Isilme focuses her attention on the crowd of ghouls and gargoyles that had surrounded her, doing her best to fend them off. With this mistress entering the fray, the situation had become significantly more complicated. That was, until the she disappeared only to reappear a few moments later unleashing a bolt of lightning around the corner where Ary and them had been before. She didn't know how it had affected them, but it was unlikely to be good given the power that had gone into that lightning bolt.
First things first, she thinks, looking around for the best place to remove herself to so she could cast freely. Feinting as if she were going to try and tumble through the ghoul blocking the door, she instead falls backward into a tumble, rolling out of the group and coming up into a low crouch. Turning away, she puts some distance between her attackers and herself and immediately begins incanting a spell. "Your magic is crude, fire-blood," she calls out, "As the demons have fallen before us, so too shall you and your accursed cultists!"
Isilme finishes her spell, bewitching Ignigena and most of her gargoyles in one fell swoop. The formerly composed sorceress clutches her face, shuddering and babbling to herself in her mother-tongue. "چی؟ بابا چه کار میکنی؟ چرا؟ نه، متوقف کن، بابا ... متوقف ... ماندن ..."
"You! You will not harm Mistress Ignigena!" shrieks one of the gargoyles - its compatriot lays uselessly on the ground, clawing at its own face. It ignores the other, lunging at Isilme with its claws and rending through her clothes and flesh. The ghouls slowly follow after her, another managing to scratch at her, leaving another long, bleeding wound.
Round 3!
Valaria is up!
Val curses under her breath as the gargoyles and ghouls continue to swarm. She continues her recitation and slashes at the spider and ghouls coming at her, trying to cut them down so she can reach the priests behind them.
Valaria aims her starknife at the soft underbelly of the giant spider in front of her... her precisely aimed strike swiftly sends the spider off to the next world. She then quickly spins around, and as expected, dispatches her next foe. Her movements perfectly synced with the flow of battle, the next ghoul that trundles up to her can't manage to land a single tooth or nail.
Xanderghul and Ehren are up!
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Xanderghul continues to circle around the room, hoping to get out of any situation where he could be surrounded. He moves farther towards the back door, calling on the mythic power of his "ancestor" as he does so. He feels the magic building up in his blood, and all of the signs that he is an artificial creation fade away as the power builds. Then, a red bead forms in his hand. He hurls the bead, which impacts in the center of the room. Five ghouls and a spider are wreathed in fire from the resultant explosion.
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Ehren reels back from the unexpected blast of lightning, nearly tripping over Bethil. Seeing the state of the grievously wounded crusader, any thoughts of retribution against Ignigena are immediately put on hold; he drops to the ground and presses an ear to her chest, realizing right away that her heart has stopped completely. Knowing that he only has seconds to act, he quickly drags her out of the illusory fog, not necessarily to safety, but to somewhere away from the ongoing melee. Then, still trembling slightly, he attempts to manually resuscitate the dying crusader.
Seemingly from nowhere, a fireball erupts in the center of the chapel, leaving the ghouls charred and blackened and burning the scrolls straight out of the priests' hands. The pews in the center of the church are completely obliterated, with a black ring of soot charred into the floor where the explosion occurred. The shockwave from the explosion blows Valaria's hair back, but she is just far enough away to be unharmed.
The right ghoul priest grits his teeth and draws his unholy symbol, pointing it at Valaria. Abyssal energies circle around the pendant - a human skull - and converge into the shape of a spectral flail. It flies at her, its spiked balls whipping at her head.. but just in the nick of time, she ducks, the weapon flying past her harmlessly.
Outside, Ehren bends over Bethil and starts rapidly firing compressions into her chest with his hands. After a few moments of this, he bends over and breathes straight into her mouth, inflating her lungs... after a few moments she starts to sputter, gasping for breath, though her pulse is still faint.
In front of them, one of the gargoyles advances on Hinagiku... but with Ary at her side, she is neigh invincible. Nevertheless, it manages to land a lucky hit with its claws, just barely snaking past Faith's reach - it leaves a jagged and unclean wound.
Hinagiku, Ary, and Anevia are up!
Hinagiku keeps an impassive expression as the gargoyle bites into her shoulder. Gracefully, she twists out of the monster’s jaw and sidesteps her. Though it leaves her open to attacks, the monk trusts in Ary to deflect most of the blows. Now, with a clear path between herself and the masked woman, Hinagiku crosses the open space separating them. As soon as she comes within reach, she grasps onto the collar and sleeve of the woman and takes an extra step to force her confused foe to turn around. As she does, she gently lifts Ignigena’s hand upward and pushes her head forward, disturbing her balance.
Hinagiku nimbly escapes the gargoyles and attempts to pull Ignigena down, but she had spent too much energy evading her minions, and was simply too slow to catch their mistress.
Ary and Anevia are up!
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"A couple feet ahead after this one goes down, Anevia." Ary shares with the other crusader.
Ary slams the remaining gargoyle into the wall once more, before moving beyond him to his ally, leaving Anevia to slip quietly over the bodies with a small leap, before tucking and shifting her weight to land agilely behind the remaining nearby foe. Body, Shadow, Second shadow, STABBITY STAB. As her shortsword bites into where a kidney should be, Anevia quips, "You should really watch your diet. Too much calcium."
Noticing the vulpine monk move against Ignigena, one of the gargoyles suddenly comes to its senses and flies across the battlefield to her aid... but like water, Hinagiku sees it coming and simply melts to the side.
"You aren't worth this aggravation," spits Ignigena in a thick, Kelish accent, stepping away from Hinagiku for a moment. "कब्ररी, तुमची भुकेने तुम्हाला खरे सत्ता दिली म्हणून, माझ्या शत्रूंना गिळंकृत करण्याची शक्ती द्या," she says, her eyes blazing with fury and brimstone.
"Yes, Mistress Ignigena! Make them suffer!" cries the gargoyles.
She smirks. "Your wish, my dear supplicants, is my command," she responds, almost mockingly.
"You think you can scare me, little elf?" Ignigena turns away from Hinagiku for a moment and raises a hand against Isilme. "Flee, worm." For a brief moment, Isilme feels as though she were dunked into ice-cold water, the feeling drenching into her very soul... it takes all she can muster for her mind to not devolve into a complete, and utter panic. The gargoyle next to her - as she can see its eyes - was not so lucky. Then, seemingly oblivious to what is going on, a ghoul erupts from the chapel and runs at Isilme clumsily.
Around the corner, Ary swings Faith into the nearly dead gargoyle. Its collarbone shatters as it crumples against the wall, and the crusader commander feels the reverberations quiver up her shield arm. Motes snake out from her shield and fly into Bethil... in a few moments, she's gasping for breath, crimson eyes wide open and staring up into Ehren's. She groans, her face covered in soot, blood, and sweat.
"H-hurts," she gasps. Up close, Ehren can see she has slightly longer than normal incisors, for a human. "Everything hurts." Nevertheless, Ehren's relief at seeing Bethil alive is short-lived... as he feels razor-sharp claws dig into his back. They hold still for a moment - the claws are white-hot and they sear into his flesh... before suddenly ripping away, tearing open a great wound.
Meanwhile, Anevia quickly darts by Ary and the remaining gargoyle. Her hewing slice splits open the gargoyle... but the wound is shallow, compared to the damage the rogue is capable of with her attuned bow.
"Kurrrrrrrz i.... I kurrrrrrrrz i.... ssssshiluti krusssshi," hisses the monstrous spider. It maneuevers around towards Xanderghul, its keen senses feeling Xanderghul moving around on the stone ground. It suddenly lunges towards him, but Xanderghul moves out of the way of his enormous, fanged maw.
The two ghoul priests exchange a look. They did not expect something so drastic to happen - not when they so outnumbered their enemy. They start to murmur to each other in their strange tongue.
"आम्ही एक अदृश्य शत्रू, पिता इझेझेक आणि जादीसचा सामना करतो ... आम्ही नुलकिनेथला बोलावे?"
"नाही, खंबीर राहा श्रद्धा ठेवा."
The other ghoul priest presents his unholy symbol to the congregation... it glimmers, and yet another spectral flail appears next to Valaria. She moves slowly in a circle, dodging the whirling attacks of the twin flails.
Isilme is up!
"That is all you have?" Isilme responds with a laugh, having bypassed the majority of the spells effects. "Unlike yours, my mind is not easily swayed." she says with a laugh. "But please, do enlighten me how your pack of decrepit ghouls and crusty gargoyles are going to defeat heroes who destroyed an army of two hundred cultists and demons single-handedly."
When Ehren cries out, Isilme decides to turn her attention to revealing his assailant, knowing that whoever it was posed a serious threat to them. Tumbling away from the gargoyles and ghouls for the second time, she draws her rapier and skirts around past the collapsed wall, avoiding the rubble, winding up with a wall between her and Ignigena. Guessing that Ehren's assailant was likely still adjacent to him, she raises up her palm and blows across it, a shower of sparks flying quickly in a stream from her all the way past the druid. There the stream explodes into a shower of small golden particles, filling the space completely and revealing the form of the creature that had assaulted Ehren.
After unleashing her magic, she takes a moment to enchant her rapier with arcane magic, preparing herself to engage their foes directly if need be.
Isilme's glitterdust rains down behind Ehren and Bethil, outlining the vague shape of some hunched over, cloaked figure. It seems to be floating over the ground - it has no feet... but it has wickedly long claws. Around its neck is a spiked collar.
You put two and two together... given Ignigena's heritage, and the fact that this enemy is an invisible attacker, you can assume this creature is a Ghul. Ghuls are genies that have been cursed to rise as undead.
Ghuls tend to speak Common, Ignan, and Infernal.
Given the fact that this ghul has burning hot claws, you can infer that it not just a ghul - but a great ghul... a risen corpse of an Efreeti, a genie-kin of the elemental plane of fire. Great ghuls are stripped of most of their elemental powers, but despite this, they are still much more powerful than normal ghuls.
Only a good-aligned cold iron weapon can harm a great efreeti ghul. They have the typical undead immunities and resistances, but they are also highly resistant to fire.
A humanoid slain by a great ghul becomes a ghoul, or a genie becomes a ghul. Destroying the body or blessing it will prevent this.
Ghuls are greatly embarassed of the fact that their legs end in donkey hooves, and will go to great lengths to hide them.
Great ghuls are wrathful creatures that hate themselves and all living things, and generally spend their time murdering and corrupting mortals. They follow pasers by invisibly before revealing themselves in a suitably isolated location, often in the guise of a beautiful maiden or cherubic child. If they find potential victims particularly interesting, they may engage them in a battle of wits or some challenge in order to spare them their lives. A common challenge is to provide the ghul with a certain number of fresh corpses within a certain number of nights.
The gargoyle left behind starts scratching at its own body, inflicting deep wounds onto itself. The gargoyle next to it plops itself down on the dead grass and babbles incoherently. One of the ghouls gives chase against the aasimar, following her out of the courtyard and through the ruined gates.... but its just too slow to land a claw on her.
Round 4!
Valaria and Ehren are up!
Val considers her options for a split second. Then decides that Xan can handle a single spider and charges in to the ghoul priests, wanting to put them down before they can continue to cast spells to hinder and attack her allies. She attempts to swing at the nearest ghoul guard, but her haste to leap over the bodies of the fallen enemies leaves her stumbling and her swing wild and clumsy. She momentarily loses the rhythm of her poem, but manages to catch herself before she stumbles over the words.
Smirking with satisfaction at the devastation that his spell wrought, Xanderghul turns to see himself in battle with a giant fiendish spider. He hums, concentrating on recalling a spell from his spellbook. He fingers his cactus ring, drawing power from all of the memories that he has invested in it... and then he shouts an arcane word laden with weight and slams the flat of his palm into the giant spider.
His blast reaches a crescendo in his hands, and with a whisper of his will, Xanderghul unleashes his power into the spider, nearly blasting it apart. It is only because of its firm, adhesive-like footing to the ground that it doesn't go flying away.
Ehren is up!
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Just about to deliver words of reassurance to Bethil, Ehren could not prepare himself for the blazing agony. He clenches his teeth defiantly as the claws dig into him, but when his assailant tears them back out of his body, he cannot stop the loud cry of pain from escaping his mouth. Already scorched by Ignigena's lightning bolt, he forces himself to turn around so that he can face his attacker.
With it being illuminated only by Isilme's glitterdust, Ehren cannot tell what the invisible creature is, but he does know that he doesn't want it anywhere near him or Bethil. Doing his best to maintain his composure, he raises his shield arm whilst using his other hand to cast a spell. Crashing waves of water appear out of nowhere, crashing together and spiraling into a sphere of water... hopefully engulfing the mysterious creature.
If he succeeds, he then pushes forward, sending the orb rolling as far away from him as possible.
The invisible assailant is whipped up into the aqueous orb and is shot off down the courtyard. It flails around helplessly within the water, still sparkling golden from Isilme's glitterbomb.
Nearby, the gargoyle maneuevers itself against the wall, trying to avoid being surrounded by its enemies. It focuses on Ary, working to avoid the sharp spikes lining Faith... finally after several tries it manages to land a solid hit on the crusader woman with its long claws, digging them savagely into her flesh and muscle.
"ज्याने आपल्या नित्य देवळाला भेट दिली, त्या सर्वांचा नाश करण्याची ताकद आम्हाला द्या." intones one of the ghoul priests... he steps away from Valaria and a wave of unholy energy pulses out from his unholy symbol, restoring vigor into the ghouls there. He beckons for his spiritual flail to follow her across the room, and while she is focused on his movements, a demolishing blow from their twin spiked balls comes careening into her back.
Hinagiku is up!
As Hinagiku attemps to trip Ignigena, she notices the attack on Ehren. Although she remains calm, her gaze does linger on the druid in an attempt to judge the severity of his situation and spot the attacker. Luckiliy, Isilme quickly comes to his aid, and Ehren succeeds at imprisoning the creature into a globe of water. Hinagiku glances at the strange creature for a split second but must press on the attack on Ignigena, losing sight of the monster before identifying it.
With a single step gracefully low but long step, Hinagiku catches up with the masked woman. Spinning, she sends one of her foot at her enemies ankle before abruptly standing up, palm open to strike the woman as she loses balance. She follows with rapid kicks at the abdomen.
Hinagiku kicks Ignigena's feet out from under her and she comes crashing to the ground. She lashes out at her with her fearsome whip, but Hinagiku deftly contorts around her opponent's attack and lands a set of impressive strikes of her own. Once on the ground, Ignigena begins to shudder and strike herself with her own whip.
"من شایسته آن هستم ... من شایسته آن هستم، بابا ... لطفا دیگر من را نادیده نگیرید ..." she mumbles, mostly incoherent.
Taking advantage of the opening left by Anevia, Ary's strikes hammer home, repeatedly, Radiance dragging cruel arcs through the Gargoyle while Faith punctures deeply into its hide. "Ghast behind me, Gargoyle between us, Caster ahead."
As Ary strikes, the gargoyle raises a stony arm, absorbing the hit that would have otherwise have landed squarely on the nape of its neck. However, she can feel Radiance scrape bone, and as it retracts its blocking arm she can clearly see a trail of blood streaming from its wound.
Anevia, meanwhile is at a bit of a loss for what to do. Since she can't see any other enemies, she might as well finish off the one guy she can see - flickering in and out of existence momentarily, the cunning rogue whips around with her sword. Her blade reaches out almost tenderly to kiss her foe with subtle sharpness, delivering a dreadful wound...
Around the corner, the gargoyle next to Hinagiku starts biting and clawing at itself in confusion.
Further away still, the invisible assailant struggles in the orb. It is unliving, and so does not fear suffocation, but nonetheless it is trapped for the time being.
The wounded spider lunges blindly at Xanderghul, but misses him entirely.
The ghouls eagerly come to the priests' aid, swiping at Valaria, but they are too slow and clumsy to actually harm her. She backs away from their slashing claws, and ducks to avoid the spectral flails whirling behind her.
""ज्याने आपल्या नित्य देवळाला भेट दिली, त्या सर्वांचा नाश करण्याची ताकद आम्हाला द्या." the other priest joins in the chanting, unleashing waves of negative energy that heal his fellow undead, reversing the damage wrought on them by Xanderghul's fireball.
Around the corner, the ghouls continue to pursue Isilme around the courtyard.
Isilme is up!
With the situation under control at the moment--Isilme could hear Ignigena babbling on the ground incoherently, and it seemed Ehren had driven away the specter with Aqueous orb--she decides to take care of the ghouls standing before her.
"And here I was under the impression that ghouls were supposed to be more intelligent than mindless undead. Yet here you are chasing an elf about the courtyard. Your touch will find no purchase on me, and you will find me a much fiercer foe than you believe," she says, taunting the ghouls before lashing out quickly with two strikes at the one to her left.
Just as the ghoul begins to dodge the second strike from her flaming blade, Isilme bolsters her own attack with magic, focusing and lunging forward at the last second. The blade's burning tip pierces her foe deeply a second time, catching the ghoul off-guard.
Twirling her rapier around and bringing it upright before her, she steps back, beckoning the ghouls to follow.
With a sudden violent incursion, Isilme leaves one of the ghouls pierced and leaking strange, disgusting black sludge. It snarls, swiping madly at her, but its movements are simply too sluggish to make contact.
"I will taste your flesh, elf!" it growls. With a grin, Isilme readies herself for a counterattack... and just barely misses its unbeating heart for the kill.
South from her, one of the confused gargoyles wildly charges at another gargoyle, mistaking it for one of its foes. It bites and claws at its ally, drawing blood, while the other gargoyle struggles to get away from its madness, babbling wildly in its own confusion.
The ghouls continue circling around Valaria, biting and clawing at her, but the swashbuckler is always one step ahead of them.
Round 5!
Valaria, Xanderghul, and Ehren are up!
Grinning, Xanderghul steps away from his opponent for a moment... He could kill that spider soon, but Valaria needed his help. Four on one was fair odds against the swashbuckler, but Xanderghul preferred keeping odds in their favor as long as he could help it. He casts an offensive spell, splaying his fingers in a small display for a moment. A burst of light flashes over the altar, wreathing all of the remaining ghouls in holy power.
This time, the explosion of light lacks some of its usual 'oomph', but hopefully it tilts the battle in their favor nonetheless.
Ehren pushes his palm forward again, sending his orb of water rolling even further away. The creature within it could be dealt with properly once his friends were a little less busy.
Reaching over his shoulder, he winces when he finds the wound on his back, still oozing blood. Ignoring the pain as best he can, he reaches into the reserve of raw power within his soul, whilst simultaneously drawing power from the earth itself. He finds within himself a simple healing spell - one that he used to be able to call upon at will - and applies to himself. Bethil was in need of healing as well, but bleeding all over her was not exactly going to help either.
Val ducks and weaves around the ghouls, taking every opening she can to slash out and try to cut down the undead in front of her. The priests may be annoying, but the clumsiness of their minions makes keeping up with them easy enough for the moment.
The illusory fog dissipates, and Anevia can see normally once again.
Wrenching her starknife out of the first ghoul's lifeless body, Valaria finds herself covered in an eruption of rotten gore. She then spins around and hears a dull thunk as her starknife's blade chops into the other ghoul. Dark, foul smelling goo starts seeping from the wound as she extracts her gruesome weapons. Their minions dead, the priests look horrified. Her next thrust whooshes towards him, her grunt of exertion ending with a triumphant thud...but the next swipe catches harmlessly on his robe as he backs away just in time.
An explosion of light envelops the two priests - it doesn't do much to their lifeless eyes, but the holy blast sears into them all the same. The priest next to Valaria takes a step back, murmuring prayers to his unholy god - "काबरी, मला ताकद द्या ..." He then draws his own flail, just as his spiritual weapon swings once more at her back... but she side-steps it once again, hearing the rattle of its chains just before it reaches her.
Outside, Ehren heals himself to the best of his ability, channeling the ley beneath his feet to do so. Across from him, the remaining sane gargoyle growls - "I die... for my Mistress.... and her Master." He laces his moves with sly deception before hitting his mark - his claws landing unexpectedly on Ary, despite the fact that he draws his dying breaths.
Hinagiku, Ary, and Anevia are up!
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"Yay! I disbelieved, Xander! I disbelieved!" Anevia calls out, excitedly, as Ary leaves the gargoyle broken on the ground.
"Fog ran out." Ary responds.
"Yeah, I know. But I tried!" Anevia continues, as the pair slip deeper into the fight, Ary moving overland in about the same time it took Anevia to simply fade out and reappear where she wanted to be. She drops her shortsword to fire an arrow as she does, it flying unerringly in the direction of the nearly re-fatally re-wounded ghoul, before handspringing past Ary - grabbing her sword out of the ground as she goes - and landing beside Isilme and yet-another-gargoyle with a flourish.
With her foe incapacitated, Hinagiku does her best to strike non-vital points. As she strikes with palm open, she whispers through the spell linking them.
”Mr. Xanderghul, miss Valaria, is everything alright in there? We can’t see you anymore.”
"I think everything is under control. What's the situation out there? Do you need my help?"
Hinagiku strikes the fallen cultist over and over, her blows striking home with seemingly no effort. She remains curled up on the ground, sobbing and babbling, her mind clearly not present. "نه نه نه متوقف شدم بابا لطفا متوقف بشید," she babbles.
Nearby,.a swift pivot brings Ary into the perfect position to cut the gargoyle next to her down with as much force as she can muster. It falls to the ground and doesn't get back up again. The other gargoyle, meanwhile, is a gibbering mess - it doesn't even notice Anevia moving past it.
Across the courtyard, the invisible ghoul manages to squirm free of the giant orb of water. Once free, it turns its feature-less face towards Ehren... it charges towards him with superhuman speed and sinks its sharp teeth into his shoulder.... even its fangs are white-hot, the invisible foe emits heat like a flickering flame. It rips a chunk of flesh away from him and swallows, blood dripping from its invisible fangs and into the grass below.
On the other end of the courtyard, the healthier of the two remaining ghouls lunges from around the destroyed wall at Isilme, its claws both raised high in the air... but the nimble aasimar simply side-steps it.
Xanderghul steps out of the way as the spider once again blindly charges at him, its disturbingly human-like maw biting down on thin air with a snap!, drool pouring down from its lips.
Away from him, the other ghoul priest joins in their prayer to their demonic lord, drawing his own light flail. "काबरी, आम्हाला ताकद द्या ..." The priests' spiritual weapons continue to whirl around mid-air, forcing Valaria to stay in motion to avoid them.
Isilme is up!
"Yes, everything well... ahhh... no, sorry, Mr. Ehren is in some trouble. Ary, you or me?"
Isilme swings quickly twice, her first attack directed at the fresh (not that the word really applies to ghouls) ghoul, given she was still becoming familiar with attacking this quickly without the benefits of haste. Following up her first slice at the ghoul's throat, she feints as if she were going to stab it again, only to slice at the ghoul next to it which was crippled by her prior attacks.
"Doing well so far out here, their mistress is down with Hinagiku watching her, and the creature threatening Ehren is under control for the moment as well.
"Your mistress has lost her mind and will to fight, it is only a matter of time before you all fall!" Isilme calls out, continuing her efforts to demoralize the gargoyles, though most were confused or dead at this point.
Isilme's rapier darts in and out of the ghoul, as slippery as quicksilver, before it even realizes that it has been stabbed... but when she goes for the other one, it darts behind the corner of the demolished wall. It waits a moment, then tries to sneak past her when she is paying attention to another - but nothing gets past Isilme... she whips around and lances her blade through its heart, and it crumples to the ground... truly dead.
One of the confused gargoyles stops what it is doing, seeming to realize that he is attacking his fellow gargoyle... but then his lucidity ends at that, as he starts savagely biting at his own leg. The gargoyle next to him babbles incoherently, staring blankly at the sky.
Round 6!
Valaria, Xanderghul, and Ehren are up!
Having felled one of the ghouls as it tried to move around her, Isilme takes a moment to check behind her only to see the glitter-dusted assailant had charged Ehren again. "I was wrong, Ehren needs help quickly"
"I'm busy cleaning up in here, but I can handle myself. Xan, if you have anything that can impede whatever that thing he's fighting is, then please go help." She takes a breath and continues the tale of the white knight as she closes in and keeps slashing at the ghoul priest as he tries to retreat.
"I don't know what this thing is, but it's eating me," Ehren hisses through the spell, doing his best to ward off the creature with his shield and staff. Thanks to Ary and Anevia's handiwork he had a clear escape route, but retreating would leave Bethil at the monster's mercy. With one of his fingers he beckons to the orb, bringing it rolling back towards him, but it does so slowly. Too slowly.
"I don't know what it is, really... but I think I can cover him about as well as you can. And if it's ghosty, probably a little better." Ary responds to Hinagiku.
Slowly breathing in to fully acknowledge Ehren's last statement, Hinagiku turns towards Ary.
"I've got the mistress, I'll let you go to Mr. Ehren's help."
"I'm just a little bit tied up right now. Be there in a few seconds. Ehren - can you open the door for me?"
As much as it hurt to use such a powerful spell on such a weak creature, Xanderghul knew that there could be no chances in between success and failure during this battle. Taking a diagonal step towards the remaining pews, Xanderghul calls on material from the Shadow Plane. Shaping it into a form pleasing to him, he unleashes a snarling, shadowy leopard on the spider that stands between him and his new quarry.
The shadowy feline focuses holy energy which infuses part of its being before leaping at the spider with a false array of claws and teeth.
Valaria's hewing slices open up the ghoul in front of her with spine-chilling wet sounds. The ghoul's eyes widen, and for the first time in this battle, he seems truly afraid. "म्हणजे, हे शत्रू खूप शक्तिशाली असतात. आम्ही पळ काढणे आणि Nulkineth सह पुनर्रचना करणे आवश्यक आहे," he says, before running for the door. Valaria is temporarily distracted long enough for his spiritual weapon to smack into her shoulder.
Behind them, Xanderghul conjures a false celestial cheetah. The spider balls up behind its legs protectively, but the creature's sharp, holy-infused claws simply rips its legs off of its body - 6 remain, but it is barely alive.
Hinagiku, Ary and Anevia are up!
Ary rapidly crosses the battlefield, stomping one foot into the ground and pivoting at the last moment to slam Faith into the enemy assailing Rocky, before widening her stance to help ward him from blows.
Anevia fires a parting shot at Ignigena before reappearing at the edge of the roof and then quietly making her way along the brim of it, hugging the edge to lessen the line of sight of her enemies.
Knowing that Ehren is in good hands, and that Xanderghul will join in the fight outside the church, Hinagiku can fully focus on her own foe. And so, the monk can finally reposition herself around the woman to avoid kicks without having to concern herself about turning her back on her druid companion.
Once more, she rains a flurry of blows upon her foe.
Hinagiku sends Ignigena drifting into unconscious amidst a sea of pain and confusion, while the gargoyle next to them continues to babble incoherently. As she falls unconscious, Anevia fires off a parting shot. She creeps along the roof, but since there isn't anything up there to hide behind, her enemies never lose sight of her.
Further away, Ary quickly closes the distance to Ehren and slams the invisible monster into the wall. She swings Radiance as it moves to stand back up, but her swing falls a few inches short of impact. The creature laughs - its voice deep and sinister - before leaping into the air and lunging for Ary face-first. It sinks its teeth deep into her collarbone, narrowly missing her face. The crusader commander shoves the thing off of her - its body is burning-hot to the touch - it stands a few feet away, cackling.
"Good... Good.... More... Want... More..." it says.
The monstrous spider leaps at the cheetah, but the shadowy creature is too fast for it.
The other ghoul priest flees to the doorway and opens the door. Its spiritual weapon continues to accost Valaria - a ferocious swing crashes into her back, as she struggles to pay attention to both the spectral weapons and the fleeing ghoul clerics.
Meanwhile, the remaining ghoul in the courtyard dives at Isilme, but she shoves it off of her using her buckler.
Isilme is up!
Stepping away from the ghoul that is harassing her, Isilme turns to face towards Ehren's assailant. Scribing the divine rune 'यादहै' in the air before her she focuses inward, recalling memories from her life as an Azata. It was an expensive way to access the memories, but given the lack of time they had, it was important to determine the nature of their foe now.
Quickly it comes to her: The foe they face is a Great Ghul, the undead which arises from a Efreeti, Djinni, Marid or Shaitan who has been cursed.
"The creature is an Efreeti that has been raised as a Great Ghul. Like a demon it is only harmed by cold iron weapons that have been imbued with the power of good. It can create spawn as a ghoul, but we should be able to handle it if we are cautious."
"Ghul!" Isilme calls out dramatically, as if beginning an ode. "Cursed spawn of Efreeti, // loathed by your kind even more than the Djinni, // Hiding behind your magic so none can see // your shame lies beneath in the hooves of a donkey!" After finishing she bows dramatically towards the creature, knowing it would likely be enraged by her performance.
One of the remaining confused gargoyles resumes mauling its kin - its target shoves it off of him, irritated. "Acumox, stop! Our enemies are over there!" it says, then flies a short distance over to Hinagiku. She sees it coming, though, and throws it off balance by grabbing onto its other wrist and flinging it away from her.
Round 6!
Valaria, Xanderghul, and Ehren are up!
As the ghouls retreat, Val elects not to try to run after them and let herself be run in circles while the ghouls' spiritual weapons slowly beat her to death. She drops her starknives and pulls out a selection of her normal daggers. She focuses herself, taking care to make use of the arc of the throw to maintain her accuracy at this distance. She showers the ghouls with knives, trying to finish the first and move on to the second as soon as possible.