself, and the door is back to partly opened. The axe however, remains where Lev and Elsbeth dropped it after sharing their vision. The strange stillness and unusual chill have filled the air agian and the sounds of the woods seem to dim as if muffled by a blanket of tension.
Tistans head turns slightly, and he tilts it as if listening to a noise in the distance. Suddenly, he rushes towards the log cabin shouting "Mama, I'm coming mama!"
Almost immediately both Lev and Alandra see a flash of colour in the woods high above them as something small and flying rushes towards the boy from above.
Elsbeth tries to stop Tristan without moving too fast, so the wolf hopefully doesn't attack her.
"Wait Tristan, Mom isn't home now, but there is something dangerous inside, it hurt us few minutes ago"
Not believing the spirits would do any harm to the child, Lev paid no mind to him, but instead draws his bow and nocks an arrow, aiming it for the winged creature. "Hold or I'll shoot, Fey!" He shouts.
Arianna, upon seeing the flash of color descending toward the boy, draws her sword and rushes out to protect the boy.
Lev don't shoot it!
Alandra runs after Tristan into the cabin.
Mawj sighs in exasperation, "My patience for the well-being of this self-destructive human child is wearing thin." She nocks an arrow, searching for anything that might be a threat.
Anya shot a withering glance to Mawj's general direction, speaking volumes about her own patience. Yet she forced herself to once more be the center of the hurricane, not the gales outside. "Lev, Everyone calm down." She pushed her arms into her sides, raised her voice ever so slightly. "Noone needs to hurt anyone here!"
Alandra, Arianna, Elsbeth
At first their is pain, a tearible cramping in the abodmen and the feel of a weight shifting, then their is blood and screaming, but not her own. The cries are those of a child..her child. Warm flesh pressed against her, feeding and making a soud of contentment. The smell is perfect, like new spring and love mixed together. Tears well at this perfect thing your husband and you have made.
The little boy grows, learning to crawl, then walk and talk. He is a vision of his dad, following him everywhere like a puppy and mimicking all that he does. His haor grows like yours, long dark and curly and it is all you can do to keep it controlled.
The first Autumn of your stay in teh greenbelt comes and Tristan gets sick. There is fear, and many nights where you lie awake watching him labour to breath, but then the medicine comes and he gets better. The first day he could run again you cry, tears of relief and joy straming quietly down your face as you hide in the bedroom while the sound of happy giggles and your husbands laughter echo through the woods.
There is pain again now, and strange men atop you, hurting and tearing and slicing, but Tristan is gone, safe in the woods. Tristan is safe. Safe.
The vision fades and all three women stagger as reality returns to them. The boy stands looking at them curiously, his hand gently patting Arianna's head from where she crouches on teh ground recovering from the vision. "Mama says thankyou" he states simply.
Lev, Mawj, Anya
All three of them see the moment the spirit rushes from the house. A blurring of the air and the distinct appearence of fogging breath from those who get engulfed by the spirit. All of the women who rushed forwards to help teh boy stagger to the side, but the impact on the little flying dragon creature is much more profound. Its flight path is thrwon viciously off and it strikes teh ground hard, rolling momentarily before coming to a halt in a completely dazed state. A hiss of cofusion comes from its mouth and it shakes its head viciously as if trying to shake something from its ears.
The owlf responds with equal intensity, its ears dropping and the tail curling down and through its legs. With a whine it drops low and curls away from the rushing spirit, exposing its belly in the universal dog language of submission.
In seconds it is over, and all those affected come to their senses. The small group near the house find themselves with butterfly winged dragon creature between them and their companions. The creatures seems dazed for a while longer before dragging itself off its back and onto its four limbs. The butterfly wings quivers slightly, and cat eyes reguard the boy and the three women standing near them, as the pupils narrow. The mouth opens slightly and a small hiss escapes the creature, the slightest hint of purple gas coming with it while the tail seems to twitch in agitation.
Sense motive DC15(alredy including the fact it is a foreign creature)
For the three at the back, who've had dealings with the fey and natural creatres of the world, they can clearly identify the beast as a Faerie Dragon, now that they are getting a good look at it for the first time.
Lev does not ease up on the bow, but keeps the arrow aimed on the Faerie Dragon. "The boy no longer needs your protection, Fey. He is under ours now. We will see that he receives the care he requires, and the wolf will be allowed near to help safeguard him. I strongly advise that you return to your business peacefully."