The gigantic butterfly wasn't having quite the effect Axel had hoped for, it was time to mix it up a bit! He concentrated and had the butterfly swoop down and shatter into a million colored lights all over the goblin attacking Josi. The goblin was struck by a kaleidoscopic blast of light!
"Okba d'ywom yavko um nil kreekri!" Ellen charges at the fleeing goblin with her dagger. It seems her hubris and scent for blood overwhelmed her since she fails to connect.
Kejak's arrow whizzes by Josie and buries itself in the goblin attacking her. It sways on it's feet as blood runs down its chest. Distracted by the sudden help, the halfling and her trusty steed both miss the now desperate goblin. When the butterfly overhead shatters the foul green creature's eyes glass over and little drool begins to pool at the corners of its mouth.
Ellen trips and nearly falls as she chases the fleeing goblin and the only thing her dagger hits is a cobblestone. Seeing that escape may not be an option, the goblin lashes out at her with its dogslicer again.
,
Seeing Ellen in danger, Kejak produces an arrow again and aims carefully.
-Come on, for Ellen. You have this before. The guy in the contest was just lucky...
A little bit of Ellen reaches the surface as she's cut by the dogslicer... She screams in horror, slicing wildly in the general direction of the goblin.
Seeing events unfold, Axel mutters, "Oh man, that Ellen's gonna get cut up real bad." He didn't particularly like her, but he couldn't just stand there while she got cut to ribbons. Looking Shayliss in the eyes he whispers, "Stay here for a moment, I'll be right back." before hopping down and running after the goblin. As he closed towards it, he shouted at the top of his voice, "Hey, Ugly!"
Kejak's arrow sails over the goblin's head. After both missing their dazed opponent, Josie and Inc join Axel in moving to assist Ellen. Before they reach the young woman, however, she plunges her dagger into the creature again and it collapses.
The goblin they left behind shakes itself free of its stupor and begins to run screaming towards Josie and her mount; when it arrives it falls unconscious to the street. A fearful quiet settles on the square once more.
Kejak refuses to believe it. Goblins inside? How did they got through?
-We need to check how did they managed to get in. Let's go check the exits? They may have killed the guards!
While saying this, he tries to discern where could Sheriff Hemlock be.
Ellen spends a good minute looking at the blood-stained dagger in her hand before promptly falling to her knees.
"Oh gods... Why did I do that?" She's clearly in distress, though oddly more from confusion than fear. The injury does not seem to be bothering her all that much.
Axel stares at Ellen, before saying reasonably, "You did what you had to, the real question is what was it doing here?" Noting that both Ellen and Josie are hurt, Axel had to decide who to aid. Ellen's wound looked messy but he felt she'd pull through. When he checked on Josie, she seemed to be hurt pretty bad.
Gently he told her, "Hey, uh let me see if I can do something about that..." He concentrated and whispered a strange phrase and a soft bluish radiance gathered on his hands. He held them over Josie's wound and the radiance spread to her, and flared briefly as her wound suddenly closed. "Good as new!" he grinned.
He then went back to Shayliss and helped her down from the wagon before saying, "Seems we're safe. Maybe we'd better go find your folks and make sure they're OK? I'll walk you there if you like."
Kejak is really torn between helping his friends and trying to manage the situation. Deep inside, though, he knows there are no goblins around to threat Josie and Ellen while, on the other hand, there could be people in peril in any other part of the town.
He directs himself to the scenary, where he last saw the sheriff and father Zantus, to check if they have more intel on the situation.
Kejak looks around but can't figure out where Sheriff Hemlock has gotten off to. He must have gone somewhere to manage the situation, perhaps to the Barracks, but in all the commotion he left without a trace.
While Josie and Inc check out Axel's handiwork in healing the halfling, and look around the square the handsome young man returns to the wagon and its beautiful passenger. "That was amazing, Axel," the redhead gushes as he reaches up to help her down, "I had no idea you could do magic like th..."
Before Shayliss can finish her sentence, much less climb down, an explosion rocks one of the abandoned stalls on the north side of the square. Flames lick up from the small wood and canvass structure as a pair of goblins jump and laugh next to it. The sight snaps Ellen from her stupor and Shayliss instinctively ducks down in the back of the wagon while several people still in the square start screaming.
Axle smiles easily, "Been studying." He was about to say more when the explosion happened. He flinched and instinctively moved to shield Shayliss before crying, "Woah! What the heck?! This ain't over. Best if you stay put for now, I'll deal with that goblin."
He turns on his heal and sprints towards the northern goblin, and stopping just short he points at it and shouts accusingly, "Hey! Stop that!"
-G@~++#mit...
This time, Kejak hopes, his aim mustn't falter.
"Voi dl'hea oru kistro..." Ellen mutters, ignoring Josie and moving towards the goblins, dark energy coalescing in her left hand.
The goblins are so engrossed in their celebration that they seem unaware of Kejak's arrow until it embeds itself into one of them, causing it to slump limply to the ground. The other goblin spins to face their attacker but before it even finishes the turn Axel's magic freezes it in its tracks. Josie gets jostled by the ride across the cobblestones and neither she nor Inc can connect with their attacks.
Ellen moves swiftly towards one of the remaining goblins and whispers a harsh word as she plants her left hand squarely on his face: "I'ed."
-I must remember I just got lucky. Overconfidence is the beginning of the end.
With these thoughts, and seeing that the other goblin is taken care of, Kejak checks if the flames present any risk of spreading or if there is any other sign of menace near by.
The remaining goblin quickly falls to the friends' attacks. There is, however no time to celebrate as another booming blast can be heard somewhere to the south...
"How many can there possibly be?!?" Ellen's visage changes from grim seriousness to that of fear and exhaustion; her body was not meant for this much running around and slapping goblins in the face, and yet it was undeterred, moving into the fray despite any protests Ellen may bring to the table.
Her wound finally catches up to her in the short respite and she winces, holding her bleeding arm. From the point of view of a daring and grizzled adventurer, it is a simple nick not even worth discussing. Ellen, however, is no adventurer. "Something really wants me to be, though..." she mutters to herself.
-D@mn!
Kejaks looks in the direction of the explosion and quickly runs there to see what kind of mischief have the goblins perpetrated in this occasion. It seems as though he has forgotten about his friends.
-They're strong and have demonstrated they can take care of themselves... but the rest of the people... there are literally babies in here!
Axel's heart lurches when yet another explosion goes off somewhere to the south. His first thought is Shayliss! He sprint's over to the wagon to make sure she's ok.
Only then does the rational part of his mind surface. Shaking slightly he whispers urgently, "Shayliss this feels planned, like it might be the beginning of more. I think we should find Kejak and the others. Safety in numbers."
Figuring the others would investigate the latest blast, Axel rapidly scans the area to the south looking for them.
Axel spots Kejak on the south side of the square, headed for High Street. He grabs Shayliss' soft, warm hand and leads her towards his old friend. Turning and seeing their friends from the Academy heading towards the new blast, Josie and Inc and Ellen give chase. Inc is able to close the distance quickly but Ellen struggles to catch up until the boys are halfway down High Street and have to start pushing their way through more fleeing, scattering crowds.
They are all together by the time they turn south on Festival Street and find one vendor's stall engulfed in flames and the game of strength that Josie and Axel played beginning to burn as well. There are two dead goblins in the street by the fire but, more alarmingly, there are also two live goblins mounted on mangy, beady eyed goblin dogs riding towards the band of orphans. Behind the dogs trail a pair of ropes connected to a net; inside the net there appears to be a well-dressed gentleman who is shouting, "This will not stand! Do you hear me, you foul little beasts? This offense will not stand!"
Knowing the goblins will probably not understand common, Kejak puts to use his persistence in learning Goblin.
-Vaba et kodanik ning loovutama nüüd!
With that, he readies an action to shoot if they try anything other than leaving their weapons and surrender.
Axel glanced in surprise at Kejak who seemed to be talking nonsense! A little sheepishly he whispered, "Er Kejak? Oh..." Suddenly realizing what Kejak has in mind, Axel whispers to Shayliss, "Stay with Kejak." Then he tries to move in closer but the flames force him to clamber over the ruins of a stall, which thanks to all the fallen bunting proves awkward to do in a hurry! Having disentangled himself Axel has a clear view of the goblins and waits to see if they do anything violent.
Ellen runs into the fray, hands on her knees as she pants out her exhaustion from trying to keep up with Inc.
The goblins are not swayed by Kejak's words but continue to charge up the road. Kejak lets his arrow fly but with all the distractions he misses his mark. Axel attempts to cloud the mind of the goblin rider closer to him but the snarling green menace shakes it off. A darker power once again eminates from Ellen and it seems to unsettle both of the goblins and one of their mounts. And then the goblins are upon them.
Josie swings at the goblin before her as it comes into reach but she misjudges it speed and swings too earlier. The goblin responds by attacking back while it's mount bites at Inc.
,
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The other dog charges Ellen and its rider swings at Axel standing nearby on the side of the road.
,
,
Kejak was too distracted to hit properly. This has happened quite many times recently, and has costed him losing the contests. Quietly, Kejak murmurs something about not costing him his own life, grinds his teeth and shoots again.
Axel feels the cold bite of the dirty metal blade followed by the red hot heat of the wound. His reaction was one of cold rage, and he bellowed, "Filthy Goblins! Prancing round like you own the place... Your type ain't welcome round her. Time for dark work my friends! Get em."
The goblin dog bites at nothing, fooled by the shadows enveloping Ellen. She fights back, swiping her dagger across its nose.
Even with the goblin off balance from its charge Kejak's shot isn't clean enough to penetrate its crude leather armor. Josie has more success as she thrusts her dagger into the other goblin's neck sending it slumping over in its saddle, though Inc is unsuccessful with her attack. Bolstered by Axel's performance, Ellen stabs the goblin dog attacking her sending a stream of blood rolling down one foreleg.
The now riderless dog bites at Inc again.
,
,
The dog and rider press their attacks as well.
,
,
Reaching this point, Kejak's thoughts stop flowing. He no longer thinks about the pressure of having goblins in his town, or the danger they're facing, or how he is completely failing. He thinks about absolutely anything, unable to move, unable to react. He can see the goblin biting Josie's cat, he can see the other one being stabbed by Ellen...
Suddenly, he wakes up. A spout of blood just hit his face. Goblin blood.
-What the...
He quickly grabs another arrow and shoots. He just shoots...
The goblin was so close Axel could smell it's rancid breath and see the blackheads pockmarking it's ugly hide. A cold rage had gripped him, and impassively he waits for an opening. The goblin clumsily swings it's weapon, Axel side steps and whirls round, plunging his dagger up to the hilt into it's chest.
As Axel draws back his hand to stab at the goblin, Kejak's arrow sails over Ellen's head and sinks deep into its grimy green neck. The goblin falls from its saddle and Axel redirects his strike at the mount; he finds his mark and the already injured goblin dog collapses on its former rider.
The ropes to the net go slack when the dog falls and the gentleman caught in it stands up and steps out of it, angrily drawing a rapier.