"Verik, buddy, cousin, while I appreciate your bravado in the face of scaly toothy death you, uh, you might still want to let us distract the critters and buy you some time to get up and get combat-ready rather than making them more interested in you than they already are. But that's, you know, just a suggestion."
"Even so, it would help if you fight closer to the edge where we're not too hampered in our movements."
Tandlara points to the tatzlwyrm nearest Verik and spits out an ancient Elvish curse, while clutching her bone totems in her other hand. The curse sounds foreign to the beautiful Elvish language, its syllables filled with hate for the dragonkin.
The nearest tatzlwyrm screeches as Tandlara's curse takes effect, lunging towards Verik with its maw spread wide.
The tatzlwyrm latches onto Verik, sharp teeth digging into his shoulder. It wraps its body around the cleric, squeezing and snapping with his powerful jaws. Its small claws come up, preparing to rake him from below.
Still bleeding from Zander's arrow, the second male crashes through the brush towards Zander. It snaps at him, barely missing the archer's scarred neck with its sharp teeth. The smell of raw, decayed meat is overwhelmingly coming from the serpentine creature's mouth.
The female slithers through the brush, leaping towards Taisper. The inquisitor's golden aura shimmers, preventing it from getting a latch on him. Her teeth draw blood from him, but draw back just in time to not get a solid grasp of him.
Getting off Bessie as quickly as he can Berrin pulls his sword as he moves over to assist Taisper with the female.
Earlier
Tandlara turns to Jemini, 'Yes. I think thats a very good plan, Avansatra is a fine strong horse, and we weigh little and have light and no armors. Its a good plan. I'd rather or beloved cleric didn't expire before his Taxing Feast.' She smiles at Verik widely with a twinkle in her eye.
'Ungh." Taisper brings his shield to bear, shoving the tatzylwyrm back and aside before it can get a grip on him, though its razor fangs did plenty of damage on their own. "Ngyah! That hurts! I don't think I've ever been so ambivalent about a plan working as I am about this one." He mutters to himself.
Taking a step back as Berrin moves around behind the creature, Taisper's immediate aura shifts to a beautiful and calming lattice of blue-white energy and some of the lacerated flesh around his wound heals up immediately, though he's clearly still injured and bleeding. He calls out an incantation while he has a bit of space and a familiar ovoid sheen of divine golden radiance coalesces about him.
"Berrin! If you want to hold tight where you are I'll move to the side a bit and we can flank this thing."
Jemini tosses the reigns to Ilyana, "Keep the horses calm!" She steps between the tatzwyrm and Ilyana and slashes at the creature that she and Berrin are flanking - but fails entirely to connect with the creature; too distracted to impose herself between it and Ilyana.
Tandlara tries to leap off of Avansatra, but as she does so her foor gets tangled in the stirrup and she is jerked suddenly backwards in midair, the elfs face must be almost comical as she is swung back into the ground at her horse's hooves, with a heavy thud and a loud clacking jangle of the various bone fetishes at her belt.
She shakes her head and spends a moment getting back onto her wobbly feet, dusting herself off with a slightly dazed expression.
Stepping back around his horse, Zander fires off a succession of shots into the attacking wyrm. Both arrows hit the beast in the neck and with a gurgle, the Tatzlwyrm collaspes to the ground in a puddle of blood.
As the creature falls, Zander surveys the battlefield: The horses are blocking most of his available shots, but it looks like Jemini and Berrin have the second wyrm surrounded... but where did Verik go? As he's looking out for the pudgy cleric, he spots the man's morningstar swing upwards from the pit where the beasts came from. 'Uh oh. Verik's in trouble,' thinks Zander as he prepares to rush to the cleric's aid.
The male tatzlwyrm lets out a screeching bark to get the attention of the female, then tightens its grip on Verik. The cleric feels his bones crack and pop as the dragonic creature starts clawing him relentlessly.
The female turns and snaps at Berrin, its sharp teeth just barely missing his neck. It turns round and round, cornered by the three warriors. It lets out a aggressive hiss at them.
What's the grapple damage? I've never been clear on how to determine that in creatures' grab/rake/etc. attacks.
Rake usually specifies its own damage (but would otherwise be the claw damage or whatever is used for the raking). The maintain grapple deals damage equal to the unarmed / natural attack that is executing it. If Verik wasn't pinned, he'd have suffered an additional 1d6 + 3. If you happen to have armor spikes on, you can deal *additional* damage with them.
What I don't know is if in *this* round the rake happens before or after the pin happens. I am guessing beforehand, because the grapple may not successfully be maintained.
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Verik snarls and struggles against the beast's pin, but as he moves his twisting rams the little dragon's claws deeper into his side sending a wave of pain flooding through him and aborting his escape attempt before it begins.
"Gah, this is not going well over here folks! I'm not sure I am going to be enjoying the heady pleasures of breathing for much longer..."
"Taisper! Take over here! I'll try to get to Verik!"
no that's your blood over there that is family you go help you move you don't fail them now you F- you are a F- if you can't ge- Taisper makes a face like he's swallowing a rock, and when he looks at Jemini, he's utterly calm and affectless.
"Of course. Go. I'll cover for you. There's no way I could get to him in time." The inquisitor then calls over to Berrin. "Berrin if you want to go, too, go ahead. I'll take this thing. The Lawgiver is with me." Verik would make fun of me. For saying stuff like that. But where he is. Maybe he wouldn't be there. If he said stuff like that. Instead of things like F-
"Help's coming Verik. One -- what was it Berrin said? Oh yeah. One Avenging Angel on 'er way."
I hope.
Wyrm 3 AOO vs. Berrin
Berrin vs. wyrm 1 ,
"Going! Watch the horses!" Berrin says as he turns and heads away from the tatzlwyrm he was flanking. Using the opening to bite at Berrin it's teeth are deflected by his armor.
Making his way down the hole Berrin hollars at the wyrm grapplin Verik as he swings at it with all his might. "Oi! Over here!"
Connecting solidly with the wyrms head he dazes it for a moment, but not enough for it to loose it's grip on Verik.
The second Berrin heads out, Taisper takes a big step up, the flash in his eyes transferring to the head of his morningstar. His swing connects with the 'wyrms head, taking a bite out of its skull.
As the tatzlwyrm snaps at Berrin's retreating back, Jemini disengages from the creature as well. I hope Taisper will be alright by himself! But right now... "Sarenrae! Please aid here!" As she reaches Verik's form, bleeding from multiple gashes, she touches him. A blue fire springs from her hand onto Verik, mending and healing his body. The tatzwyrm that rests over his form snarls angrily as the blue glow manifests under its claws.
ROUND 2, INITIATIVE 15
Tandlara shakes her head once more, and seeing the other rush to defend Verik, her snarling battle fury is quickly wiped from her face as she begins to move and rattle the fetishes on her belt. She grips a small leg bone, possibly from a fox there are blond hairs tied to top, and dark to the bottom and a key is scratched into it. She stares at Verik and finishes her incantation.
Dashing around the line of horses, Zander sees that Berrin and Jemini have already rushed to Verik's aid leaving Taisper alone against the female tatzlwyrm. In his rush to rejoin the fray, Zander nearly trips over a root growing out of the ground and his arrow looses before he is prepared. With a loud Twack! the bolt lands solidly in Taisper's shield. 'Oops...'
"What th-?!" Taisper feels the arrow impact his shield and stick, ducking instinctively as it does so. Casting a quick glance over to his side to see what the hell just happened, he spies Zander stumbling over the difficult terrain. He sighs in relief, then gives the big archer a sideways smile. "Zander! My reflexes are fine today, man, thanks for checking 'em, though!"
had me going. thought i did something wrong. and now they were all going to take me down. like they promised. thought they got to zander too.
...have i done something wrong?
Zander winces as his stray shot nearly lands in the heart of one of his only friends, "Err, sorry about that. I tripped and... I'm really sorry. Glad to see you're on top of your game though!"
Taisper lets out a short laugh, even in the face of the 'Wyrm. "Ha! Oh man, me too!"
The tatzlwyrm screeches as Berrin cuts into it, tightening its grasp on Verik. The beast rips into him with both his teeth and claws despite Tandlara's magic. The cleric slumps in the creature's coils, letting out hardly more than a pained groan. The morningstar slips from his hand, falling out of grasp. For a moment, it appears that the tatzlwyrm's attacks have killed Verik as he lolls helplessly in the death grasp of the creature. As his blood flows freely onto the ground, making the serpentine tatzlwyrm slick, he lets out another anguished cry. He lives, though the creature will soon finish him off without help.
Left alone with Taisper, the female snaps her razor-sharp teeth at him. A shimmering magical aura deflects the attack, keeping barely inches between him and the creature that would tear his flesh just as the other one does to his cousin.
Bits of the inside of Taisper's mind are screaming at other bits of the inside of his mind. He dodges almost on accident as the femal 'Wyrm bites at him, and as he glances over by the nest, tears begin pouring steadily down his cheeks in eerie silence.
Keeper please let that not be all his blood. That can't be all his bl-
do. your. job.
he's dying he's dead they're not fast enough i should have gone to him they're not gon-
shut up. do. your. job.
...
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Verik struggles against the beast, but he can feel his already inadequate strength ebbing away with his injuries. Jemini's magic blunts the worst of the pain, but he can still clearly see that he will be lucky to survive the creatures next assault...
Then his body explodes with pain as claws tear into his flesh again piercing through to gauge intestines and organs and fill his mind with the fire of agony.
Dear Abadar,
See you soon...?
And blackness swallows him...
Still lagging behind her own momentum, Jemini watches in horror as Verik gets torn asunder - she can but pray that he's not beyond the call of this world. "Berrin! Hit! It!"
,
Berrin swings again at the wyrm, desperately trying to get it off Verik, catching it by the base of it's neck he scores a nasty gash that staggers the creature.
Wyrm; 0/22, staggered. F#@@!
Taisper is way too focused on Berrin's swing and not focused enough on his own, and that combined with the still-unfamiliar weight of his new celestial morningstar throws him completely off and this time he misses the creature badly, the spikes of his weapon whistling harmlessly by its head.
Ugh. Stupid. Berrin got it. You saw him gouge it to bits. If he didn't, then Jemini and Zander and Tandlara are still fighting. They'll get it. You have to trust them. Remembering how close the 'wyrm came to slicing him last time, Taisper shifts his aura from his weapon back to his shield, strengthening it against attack.
"Zander, Tandlara, don't help me until we're sure that 'wyrm on Verik is dead. I can hold this thing. Just please help him."
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Verik drifts in a roiling mass of darkness. No not darkness, dark clouds and from somewhere the barest pin point of golden warm light. He floats towards it feeling giddy and vague, he is rushing forward feeling a cold wind whipping against his cheeks. Then he lurches to a halt the clouds holding him back from the light as he struggles against their dark embrace desperate to reach the golden city he can glimpse tantalizingly beyond his reach...
No! It is not your time! Verik, if you don't make it out of this alive I'll kill you! ..--wha? What is this- Io-? Jemini's frantic thoughts overturn themselves - but suddenly a glow resonates throughout her body and it moves on its own accord. Her longsword swings up, and then down onto the wyrm below. The blade slides through the thick hide of the creature effortlessly, leaving the wyrm slumped dead on the ground; lifelessly its claws fall of Verik. Jemini's body turns unbidden, her hand reaches out to Verik's fallen form and for a moment the outline of a warrior woman shimmers above. The silhouette reaches out her hand and a radiant energy flows from it into Verik.
Breathing a sigh of relief as the tatzlwyrm strangling the life out of Verik collapses to the ground and Jemini's healing magic stabilizes the cleric's wounds, Zander takes aim on the beast still in combat with Tasiper and looses a deadeye shot - literally! The arrow flies forth from Zander's bow and lodges itself deep in the creature's eyeball, skewering its way into the reptilian's brain. With a final screech, the monster falls to the ground. Grinning at his handiwork, Zander rushes down into the pit to check on Verik, "Is he alright?" he asks Jemini as he makes his way down the treacherous slope.
"Great shot, Zander!" Taisper calls out as the 'wyrm hits the ground. Checking to make sure Jemini's back is still to him, he raises his morningstar and crushes the creature's skull, pounding it into the ground and mashing it to pulp.
The inquisitor then runs over to the now-former nest and heaves snake bits out and away from his cousin. He throws the severed head noticeably harder than other parts, bouncing it off a tree trunk. He kneels in front of the fallen cleric, then.
The teen is too panicked to be able to recall any of his first-aid training. He looks at his cousin, then looks at Jemini. "He's still out. The...it...he...he's gonna make it, right? I can't...I can't..."
verik it's okay i'm not mad you called me a F- anymore just come back please i even miss listening to you flirt/argue or whatever it is you're doing just please oh keeper just please
Jemini looks slightly taken aback as she stares at her hands. But she smiles at Taisper, slightly dazed. She bends down to touch Verik again, feeling his body pulsing slightly with life she's relieved. "Thank you, Iomedae... thank you..." A silvery shine envelopes her hands and touches onto Verik, adding more restorative force to his body.
Tears are in Jemini's eyes as she sees life stir in Verik's form, and when he finally opens his eyes she greets him, "Welcome back.