These poor saps, they better not think that paying these low lives is gonna change anything. But, here we go
Pressing himself forward, closer to the leader, Edvard gives a bright smile and begins barking and snarling at the bandits - especially eying the portly chap of the 2.
Oh ha! You'd think we'd be so stupid to fall for that trick? Your only plans are to Lift, and extort us. Therefore, as I am a dog, you are a threat to us all! Have at you!
Edvard exclaimed as he brandished both his shield and battle axe, showing well his pride.
AR AROOOO!!!!!
We easily got this
OH yes. We're committed to a fight now.
Glowering, Sevrin edges forward, he needs to be a bit closer the leader. He feels a kind venomous malice he has experienced before.
Threaten me and my friends? They're going to pay.
He knows he can make his hatred manifest.
Arrgh! Don't leave yourself open, you idiot!
Elaina moves her glaive from it's resting place on her shoulder to her hands in a practiced, fluid motion as she steps out from behind her brother to his side. Her cold glare fixs the two bandits.
"Despite my brother acting a fool, I think he has the right of it. Let us pass and we'll let you keep your heads."
Gods, why they have to be so stubborn? Délia had been quite ready to just pay the bandits, but now it is clear that the situation will devolve into a fight. Deciding that she will rather be the one who initiates the fight, she searches her pouch for a... Piece of butter?
Well, this will have to do.
She throws the butter towards the bandits and utters a short spell.
As the others charge forward, Nedyr takes out his sling, whipping it about and then he fires it at which ever one hasn't been engaged in melee yet.
As Edvard lunged forward, battle cry and all, his companions took that as a signal for action. Whether or not they wanted to, they'd started a fight with the bandits.
As if trying to one-up her brother's bravado, Elaina leads the charge towards Rillan, her practiced movements with the glade making her look as though gliding over the ground. Unfortunately, gliding wasn't enough to avoid a rotten stump hidden in the tall grass from a long-dead tree. Face foward, Elaina finds herself tumbling into the dirt.
Seeing the battle begin in earnest, Nedyr readies his sling and launches a bullet through the air. It soars across the field... and hits Edvard in the back of his head. Fortunately, it's nothing he's unaccustomed to.
Sevrin stands back, watching his friends begin a battle. Deep within himself, he feels an anger that he's felt before. In the past, he's tried to suppress it - but now he lets it free, as a nearly tangible wave of negative energy. The air reverberates with magic as Rillan recoils in sudden agony.
Will
Delia's butter-based projectile melts midflight, transforming from a slippery glob of butter into a spray of buttery fluid. Bosco, unfortunate enough to be standing too close, catches the shower with his face - and his hands. Although a buttery mess, he manages to hold his grip on his weapon.
Although Bosco isn't too quick on the draw, Rillan was more than ready for the fight. Reacting to the party's movements, he rushes forward, sword in mid-slash as he approaches Elaina. Nearly tripping over her as she tumbles to the ground, his blade misses its mark, only catching the air where she stood half a second prior.
Sevrin shouts at Rillan.
"Your bravery makes a little more sense now. You're not there are you?
Somebody is trying to trick us!"
Sevrin tries to confirm his suspicion with Detect Magic, reasoning it is unlikely that two highway men would have magical auras for any other reason.
Nedyr winces as he hits Edvard, Erastil, did either of us really need that humbling at this particular time?
He switches to his sickle and moves to Rillan thinking Elaina might need help.
Ow.
Elaina winces from the tumble induced headache, but manages to keep her wits to realize that she was not in a good place. She lets go of her glaive and tries to roll out of the reach of the bandit's sword.
She does move, but leaves herself incredibly exposed. She hops to her feet, pulling out her quarterstaff as she plants her feet.
Edvard couldn't believe the scene that was ocurring before him. His sister plunging into a dirt nap and Sevrin act all spooky.
HAVE AT YOU, FELONS! said Edvard whipping his shield to the side and charging for the bandit nearest Elaina.
Must protect the little sister!
Elaina! Remember what Pops taught us!
Deciding not to exhaust her mind by casting another spell yet, Délia draws her bow, tries her best to minimize the change of skewering either of the Tirels, then fires towards the larger and worse mannered bandit.
Initiative:
Attack:
Damage:
Round One Summary:
Trying to confirm his suspicions, Sevrin focuses his mind to try and discern any magical signatures emanating from the two bandits.
Smiling over the fallen Elaina, Rillan raises his blade and swings it downward with a chuckle. His blow strikes not Elaina, but her glaive - pinning the weapon to the ground. As she tries to roll away, he grits his teeth and pulls his sword back, just catching the back of her leg with the tip of the blade. She couldn't help but notice that the wound looked far more painful than it felt - perhaps this was the trick Sevrin spoke of?
With a few feet of breathing room, she jumps to her feet. After only a second of standing, the wounded leg buckles underneath her. Perhaps it wasn't as painless as it felt.
Meanwhile, Bosco finally gets his not-exactly-small anterior moving, charging towards Edvard, the only other apparent threat to his boss. Sword extended, he charges towards the "dog". The steel clashes against the brash young man's shield, sliding past just enough to stick into Ed's abdomen. Recoiling from the blow, Edvard looks down and laughs - it felt far worse than it looked. It almost looked as though he'd barely been injured at all.
The melee is far from over, as Edvard unleashes his own attack. Axe hefted above his head, he charges past Bosco towards his employer. Certain he would strike his target, he cleaves downward with his axe, a smile plastered on his face - which only fades as the axe finds nothing but thin air. He was certain that blow would have hit its target - something had to be wrong.
Not as excited to enter a melee with two armed thugs as the Tirels, Delia's arrow sails across the battlefield. Despite the rather generous target presented by Bosco, the arrow misses its target by a hair, landing in the path of his charge.
Nedyr, however, brandishes his sickle and moves to Elaina's aid - Erastil knew she'd need all the help in the world just to stand up. Slicing at Rillan's arm, the dexterous bandit pulls his sword-arm back, and your attack just misses its mark.
Elaina grits her teeth and fights to stand up, keeping a white-knuckled grip on her staff.
"HRAH!"
The young girl takes a quick step forward and snaps her quarterstaff out in a quick strike at the bandit's head.
Nimble bastard, I'll give him that.
The sickle swings again, and Nedyr hopes his luck is better this time.
"They're not real! They're illusions! There's no point in fighting them!"
Sevrin rushes straight through the figments to the other side of the glade.
"The real question is, who created them?" He cast detect magic again, concentrating on detecting any lingering aura.
Illusionary bandits sounds a little far-fetched, but the sureness in Sevrin's voice convinces Délia. Still, the bandits look real enough and she cant quite make herself do it... Suddenly a magnificent idea crosses her mind.
If they are illusions, they only exist in my mind... And if I can't see them, they don't exist at all!
Not pausing to ponder the deeper metaphysical implications of her sudden display of ingenuity, she charges towards the bandits with her eyes tightly shut.
I'm still outta power over by me. On a side note, Helio and I had met up ran a quick module during the huricane - it was awesome
.
Edvard was surprised that he missed such a large target and cursed himself for the blunder.
There' no way I couldn't miss piggy. Arghhh.
Come! I challenge you to test the might of the Tirel Clan!!! Elaina, lets plow through this figment! .
Edvard takes a position near Elaina, and fights defensively
Round 2:
Certain that the bandits before them were nothing more than illusions, Sevrin turns his attention to the treeline. Scanning the trees for any signs of the figments' master.
While there appear to be sure signs that the caster of the illusions is lying somewhere nearby, he is unable to pinpoint an exact source of the magic.
Bosco Dmg
Ed Will
Rillan Atk
Elaina Will
Bosco smiles as he turns his girth around and takes another pass at Edvard. Despite his best efforts to parry away the fat man's sword, the blade catches him in the arm. Once again, the wound barely looks as though it has scratched the surface, yet it stings surprisingly badly.
"Oi, boss, the twig says we ain't real! Shoulds I crush 'im?"
Caught up in his own melee, Rillan tosses a quick glance towards his bumbling partner before sighing. "Sure, sure."
He moves towards Elaina, his sword outstretched towards the young woman. With a clunk, she manages to parry away the blow with her quarterstaff.
Turning the parry to her advantage, Elaina strikes out with her staff, aiming to give him quite a bad headache. The ever-dexterous Rillan, however, leans away from the attack, the wooden tip of the overgrown stick grazing past his forehead.
Edvard, having failed to mimic his sister's skill at parrying blades, forgoes any sense of strategy and uses Bosco's proximity as a means of striking back. Even as his arm was bloodied, he raised his axe and swung it down towards the bandit's skull. The fat man laughs as the slow and clunky axe misses the equally slow and clunky man.
Ed Will
Throwing caution to the wind with her faith in Sevrin's words, Delia closes her eyes and charges across the battlefield. She charges straight past the bandits, finally slowing to a stop when she realizes she hadn't actually hit anything.
Still trying to keep the nimble bandit off of Elaina, Nedyr swings his sickle in a wide arc. The curved blade nearly cleaves off a piece of Rillan's hand, but with a quick twist of his wrist, the sickle finds nothing but the man's longsword, the sound of steel impacting dulling out Rillan's chuckle.
Sevrin shouts-
"Oh come on! Ignore the figments, help me find the caster!"
He continues to focus on locating the caster, concentrating on keeping his detect magic spell going.
"Sorry, Sevrin, I believe you, especially now. I just was already committed to the blow." and he stops fighting.
"Then they're bloody good ones!"
Elaina calls out, before noticing that everyone else had stopped fighting.
Well, if they aren't real...
Elaina stands still and closes her eyes.
But that one cut me!
The young fighter tenses for the expected blow.
Délia sighs in relief as her faith in Sevrin proves right. Noticing that everyone except Elaina had stopped fighting, she sighs again, walks over to the fighter and starts dragging her towards the illusions.
"Come on, they are not real! See? I can walk right through them!"
Elaina's eyes pop open as Delia grabs her arm and starts to drag her towards the illusions.
"Then how did they cut me!"
The fighter, proving just as stubborn as her brother, digs her heels in and refuses to budge.
"Belief is a powerful thing," Nedyr says as he looks about still for the source.
Edvard hadn't fought any sort of illusion before, the whole thing seemed baffingly, but blindly chasing about figments didn't seem like as much fun the youth thought.
HEY SIS! FOCUS YOUR BLADE ON SOMETHING REAL!!! belted Ed.
Hm, might as well run interference, no idea who/what we're up against...
Edvard shifts his protection towards Sevrin, and has his shield out hoping to protect the frail witch.
Alright Witch-Boy. I'll be your shield. Guide us to victory
Bosco stood dumbfounded, looking at the scene unfolding before them.
"Oi, boss, dey's stop fighting? Well, 'cept dat one."
He points to Elaina, who is struggling against Delia's efforts to budge her. If nothing else ran in the Tirel blood, it was good ol' stubbornness. At this rate, it'd take a small army to move the girl. Even as she gritted her teeth against any of Delia's efforts to convince her of the illusions, she lashed out at Rillan with her quarterstaff, the hunk of wood passing straight through Rillan's midsection without a hint of impacting anything. Only a slight wavering in the image of Rillan betrayed any sign of disturbance.
Sevrin and Nedyr stand behind them, scanning the trees for signs of the puppetmaster behind these images. Unfortunately, they can neither see him nor find his magical signature - the air still resonates with the powerful illusions before them.
With a sigh, Rillan sheathes his blade.
"No, Bosco, we're done here."
At his words, the image of Bosco begins to fade away, the fat man disappearing into thin air as if slowly pulled away from the material realm.
"Ah," Rillan's voice is distinctly less... "noble" sounding than before. It sounds older, hoarser. He speaks slightly slower and a little lower than he had before. If you didn't know better, you'd swear you'd heard that voice somewhere before. "My job here is done, travelers. The wilds are a dangerous place - do take care." With a half-cough, half-chuckle, Rillan's image follows Bosco into nothingness. Along with Rillan, the various wounds that marred the Tirels faded away as well, the pain that had seemed so real just moments ago disappearing in an instant. Only a throbbing lump on the back of Ed's head remained, the product of being a rock-magnet.
"Well, okay then."
Sevrin is vastly irritated. He shouts to nobody in particular.
"We know the wilds are dangerous, we brought weapons and stuff!"
Not that we looked like we know how to use them.
"Maybe that was someone from the village having fun with us? Teaching us a lesson?"
Jerks.
"Hey Edvard. What did you call me?"
"Whoever they are, they're about a hundred and fifty feet that way, or so I suspect..." He gestures,"Should we pursue, or keep going on our mission and hope we are not harassed again?"
"Got it."
Elaina falls to the ground and grimaces.
"Please tell me I'm not an idiot. Please?"
Turning his head towards Sevrin, Ed had acted is he was summoned to a saintly duty. He stared for a moment, and seemed so intent, as if a divine revolution had arrived. And in that instant, he opened his mouth as if to speak but his face had resumed a placid appearance.
"Nope"
Snapping his attention back into the world, he brotherly senses kicked in at the sight of his bewildered sister.
Steadly picking up his sister Elaina, Ed had spoke words of wisdom to his sister.
We've been had...but you'll always be my idiot
"Thanks..."
Elaina accepts her brother's "wisdom" with a smirk.
"No use going after whoever that was. We'd never catch them if they're that far off."
"You're probably right!" Sevrin says quietly but with evident ferocity.
"Rilyeh!" Sevrin hisses, speaking his familiar's name for the first time in front of others.
"See if you can spot them and circle above."
He points in the direction Nedyr indicated, and runs after.
"Not an idiot!" He says over his shoulder as he hurries off.
Rilyeh takes to the skies, zipping up into the air with surprising agility. Despite taking a few passes over the clearing, each circle drifting closer and closer to the area Nedyr indicated, Sevrin gets the feeling that his little friend did not see whoever - or whatever - they'd been looking for.
Nedyr smiles at Elaina, "Sevrin is the only one who didn't fall for that, Elaina. If you're an idiot, you're not alone. I'd be right with you." He sighs, "And yes, they're probably long gone. Still, it is very very odd."
With his familiar unable to spot his quarry, Sevrin relents in his pursuit. But not happily.
"This isn't over." He mutters to nobody.
Whatever happened here, Sevrin took offense to it. He's is disturbed at the hostility of his own response, and that feeling only makes him more outwardly annoyed.
I'll find out who was behind this, and repay them somehow.
Sevrin comes trotting back to the group after dashing off impulsively.
"I was fooled at first too. Until, you know, I wasn't. I dunno, I don't appreciate being toyed with like that, I mean, even with illusions someone could get really hurt with weapons flying about. Ed's lucky he's got a sturdy skull."
Elaina laughs at Sevrin's comment.
"True, Momma always did say his skull was a lot thicker than everyone else's!"
She gathers up her glaive and looks at the others.
"Well, let's keep going. We've still got plenty of daylight."
Nedyr smiles at the joking, "So we do." He will pick up the pace again unless someone sees some reason to linger.
Délia keeps silent as she walks, pondering about the odd encounter. She did not know that much about illusions, but she is sure that such a life-like and complicated one is quite tricky to pull off.
She starts making a mental list of people she thinks might be able to create something like that.
As the group crosses the half-dead grassland of the Broken Glade, the light of day begins to wane. With only a few hours of daylight left remaining, it becomes evident that you won't be able to make it to the landmark on the map - the Gray Lake - before dark. To make matters even more troublesome, the path indicated on the map no longer follows the hunting trail - you're going to need to make your own path through the dense Fangwood, and that's bound to take far longer than it did to follow the trail. The good news was that there hadn't been any surprises since the whole illusion business.
Hm, that familiar nocturne is bound for us if do not hurry he thought to himself.
Securing his shield behind his back, Ed brandished his great axe and took a position before the group.
Listen, you all know as well as I do that anything can be out there. All I need is some cover. I've the idea to make our path through this thicketed wood.
Being that the group had a difficult time coming to a united decision against the bandits, Ed didn't hesistate towards pushing on.
Sevrin eyes Edvard somewhat skeptically.
"Err, lead on!
At least he'll be all tuckered out by bed time
Sevrin and Rilyeh keep watch while Edvard hacks at the forest.
"I have a severe problem with this," Nedyr frowns, "I serve nature, I'm not keen on us hacking through it." He adds, "And the noise is going to carry."
"Ed, Nedyr's right. It may be slower, but I think that we should respect the woods."
Whaddya mean? said Ed has he mowed a good berth of weeds that stood before him.
His face meeting the sternful gaze of his sister, Ed had swallowed a gulp, flaced Nedyr a dirty look and stopped his activity. Tucking back his great axe, Ed crossed his arms and stepped to the side.
Them by all means... Ed said casually.
"Thank you, Edvard, if there's no other way, we'll try yours... or maybe mix the two and just find the right points to thin the foliage. " He shoots Elaina a grateful smile.
I hope I get this right, or Ed may never let me hear the end of it.
He'll try to find natural trails animals use and the like or natural clearings from past fires that hadn't fully overgrown yet.
A bit more versed with the wilderness than Edvard, it doesn't take long before Nedyr manages to locate a small, overgrown trail. Most likely used by the local fauna, it'll be easy enough to follow - though still a bit slower, and certainly more narrow, than the well-traveled hunter's path. As Nedyr pushes away some of the undergrowth to reveal the path to his companions, a rabbit scurries out of a nearby bush and rushes further into the forest. From here, the path looks clear.
"Hey, look! A rabbit!"
As they walk along, Délia starts singing a quite... Intresting amalgam of a song: It is singed in elven, and the melody is from a relatively well-known folk song, but the lyrics are translated from an orcish war chant, taught to her by a half-orc guard of a travelling trader who had travelled through the town. (Nice guy, though spending his childhood with an orc tribe had made him a little agressive.)
While the melody is cheery, a more linguistics-oriented person would be slightly disturbed by the dissonance between the macabre lyrics and the relative "softness" of the elven language.
"See, we didn't need to go hacking every limb in sight."
Elaina gives Edvard a good-natured elbow to the ribs.
