Cultist
Calling once again upon the dark powers she lets the surge of energy flow through her! She steps lightly to the side making her way to the open doorway of the pantry.
Mongrelman
As Alesie cuts down another mongrelman, the others take notice of her actions. Cautiously the remaining grunt tests her defenses with his club.
Wenduag
The ranger wastes no time in trying to end another threat and fires quickly at Kyra!
AC 13, touch 9, flat-tooted 13 (+4 armor, -1 Dex)
Fort +4 , Ref -1 , Will +S
Base Atk +1; CMB +3; CMD 12
AC 13, touch 11, flat-footed 12 (+1 Dex, +2 natural)
Fort +2, Ref +4, Will +4
Base Atk +2; CMB +4; CMD 15
AC 19, touch 13, flat-footed 16 (+4 armor, +3 Dex, +2 natural)
Fort +4, Ref +8, Will +6
Base Atk +3; CMB +6; CMD 19
Alesie skirts below the lopsided attack from the mongrelman, a wicked glint in her eye, the adrenaline of combat slowly starting to dispel her fears. She stabs out with her rapier, catching the mongrelman in a soft spot below his arm. She quickly pulls back out, leaving a small wound in the mongrelman's torso.
Kyra dodges around the arrow fired by the mongrelwoman archer, she decides to take the fight to the archer again. She attempts to leap over the barricade, but she is unable to clear the obstacle. After her clumsy failure, she instead takes a whirling step towards the mongrelman. She jabs her blade forward, the point of her blade sinking deep into his side!
"Kill the heretic and join us below!" Kelden called to Caralain and Ilse, hoping that he wasnt to foolish in leaving them to deal with the dangerous looking foe, he really was worried about the others down the stairs with that mongrelwoman archer. He moved to the hole then started to climb down it.
naw... he just knows what a BDH you are Alesie.... (Big Durn Hero).
Ilse once again moves in to flank the cultist who is still engaged in combat with Carilain. She musters enough of her dwindling energy to swing her hammer once again.
The wound is taking it's toll and Ilse finds it hard to strike with precision. She misses the cultist outright.
Above
Things are going poorly for the weary fighters above you, for some reason they seem unable to land any solid blows against the fierce woman, she again moves away from the fighters nearly to the door now, she simply withdraws for the time being.
Together they manage to catch her off guard and put her in an early grave.
Below
Wenduag
With her final guard defeated, she grows a sickly green color; the ranger continues to fire at Kyra, but her attack in ineffectual.
Alesie lets out a little "Whoop" as Kyra drops the guard before her. Thank Desna, we might actually survive this! Only the mongrelwoman left.
Alesie cautiously approaches the ranger, still fearful of the crazed woman and her deadly bow. She punches out with her rapier, but the mobile mongrelwoman easily dodges the cautious attack.
Oh no, she going to kill me. Why did I get this close? I've been too lucky to this point. I mean, I'd literally be dead if it weren't for some of my magical companions. Should have left this for Thetin with his big shield.
Finally reaching the bottom of the rope ladder the young cleric moves through the smoke torwards the sound of fighting!
Still dancing to the music of Dawn, Kyra slides her blade out of the fallen mongrelman as all life slips from his eyes. Following behind Alesie, the dervish slips gracefully around the barricade, twirling her blade over the elven lass' head; however, the nimble archer dodges the attack at the last moment!
Ilse to Carilain, "Should, we secure the door to this room before venturing down to help our companions? I can't help but feel like we could be flanked from behind if we don't."
While waiting for his response, she takes a moment to quickly search the bodies upstairs for anything that might help the party.
Carilain rests on one knee, the head of his hammer on the floor. The elf's face is grey with exhaustion and beaded with sweat. "One more blast of that death force would have done me in, Ilse."
Taking a sharp breath of air into his lungs, Carilain rises to his feet. "They should be able to fall back into the fog if they need to pull back..."
"So lets see if we can block the door for now. Then we can check on the others."
Thetin moves through the barricades and his allies, finally drawing close enough to the mongrelwomen to strike. Pulling back his arm to swing, Thetin prays to Torag for the blow to hit. The swing strikes true catching the mongrelwomen archer in the side with solid wump of impact.
"Thats for the first arrow you put in me." Thetin says to the mogrelwomen, a challenging grin on his face.
Her hammer comes down hard, jarring her. Now completely surrounded she kicks back at the door causing it to swing open as she nimbly steps through. The arrow she fires hardly seems to move with her as she looses it at Thetin. "And what will be for this one fool?"
Alesie takes a quick moment as shes drawing back to try and inure the crazed ranger. It's a near miss however.
At the other arrows loosing the cleric of the dawnflower moved forward calling out loudly for his goddess to heal the hurts of his ally Thetin.
"Ilse.... Caralain could use you down here!" He would call back to his friends above.
Ilse looks around for something to block the door with.
"There doesn't seem to be anything truly suitable to block the door to this room."
She peeks into the next room where her companions disappeared through the door in the floor.
"There does seem to be a large table in here," she calls to Carilain. "We can use it to block the door into this room instead."
Looking desperately for anything that can heal Ilse finds a small 1oz. glass flask. It appears to be a potion of some sort but she lacks the skill or time to identify it. The other body of the cultist has another flask on it containing the same liquid. Both were in an easily accessible belt loop.
Kyra follows up Alesie's strike with one of her own as the mongrelwoman archer! However, she was too slow and the archer ducked away too quickly.
The dervish quickly takes a step forward after the archer, intent on striking down the nuisance! Unfortunately the doorway is too narrow and Kyra's attack was ill aimed.
"Yeah, nothing here but bedrolls" Wouldn't hurt to search them later. Carilain follows the barbarian woman into the fog filled chamber. Good thinking Ilse, let's do it." Carilain proceeds to start sliding the table across the floor toward the door.
Ilse pockets the vials for inspection later and moves beside Carilain to help push the table towards the door.
Alesie reaches out to strike at the woman as she spots a momentary opening but the mongrelwoman quickly recovers, fending off her attacks.
She steps back again, but to her surprise Thetin rushes forward grabbing the door and slamming it shut. The sound of an arrow striking the thick wood thuds right near Kyra's head.
"As fun as it is to play the pincushion i suggest we retreat for now."
Thetin then retreats back up the rope climbing nimbly despite his armor. He then runs out of the room and waits for the rest of the party to retreat before helping Carilain block off the door.
Through the haze of the battle dance Kyra openly glares at Thetin as he creates an unnecessary obstacle between her and the target of her wrath; however, when she hears the thud of the arrow striking the door opposite of her head... The dervish shakes her head, drawing herself out of the dance and gives the paladin a grateful look. "Thank you..." she whispers just before retreating back as well.
"Fall back, we must regroup..."
Watching Thetin and Kyra starting to retreat, Alesie breaks out in a full tilt run towards the ladder, and back towards the entrance. Okay, if the skilled people are retreating what am I doing? Get out, Get out, get out.
Carilain feels like he is a thousand years old, but he still grins at the sight of Thetin clambering up out of the hole in the floor.
"Did you get that thrice accursed archer?"
Carilain notices the broken off arrow stubs, protruding from Thetin's armor, and his spirits dampen.
"Looks like she feathered you plenty."
He would have pressed on with caralain and Ilse down to support... but if heading back was in order than heading back was what they would do, He waited till the others began to head back then he too head that way.
"Go, go! Get up the ladder." He began holding at the door trying to keep it from being opened while his friends climbed up the rope ladder.
"Call out as soon as its clear! He added.
The pressure on the door abates....
The moment he saw his last ally climbing up the ladder the cleric moved for rope himself trying to hurry to follow.
Keldan makes it up the rope without indecent. All remains quiet.
"How is everyone? Spellcasters still okay? Should we go back to Netherholm? Should we try and setup camp here? Explore the rest of the place?" Alesie rumbles off, slightly scared and totally unsure of what to do once she meets up with the rest of her companions.
Kyra continues to watch over the doors they have not yet gone through. "If you can, I suggest we continue on. We have now lost the element of surprise and they will be preparing. We may not have this opportunity again."
His allies close and showing signs of injury, the young cleric calls out for the holy lights of his goddess to heal them.
Perhaps we could cover that hole and finish taking a look up here?
"Ah, much better. Thanks to the Dawnflower. And to you too, Kelden."
Carilain thinks for a moment. "If we leave and come back, we can probably expect a stronger defense at the first barricade. If they have the personnel to do so."
"That archer woman, set up behind the barricade could cause us more grief than we can stand."
"If we plug this floor-hole with the table, it should keep her from coming back this way. If there are no other ways back up here, she would be trapped."
"I never did count on that, though."
"The danger of being trapped down there remains, however. I think we should plug this access, and continue scouting this upper level."
"That's just the way I see it, of course. If anyone else has a better idea, I'm happy to go along with it."
"We also did promise Sull we would clear this place for Netherholm... I hate to break a promise and leave potentially a vast majority of this place potentially stronger then when we arrived." Alesie quips.
Kyra smiles as the warmth of Kelden's spells wash over her, uninjured though she is. It reminds her of being above the ground once again...
In response to Carilain's thoughts, Kyra pipes in. "There is another room down below beyond the room where we fought the archer. That room had another two doors leading out of it... so we should assume she has another way to get up here. I agree we should plug the hole though and then we should move quickly. There may be hidden pathways and we do not want to get bottled up."
"I think that if we full retreat back to Netherholm we can only expect more of a fight when we try to fight through here again." Ilse remarks.