GO! Olivius barks by way of acknowledgement.
Sending a surge of power through the strings, amplifying the sound over the rain, Horatio swings his bow into his left hand, draws his rapier with his right, and charges into the fray.
Saroune hears the beast's threats and shudders inwardly at what its claws could do to her. The wizard produces a pinch of eyelashes coated in gum arabic and forces her will into them. Sprinkling the lashes over herself, she suddenly vanishes from the naked eye. Her enemies couldn't hit what they couldn't see.
Nualia: 8 Bookin' it
AC: 18/11/17
Resist: acid 5, cold 5, electricity 5
Lyrie: 24 PANICKED 5 Rounds
AC: 18/14/14
Malfeshnekor: 46
AC: 20/11/18
Yeth Hound: Dead
AC: 15/12/13
Horatio plays with the height of his skill, his music weaving with the rain and stirring the heroes to even greater heights. With a flourish, Horatio leaves the strings ringing as he stabs the monstrous hound in it's black heart. The beast gives a single pathetic yelp before turning into ash.
Ignoring the goblin she just felled, Pavanna swiftly assesses the four different foes remaining in sight. Horatio’s headlong charge suddenly reduces that number, and she stifles a proud smile as the demonic hound flares and crumples into dust. For a man who maintains he’s far out of his depth, he’s doing better than he realises.
Her eyes linger on the fleeting cloaked figure for a breath, and she is sorely tempted to pursue, but they have more immediate problems. And since Noro seems to have Tobyn in hand right now....
Slamming her sword back into its scabbard for a moment, she crosses to where Thirzin stands and breathes a brief prayer of protection. For all that Asuriel is absorbing some of his wounds, the dwarf is sorely hurt already, and despite the thickness of his armour, the fury that powers his strikes is also weakening his defences. I imagine my instructors would point to that as an object lesson....
Nualia: -2 Dying
AC: 18/11/17
Resist: acid 5, cold 5, electricity 5
Lyrie: 24 PANICKED 4 Rounds
AC: 18/14/14
Malfeshnekor: 46 Fleeing
AC: 20/11/18
Yeth Hound: Dead
AC: 15/12/13
Noro catches up to Nualia who desperately tries to flee from the brawler. The priestess of Lamashtu is clotheslined for her troubles and her head hits the ground with a crack.
Malfeshnekor, already badly hurt and seeing that his mistress is down, takes one final bite at the one of the heroes, Pavanna this time, and turns to flee. His long legs carrying him away as fast as Noro could run.
Olivius knows there's no way he can catch the beast, so he makes sure everything that looks dead is dead, then produces some rope to secure the captives.
After the battle Noro drops to her knee, looking rather pale and sickly, she looks as though she is about to puke but doesn't.
after a minute or so she starts to recover.
Thirzin slings his weapon after his enemy, but it doesn't seem to do much good. The weight flies wide, leaving an immense crater where it lands, as the dwarf curses loudly. Moments later, the color returns to the dwarf's face. The moment is short lived, as he nearly hits the ground as well, sweat pouring off him in a proverbial downpour.
Malfeshnekor continues to run, not even pausing to taunt Thirzin after the dwarf misses.
After a moment, the woman that had been affected by the hound's howl recovers her senses. Seeing the carnage and all of the heroes still standing, she surrenders, claiming that Nualia forced her to help.
Noro recovers to find Nualia unconscious but still breathing.
Sprig remains alive, but her injuries are severe. To make things worse, she's begun to shrink back to her normal size.
Once Noro regains her composure, she grabs the unconscious Nualia by the ankle and drags her through the mud and such back to the group.
tossing the body at Olives's feet. I think she's still alive, I would rather rip her face apart though. she says, hoping to get some nod of approval to torture the crap out of Nualia.
Nualia groans as she lands at Olivius' feet, still alive, if hurt rather badly.
Olivius spends down at the... Thing at his feet. He meets Noro's eyes. Make sure she stays out for a while, but don't kill her quite yet. She may be useful.
"The face-ripping seems excessive," Horatio says dryly, pulling his rapier out of the dead hound with a horrible sound. "That could have gone far worse, though we'll have that beast to contend with later, I'm certain." With a sigh, he stretches his arms out behind his back. "In the meantime, we have Sprig to tend to, and two captives. We'd best get started." Despite his confident words, he stands uncertainly in the midst of the settling chaos.
"Bind her hands and gag her," Saroune says, pointing to the wizardess uselessly. Realizing her invisibility charm was still active, she drops her spell, re-materializing behind Horatio. "It's the only way we can be sure she won't use her magic."
While the other members of the group are so focused on the woman, the source of their ire, Thirzin rushes to his small friend.
"Hold on, lass..." he says quietly, as he crouches down, doing his best to keep Sprig's body from falling to the ground. The gruff dwarf cradles his friend and ally, a scene far too familiar. "Stay with ol' Thirzin..."
"Th-thirzin," Sprig's small, pain wracked voice asks as the little sprite's eyes open just a hair. "P-p-please be real."
She lies there in the dwarf's arms, barely longer than a dagger and continuing to grow smaller. a moment later, she's back to normal size, but the glow that always seems to be present is missing, and her breaths come in shallow.
Thirzin continues to cradle her, as she returns to the size they all are so familiar with.
"I'm real, Sprig. All of us are here, lass, and we'll get you right as rain."
"S-silly dwarf," she says as she gives Thirzin a weak smile, "'s already rainin'."
Ping stumbles up next to Thirzin, clutching the bleeding wound on her arm. She falls to her knees, tears in her eyes as she looks at the badly mauled sprite.
"Sprig?"
The tears fall, leaving hot trails on skin soaked by the cold rain.
Olivius gets Asuriel's attention and not so subtly motions her over to the suffering Pixie.
For her part, with Asuriel assigned to dealing with Ping, Pavanna keeps a close eye on their new captives. She glances to Lyrie first, eyes as hard as rubies. “We might want to bind her eyes, as well — she can’t cast spells on what she can’t see.”
With Saroune standing guard over them both, the tiefling steps forward, cleans her sword on the prisoner’s cloak as a none-too-subtle warning, then sheathes it. “I gave Vancaskerkin my oath that I would give you a chance to save your own life. That chance is here and now, so don’t waste it: I have reason not to give you another.”
Under the watchful eyes of the guard, in case their prisoner tries something, Pavanna firmly and thoroughly searches Lyrie, stripping her of any weapons, wands or scrolls, spell-component pouches, and spellbook, handing-off each find to Saroune as she goes.
Once that’s done, she follows Saroune’s advice, gagging Lyrie and binding her hands with strips cut from the woman’s cloak.
Noro simply stood there after dropping off Nualia. she seems to be struggling to hold back her anger.
she glances at Sprig, then at Horatio, then back to Nualia. her fist tighten, turning almost white at the tightness of her clenched fist.
after a few seconds a couple drops of blood drip from her hands. You just don't understand she whispers not directed at anyone in particular.
she looks more intensely at Nualia, her fist starts to cock as though she is ready to do something similar to what happened with Tsuto, her punch does not fly. Noro manages to restrain her anger.
She turns and goes to Thirizin and Ping, and Sprig.
she places a hand on both Thriizin and Ping's shoulder, she will be alright, just like when you told me Horatio was alright.
there is a pause, the Noro turns to address everyone, we should go back to town.
I agree, but I would like to make sure that tower is empty...
Olivius says as he pulls the last of the bonds tight.
"I-it's empty," Lyrie spits out in a rush, her eyes darting to Pavanna for a moment, "you cleared most of it yesterday! There's only corpses to be found there now! Please, get us somewhere safe b-before that beast comes back!"
"So that beast holds no loyalty to you?" Horatio asks, frowning as he looks around through the rain. "We should see about that thing," he mutters, mainly to himself.
Noro looks over to the others that were rescued. then back to the group. he sees Horatio's little sister, and Pings sisters, the look in their eyes, a look she has seen, she even had that look before.
Look, I'm normally all for hunting that thing down, but right now, we have others to think about. they have been through enough. actually we all have.
going over to stand beside Rosaline and hand on her shoulder, haven't they been through enough?
“Noro’s right,” Pavanna says firmly, nodding to the brawler. “We have dependents who need shelter and succor, and prisoners who need proper confinement. We can hunt down the barghest after we do our duty by these people and see them to safety.”
She's terrified of both you and the beast, but she doesn't seem to be lying.
"No! He made it clear if I tried to run he'd eat me whole! He'd probably eat Nualia now, too," the frightened wizard replies.
Olivius looks hesitant, but he relents. To town it is. Maybe we can clear the lower levels tomorrow.
"Can we move Sprig?" Saroune asks.
Noro goes to Olivius, I'm sorry, but we all have been through hell. and those others need to be taken care of. I am sure that beast ain't going anywhere.
after a short pause, huh, listen to me, sounding all compassionate and crap...guess you guys are rubbin' off on me or someten' she adds with a little chuckle.
Olivius nods and his hesitation is gone. Alright. Let's get going.
Relieved that the situation that was getting out of control was quickly resolved. When Sprig is finally returned to the group she quickly makes her way over to her and examines her for injury. While relieved to see her, she is a duty-first mentality and makes sure that the little one isn't going to pass out or die of something while everyone is handing out hugs left and right.
Unfortunately she is still in silent shock about what just happened and is only half paying attention to what she is doing. She pauses and stares at the rain pattering on the ground numerous times, losing focus multiple times.
She's hurt baaaaad. Keeping her conscious is going to be nigh impossible, but you can keep her alive long enough and patch her up well enough that you can get her to Sandpoint.
The heroes gather the spoils of their victory into several bags and take the two captives back to break down the camp and gather everyone they have rescued.
The downpour continues as you reach the camp, perhaps signalling it would be better to wait out the rain. With a lot of effort as a few fire spells, a fire is built and crackles and hisses in the rain, but it helps warm the tents and dry out sodden clothes.
Nualia awakens a short time later. At first she mumbles to herself, but it isn't long before you can hear her screaming.
"No! NO! "
The priestess hisses and spits at everyone she can see, but a moment later, she just hangs her head limply as she sobs.
Olivius, in a foot of compassion, cooks up some meat for her and tosses it her way. He may or may not have been aiming for her head...
Nualia doesn't seem to even notice anything, not even the piece of sizzling meat that smacks her in the head.
"Leave her be," Luca says, probably a bit more loudly than necessary. "She be stuck in her own head and wallowin' in her madness and woe."