As the orc starts to stand, Iko slashes down with his sword.
As the orc is on his feet, Iko reverses his curved blade and hooks it behind the orcs knees and tries to pull his legs out from under him again.
And as the orc fall's, iko reverses his blade and stabs down on the orc.
Iko's first attack slams into the Orc, cutting him deep, as the Orc gets up Iko's foot lashes out and the Orc Crashes to the floor once again. The scream from the Orc is loud and pure hatred.
Tink casts pilfering hand and directs it to bring him the orcs weapon.
Having all the time of the world now Lynn casts a Cure spell herself on Aniva.
"I guess they can handle that guy on their own. How are you?" she asks Aniva.
Tink again disarms the raging orc, his blood lust his a higher. "That woman will die and then I will kill her wife for what she did to me."
"Where is her wife." SteelGate's gears grate as he raises his arms ready to bring them down on the orc.
"Get up and out of here until the battle is over." Lynn prompts Aniva, gives her a hand and pulls her out of the door and and behind the wall for cover.
The Orc Spits at SteelGate, "Dead for all I know, I hoped that wench knew where she was. I didn't expect her to die so easily." He starts to laugh as she coughs up some blood. The orc manages to wiggle out of the blow from SteelGate.
The Orc pulls out a hatchet an swings at Iko, knowing that he cannot get up till the tripping elf is gone.
Iko hops over the orc's futile attempt at an attack, and Iko retaliates with a flurry of jabs with his sword.
"You leave me no choice!"
Don delays.
Iko Reins Blows down upon the Orc but he just keeps living, laughing as Iko hits him and coughing up more blood. "You will see, you will all sse. I will take revenge up Irabeth."
The Archer you hired comes into the house, seeing the downed Orc he gets up on the table and launches an arrow straight into this eye.
"Yer takin' to long and the night time is not bein' the best time to be out doors." He then stabs him through the next just to make sure.
"Anything else you be needin' me ta finish for ye?"
"Sounds like it is finally over. Let's go check if that orc infestation was the only problem in your home." Lynn prompts Aniva to follow in.
Iko looks at the archer. "Finish him off after we do all the work. Hrm." he says then walks aside and asks Lynn "Is the girl alright?"
"If you mean that grown up married woman named Aniva here - I wouldn't say she is fine, but she can stand on her own leg again. But let's ask her herself. Are you alright Aniva?" Lynn replies.
Just as long as the threat is disposed of, I am fine with killstealing. We should set up watches for tonight.
"Well, besides the blood hat now stains your home in two places it seems intact. But no one else is here, so I guess Irabeth is somewhere else."
"Do you want to stay here, or come further along?" Lynn asks. "We're not staying with that much people in this hut, are we?" she asks as Don talks about night watches.
Night time will be much more hazardous. The ground is criss-crosed with ravines and chasms and those demons will have the advantage.
Aniva walks back into her house with the help of Lynn, seeing the dead orc on the ground and the archer you paid off lounging on one of her kitchen chairs she slinks down to the ground.
”Maybe she is dead, maybe I won’t ever find her.” Aniva looks back up at Lynn, ”Thank you for everything you have done for me.” After a moment her eyes light up and she stands up, hobbling over to the bed room. The room has been destroyed the mattress was slashed and all the valuables broken in piles on the floor. Moving a few books, Aniva pulls a tool for a pouch on her belt, she then peels back a false wall. Inside she pulls out a pouch, everyone can hear some clinking as she puts her hand in and reads a note out loud.
”My Dearest Aniva,
I hope this finds you safe, I have left you some gifts to help you along your way. Myself and the other Eagle Knights have found some survivors and are taking refuge at Defender’s Heart. Once you get this please come right away. The password is ”SilverStrong”.
Your Love,
Irabeth
Aniva hands the bag off to whoever is with her, ”She would have left some healing potions and probably some others to help hide me. We have to leave now, I want to be safe where she is!” Aniva would jump if she could.
Lynn shrugs at Don's comment. For her darkness isn't worse than it is for the demons.
As Aniva comes back out the next room jumping she tells "Looks like we're not staying here for the night. But at least there will be someone else to hold watch at defenders heart."
Very well, let us get going right now.
"Do you need something from here to take along before we leave?" Lynn asks Aniva.
"No I think I have everything, see if there is any food in the cupboards."
Aniva sits down again, cradling the letter in her hands.
The cupboards have some food in them, a hard loaf of bread and some preserves as well.
The group packs up the food and supplies, heading out Aniva asks SteelGate to help her into the wagon.
The trip isn't to long to Defender's heart, as you approach the area you can see the large building has held out well. Shadows can be seen in the windows and all the rubble and a few buildings have been knocked down and cleared away to leave an open avenue of approach to the side you are coming from.
"Halt!, lay down your arms and allows us to inspect you before coming closer!" The voice his harsh and deep.
Silverstrong! Don calls out
"Aren't we supposed to whisper that to one of them?" Lynn wonders. "Or is that password single use?"
Turning to the figure in the shadows she calls "Well, you don't trust us, and I'm not sure if I trust you. But if you get Irabeth here this problem can be solved immediately. She will recognize her wife for sure."
A few of the troops outside look at each other, a man who must be the leader looks at a young woman telling her to "go". The woman runs off, another 2 troops come from the eastern side of the building close to the wall, their crossbows leveled at the group.
After about 5 minutes a young female half-orc emerges from inside the building. She is flanked by the female sent in plus another, a boy probably no older than 15 wearing armor that is to big and his sword belt doesn't sit quite properly.
"May I help..." The Half-orcs face lights up as she sees her wife, she rushes forward leaving her guards well behind. Aniva hobbles forward and they embrace for a few moments. The Half-Orc turns to you, "Thank you for returning my wife, come in we cannot offer much but I will see about some rooms and food."
Seeing this leftover army Lynn fears the worst. But a place to rest and some food sounds good. She follows inside.
Don enters as well.
The building was large on the outside it is even larger on the inside. There are many people on the main floor. A large man with one arm approaches you, "Good day, I am Kimroth Otai owner of this Inn, Irabeth here is in charge of most things but I have 2 rooms that are available. There are some merchants set up in the cellars. We don't have much but we are willing to share. If you come across anything that could help here bring it back and you will be paid for it."
"Hi, I'm Lynn. That's great because we have this guy here, who is really helpful in the fight vs. evil when paid. But he has the tendency to also work for evil when paid. So I hoped to find some good guys who can offer him a job."
Kimroth looks at Lynn not really sure what to say, Umm... that is an... interesting statement. I will go see to the Eagle Knights and see if they can offer him work with pay." Kimroth heads off.
You can go anywhere in here, there are plenty of low level clerics that will offer to heal you for free. Iomadae, Torag and Abdar are all being represented.
Don has his few slight wounds healed. The lady with the broken leg that came with us needs help as well. So what has happened since everything exploded?
"That room, right?" Lynn calls after Kimroth pointing to a seemingly not occupied room. She moves in and peels herself out of the armor and the boots and throws everything into a corner. Relieved from all that weight she falls on the bed and stares at the ceiling.
After a while she gets up, gets rid of her dirty street clothes and gets her wash bag out. She cleans her face, arms and feet. Finally she puts the nice dress on that she got as a gift yesterday and brushes her hair.
As she is done with it a nice girl looks back from the mirror and no longer an iron clad warrior. She sits down on the bed with her journal and pencils and starts drawing how Aniva lay in the arms of Irabeth.
Kimroth looks back to Lynn and nods.
People move through the building through the night. Eventually Irabeth comes to the group early in the morning.
"thank you for returning my wife, I thought her lost during the attack. What can I tell you about the attack?" Irabeth sits down in a chair. "Do you know of Terendelev’s death?" Sadness in her voice.
Aniva hobbles over to the group and sits down, "Still sore but some tending to and apparently lots of time off my legs." She elbows Irabeth gently. Irabeth continues "We found to free this building from some cultists and then set up shop here, we have done a few forays into the ruins but we out numbered and supplies are low. Do you have any questions? Tell me more about your time out in the ruins?"
An older man approaches the table, pulling a chair over to sit down with the group.
"Good day, I am Quednys Orlun. I hear that you have come from the southern portion of the city? Did you by chance see Black Wing? It is a library."
I am not familiar with Blackwing, does that ring a bell with anyone? We fell into a crevice and were saved with Terendelev’s magic before she was killed. There we tried to find our way back up and found some rather...different people who we would call mongrel men. They wish to reconnect with the service and fight against the demons.
Lyn puts down her journal and joins the meeting. "The Blackwing library is still standing. But it could use some defenders. The librarians got almost burned to death on a pile of their books by a guy who turned evil. We stepped in there at the last moment."
"That is the worst we found out. Knights in crusaders armor with insignia of Iomedae who secretly worship Baphomet or one other demon whose name I've forgotten. This whole fall of Kenabres was long planned and the demons got all of Kenabres infiltrated with traitors."
"Under the city we found the Mongrelmen as Don told. They are strange creatures, but were helpful to our cause and despise the demons too. Well, all that remain. Some of them turned to, or were forced to work with the traitors, but we cleared out that camp. Tink should have the note we found with that evil cleric. There were some of their plans on it."
"We also found Millorn down there, a strange dwarven mage. Once we got to know him he was an ok fellow. But from what he told it seems he is not much liked on the surface."
"Did I forget something?"
Irabeth and Quednys both look at Lynn as she mentions Millorn. "We thought he fled the city, he is mad, raving about demonic grafting and trying to figure them out on a more personal level." Quednys says.
"That Old blow hard, Horgus Gwerm!" Aniva says with a sneer
"If you want to list all the people who fell with us into the underground, survived and came out with us then there's Aniva Tirablade," Lynn comments with a grin "Horgus Gwerm and Aravashnial - an elf who's with the Riftwardens."
"And as for Millorn. Let him be crazy. At least he is still working against the demons. That's more than can be said of a lot of people these days."
So what should we do next? See if there are more survivors?
"Irabeth we need to send men to Blackwing Library and bring the survivors here, as well as moving the library here if possibles." Quednys says.
"We don't have the man power to do such a thing, we are barely holding our own here." Irabeth retorts.
Quednys Gets up and paces a bit, you can see his stooped posture and bad right hip cause him pain. "I will send my own people, I just need a small guard, someone who will work for coin." Quednys looks around the group. "We should bring Horgus here as well, he knows the money of this city plus he owns the Cold Iron mine to the west, maybe it is still up and running."
"If you go visit the Library take someone with you who can heal wounded eyes. Aravashnial stayed with them but he lost his eyesight during the fall." Lynn adds. "If he'd be restored to full health I guess he'd be a huge asset in protecting the library."
"He would be yes, he is probably our only field agent left in the city, maybe even left at all." Quednys says quietly. "I wasn't asking you to go personally, we have people here who can.
Irabeth interrupts as she is reading the note that Tink gave her. [b]"THese places on this note, we need to investigate them right away, if your group does that I will organize some resources and man power to gather Aravashnial and Horgus and relocate them here." Irabeth stands, bowing to the group "Excuse me as I go to prepare."
A slight smile comes to Quednys' face.
"Excuse Irabeth, she is just stressed, she wasn't prepped to be in charge like this. Do you want to see about selling some of the extra stuff you found along the way.?" Aniva hobbles towards the stairs to the basement.