As the dretches swarm, Val goes for her daggers and slashes out at the demons all around them. "Ugh, these things manage to smell even worse when they're in a pack."
Striding next to Ehren, Hinagiku gazes toward the fog filled valley with the tower emerging from its depths.
”And none of our soldiers were armed in the escape? … Ah, I see, so we’ll either have a really short day, or a really long one if the three armies meet each other.”
Ears moving to catch any sound, gaze sweeping to see anything through the fog, Hinagiku silently follows the others through the gates. However, before she can voice her concern for entering the compound so quickly, they find themselves already surrounded.
”I’ve never seen those, can we take them on? Do we retreat? Ary?” she calmly ask through the spell.
As if possessing a supernatural link with Ehren, Hinagiku closes her eyes right as the druid utters the last word of his spell.
Then, with a quick wave of the hand, she signals that she's okay.
At full speed, a mad dash propels Valaria past the dretches' defenses and she rips the life from body after body.
Xanderghul is up!
Hoping to avoid this fight entirely, Xanderghul casts a spell and blinks out of sight, hoping no dretches come for him if he is invisible.
Ayavah seconds Xanderghul's sentiment, vanishing into thin air a moment after he does.
The dretches tear and rip and pull at the heroes with their teeth and claws, hoping to overwhelm them with their sheer numbers. Great clouds of nauseating, stinking filth intermingle with the natural fog, causing their eyes to water - but the invisible bubble of ley covering the heroes protects their noses and mouths from breathing in too much of the stuff.
Ary/Isilme/Hinagiku/Xanderghul/Ehren/Valaria are up!
Val winces as the swarm of demons bites and claws, but they don't seem to get enough real blows in to do more than leave a few painful scratches. "Yup, still reek." She keeps cutting, trying to thin the horde before the dretches actually manage to deal any real damage.
There is no obvious reason to stay within the melee, so Isilme moves quickly to exit, dodging several angry dretches and passing Variska and Valaria as she does. Drawing her rapier as she goes, she turns around quickly once she exits and slashes at one of the nearest of the horrible creatures. While there were certainly plenty of spells she could put to use in this situation, there wasn't much reason to use such tools against the dretches.
"Good call on the protective spell Ehren," she calls out to the druid, pleased to not be taking the full brunt of their stench.
Eyes only opened as a slit because of Ehren’s spell, Hinagiku joins the other in the melee. Though dazzled and surrounded by a confusion of sounds and white fog, the monk finds her bearing, quickly sliding into a fighting stance and seemingly flowing as a wave as she strikes opponent after opponent. And, when attacked, she deftly dodges blow, using the enemy’s number to her advantage.
Between the three women, only a handful of dretches remain.
After the near disaster with his first spell, Ehren cannot be bothered to cast another - not that he should have been to begin with. Peering through the fog with a grimace, he tugs his scimitar out of his sheath and swings at the few short, lumpy silhouettes that come his way. His sword arm is weaker than ever, but against mere dretches, his otherwise futile attacks might make some headway. Besides, judging by the sounds of carnage he could hear around him, his friends were already making short work of the troop.
With the enemy numbers torn down so effectively before she'd even moved, it's no wonder her first attack misses her foes, but Ary quickly corrects her footing and follows through with sword and shield in a well-placed stroke followed by an upending attack that sends dretches tumbling end-over-end.
Xanderghul moves out of the melee as well, staying next to his allies the whole time and ending up next to Isilme. He doesn't want to spend any resources, and he's already lent away his crossbow, so he is left with little to nothing to do, which is exactly what he does.
Ary cuts down a pair of dretches. While Ehren distracts one with his scimitar, Ary has the time to take a wide-sweeping death blow. Then she spins around and with stinging force, Faith smacks a dretch over backward, ending their fight.
Nearby, Variska's swing dances across the last dretch's body, slicing away its life with an expanding gash of a wound. She blinks with some surprise as she feels her wounds start to heal over, golden wisps emanating from Ary's shield and into her body - but she doesn't comment.
The mercenary coughs, squinting through the greenish gas cloud. "Alright. Should we keep moving?"
Combat ends!
Dretches, though among the weakest of the demons, were still nothing to laugh at, especially in a large group like this. The group, however, seemed to have no issues dealing with them in a timely manner, and Isilme was caught off guard by exactly how quickly they managed to dispatch them.
"Good work everyone," she said, though truthfully, Valaria, Ary and Hinagiku did most of the work in this case. "We should continue onward," she adds, keeping her rapier readied and turning back towards the tower.
Slowly breathing out, Hinagiku straightens up from the fighting stance, hands slowly coming to rest in front of her. Then, breathing in, the monk looks through the thick fog at the battlefield. Turning her head to take in as much as possible, she cannot help but be impressed at how well they had fared at a horde of onis. Then, taking advantages of the short moment of silence she closes her eyes, concentrating on her hearing and trying to detect the presence of more foes.
Is everyone okay?... Considering how the fog is hiding us, it might not be too unwise to continue investigating by ourselves. But, we must keep vigilant, it could be dangerous to let ourselves be surrounded too easily again.
Hinagiku's hears snap to attention as she hears footsteps. Though, for now, she remains motionless.
"More are there, to the northeast." Hinagiku whispers, her tone calm yet sharp.
Ehren wipes off his blade before returning it to its sheath, where it was likely to stay for the rest of the battle. Against anything stronger than a dretch, his swordplay was liable to cause him more harm than good.
"Let's try to avoid them if we can," he says in response to Hinagiku, still in the process of blinking away his splotched vision. "Our goal is to get to the tower. We can let the wikkawaks take care of anything we miss."
"Agreed, Val says softly. "We can't afford to get bogged down fighting every demon in the place. That's why we brought the goblins after all."
Xanderghul sniggers, having had an idea he thinks is pretty good. "How about we play a game today?" he asks. "Let's play - 'who can kill the most demons today?' I'll give the winner any scroll that he or she likes from my list of spells."
He smiles broadly, though nobody can see, and his voice emanates from nowhere. "So, how about it? How many did you all get just now? I'll give you bonus points for killing big ones!"
"I can already see my ending up with another comprehend languages scroll," Isilme responds dryly through her spell. "Let us instead try to minimize the killing like Valaria suggested. Though the truth is we may not have that luxury, given Dretches' ability to speak telepathically."
Turning towards the tower she motions for the others to move with her.
Though not particularly amused by Xanderghul's dark sense of humor, Hinagiku stays silent, she had seen the emptied blood outside their quarters up in the castle, and felt like now would not be a good moment to speak her mind, however gently.
"I have your back mr. Ehren, we can follow the others." she whispers to the druid after softly tapping on his shoulder.
"There's kinda a flaw in your logic; we're not really killing them. We're just giving them a jaunt back to the Abyss. But sure, I'm game. We'll take out whoever we can't just evade. And... the fog is pretty much the only thing that's kept them from pouncing on us, I'm sure." she responds through the whisper. "Also, stay close, and don't trust anyone who's not in the message spell. With this fog, it would be easy for someone to show up pretending to be one of us if they have the magic.
Xanderghul sighs. "How are we ever going to get through this war if we're not having fun?" he says, heading out with the rest of the group towards the tower.
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"Well, I've sent one back to the Abyss," Ehren says dryly, not feeling particularly competitive. He was not very partial to treating battles such as these like games. "Am I having fun yet?"
Feeling Hinagiku's hand on his shoulder, he turns his head and nods.
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"I can't decide that for you!" says Xanderghul, looking weirdly sincere as he does so. "You need to foster the feeling of fun inside yourself."
Warned by Hinagiku, the heroes move east, bumping into the back of a large stables that must have once housed proud crusader mounts. They move south along the edge of the building so that they can go around it and back towards the tower... until Isilme and Valaria, who make up the front of the group, spot another mass of lurching dretches ahead....
Initiative!
Initiative Order!
1. Isilme
2. Valaria
3. Variska
4. Hinagiku
5. Xanderghul
6. Ayavah
7. Ehren
8. Dretch Troop
9. Ary
Isilme, Valaria, Hinagiku, Xanderghul, and Ehren are up!
"You're going to fall very far behind if you don't pick up the pace a little bit," Val teases Xanderghul as they start moving through the fog. "But I think you're about to have a chance to catch up." She lunges forward, cutting at the first wave of demons with her knives.
This is less than ideal, Isilme thinks as they engage a second troop of dretches. "We need the wikkawaks in here with us, if we keep plowing through dretches, we will not be prepared to deal with abominations when the time comes. These are fights that the wikkawaks would have few issues with." Isilme says to the others as she begins assaulting the nearby dretches.
Attempting to inspire the others was a risk, but on the other hand, it wasn't like the sounds of battle here in the fog cloud would not be perfectly evident to any demons nearby that wished to home in on them. On the other hand, attempting to cow the dretches would not be a poor choice either. Deciding to take a risk, Isilme calls out to the dretches. "Hi ashi ni shushork ugh ni bhil! Alugi ab Bushai krokhi shump al gu bashol i nink nal hil. Hi bushurzug ni Doshul nozg Ashugri Nishul shump ashul al azg ni Ni Bhoshashdish..." she begins.
Isilme had no doubt that a litany of names of powerful demons and cultists they had slain would instill fear into the dretches. They were, after all, the simplest of demons, and cowardly little creatures to begin with.
As she finishes, she takes a moment to summon forth a flute into her free hand. This was a situation where they could not afford to be trapped by any sort of magic, and she had just the thing to counter effects like that now...
”Six.” Hinagiku finally whispers, knowing that the information needed sharing…. Though not for Xanderghul’s game, but for their survival.
Following Valaria’s quip, Hinagiku quickly and protectively moves to Ehren’s side. There, she scans her surroundings, attempting to see whether they are being surrounded.
”So...more of the same onis miss Isilme?” she calmly asks, before taking any further action.
Valaria cuts down dretch after dretch as they emerge from the fog, dropping to her knees and thrusting her blades through one's stomach, then spinning around to slice off another's head.
Variska moves downwards to join her, cutting down a few more - one overhand chop neatly severs a dretch into two halves, while yet another swing parts the air with a soft whir, before ending a dretch's existence with a savage, tearing whack.
Ehren and Xanderghul are up!
'Against anything stronger than a dretch,' Ehren chides himself, drawing his sword again. Between wasting a spell or waving his sword around ineffectually, the latter option seemed more prudent under the circumstances. The fog, unfortunately, proves an effective deterrent. The druid swipes at a shadow, but his blade finds no purchase.
Xanderghul is up!
Xanderghul maneuvers over to the side of the dretch swarm and faces towards it. He flickers back into visibility as he draws in a deep breath, and as he expels it a blast of sonic energy booms out of his open mouth. A white circle of energy shows the progression of the spell, expanding as it goes further, until winking out of existence at the end of the spell's range.
The sonic blast rips through the army of dretches, outright killing a few of them and leaving the rest deafened.
A hideous creature lumbers out from the fog against the heroes. The monster has the long tail of a marilith, and four human arms protruding from what appears to be a babau body, oozing acid. Its head is similar to that of a kalavakus. Weird patches of scaled flesh coat the creature, crackling with electricity, and enormous bat-like wings protrude from its back. In each of its four claws is a longsword. It swings wildly at Variska, but she twists around full circle to avoid its blow. But another one emerges from behind her, and with a simple overhead whack it wedges its blade into her midsection...
"Auugh! What the f+#& are these things?!" calls out Variska in the green haze.
The dretches swarm all around the heroes, biting and clawing, and the fog around the heroes turns a sickly green.
Ary is up!
Val swings as the dretches swarm in closer, sweeping over the party.
"Bad things!" Val says as the abominations join the fray. "Get back! They're powerful." She pushes forward, lashing out at the nearest abomination closing in before they can do more harm.
"So... Do we want the wikkawaks in on this party or what? Seems there's a lot more random demons out here than we thought there would be, yeah? I can signal them in but a moment if you need me to." says Xanderghul, wiping sweat from his face and pushing a dretch aside to dodge it. "I really think we should focus on the dretches first and the abominations second," he says next.
"Also, I've got... six from Hinagiku, one from Ehren, and a yes from Ary - how many did you get last time? And how about Val? There's no way you're not in the lead! Come on! Variska - think about it, a scroll's worth a few hundred gold. You know you want that!"
"Yes, call them. Preferably before the babau and schir decide to join the fun," Ehren calls back, wincing as the little demons rake and gnaw at him. He continues to hack and slash at the dretches, but despite their abundance, he can hardly hit them, let alone penetrate their flesh.
"Agreed. We can't walk ten feet without running into more demons so trying to slip ahead and get into position near the tower before we let them charge is pointless."
Ary sweeps in to Variska's side, carving a path towards her as she follows her voice. She interposes herself between the abomination and Variska as she slams Faith into the thing attempting to push it away and buy Variska space to escape the pincer attack. "Don't let them keep you between them, step around to my side so they can't keep us flanked. Three, Xander." she widens her stance to prepare to intercept any attacks meant for her if she moves away from the abomination.
”Wasn’t this the signal, Mr. Xanderghul.” Hinagiku asks, her ears twitching in pain as the echoes of the wizard’s spell die down.
As the dretches pour around her, Hinagiku strikes at them, tripping some and finishing them off once they are on the ground or simply landing well placed punches on their temples or solar plexus. The whole time, she stays next to Ehren, circling around with agility, as if flowing through the ranks of the enemy.
”Miss Valaria, I will make my way toward you as soon as the rear is secured.”
Taking a step back, Isilme changes her tactics. The fog was difficult from several standpoints: It prevented her from properly intimidating the dretch horde, and limited her to standing face to face with the abominations--something she would rather not do; it also prevented her from making use of haste as the group was spread out enough that she could not see everyone at once.
Inspiration is likely the best bet, she thinks to herself. If someone had a means to limit the dretches' and abominations' movements, she could ensure that the party would be able to escape from those same constraints thanks to her new masterpiece. She had been working on it for some time now, though the harmony needed to actualize it had escaped her for some time. Whether it had been lingering in her mind this whole time, or because her Lady Starsong had granted her a blessing she did not know, but the solution had come to her in a dream last night.
Changing her narration to focus on her friends, she continues the story. "Iomedae's knights were concerned, for who knew what awaited them in the fog? How could blindness be an advantage? But Iomedae knew what needed to be done. Rallying her troops, she prepared and took advantage of all their senses to spot the enemy ahead of time."
As the dretches pile around the heroes, Valaria and Hinagiku fell dretch after dretch. The final one falls to the ground and vanishes into a pile of ichor after Hinagiku punches it in the face. But there are still too many - they surround the heroes entirely.
"Hm?" calls Variska, mostly distracted by the multi-armed monstrosities in front of her. "Uh... five so far!"
She blinks as Ary simply pummels one of the abominations away - the creature vanishes into the fog. She quickly takes her chance to step a few paces back, under Ary's protection, Valaria moves swiftly after it, cutting into the stunned creature again, and again. With ruinous force she exacts a heavy toll from her foe, punctuating their despair with her triumphant barbs. The monster stands ruined before her, held up only until she reclaims her gore-stained starknives - once extracted, the creature slumps to the ground in a heap. Just as she slays that one though, another appears from the fog against her - it swings wildly at her, an easy attack to side-step, but the near-mindless creature is undeterred... but then yet another abomination appears, cutting into Valaria's exposed side. And then, as if that wasn't enough, from behind them comes a monstrous horde of babau from the mists. They begin to work in unison, stabbing at the tiefling with their long spears, cackling as they do so. The voices of a multitude of murder demons fill the heroes' heads, chattering in Abyssal and giggling- ""Nat! Nat! Nat!" "Bhishai nat i! Bhishai nol i! Bhishai rombi i nug!" "Mmmm! Shu reh nug! Shu reh nug!""
"Oh, gods. Too late, Ehren. That sounds like a lot. Like a f@&#ing lot. Xanderghul, do something! I think we need help!" whispers Ayavah.
Xanderghul's silently starts counting, but the exercise is a little pointless if everyone isn't participating... and besides, the information would be way off without the numbers of enemies that Valaria killed. For somebody who professed to being free-spirited, she wasn't very fun.
Xanderghul retreats out of the dretch swarm, pulling a scroll of silent image from his bag while he does so. Reading from it, he casts it. Above the fog cloud, as high as he can realistically make it an illusion of Valaria appears. She appears much more menacing and demonic than she does in real life, with hooved feet, smoke emanating from her skin, and glowing red eyes. Her tattoos shimmer and glow as well, and it seems that her starknives are made of blood, dripping everywhere. Silently, she raises one starknife over her head (splattering blood down her shoulder as it drips from the starknife) and snarls wordlessly. As she does so, burning letters in Goblin appear above her head: "Bring glory to Warlord Blood-Knives by exterminating all demons within the mist!"
Meanwhile, Hinagiku single-handedly finishes off the rest of the dretches, her attacks a blinding barrage of strikes that bring devastation to the weak, slothful demons. The heroes can hear the wikkawaks roaring and screaming war cries in response to Xanderghul's summons... but they sound awfully far away....
Round 2!
Ehren is up!
Ehren grimaces as the abominations and babaus come upon them, exacerbating an already unfavorable situation. Without the wikkawaks' numbers, things were only going to get worse. Dropping his sword, Ehren starts weaving the gestures for one of his summoning spells. There was any number of deadly creatures that could rip through the babaus, but nothing that was likely to survive their onslaught. So instead, he opts for something that could pose a distraction.
One of the abominations circles around Ary and starts hacking at her, again and again - but the crusader lifts her shield and repels each blow from its many arms. Finally, the monster gives out an inhuman moan, and lashes its enormous snake-like tail at Ary - its savagely accurate strike lands with a thump. Electricity from the patch-work scale pattern on its tail surges out into the young ranger.
Ary is up!
"Rude." Ary responds as she's slapped with the tail, mostly ineffectually. She responds in kind... equally ineffectually.
Val hisses in pain as the abominations and demons swarm down on her again. "Well, I was trying to get their attention..." She grits her teeth and goes in to attack the abomination that had slashed through her. She just needs to keep them off her friends until the goblins can join the battle and hold off the demon swarms.
"Babau or Schir.... no matter, we should retreat." Hinagiku says, squinting to try and see through the fog.
This was becoming a less ideal situation by the moment. Hinagiku was mostly right that they should pull back, but Valaria did not seem intent on withdrawing. Additionally there was the problem of the babaus teleporting. While they might not be willing to risk it, it was entirely possible that they could be goaded into teleporting ahead to engulf the group despite the fog. If they did and succeded, things could get even uglier. Additionally, the wikkawaks were on the way,
and being seen retreating might cause them to lose faith in Valaria, something they could ill-afford at the moment, since one might decide to take a shot at her if they felt like they could take her place.
"I am not certain we have the luxury, Hinagiku, but I will do what I can to ensure we get out."
Stepping amongst those she could see, Isilme quickly utters the incantation for haste, getting herself, Ayavah, Valaria and Ary. Like everything else so far, it was less than ideal, but the fog left her little choice, and every little bit they could muster now might be the difference between life and death, depending on how quickly their new army of goblinoids got down to join them.
"What followed could not be described as easy, no. This was no cakewalk that Iomedae had chosen. They used every advantage to level the playing field, but the battle was still hard fought. Their victories were tempered by the steady attrition they were suffering, for despite their advantages they were sorely outnumbered. But time and time again, Iomedae charged forward into battle, and their spirits were renewed!"