Aero will 5ft step away from the wall and begin casting sleep.
As Aero starts to cast his spell, Saoirse strikes deeply into the minotaur. Hot blood and a roar of fury are rewarded.
Jeslyn reaches out and touches the smoking fur of the creature while all the tieflings seem to hold their breath warily.
The minotaur still out of his sight and enemies between them, Nebbin continues to follow the plan to the best of his comprehension. He swats at the nearest foe, but manages to just hits armor with a glancing blow.
Thom looks uneasily at the demon-scum seemingly biding their time through the doorway, then he gives a glance back over his shoulder … through the foul fog to where Saoirse battles the new hoofed opponent.
”What’s the play?” he yells through the mist, his blade held at the ready, ”I can’t leave this doorway wide open!”
Lucius begins to laugh, as terror and frustration mix with appearance the absurd beast ahead of then. Of course Baphomet cultists would have a tame minotaur. Probably worship the forsaken thing as an idol. He shoulders the crossbow, as the mist effectively stymies his ability to aim at anything in the melee.
"Kill them all, Thom, this mist be damned."
Shifting on the balls of her feet, Saoirse swings forward with all the momentum she can give into the attack towards the minotaur. Her head turning slightly towards Thom as she yells back "Lucius is right! All these heretics deserve is death."
One of the tieflings in the room falls asleep in the back, the minotaur and Jeslyn seem unaffected.
Saoirse is again able to strike into the minotaur, but it seems to only shrug the blow off.
Nebbin, meanwhile, futilely strikes at an opponent.
The minotaur roars mightily at Saoirse, "You shall be my prey filthy dawn-scum!" and swings his enormous axe...
His axe misses once, but digs in deeply the second time. His horns score a trail along the doorframe.
Aero shouts to Thom "I'll hold the door, you go help."
Aero will call upon his luck as a swift and ready to step into the doorway and attack.
Lucius will try to clobber a tiefling with his mace: the same one he hit with his Corrupting Touch a little bit ago.
Aero's attack successfully hits the creature but his rapier seems not to do much to the massive minotaur.
One of the tieflings by Thom rushes forward at him.
Pushing him back from the doorway.
AC 16, touch 12, flat-footed 14 (-2 to all when raging), DR: 1/-, Cold resist: 0
Fort +5, Ref +3, Will +1 (+2 Will when raging)
CMD 17
HP 34 (38 when raging)
Rage: 1/10
Effects: Enlarge 3/10 (-1 AC due to size; +1 damage)
Seeing Saoirse suffer a horrific blow, Nebbin again sees red.
"Saoirse!" he yells, fear and anger lending him even greater strength.
He slams the earth breaker into the nearest foe, crushing the demon cultist into the ground.
Saoirse squeezes her eyes shut for a moment as large axe cuts a deep gash into her body, slipping to one knee as she loses her footing, Saoirse screams in a pain filled rage as she lunges upwards with her sword aiming for the center of the beast.
Saoirse’s scream of pain is mirrored by the lance of fire through their life-link, and Thom is unprepared for the Tiefling’s bull-rush. Thom loses his shield trying to recover his footing, but he struggles on.
”The minotaur is…” he scrambles to put words to his thoughts as he steps towards the towering beast, ”… well it’s more than just a minotaur!” He lashes out with a powerful two-handed slash, trying to help bring it down.
”Saoirse! Can you hold?!”
Saoirse manages to score another wound on the mighty creature and she is rewarded with another rage filled scream—this time tinged with fear.
Jeslyn croaks out a hideous laugh and says something in her foul language.
She mutters something and points to Thom.
In the common tongue she says, You in the mask, embrace Deskari, shed yourself of your accouterments that do not pay homage to our lord.
Two of the tieflings attempt to stick their shortswords through Lucius, only one managing to hit him. A third tries to shoot through the fog at Aero but misses. A fourth tries to take advantage of Saoirse's condition and swipes, but misses her and hits the doorframe.
Nebbin's mighty strike pulverizes the tiefling (I'm assuming you are using reach?) that struck Lucius. Thom tries to move to Saoirse, but the command from Jeslyn forces him to drop his weapons and begin stripping off his armor. His mask is the last thing he reaches for. Lucius' mace crunches into the tiefling, knocking it unconscious.
Deradnu flings a hand back at the tieflings attempting to move up to help him. He roars and swings his mighty axe again, this time with hate behind it...
But he misses Saoirse and instead rips out chunks of the doorframe.
Aero will smash at the tiefling across the doorway from him with his morning star.
Lucius screams as the tiefling's sword cuts into his flesh, even as his mace puts the demonspawn on the floor. He chokes back the scream into an Infernal invocation to mend the wound.
As the same time, he steps back to the wall: out of the mist and more importantly, out of Nebbin's way.
Saoirse will continue to attack the minotaur.
A tiefling that had disappeared up the stairs that the minotaur came through comes running back down and into the room by Jeslyn.
Aero's morningstar catches the tiefling under the jaw, causing his eyes to roll back and his body to flumpf to the floor.
Saoirse digs yet again into the fearsome minotaur's hide, eliciting another scream but not as pain-ful as the last.
Jeslyn mutters something and the air seems to shimmer in front of her.
AC 16, touch 12, flat-footed 14 (-2 to all when raging), DR: 1/-, Cold resist: 0
Fort +5, Ref +3, Will +1 (+2 Will when raging)
CMD 17
HP 34 (38 when raging)
Rage: 2/10
Effects: Enlarge 4/10 (-1 AC due to size; +1 damage)
"Get away from her, you bully!" Nebbin orders as he advances and using the giant-magic he's been endowed with tries to swing his hammer over Thom and Saoirse.
Lucius will level the wand at the minotaur, blasting it with magical motes.
In the midst of the mount-clouding, Thom is unable to maintain his link to the Chelaxian.
Then, Thom’s mind clears, and—with his thick fingers in the middle of loosening the ties on his shoulder brace—he realizes what just happened. He rips his morningstar free from its belt-hook and roars wordlessly at the minotaur, leveling a brutal two-handed blow at its knee in an attempt to mow it down to get at the demon-witch cowering behind it.
Nebbin's enormous hammer swings true and clobbers the beast on the head, dazing it briefly.
Lucius' missiles slam into its chest as Thom's morningstar flashes deadly and strikes a blow to the minotaur's skull. The combined assault manages to bring it to its knees, slumped over, breathing laboriously.
The tieflings in the room with the minotaur look stupidly on at the dying creature. The two drop their shortswords as Jeslyn screams at them in Abyssal.
The remaining tiefling in the northeast room swipes at Aero.
But the halfhearted strike doesn't even come close.
Saoirse turns towards Nebbin and the rest of the group for a moment as she shouts out a quick "Thanks!" Turning back towards the enemies in front of her, Saoirse springs forward, her foot digging into the minotaurs furry thigh as she uses its massive bulk to shift her weight and charge directly for the screaming woman, her shield raised over her as she thrusts Radiance directly for her sternum.
Aero glances nervously over his shoulder at the minotaur while he continue to hold the doorway with his morningstar.
morningstar: 1d20 + 5 + 1 ⇒ (5) + 5 + 1 = 11
Damage: 1d6 + 3 + 1 ⇒ (3) + 3 + 1 = 7
The tiefling in the room with Jeslyn cowers in fear, from the group, from Jeslyn, and from whatever innate sense of danger he still possesses. Aero's blow barely manages to catch the tiefling in the doorway, knocking him unconscious.
Saoirse scores a deep wound into the misshapen woman and she screams. She looks back at Saoirse with hatred nakedly displayed and throws her scythe down.
Nebbin pauses. He doesn't know what she said, but it appears she's not fighting anymore.
And she's a girl. I don't know if I could really hit a girl.
He sucks in deep breaths as he realizes his friends are safe and his anger and energy seems to ebb away.
Thom’s eyes lock onto Jeslyn’s, hatred writ plain despite the mask. He rasps back a response, the passion of his hatred oozing from every Abyssal syllable.
He punctuates the final words with a massive two-handed swing that buries the head of his morningstar between the unconscious minotaur’s eyes … splattering himself, the floor, and the walls with dark, thick minotaur blood.
He takes a few deep breaths, still trying to murder her with a glare. Then, with a step towards her, Thom lifts his bloody morningstar and continues in Abyssal.
He waits for an answer, fully expecting deception from such Woundfilth. The threat of violence hangs menacingly in the air … carrying the weight of the penance for any lies she may try.
Saoirse looks on in surprise as Jeslyn drops her scythe to the ground. Quickly kicking it away into a far corner, Soairse holds her sword pointed at the woman as she and Thom exchange words, her face grimacing slightly as she hears the wet crunch of the minotaur meeting a mace. Breathing heavily, Saoirse half turns her face to look at Thom, "What are you saying to her? What is she saying?"
Aero wipes his brow as he tries to catch his breath.
Lucius breathes a sigh of relief as the minotaur falls and the others seemingly surrender, their champion/pet/mascot/idol fallen. His wand hand presses against the rapidly (but not as rapid as he might like) closing wound in his side. And I just bought a new shirt, too.
He steps forward, trying not to drop his guard around this many armed foes. "She offered her petty god's mercy if we would show her the same.", he scoffs. "As if she would offer us the same courtesy, or any of this demonic filth being known for mercy. Thom is merely point out that her value, alive, is equal to the information she can provide us. Loudly and angrily, perhaps, but I am of the opinion she has that coming."
He raises his voice, brandishing his wand at the cowering tieflings. "Drop your weapons and come forward, or you will be slain where you stand."
Assuming they do so, he'll fetch the manacles and rope from his pack, distributing them to his allies with the simple command. "Bind them and search them."
Saoirse keeps her sword pointed directly at Jeslyn as she listens to Lucius, "We can't just leave these heretics behind, even if we do tie them up, and taking them forward with us isn't safe either..."
Saoirse's mind turns back to the previous time the group faced this situation, her sword hand trembling a bit as she remembers beheading the fallen cavalier. "We may have to leave this building for a time and head back to Defender's Heart with our new prisoners, we might have enough time in the day to get back here before nightfall. Unless someone else has a suggestion?"
The tieflings throw their weapons down and come quietly. Jeslyn hisses but says in Common, "What do you wish to know? That even now, your doom marches closer?" She looks at Thom, unflinching at the minotaur's demise, "Resistance? There is no resistance, the Wardstone will be under our control shortly. Head upstairs and test my words if you do not believe."
Thom returns his morningstar to the hook on his belt before binding Jeslyn with Lucius's manacles. "You heard her," he rasps to Saoirse as he works, the fury in his voice dropping to a smolder, "we don’t have time for anything but what we came for.”
He steps away from the manacled woman, reclaiming his blade and shield, ”What do you mean ‘our doom marches closer’?”
He looks sideways at the team, concern showing through the mask’s eye-holes.
"Your life only extends as far as your usefulness, demonspawn. Speak not in riddles."
Jeslyn throatily laughs, "Deskari's army marches here any day. Areelu Vorlesh will bring untold misery on any still alive here."
Saoirse shakes her head as she shifts her grip on the hilt of her sword, "We aren't getting anywhere with this, she is wasting our time. Knock them out and we can leave them tied up in a barred room, we'll collect them once we finish what we came here to do."
Saoirse raises her sword up and bunches her arm up before striking her pommel into the side of Jeslyn's head.
Nebbin looks wide-eyed from each of his companions back to Jeslyn and back again.
Wait, does Lucius want to kill her? No, that can't be right...
The big man hunches his shoulders, looking miserable.
Thom pulls coils of rough hempen rope from his pack, corralling the living tieflings—whether alert, unconscious, or bleeding out—into the northern-most corner near the hidden armory entrance. There he binds them all together, in a tight circle, all of them facing outwards, on their knees, the rope binding their wrists behind their backs to their ankles.
"Compliant prisoners of war earn the right to work off their crimes against this city." He makes his raspy voice as menacing as possible. "You try to escape, flee, or fight back ... you forfeit your right to do anything but bleed out the rest of your lifeblood. Understood?"
Satisfied he's done all he could with the riffraff, he returns to the group, drawing his longsword. "Ready?"
As he waits for an answer from the team, or any other prep they want to do before proceeding, he gets out the group's healing wand and puts it to good use on everyone.
Nebbin nods his readiness, having caught his breath, and hefts his earthbreaker as he shrinks back to his normal size.