Alandra touches Dovan with her holy symbol,
Alannah scanned her hated foe with a practiced eye, but could see no real weaknesses in his defenses. The man swung his sword in practiced arcs, following with defensive posture with teh shield. Despite his obvious and growing rage, he was going to be a hard nut to crack.
Still, with a calmness that she didn't feel inside, the young archer stepped backwards into the cramped space near teh gates and fired at Akiros at point blank range. The arrow struck him solidly, and more blood seeped from the earlier arrow she had fired.
Alandrah seemingly ignored Dovan's words, reaching out to try and touch the man while chaneling her godess' power. He slipped past her easily, his eyes widening in desperation and anger as he realised she wasn't going to let him go. "You stupid @#%$^, let me go!". He followed this up with a piercing strike with his rapier, driving it into the young cleric once again.
Akiros followed Alannah's move with a swift step and drove his sword deep into the girls side. The longsword hissed as it pierced her flesh, though she couldn't feel any burning to indicate it was hot. In fact her body went cold as shock weent through her from the blow.
For a moment Elsbeth is afraid that Alannah is going down,with the awful wound Akiros just inflicted her.
But she calms down on seeing the archer woman still fighting. But Akiros must be brought on his knees as quickly as possible.
Another charge, don't worry sucker, i have plenty left yet
Lev smiles grimly, stepping back as he raises his sword over his head. With a grunt of effort, he brings the sword hard down on the man in front of him.
Anya found herself pincered between Akiros and the idiot, her brave, foolish brother getting back up from close to death's door. She could do no other, she had to help him. Besides, the slugging match with the idiot was not going to end well without aid - better she received it than the simpleton, who felt like he very nearly broke every rib she had.
She only made a brief sequence of a half-turn, upward stab of the short sword, downward slash of the duelling blade. Graceful in its economy of action, beautiful in its clarity - and an absolute torture to suffer through. Distracted as Akiros was, he could do nothing to lessen the impact, turn the blade or prevent its full effect.
"Happy to help, big brother" she managed to gasp out, as another half-turn brought her back to fully focus on the oaf.
Alannah cries out in agony as le blade sinks deep into her body, the icy pain punctuated by the wicked sneer on Akiros' face.
Her rage flared white hot, pushing past the freezing cold, fueling her determination. She would not die before avenging Mikhail.
Leaning back she gasped as the blade left her body, the lasst time she would ever be penetrated by this bastard in any way. Gripping her bow she twisted, hand over hand, turning it in a quick spin designed to trap his sword and wrench it from his grasp.
Disarm
Elsbeth sent another pair of missiles into the big man, the magical blasts ignoring his armour and defenses completely. He hissed in pain, the wounds from all the attacks beginning to tell.
Lev stepped back, giving himself room to swing his large weapon and he brought it down on the man who had just stabed Alandra. The great weapon did its work with a brutality that shocked those around them. The heavy blade caught Dovan high on the neck, smashing through the bone there and driving deep into his chest cavity. The tattoo'd man stared up into Lev's face with comlete disbelief, before slumping down in a dead heap on the ground.
Anya meantime danced and twisted in her preferred fighting style. With Akiros left trying to defend against multiple threats, she used every trick she had to bring her weapons to bear. Both blades slipped into the man, the longer blade easily piercing major organs as it went in. Akiros hissed in pain as the weapon whent in, his own hand falling from his weapon to clutch at the blade that now punched out of his chest. His eyes rolled around in agony and shock, before the second blade sunk into his back and punched through his heart. He convulsed as the blade severed the muscle in half then slid lifelessly from Anya's blade.
Alannah stood staring down at the corpse of the man who had killed her lover and betrayed everything she used to be. Akiros was dead, and the fortress was theirs.
Behind this tableau of death and violence, the big simpleton sat blubbering on the ground, clutching at the bleeding wounds he had recieved throughout the fight. A small collection of metal toys had spilled from his bag and lay in the dirt and the blood. The big man was trying to scoop them up while still holding his arm as the arterial blood pumped from it. His wails of anguish and fear were qite pitiful.
Alannah
The sight of Akiros plunging his sword into her own body blurred the boundaries of past and present.
She was dragging herself off the ground, her head thumping from the after effects of wine and ....something. As she stood, her stomach emptied itself, vomiting red wine and black blood onto the ground in front of her. Her vision swam and she knew then she'd been drugged, and most likely poisoned.
She groped around, her hands finally reaching the silvered wood of her bow lying in the grass near her disgarded clothing. As she gripped the weapon, she began to feel better, moving a little more freely and her head not stinging quite so much.
The sound of a man screaming and then dying brought her out of her dizzyness completely. To the south, the sound of battle and death reached her ears as those in her camp suddenly came under attack. Over the top of this ruccus, she clearly heard Mikhails voice calling for her, screaming in pain and concern for the woman he loved.
She ran, her gait slowed and staggered as the drug continued to affect her. A dark figure rose before her, his arms and equipment not something she rocgnised. Without thinking she drew and fired, point blank into the mans throat. He fell silently into the darkness, and then she was at the camp site.
Most of her friends were already dead, slain in their sleeping rolls by arrows and axes. A small group stood rallied at the wagons, trying to find some organised defense without their armour and surrounded by men dressed in furs and chainmail. They were Pitaxian irregulars, border men drafted from the villages to serve one month in 6 in Pitax's army. How they had found them so far from any settlement would've been a mystery if she hadn't already succumbed to Akiros' drugs and charms.
She spun around, firing again and felling a man as he moved towards her, then she saw Mikhail. He stood fighting with the barbarians, alone now that his two brothers had fallen to axe blows. A pair of arrows had penetrated his thigh and chest, and every breath he took sprayed blood from a cut to his neck. As he defended himself, his red sword gleamed and hissed in the night, bringing blood and death wherever it swung. His eyes met hers across the clearing and he smiled then, blood seeping from his mouth. The smile turned to a round O of shock as a blade sunk deep into his side. He twisted, ripping the weapon from his attackers hand and tried to bring his own magical blade to bear. It was Akiros who he faced though, and the big mercenary merely smiled and ripped the weapon free of Mikhails hand. With a casual step, he plunged the blade hissing through her lover, into his chest and through his heart. Mikahil screamed even as Alannah did, she raised her bow, arrow knocked and readied to release when the pain exploded in the side of her head. The last thing she saw was Akiros striding towards her, then the sound of horns filled the night and the blackness overtook her.
The pain from her injured side brought her back to the present time. She grimaced as she wrenched the red bladed weapon from her body, and stood holding Mikhail's sword in her hand. Akiros was dead, her lover avenged. Tears welled in her eyes.
The heat of battle gone, the mindless fury passed the only thing left to her was emptiness and pain. Taking the redblade from her own side as it slid from Akiros' dying grasp she looked into the man's eyes, witnessing tthe final breath of her worst nightmare.
Memory did to her what no enemy was able to, bringing her to her knees as the dam of her emotions broke, her wound forgotten as she crumbled, sobs wracking her wounded body, tears pouring down her face as she unleashed a wail of heartwrenching anguish while she clutched the sword to her body, the only thing she had left of the man she'd loved more than life itself, now dripping with her blood as it had with his.
Elsbeth exults and does a short dance of joy.
"Congratulations all friends.I'ld have liked to ask Akiros about that beating the Staglord would have given me, but doesn't matter i guess."
She looks around still smiling in satisfaction.
"What we waiting for? Let's collect the spoils"
Lev lowers his blade, breathing hard, feeling the pain from every wound the great bear beast had given him. Lowering his sword, he steps forward, almost stumbles and forces himself upright. With a shake of his head he musters himself and moves over to Anya.
"Are you all right, sister?"
He glances around and lays his eyes on the big simpleton. "Are we going to put him out of his misery or claim him for the Swordlords?"
Anya held her enchanted shortsword hovering just fraction of an inch from the simpleton's throat. She still had tearshot eyes, and was breathing heavily. Killing someone in cold blood was anything but appealing, but giving the brutal man another chance to do more harm than he could begin to fathom - her wounds and pain were too fresh to really suggest that. "Someone else be the judge of him, brother. If I slay him now, I would never know if it was for revenge or because of what he did."
"Asmodeus' Ankles, and I visited the Wasp's grove a month ago. When did I grow so soft?" She wondered aloud, but the sudden flash of Mawj's face before her inner eye answered that question better than any words could have.
Alandra continues to channel, excluding all enemies.
"You are lucky you don't have to answer to Pharasma for your crimes today" she tells the fat man. "But you will have to answer to the law."
"Tie him up, and I will heal him later. He can go back to Restov to face trial."
"Or we can try to make a court here. In the Stolen Lands."
We have all grown soft. A year ago I would have put a dagger in his stupid heart without hesitation.
Lev stands straighter as the healing energies wash through him, wiping away the pain as well.
"Very well," he says, nodding to Anya and Alandra. "Someone ought to talk to him, though, and make sure he behaves."
He strides over to the Staglord's dead body and kneels to look it over.
Anya, like her brother, started to take inventory of the many dead bodies they had just created, moving much easier thanks to Pharasma's blessings. "Let us take inventory of this fortress, but keep an eye out. There might be more bandits waiting in ambush. Their leader is dead, but the desperate beast is the deadliest."
Massaging her cheeks,Elsbeth joins her party.
"Owwww why that pig, my poor face. So what do you plan to do with this fat whiner over there? Not bringing him with us i hope"
The only surviving bandit still inside the camp was Auchs, the simpering buffoon who had been spared. The remainder of the bowmen had fled over the walls. When the group did a reconoiter of the place, Alandra discovered three of them had been torn apart and partially consumed partway down the hill towards the rear of the fortress. She could see their bodies from the rear tower, lying in the sun and seeping blood into the soil nearby. The ground itself seemed to have been torn up and disturbed near the three men, though she could see no sign of what caused it.
The final guard had made his way over the front of the fortress and had fled down teh main road. Lev's keen eyes picked him out rnning in the distance, but he certainly didn't seem to be coming back to pose a threat. They gathered the dead into the main courtyard, dragging the hulking form of the owlbear away from the horses. It was bloody and foul work, given the state some of the corpses were in. Between the owl bear and Lev's enlarged sword, some of the corpses were barely recognisable as such.
It was Anya who found the partially concealed entrance to the cellar. A rug at the rear of the place had its corner turned up and she noticed the edge of the door. As she approached, she could've sworn she heard something scramble back from the door and down a ladder. It could very well be that someone still remained in this place, though what they were doing in the cellar was anyone's guess.
Anya returned to her friends, grim-faced. "We are not done yet. There is someone waiting in the cellars. Lets prepare as best we can, rest up if we must - but I don't want this fort half-taken and ready for another occupation by bandits."
Regarding the simpleton's face, the gears had ground to an acceptable position, and she looked at her friend Elbesth with suprising openness. "We will prepare court here. Hear what he has to say for himself, and decide a suitable punishment calmly, not in hot blood."
Elsbeth looks surprised at first.
"Me? Holding a court? I would say i'm not really the most suitable person for that ; i'm much more used to talk with more influenceable men."
The chelaxian sorcerer gives the simpleton another look, with more compassion. "He looks more like a child, so maybe we could just promise him some cake if he behaves, but i don't see prisons of sort around here.We'll have to let him go, kill him or take him with us in the end."
After relaxing some more moments, Elsbeth asks some preliminary questions to the simpleton, at a distance.
will update tomorrow and NPC actions as needed.
Lev barks a sharp laugh at Elsbeth's words. "She said we not you, Elsbeth. Hard as it may be to believe, you are not the only one with noble blood present." Not, he thought, that it would matter if she were.
He turns back to Anya. "We should try to move fast. Between those we allowed to escape and those who might still be roving the wilderness somewhere, there's no telling when another force will arrive to try and take the fortress back. I'd as soon burn what we can and return to the fort quickly. After leaving a message, of course, that banditry will not be tolerated. I'd like to see to whatever is waiting in the chambers below before we do anything else, in case there are prisoners who need to have their wounds addressed."
He glances at the simpleton. "I'm not sure what a trial might accomplish; he's not the wit to defend himself. But if it will put you at ease regarding his execution, so be it."
Lev seeks out Alannah and speaks softly to her. "Are you well? I missed out on some of the battle but from what I saw it seemed that you were particularly invested in a part of its outcome."
At Lev's words
"I may not be the only one with noble blood, but i'm the most qualified to talk to people without luring them into trying to tear our bodies apart. If you want to question him as well i never said i'ld have opposed, and Anya said , which includes as well"
Elsbeth sounds like she is amused this time, rather than offended
Anya looked at the scene Elsbeth was making, "just barely bemused" like her. Her neck tingled, and she suddely found the whole issue more interesting by magnitudes. "I think you underestimate us, but be that as it may... the whole purpose of the issue is to judge in calmness rather than in hot blood." It had another, secondary purpose. By these proceedings, they were developing a legitimacy beyond the exterminators they had been playing at. Rulers held courts, while adventurers only did what it took.
"I disagree with you on one thing, Lev. This fort is valuable. It is in bad shape, true - but we should clear it out, and make it ours. Oleg's is a good base for exploring these lands, but think about what this fort can do for us in the future. Burning it to the ground erases that option."
The trial
Despite the small argument in the background, the big simpleton quickly succumbed to Elsbeth's charms and tells everything about his involvement at the fortress.
He was found wandering the streets of Restov by a man he referred to as Dovan. Dovan had given him his name, telling him he was as strong as an Auchs so he should be named after one. Under Dovan's careful treatment, Auchs had come to truly loath most women, taking time to help Dovan subdue and brutalise a number of them before they had been fored to flee to wildlands. (Some of the group remembered hearing about the case of women being brutally murdered in the slums of Restov a few months before they had been recruited by the swordlords. From all reports, most of the victims were young blond women, all of them had had their heads crushed by a tremendous force, but only after some horrifying tortures had been done to them).
Auchs idolised Dovan, and looked up to him as a saviour, so he followed him even into this dangerous alnd. They had caught a road patrolmen as he took his "business" in the bushes. Auchs had crushed his skull and then Dovan had ridden them both hard into the hill lands until the horse had died. Not long after that, the stag lord had found them. Auchs spoke of him with mixed fear and admiration, for he was the only man the simpleton had met who truly had the capacity to beat him with his bare hands. At first Auchs thought his fun with Dovan had come to an end, but under the Stag lords care, they had been allowed to continue ministering to the "whores of the world", every chance they had. A few women worked for the stag lord, and apparently they had to leave them alone. Auchs couldn't understand why, but while ever Dovan told him not to touch them, he was happy enough to follow orders.
Now that Dovan was dead, he was at a loss again. He had his toys, but no one to help him decide where to go or what to do. His biggest concern seemed to be getting his wounds tended and when his next meal was coming, but all of those watching him also caught him staring at both Anya and Alannah and thier blond hair.
The cellar
Having searched and gathered the bodies, and dealt with the simpleton by the immediate case of simply locking him in the bear enclosure until working out what to do with him, the party readied themselves to face whatever was in the cellar.
The doorway opened easily enough to Anya's grip, while Alannah and Lev stood aiming bows down into the darkness. Nothing stirred in the cool cellar below, the faint daylight casting eerie shadows across the stone and dirt room. Crates and barrels seemed to fill the place, but they could also make out an exit to another area carved in to the ground below the fortress.
The only way in was a rickety looking ladder that was tied firmly to the support beam just below the trapdoor. A strange smell of rank sweat and leather filtered up from the room below as they stood around the entrance.
Alannah sits quietly with her back against the palisade, not quite looking up at Lev, more out of a need to regain some control than anything else.
"There's a lot I couldn't remember when I joined you all, there's a lot that I still don't but...we had...history, and he took a lot more from me that I can ever describe. I'll share my story with you later, you all deserve that much."
The young archer took a deep shuddering breath and slowly got up, one hand gripping her bow, the other gantly reaching down at her hip to where she'd buckled the swor Akiros had weilded against her.
"Thank you." She said to Lev, her voice almost a whisper.
After what she heard, Elsbeth would like to kill the brute on the spot, but for now there are other priorities.
"But i doubt that cage will hold him for long,can't we drug him or knock him down"
Of course she is careful of not letting Auchs hear her.
Lev nods agreement with Elsbeth. "I would have preferred to try and find a better solution to the problem this brute presents but it's clear that we're too late. He's too far gone to teach him a better way to live," he says softly.
Lev looks to Alannah. "I'll take the lead. You keep watch with that bow. If anything comes for me, shoot it."
He puts his bow away and moves over to the ladder, takes a deep breath and begins to climb down.
"I disagree with you on one thing, Lev. This fort is valuable. It is in bad shape, true - but we should clear it out, and make it ours. Oleg's is a good base for exploring these lands, but think about what this fort can do for us in the future. Burning it to the ground erases that option."
Make it ours? I was thinking the same thing... We shouldn't burn it."
After hearing Auch's story, Alandra speaks up:
"Iv'e heard enough. We should hang him."
Alannah's eyes narrow at the brute's story.
"We can't willingly let him loose to harm more women, hell right now her wants to come at me, I can feel it. Honestly, making his punishment public will go a long way to ease the fears of the local women I'm sure."
"Actually, I agree." Anya said. She hadn't been prepared to be the simpleton's defender. Her the least, after how badly she had been wounded by him. "I am not going to let him run free. I am not going to risk anyone's life for misguided pity."
She looked Auchs over one more time, and found only... revulsion with a tiny tinge of pity. She finally spoke, quietly as she could "He dangerous, more than dangerous. He combines the cruelty and thoughtlessness of a child with the apetites and cruelty of a grown man's darkest side. He must die."
She drew her shorter blade, and approached him. "Rope is not a choice, I think. He'd fight it." She was going to calmly speak to him, not give him a chance to realize what she was going to do, and slay him with only one swift strike, below the ribs.
"I'm right behind you, brother. If we can, we should pincer any foes... between your power and my... let's just say, willingness to strike where it counts - we should be fine." Anya half-jokingly answered
"I have still some power left after the fight we just had, i can follow wherever we agree to go. Would like to have someone behind me though, in case of attack from the rear"
"The problem with just gutting him here is that it's no different from him meeting his end in an alley. If we took him back to the outpost and made his crimes known before executing him, it would send a message to those with similar appetites who think the frotier is safe for them."
Anya stopped as Alannah raised her protest. She turned around, making sure to not be within his reach beforehand. "I know. Bringing him back to Oleg's will make the trip much harder, since we not only need to watch for stragglers, but also make sure he doesn't run off, killing us on the way. If you think it is worth the effort, though - I will not protest too much. It is a much better signal."
"You always choose the harder path. Lev, think you can keep him unconscious for all the trip back to Oleg"
As the conversation wandered back and forth around him, the simpleton slowly realised that his life was hanging in the balance. He began to wail again, dropping to the ground and grovelling before the group as he begged noisily for his life. His protestations were broken by great gasping sobs and rivers of snot began to run heedlessly from his nose, mixing with the blood and dirt already caked upon his face. He truly was a pitiful sight, and sounded like nothing more than a sad and scared child at that moment. Only his sheer size and the remembered wounds he had dealt kept their heads in the right space for judging him.
With some difficulty, Lev dragged him kicking and screaming over to the bears cave where he tossed him boddily in and closed the gate. The enclosure locked from the outside, well out of reach of the big man. Given it was strong enough to hold the enraged owl bear before, it was more than up to the task of holding Auchs, who merely screamed as the foor closed, and began to tantrum in the corner. All this happened just in time too, for not long after the gate closed, Lev shrank back to his regular size as Elsbeth's spell wore off.
The cellar
Lev carefully descended the ladder, his feet feeling for every rung and his back itching as if expecting a dagger to plunge into it at any moment. As his foot touched the ground, he thought he caught a glimpse of movement from the corner of his eye, but when he turned, there was nothing but a stone wall there. He shivered slightly, then stepped away from the ladder and drew his greatsword.
Anya joined him next, standing with her brother at the foot of the ladder with her swords drawn. The sudden sound of gutteral chanting came from the entrance of a far room. Neither of the two fighters could see into the darkness, but both of them had heard enough magic to realise that a spell was being cast, just as Alandra was half way down the ladder.
Those with spell craft
"Lev,Anya beware, whoever is casting is calling for help.That is a summoning spell"
Elsbeth draws the rod of magic missile, the lesser one, in case she needs to save the most powerful for later
Initiative
Hearing the ominous sound of spellcasting, Alannah's mind reacts immediately, striking a sunrod and tossing it down in front of Lev and Anya, both to provide them with light and hopefully blind the enemy that had lain wait in darkness the whole time.
Lev silently thanks Alannah for the light and glances quickly around him with his keen half-elven eyes, seeking the spellcaster.
"He's summoning something!"
Anya cursed under her breath, and began to emerge even into her brother's front. "Then we got to move fast. Remember the Kobold Caves, everyone"
As far as the sunrod shed its light, she scanned the room in front of them, moving into it as needed.
Alannah's light came flickering into the room, though she'd had to lose her readiness to fire at any threat in order to retrieve it and activate the stick. As its bright light filled the room, both Anya and Lev blinked for a moment or two as it affected their vision. Lev's keen eyes picked out a large grey mass clinging to the ceiling of the room at the far end of where he was standing. The thing looked like some sort of badger, though how it was clinging to the roof was anyone's guess.
Elsbeth drew forth her magic wand, ready to use it against whatever was coming, and then a huge ant seemingly burrowed up from the ground behind Lev and Anya. The thing was nearly the size of a pony, and its head and mandibles were huge. What was wrse, its great stinger dripped with a clear venom as it moved in and attacked. Its great Pincers closed around Lev's leg, seemingly targeting him at randomd. While teh stinger seemed to scrape ineffectively against his armour, the pincers themselves dealt a painful crushing blow to his leg, grasping him in a restricting grasp.
Alandra called out, even as the thing appeared. She held on tightly above the fight while the ant attacked her friends. Anya failed to pick out what Lev had seen, but she certainly saw the ant biting her brothers leg.
Since there seem to be no threat from behind, Elsbeth steps back in the last position, but shoots a magic blast at the ant nontheless.
Having no choice Alandra finishes descending the ladder and begins to cast herself .
"There's some...thing hanging on to the roof!" Lev calls out as he struggles against the giant ant pulling on him.
The creature is holding on too tightly, however, and he can't seem to pull away.
End of round 1
Alandra dropped the rest of the way to the floor and began to cast her own summoning. The great ant that was gripping Lev so tightly squirmed around as if trying to attack the young cleric, but its grip on the hunters leg really prevented any such thing from happening.
Anya stepped in behind it and attacked with her weapons. While she realised the creature clinging to the roof ahead of them was most likely the true threat, she also knew she couldn't really reach it from here. Her swords wove a dance of death as she attacked the thing, her shortsword skipping off the creatures thick chitinous exoskeleton but her dueling sword punched home. A strange odour filled the air, as the weapon punctured vital organs and various gas chambers inside the ant.
Round 2
Lev felt its grip begin to weaken, and then it fully relaxed as Elsbeth sent one of her trademark magic missiles into the thing. As quickly as it had appeared, the great ant sunk back into the ground and was covered up, as if never having been there.
The big hunter was free to move, but the distance to his target was cluttered with wooden debris and old masonry. He wouldn't get much time to swing with that type of obstacle in his way.
Climb
Slinging her bow over her shoulder Alannah swung herself around her feet hugging the sides of the ladder, strong hands graping the outside of it as she practically slid down to land nimbly on her feet, bow quickly shifted back to her hand.
Anya wasted no time once the ant-thing was defeated, going for the... roof-thing, for lack of a better term. She swiftly gauged if she could reach the roof with her weapons, and found them lacking - so she put them away, and prepared the bow she had claimed earlier.
Freed from the ant's grip, Lev moves forward hoping to strike the creature before it can summon more creatures to delay them. The debris underfoot slowed his passage, however, so after struggling past it he decided to drop the sword in favor of his bow so he could attack.
Alannah quickly slides down the ladder, landing with nimble grace on the stone floor below. She turns and watches as Lev moves forwards and fires his bow into the creature. The arrow strikes it in teh side, but rather than kill it, it seems to become more enraged.
Lev watches in a kind of detatched fascination as the wolverine runs across teh ceiling and down the wall before leaping at him with savage claws and teeth. Despite this most unusual approach, and its overall enthsiams for teh task, the creature fails to land a blow on the hunter though.
The thrum of another bow firing down the hall signals Anya firing her own weapon, but it flies well wide of her target.