"That is not retreating!" Ary calls to Hrut, but it's too late now that Val's come out into the open with them.
'Inheritor help him, he's dumber than I am.'
Klarah turns beet red. She looks at Markus, confused and crestfallen. "I... I... I'm sorry! I... was just trying to help! Sh-should I just try to hide?"
Meanwhile, Valaria dashes forward, her sweeping strike connecting with the vulture in front of her, leaving a deep and heinous wound. It squawks and attempts to fly away- Hrut and Valaria team up to bring the fiendish bird down before it can do any further harm.
One of the vultures that was attacking Julania moves over to Ary, but fails to make contact with the crusader woman. The vultures on Hrut, however, stay focused on him. One of the fearless carrion birds lands a well-placed blow, nearly ripping the crusader man's tender throat out in one attack, while he feebly fends off another with his shield.
Julania doesn't seem to notice anyone around her. She stays focused on the task at hand, focusing on the remaining overextended vulture. With finesse, she steps around Ary and administers a precise incision against the creature, wounding it with her battleaxe. It flies away from the squat warrior woman, deciding to fight Ary instead, but misses terribly.
Anevia draws her shortsword and braces herself before charging at the vulture in front of her, wincing as she lets too much weight on her broken leg. Sharp and sudden, her stifling onslaught cuts through the bird before it can react.
Ehren parts his lips and expels the air he had built up in his lungs, releasing it in Hrut's general direction. At first nothing seems to happen, but several feet away the air starts to visibly distort, twisting and curling until a cloud-like form appears. The wispy, semi-humanoid creature darts after the airborne creatures with grace that no winged beast could hope to match and whips out with a thin appendage.
The druid meanwhile moves closer to Anevia and Klarah.
Markus is up.
"Doing very poorly..."
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"Oh, um. Sorry, I didn't mean to attack you or anything. Only...positive energy harms me, so it was a bit of a shock watching it flood the battlefield." explains Markus. "Do what you can and don't get hurt, I appreciate your desire to help."
Then he draws his wand and fires it at one of the vultures attacking Julania, Ary and Li'an. A pair of purple projectiles rush at the fiendish vulture.
Unfortunately, the creatures' innate magical resistance causes the missiles to hit a barrier and spiderweb, the energy from the spell dissipating harmlessly.
Li'an moves back, trying to flank the buzzard nearest her and Ary and then swings with Lleuad. Unfortunately as she does she manages to snag the same loose paver, causing her swing to go wild again.
Ary is up.
As Li'an shifts, causing herself to stumble mid attack, the stone she stumbles upon comes up, knocking Ary in the shin just as she moves forward to take a swing, "Son of a..." she says, her swing going wide. "Big damn heroes, ain't we..?"
Radiance arcs so wide that it hits Ary's own shield - but Faith is made of living steel, and is much too hard for even Radiance to penetrate. Likewise, Radiance is protected from being dulled upon Faith's verdant green surface.
Klarah winces as the two women fumble over fighting the vultures. She looks around, realizing that if she channels from where she is - she is likely to end up accidentally reviving some of the vultures. She steps down and away into an alley. She is about to pray to Sarenrae when she remembers - "O-okay! Markus! Incoming!" She focuses, and another sunburst-patterned wave of positive energy and light radiates out from her- washing again over Markus, Hrut, Valaria, and Anevia. She focuses, willfully sparing the unconscious vulture on the ground and the vulture injured by Anevia earlier.
Round 3
The final vulture attacking Julania moves over to Ary, who manages to raise Faith just in time to ward it off.
Hrut is up.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
"Yeah, that's right, Vultures. Come and get it!" Ary says as she clangs her shield and sword together.
Reeling from his neck wound Hrut spins back the vulture behind him(6) and strikes first with the warhammer then the shield to follow up.
"Press the advantage!" As blood pours out the front of Hrut's neck and down the front of his armor, clearly losing most of what is going to his head, battle euphoria.
Encouraging roar(All allies +2 morale bonus to attack and damage for 1 round), Flurry Strike, 5' step after
If the vulture dies,
Hruts hammer glows golden white with Torags blessing and a whiteness appears to be sucked out of the dead creature back into Hrut.
The deliberately arrhythmic swings of Hrut's weapons bring his battle with yet another one of the vultures to a close..
Valaria is up.
A grin crosses Val's face at Hrut brutal smack down of the fiendish creature. "Well you were outnumbered," she amends herself. "Let's clean these b*stards out!" Feeling suddenly emboldened, she steps sideways and slashes her blade toward the next vulture .
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The remaining vulture on Hrut weaves out of the way as Valaria comes sweeping in with her starknife. It stays focused on the crusader it is attempting to smite, viciously hewing through Hrut's collarbone with its savage beak. Hrut crumples to the ground, unconscious.
"Hrut!" exclaims Anevia. "F$~! off, you nasty bird!" she growls, stepping towards the buzzard, hoping to offer Valaria a flank in Hrut's stead - but she is utterly distracted by Hrut's plight and misses.
Meanwhile, one of the vultures swoops in against Julania, but Ary reads the attack before it happens and easily deflects it with her shield. She ignores Ary, staying focused on the vulture she had in her sights. She steps towards it, arcing her battleaxe into its neck. Although it only seems like a minor incision, it neatly disables the vulture before her - it crumples to the ground in a heap.
Ehren is up.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Showing no regard for the felled vulture, the air elemental hovers over to the next closest one and slams it with one of its spindly arms.
Meanwhile, Ehren passes Klarah by and hurries to Hrut's side with a healing spell prepared.
The elemental slams into the vulture, leaving a nasty bruise across one of the creature's wings.
Ehren heals Hrut, who slowly comes to consciousness, though he is still on the ground.
Markus is up
Hearing Anevia's cry and Hrut's painful shout, Markus rushes around the building next to him and towards the fracas. The vulture cleverly intervenes and swipes at Markus as he moves past, leaving a deep gash with its beak - still dripping with Hrut's blood.
He scrabbles over the corpse of one of the giant vultures that the group had killed and reaches out to grab prone Hrut's leg, positive energy flowing from him into the man, staunching the flow of blood and the release of the dying man's soul.
Li'an is up.
With the vulture near her dispatched (though not by any contribution of hers), she decides to get as far away from the cursed paver as possible. She rushes past Ary, tumbling into the space between the two vultures. As she does, she calls Val's attention, hoping they can bring down the bird between them quickly.
Ary starts to panic when she sees Hrut go down... but then realizes her worries are a bunch of nonsense; they have so much staying power right now it's kind of hilarious. It was a shame they were running through it so quickly though. Once the guy is back on his feet (if not literally), she can return her attention to the task at hand.
She notes that Li'an has moved into the space she was going to move into but doesn't worry too much, and instead simply brings Radiance down unerringly on the carrion bird, nearest to Valaria; she was confident in her ability to protect the crusader, but she couldn't reach her friends further away to protect them, so wanted to thin out the pack.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Opening his eyes, with a gasp and continued healing mending his neck, Hrut(Zombie Situp cause its funny) sits up then stands,
"To victory!" Still delusional and and with a hoarse throat, Hrut screams as he attacks the remaining vulture.
Enduring Crane Strike
Val half turns, seeing Li'an leap into place. She nods once, understanding the plan then spins on her heel, using the momentum of the turn to drive the blade directly at the vulture between them.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Li'an nimbly dodges past the vultures to get into position. Meanwhile, Ary rakes Radiance through the bird before her, leaving a deep wound. It squawks and flies away.
Klarah looks at Markus, running up to him to put a hand on his shoulder. "Y-you're hurt, mister!" But she hesitates. She glances at her holy symbol. "But I can't help you...?"
Round 4
Hrut gets to his feet, and the vulture next to him seizes the opportunity to attack once more - but as it rips into the towering crusader man, he calls upon Torag, healing the new wounds instantly. Hrut breaks into the vulture's defenses with his mighty warhammer, leaving a gory memento and crippling the creature's wings so it can no longer fly... Valaria follows up with a quick, expert slash, cutting into the bird's vitals. It flops to the ground, dying.
The final, untouched vulture remains on Ary, but she twists sideways. The bird catches on her tabard, but leaves her unharmed. Julania turns to address it, her axe glinting wickedly as it arcs to meet its intended victim, nearly beheading the creature in one fell swoop. Meanwhile, Anevia slowly moves around the battlefield into place, giving the corpse pile a long, sad glance.
Ehren is up.
When the bird it is attacking dies once more, the air elemental pauses briefly before flying off to attack the fleeing vulture.
Ehren meanwhile steps away from the body of the vulture he had been standing over, digging into his belt pouch for his last healing potion. "Here," he says, offering it to Hrut.
"Honestly, I'm getting used to it." says Markus, coughing out a tiny bit of dark blood as he talks. "If you care about healing me, you've gotta prepare some inflict spells - negative energy heals my wounds." He raises his wand, pointing it at the fleeing fifth vulture. "I'll explain later."
He fires another two bolts at the creature.
With only a single vulture left, Li'an turns around and attacks it, swinging at it with Lleuad.
"One day, we're going to forget to tell someone at all, and they're going to cast a really potent spell. And everything is gonna go downhill from there." Ary announced, as she brought her weapon forward in an upward arc.
"Hey, don't you dare jinx it!" shouts Markus, slightly defensive. "If I don't warn the healers, it's my fault when they kill me anyway."
Ary shakes her head. "No... it's society's fault. It's not exactly something that comes up in polite conversation. Kind of a shame." she responds. "I figure you probably get all manner of reactions from people when they first find out. Are Dhampir treated as badly in Ustalav as Tieflings are here? Or is it more like a haven?"
Markus scoffs. "Dhampir are just a reminder of the Whispering Tyrant. Ustalav's been ravaged by undead - they still wander the wilderness when undead-slayers can't get to them." He sighs. "Unsurprisingly, though - they make up a decent population of the undead cults that still plague the region. Easier to accept a dhampir than a living traitor."
"If Ustalav is that bad, why come here to fight? I mean... I'm not complaining about having you here, and we definitely need you..." she trails off.
The air elemental pursues the fleeing vulture, slamming a fierce current of air into the vulture, disabling it. Markus finishes it off with a pair of magic missiles. The vulture plummets to the ground and dies.
Li'an puts too much momentum into her swing, and misses the vulture by a hair. But in any case, Ary quickly fells the final vulture, and immediately launches into a discussion about dhampir.
Combat ends
"Okay! I'll make sure to ready that for you tomorrow. I have to pray with the sunrise, you see." However, Klarah still seems confused. "What is a dhampir? "
Julania seems satisfied that the vultures are gone. She walks over to the corpse pile and kneels before it, and closes her eyes. "Thank the Inheritor," she murmurs.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"Also, I think I'm gonna pretend to be Avi for a bit once this conversation ends." Ary says, grinning, and giving Markus a way to segue if she'd pressed too much.
Collecting his quiver, Hrut looks over to the paladin,
"Hello there fellow crusader! My name is Hrut, and it seems some of our group knows you? Do you know of any other survivors?"
Captain Nalti laughs grimly. "Survivors? Survivors? I'm all that's left." She gestures to the pile of corpses. "This was my squadron. We were ordered to guard this sector to allow to civilians to flee." She stands up, wiping her axe on the shirt of one of the dead men. "I didn't abandon my post. I'm still here."
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
With their enemy defeated, the air elemental quickly flies over to Ehren and ruffles his already messy hair with its currents. Its body then promptly disperses, puffing out a small breeze.
Li'an is glad to see the creatures defeated, if only because it meant she didn't need to keep tripping and fumbling her attacks. "I must be really out of it, no Lleuad? That wasn't a terribly great performance on my part. Good thing we didn't lose anyone."
Li'an walks up alongside Hrut and addresses Julania, "Are you alright Captain Nalti?"
"I didn't want to be an undead if I was killed." Markus says, turning from the fleeing, and then dying vulture. "And I expect to be killed. The odds are stacked against us everywhere we go."
"A dhampir is the spawn of an undead and a mortal. That's me - half-dead."
Klarah fiddles with her holy symbol, clearly uncomfortable. "I.. what? I.. didn't know that was possible! That makes sense, though. What with the negative energy and the positive energy and..." She trails off, awkwardly. After a moment, the cleric shoves her discomfort away and beams. "In any case, I am sure Sarenrae will smile upon anything I do to try and heal such a brave man like you!" Her smile flickers for a second. "I think those crusaders would have killed me if you hadn't spoken up, so.."
Julania stares straight ahead, not looking at anyone in particular. "I shall wage relentless war," she mumbles. Her eyes are distant and unfocused.
Li'an walks in front of Julania and places her hands on her shoulders. Looking her straight in the eyes, she says "Captain, snap out of it, you're not alone anymore."
Turning to the others, "She's completely out of it. In shock maybe? Is there anything either of you can do Markus, Ehren? Or maybe something you can do Klarah?"
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Ary starts to say something to the captain, then furrows her brow as the Air Elemental musses Ehren's hair.
"That is a very, very good reason, I believe." Ary nods to Markus, then seems more concerned with the Crusader. "Here, Ehren... fill this for me?" She says as she grabs her unfilled waterskin and moves over to Ehren and Markus, lowering her voice. 'Does she look okay to you guys? I mean... beyond the slight crazy? Sunstroke, dehydration, anything?'
Assuming Ehren fills the waterskin , she'll offer it to Julania, "Here. Drink -very- slowly. Just a mouthful every few minutes until you aren't thirsty."