Ardwellyn continues his assault on the Cyclops, it's weapon doing significantly less damage than it believed it should.
Yho Yho lets the first sphere rest where it is to make sure it destroys the ballista.
He then conjures another sphere and moves it into the space of another ballista.
Finally in combat Caraid leaps for the cyclop's leg - trying to take a bite out of the creature.
Divine power surges through Caraid as his jaws crash down onto the cyclops - supernatural power flowing through him.
Mar shakes his powerful head, throwing free the zombie kebab and refocusing on the undead that were still moving.
With a powerful flap of his wings, Mar lifts all 4 legs off the ground and unleashes his attack. Spinning around, he whips his forelegs in an almost unnatural motion, clapping against a pair of skeletal warriors. Concluding his spin, he plants his forelegs, and kicks behind him with both hooves, clearing space. Snapping forward with his teeth he grabbed hold of another zombie, throwing it off balance and pulling it off balance. Rearing up for a moment, he crashes down, piercing the thing with his horn. When all is said and done, there's a wide space cleared around Mar filled only with shattered bones and unmoving zombies. Breathing heavy, he looks around ready for more.
As the others circle in, Alpha takes advantage of his one-eye and snips at his heel just as he's shifting weight. the Cyplose teeters and falls!
The Cylops takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Except he's on the ground... so get gets back up and lashes out at alpha!
It's massive ax catches Alpha on the side!
Meanwhile, Mar is carving a path of utter destruction. Undead fall on all sides as he and the Ants keep the path of retreat clear, but the hordes are now closing in on the furious melee with the Cyclops from the front side and your strike team will soon have more to worry about than just one huge, dangerous zombie if something isn't done!
Further back in the line 2 ballistae are down, but eight more fire and do not insignificant damage to your center line! The ants have enough to cover the losses for now, but even they can't keep replacing that kind of loss forever!
Understanding the collateral damage the ballista are capable of, Yho Yho focuses his efforts on taking down as many as possible-as soon as possible. He moves the flaming spheres into two more of them.
Ardwellyn will pour attacks into the Cyclops, attempting to end the threat he represents.
Seeing the imminent danger of the siege weapons, Frist dives upon one of the ballistae, desperately trying to disable the weapon with a flaming bite!
Seeing the Cyclops try to get back up, Alpha lunges at it once again with increased tenacity.
Caraid leaps in and bites again, light still spilling from his jaws as he tastes undead flesh.
As the Cyclops tries to get up the Hounds descend on him, ripping the monster apart! Then they look up and see that they are about to be mobbed by the lesser undead!
Fenrir rips the head off a nearby skeleton with a vicious backhand as it charged in to join the fight!
With the fall of the cyclops, Ardwellyn will step up and give Aid to Caraid.
Happy that his aid helped hold the line of retreat, at least for the moment, Mar picks his head up takes to the sky to see where's he's needed most. Seeing the encroaching enemies moving towards his new Strike Team, he flies towards the front to help hold the line near where the Team will need to escape from.
The team pulls back in a mostly orderly manner while Yho Yho and Frist finish off the ballistae. Just then the Sky Shell snaps back into place and cuts off enemy reinforcements! The Green still doesn't move, indicating that the threat isn't over, but you've caught a break for now.
If it had been anything but ants holding your line there would have been a roaring cheer and a rally to vanquish the undead. But your army here is ants. The unfeeling giant vermin just start to march forward and chomp undead like they were an uncut lawn.
You all retreat to Merge and continue to observe the battle.
Then the crap hits the proverbial fan.
All at once your center line disintegrates as spectral leaves come out of nowhere and shred a dozen ants in a matter of seconds! As far as you can tell, the only thing around here that has leaves is your treant and it's showing no signs of going anywhere. A skeletal form in the midst of swirling leaves rises out of the death and shrieks.
KILL IT! If it gets through we're screwed! Merge commands.
Frist huffs in frustration, then takes off moving as fast as he can, attempting to hit the creature first from the air!
*Fireball Breath (Su)
A flame drake can, as a standard action, breathe a ball of flame that explodes like a fireball. This attack has a range of 180 feet and deals 5d6 points of fire damage (DC 16 Reflex half) to all creatures within a 20-foot-radius spread. Once a flame drake has used its fireball breath, it cannot do so again for 1d6 rounds. The save DC is Constitution-based.
*Speed Surge (Ex)Three times per day as a swift action, a flame drake may draw on its draconic heritage for a boost of strength and speed to take an additional move action in that round.
Frist spits his lozenge of golden fire and shouts after it!
"Burn leaf-flinger!"
Following Merge's orders and gravely concerned for the fate of everyone, Mar takes to the air and charges at the skeleton, banishing his trepidation to the back of his mind. If nothing else, he'd get in the thing's way, and slow it down until the others could arrive, thus keeping it off of the main force of ants.
Having already expended his most potent attack Caraid flickers into combat and attempts to distract the creature so that Ardwellyn can hit it.
Ardwellyn turns and then reappears next to the creature, setting up a flank in the direction the rest of the group is coming from.
Seeing this being is just about as much as Yho Yho can stand-yet his divinely wisdom kicks in and he casts See Invisible...just in case they missed something.
♫"Oh, if only The Dawnflower blessed my eyes with Truesight!"♫
The fireball impacts dead center and the skeleton looks upwards at you, but it doesn't have a face really so it's hard to say what it was feeling about the attack.
Mar, the swirling leaves make it hard to land the hit accurately.
Your charge brushes by the skeleton to no effect!
Everyone within 20 ft of the thing quickly realizes that the leaves swirling around the monster aren't just for decoration! They scrape and cut with every touch!
Yho sees no invisible shenanigans around.
Alpha falters a bit seeing the damage, but he is no ranged fighter, he needs to be in close.
He has no choice but to do what he knows best. He once again rushes in and lunges at the enemy with his teeth bare and jaws open wide.
Alpha gets a good bite in. The skeleton glances his way, but doesn't retaliate. Every move it makes seems slow, like it's moving through water. It's boney finger raises up and points at Frist, but nothing happens...
Once satisfied there is no invisible force responsible for the leaf effect, Yho Yho is finally spurred into action. He flies to within 25 feet of the bony fiend, puffs up his chest-revealing the angelic ankh birthmarked upon his breast, and unleashes the divine power of Sarenrae!
♫"By the blessed light of the Dawnflower, I rebuke you foul abomination!"♫
Leering at the bony finger pointed his way, Frist curls up his wings and dives upon the odd skeleton ignoring the cutting leaves, stopping only at the last second!
He then speeds past and out of the cloud of leaves!
Frist, as you are approaching the skeleton, it's bony finger ignits with horrible green energy and it fires a ray that strikes you in your very soul!
Mar hears Yho Yho's song behind him and revels in it as his spirits rise. It was easy to get down at times like these, but Yho Yho's hope lifts him up. Shrugging off the dozens of cuts from the swirling leaves, he unleashes everything he's got on the monstrosity in front of him.
Ardwellyn stood his ground as the leaves failed to penetrate his hide, warded as it was by all that was good and righteous. Swinging his blade into the creature, he attempts to bring it low.
The subject takes a penalty to Strength equal to 1d6+1 per two caster levels (maximum 1d6+5). The subject’s Strength
score cannot drop below 1. A successful Fortitude save reduces this penalty by half. This penalty does not stack with itself.
Apply the highest penalty instead.
Grimacing at the aching in his muscles and bones from the monster's spell, Frist locks his wings and attempts to glide a short distance before turning back.
Caraid flickers out of the material plane just as the leaves whirl through his body. Unharmed, but unable to do much else he leaps at the creature as Ardwellyn strikes, hoping to aid his grandfather's strike again.
In an absolutely devastating series of attacks, the team bites, slashes, gores, and otherwise demolishes the skeleton! Only one attack, Ard's bite, goes awry because of the swirling leaves.
With that threat dealt with the front soon stabilizes and the ants crush the incursion with almost mechanical precision. No, crush is the wrong word. Crush implies there is something left afterwords. When the ants are done the battlefield is not only clear of undead, but completely clear of bodies as well.
The great Green flies off as soon as the magical threat passes, which it does with surprising suddenness. The Treant wanders off after it's flying master and leaves Merge standing there on the top of a small hill. Youall return to find him/her/them(?) smiling.
Well done, all of you! That might be a record!
Frist is the last back to the hill and Merge, as he helps chase off the remaining undead, firing off Fireballs whenever he can to as much effect as he can manage, without hurting the ants-protectors. He lands heavily, winded in his weakened state. He spits another small bit of fire onto the ground again and laughs.
"Smoke and tears, that was fun!"
Yho Yho flutters back to the meeting area, still keeping a respectful distance from the treant.
♫"Me thinks they sent in the wrong type of adversary. The only thing they succeeded in was giving the Dogs of War a couple bones to chew on!"♫
"HA-HA! Bones!"
Frist chuckles then goes back to checking his wings for damage.
Caraid stretches his mouth in a rough approximation of a grin. "A good fight! They were not match for us!"
"It was good to have a brief challenge after so long."
Alpha shook the debris of the undead from his fur and licked at a few of the minor cuts he had revived from the strange magic leaves.
In all honesty, his own blood helped get rid of the taste of death and decay that lingered from his attacks against the Cyclops and the Skeleton.
Yho Yho calls to his friends who have been wounded in battle to gather around for some channeling of positive energy,
♫"May the blessed divinity of The Dawnflower wash over you and mend your battle wounds!"♫
Now, we wait for orders. Here, take these. Merge hands out small stones with an arcane sigil carved into them on leather straps and assists as needed in securing them to your person in some location that you indicate. They magically alter themselves to accommodate your physiology. These will inform you of the location when you are needed. Remember, that you can be called on at any time as our enemy does not sleep.
Two days later your stones start to glow and you feel a very uncomfortable, but not painful, tingle in the body party like it's waking up from being asleep. Immediately in your mind you know the location, a sliver of land between two breeding grounds that have proven difficult to control, the Lizardmen and the Owlbears.
You race toward the scene as soon as you are able.
When you arrive you find two groups of about a dozen Lizardmen and Owlbears facing off over a strip of land between the woods and a marshy area near the sea. Merge stands in the middle and is clearly only barely holding the situation in check.
Split up. Merge orders quietly as you arrive. I can't talk to both of them at once, so find out what each group wants before we come to blows.
|
Fenrir takes the stone and deposits it within his bag. He nods, and walks back where he came.
"So-so-so, what did you do? You met the dragon? How big is he? As big as you see from the sky? What are your new orders? What's this stone you have? Tell me about your last fight; I heard the Ants won a tremendous victory, thanks to some special- task force thing. Is it true?" He fires off question after question, as is his nature.
Fenrir nods. "Yes, there's a task force, and yes, the Ants won a great victory. That's all I can tell you." He snarls and snaps his jaws at the quickling, jokingly. "And get out of my stuff."
"Okay okay, no need to get testy! the quickling jokes. "Bet I get to the other side of Haven and back before you can get to that tree!" And with that the race begins.
The two spend the rest of the day playing, until Vito has to go back to work. Fenrir spends the rest of the time to himself, pondering what this new Task Force means, and why he's included in it.
Probably going to get myself killed, he thinks sadly. At least it'll be an honorable death.
He remains as such until the stone rings.
Fenrir arrives, watching Merge as he struggles to concentrate. He nods as he receives the command, and trots over to one at random.
He heads over to the Lizardmen. "What seems to be the issue here?" he asks them.