Frowning Yngvild stows he handaxe on her belt, leaning on her battleaxe as she crouches down beside the girl."Is Lady Arvina actually your mother? Was she hurting you and your sister?" she asks gently.
She couldn't imagine any mother actually abandoning her child to armed strangers for any reason.
As they stumbled into this new group of people Schandra saw the axe and began to gather flames, just in case they were going to have to fight the pair. The fact the two talked as opposed to attacked gave her enough wariness that she let the magic she had gathered safely dissipate so that it wouldn't be wasted. As they prepared to move forward she looked at them and asked, "Can someone do something about our wounds before we proceed?"
The young girl cowers at your feet.
"Please! Please don't kill me," she begs, "My mother and father, Lord and Lady Arvina, have been taking in travelers and using them for their sick games. My sister and brother have joined in as well. I never did. I never agreed with it, but my mother said she was going to teach me how to put the northern people in their place. Please, I never had anything to do with it. Mercy! I beg of you mercy," she begins to sob.
Kresh turns back back when he hears Schandra's request. Eyeing eveyone up and down before looking at his own puncture wounds. "Aye, Suppose these are pretty nasty. Get over here if you want some patchin up."
Yngvild studies the girl for any cues that she might be deceiving them, her ears practices at hearing the truth in people's words.
"A trap then," Vaenathis mutters as he takes advantage of the older dwarf's offer of healing. "And for such a... distasteful purpose," he adds with a roll of his eyes. He then turns to the others. "What of the kidnapped girls then?"
Schandra approached Kresh and let the dwarf do what he was going to so that she could be healed. She felt the energy wash over her and knit the worst of the injuries she had sustained. She wasn't in the greatest shape but she felt she was close enough for now.
About then Schandra heard the girl begging for her life and turned abruptly to see why the young woman was sobbing. She was worried about some threat and the flames began to gather again but when she heard what was said she let the flames die once more and listened intently in case more trouble was brewing.
"B-b-below. They're b-below. I-I can show you how to get there," the girl whimpers.
Arradir sighs and grunts. "Stop whimpering, lass. We're not going to hurt you. Just... take us to the others, I suppose, and we'll take care of the rest." The man looks to his dog with concern, noting her sluggish movements and the tongue lolling from her mouth, the saliva thick. Of course, your father doesn't get off so easy.
"Th-the other travelers? I-I c-c-can, b-b-but... but..." she tries to say before breaking down and sobbing there on her knees.
"It's horrible! It's horrible what they did to them," she cries.
Yngvild rests her hand on the girl's back comfortingly. "We need to see it, if only to confirm what happened to them." she says softly.
"We believe you, and believe that you didn't participate, and we will gladly take you away from here and all the horror within. But your parents, your siblings, they have done horrible things. I cannot promise you that no harm will not befall them." she says grimly, her tone making it clear the night would likely end in violence.
"They've made their choices, the same as any one of us, my dear. Their Fate may already be sealed. All that remains is for us to learn whether or not that's true," Rodok says, plucking an Ioun from its orbit for a brief moment before releasing it. "If it's not, perhaps we can save them."
Kresh sits in silence as he doles out curative magic, not wanting to interact much with the daughter of the man his bull had just trampled to death.
The girl nods and stands. She's a little shaky on her feet as she moves to where the secret door is and opens it.
"Th-this way," she says, obviously shaken by the events that have transpired this night.
Taking point, Yngvild moves into the passageway, keeping alert for any sign of ambush.
Kresh lags behind a bit as he carefully maneuvers Kruuh through the slightly to small corridors. "I only hope that you don't betray us. Kruuh here doesn't like people that slight me."
Schandra realized the young woman was frightened, it was pretty obvious, and she moved to walk beside her as she said, "It's alright, we aren't here to hurt you." She reached out to place an arm around her shoulders as she said, "I'm Schandra, what's your name?"
Schandra's attempt at trying to make the girl feel a little less frightened brings a smile to Vaen's face as he moves along with the rest of them. Still, he only affords the interaction a brief glance, preferring to keep his eyes and focus on the passageway stretching before them.
"Do you see anything?"
Arradir isn't great with people, let alone children, so he leaves the girl to the others. He carefully places a hand on Ylva's head, and guides her with the rest of the group, keeping eyes and ears open for signs of danger.
"Galeria," the young girl answers. She directs you through the maze of passages which have been built into the walls of the manor. Even with the thick walls, you can hear the muffled cries and shouts directing the firefighting efforts against the blaze in the barn.
Kruuh snorts and paws at the ground, not liking the cramped space at all. There's just enough room for a person to squeeze by on either side, but his size and weight make it so that he would have to be calm otherwise the people trying to get by would risk serious injury.
You hear the sounds of armor and arms being readied ahead.
Rodok makes a sweeping motion with his hand that seems to draw the aura, including the light it's been giving off, back into nothingness.
"Can't well sneak up on anyone like that," he grunts, quietly.
"Careful now," Vaenathis warns the others softly. "There are guards or some such up ahead. I can hear armor and weapons. I do not think a fight can be avoided, so ready yourselves."
"Better to surprise them now before they can prepare." Yngvild whispers, her axes at the ready.
Schandra pulled Galeria in close beside her and said, "You don't need to be afraid of us Galeria, we aren't going to hurt you and I will protect you." When the guards were mentioned the ifrit looked to Galeria, "Can you get them to stand down so we don't have to fight them?"
Schandra allowed the young woman to go ahead and tell the guards to stand down before moving down the way.
Schandra said to the others, "Let me do something to start off with, soften them up." With that she stepped ahead of everyone, gathered the magical fire within her soul and with a gesture sent a ball of fire streaking down to where the guards were to explode among them as she said, "Now!"
Arradir nods at the mention of guards, and readies his heavy knife in hand. The spear is a more powerful weapon, but clumsy in close quarters like this--the knife will do well, as it has so far.
Gaius: 9 damage and on fire
Guard 1: 4 damage
Guard 2: Dead
Guard 3: 4 damage
Guard 4: 4 damage
Guard 5: 4 damage
Guard 6: Dead
Almost before Galeria finishes shaking her head in answer to Schandra's question, the fiery woman is flinging a small bead of fire down the passage where it erupts into a ball of flame. As it disappears, you hear the yells of anger and pain from those that survive.
"Kill them," a voice that Arradir and yngvild recognize as Gaius' snarls and there is the clatter of armor and arms as the remaining guards begin to move.[/b]
"I don't think I'm supposed to die today. Are you?" Rodok replies, eerily unconcerned with the threats leveled against them. Releasing the light he'd been holding in now that they've been seen, he refreshes the Aura from before.
Pointing upward, he traces a familiar pattern, and sends a cone of negative enery down the hall towards their foes.
Rodok's spell saps the energy from the men as they start to come down the passage. Most of them succumb to the magic, though one guard fights through it.
"What foul sorcery is this you northern cur," Gaius screams.
With fighting no longer simply inevitable but actually upon them, Vaenathis sighs as once again a two-handed sword, the same as before but clean and bloodless, emerges out of a distortion in the air and quickly proceeds to attack anyone still standing after Rodok's spell on its own.
"Well, here we go again," he mutters softly, almost disapprovingly, as he takes care to keep himself away from the advancing guards.
Yngvild steps into the fray with practiced calm, greeting the oncoming soldiers with violence as her axes flashin as she attacks
Yngvild cuts down the one guard that had resisted Rodok's magics. Unfortunately for her, this meant that Gaius could now step up and attack her.
Despite the hatred in his eyes, he fails to wound the ranger.
Vaen's attack does little more than fan the guard.
Schandra had stayed back from the fighting this time getting only close enough to send gouts of fire at her enemies. she chose one of the guards who was not burning and sent a burst of fire at him but didn't know that her hastily aimed blast would hit in the confined space. With that she drew her mace, just in case she needed it.
Gaius howls as he continues to burn, Schandra adding to his agony.
The remaining guards come to their lord's aid, attempting to beat the fire off him as they pull him back.
Kresh, not wanting too send Kruuh barreling down the hall full of friends. Instead kneels and places his hands on the ground, causing the earth under their enemies shake and tilt.
As the guards draw Gaius back, beating at the flames, Yngvild takes advantage of the opening, planting her battleaxe dead center of his forehead.
"Hmph," the half-elf mutters in an annoyed voice as his levitating sword once again misses its target. "It would seem I need more practice..."
As the guard recoils in horror, bathed in his master's blood, Yngvild reverses her swing, bringing her axe blade slamming down into the man's shoulder. "Take them all down!!" she roars to her companions, her blood fired up, infusing them all with her fury, like a pack descending on prey.
Gaius: 59 damage, prone, and on fire
Guard 1: Dead
Guard 2: Dead
Guard 3: 4 damage and prone
Guard 4: Dead
Guard 5: 4 damage and prone
Guard 6: Dead
Only two of the guards remain, and Gaius bleeds heavily from his wounds. All three of them have been tripped by Kresh's magic.
As Yngvild chops at Gaius with her axe, and Kresh sends the enemies toppling to the floor, Arradir lunges forward with a snarl. He leaps to kneel over the Imperial noble and plants his knife heavily into the man's gut, wrenching it to open his gullet. "That's for my dog, you bastard."
Wordlessly, Rodok pulls a javelin from the pack on his back, and hurls it down the hallway towards Gaius.
Gaius and the other two guards stand up.
As Gaius rises to his feet, Yngild once again brings her battle axe crashing down on the Imperial noble. "Why won't you die?!"
"Heart like a bull, I'll give'em that." Kresh quips at Yngvild in response to her question. "Luckily I got a whole one right here." With that Kresh blinks Kruuh to the opisit side of Gaius from Yngvild. "Finish it Kruuh."
Taking advantage of the opening the enemies give him as they try to rise from the floor, Vaen brings his large sword down on one of them, almost splitting him in twain from his left collar bone to his right hip.
You make short work of Gaius, turning him into a bloody wreck. As you finish off the guards, you can hear Galeria retching back down the passage.
Arradir only hacks into Gaius's body once after the man is already dead, and then he controls himself and breathes heavily for a moment. He draws his knife clean across the man's clothing, and then stows it in its sheath as he stands. "Well. Where to now?"