"I may have something to help, to get a jump at whatever comes through the doors," Vilhelm said. "I'm good with illusions, and one trick I know is to use them to overlap with the real world... make illusions of areas of a room that look just as they did before... but remain that way, even if someone were to enter. You know the illusion for what it is, so it will not hinder your senses. Anyone else will look at you and see only empty space, until it interacts with the illusion and realizes something is amiss. How well it works depends on what we are against... animals may still smell you and be able to locate you even if they do not see you, but some more weak-willed creatures might not be able to disbelieve the spell even though you stood next to them and struck them with a blade repeatedly - they'd just feel the pain but fail to spot the attacker."
"It does mean I'll be busy maintaining the illusion, but I can drop it the moment it becomes obvious it no longer serves its purpose."
"We have ten seconds left on the clock. Do what you think is best.", Jibril moves to just south-east of the trap.
Rex listened as the others discussed who should insert the card. Slowly he felt eyes turning to him. "Alright, alright...I guess I'll put the card in. Though if I could be in one of those 'don't see anything there spots', that'd be great..."
He took the bear card and began cautiously moving to insert it. "Let me know when you're ready."
Dizzy was torn - last time she buffed up for a fight, it ended up being a waste of spells. She decided not to cast until she knew for sure what they were up against. She held her mace in one hand, had her buckler on the other arm, and nodded to Rex. Or at least, to the space he'd vanished into. "Aright, let's do this."
With the dial pointed to five, Rex took the bear card and slid it into the left-most slot, labelled "first". They stared at the bear door, but nothing happened. The dial moved painfully slowly to four, three, two, one. As it reached the red line, the stone bear door slid open.
It revealed a deep tunnel, pitch dark after a few feet. Almost immediately, they could hear a deep growling sound, along with a strange zapping, sparking sound. A moment later, and they could see small sparks of light in the darkness, and they appeared to be coming closer. A moment later, and the bear came into sight.
She was a big one. No. She was huge. She was huge, and brown, and grizzled, and furious. Her eyes rolled madly in her head, and she bellowed out a challenge as she came into the light. As soon as she cleared the door, she stood up on her hind legs and bellowed again, painfully loud. They could see dozens of healed scars through her patchy fur, and one sharp canine tooth was broken. The rest of her teeth, and her claws, looked sharp enough to easily rend flesh from bone.
The she-bear took a look around the seemingly empty stadium, and bellowed again. She raised her head and sniffed, then dropped down to all fours.
WOOHOO
Seeing the size of the bear, Dizzy realized they were going to need more than luck to get through this test. Hoping the other creatures were close to their closed doors, she laid a hand on her breastplate and prayed for the goddess's protection.
Having conjured the illusion hiding the party from sight, Vilhelm had found himself a good spot near the center of the arena and waited for something to happen. And happen it did. He bit his lip at the sight of the massive bear, just to make sure he didn't curse out aloud and attract the beast's attention. That was one veteran of many battles, and as he had feared, not completely reliant of sight to locate its enemies. He knew he was safe for the time being - an invocation protecting him from tracking also masked him from the noses of even trained blood-hounds. But the arena was small enough, and he felt certain he could not afford to hold onto his illusion for very long.
Taking a few steps to keep himself out of the bear's path but close enough to hopefully strike when it passed him, Vilhelm bid his time and waited for his opportunity.
Rex sized up the bear. Perhaps not smart to rush straight into a fight. Pulling out his sling, he flung a bullet and the creature before stepping back towards the middle. He tried to keep his path such that if he because visible, a direct line would be between him and the bear trap.
As he backed away, his eye caught something. That's probably not good.. "Uh guys, the clock reset...to twelve...I don't know what that means, but we better act quick..."
Quinn knew she was better with her dagger but didn't really want to get that close to the bear. Stowing her dagger in her wrist sheath, she loaded a bolt into her crossbow and let it fly.
East
The big bear took the two projectiles in the shoulder, one right after the other, and bellowed yet again. Their ears were starting to ring with the sheer volume of the bear's anger. It swung its head around again, as if testing the air, then started moving east, along the north wall of the stadium. It didn't look like it was moving that fast, but the huge bear had a ground-eating lope, and within a few seconds it was past the illusion curtain that Vilhelm was maintaining.
As it came through the illusion, it caught sight of Dizzy first, as if she had suddenly appeared. Immediately the she-bear turned and approached the dwarf, but due to her circuitous route to get there, the others had a few seconds to prepare for her arrival.
As the clock ticked down and the beast laid eyes on Dizzy, Rex realized he could only play keep away for so long. Pulling out his long spear and using the illusion for cover, he charged at the creature, trying to get as far behind it as he could.
Dizzy had a bad feeling about that dial. She felt that somebody should be watching it. As Rex appeared behind the bear, she realized that the dial and the cards were unsupervised.
The cleric touched an engraved mace on her breastplate, and asked the goddess for help. A silver glowing mace appeared before her, and streaked towards the bear. As it attacked, the dwarf moved away from the bear (and those claws!), towards the dial. And it wasn't because she was still traumatized from being nearly eaten by the were-cat. At least, not only that.
Quinn moved so that the bear trap was between her and the bear and then fired another bolt at it, trying to provoke it into charging towards her.
Jibril thought he was prepared but as the giant bear trounced through the gate he lost his wind for a second. It was too late his whole rhythm was off. He made a big roll of his shoulder and notched an arrow. He looked like he was heaving a bag of sand as he whispered the same words over and over, "al'ashum mithl alrasas, al'ashum mithl alrasas, al'ashum mithl alrasas."
The bear was not prepared for the volley of weapons thrust and shot its way. Rex's spear nearly gutted the creature, and hot blood poured down the spear's handle and onto the brawler's hand. Quinn's bolt and Dizzy's spiritual weapon further hurt and confused the bear, until it was reeling with pain. Bellowing this time in pain, it tried to stumble back, away from the surprisingly hurtful humanoids. Rex and Vilhelm took advantage of its movement to attack again, and their two strikes together punctured one of the creature's lungs.
Blood burbled from its mouth, and it collapsed with a thump on the ground.
The stadium was quiet as the bear's death-rattle ended. Dizzy looked to see the dial at the number 4.
Quinn looked over at the straw emperor and was somewhat surprised to see that the look on his face had changed. The emperor was now frowning. "Um guys? I think we've displeased the emperor. Maybe because we didn't actually use the bear trap to fight the bear? We should probably try avoiding making him angrier with the next challenge. Which is what? Which card are we feeding next?"
Alarmed, Dizzy looked up at the emperor. "Why isnae he happy? Mayhap we were meant no to kill, but only capture it?"
As the dial clicked to three, she picked up the other five cards. "What one next? The wee one? Wings?"
"We don't have time to decide by general vote - just slot in anything," Vilhelm said. "I'll keep the illusion up, we can at least start from hiding, no matter what comes."
Rex scowled right back at the emperor. "In my experience they just hate it when we don't bleed...but I guess we should be more careful with the next one. " He looked around. "I guess that winged bird thing is near. Who wants to whip it? I have some experience handling wild creatures if that's what it wants."
"Vilhelm, can you make it look like the arena is getting smaller? Could we get the birds to coral themselves? Regardless, grab the whip, release the creatures."
"I can do that," Vilhelm replied, frowning in concentration as he manipulated the illusion he had conjured into being, surrounding the bird-marked door with the boundary of the spell, altering the image displayed to make the far wall seem closer, creating an illusion of the arena now being oval in shape.
Quinn took a few steps back and away from the bird door. Shaking her head she stated adamantly, "Nope, count me out. I'm not going anywhere near a giant bird. I'll be over here with my crossbow."
As the dial ticked down every few seconds, Dizzy shuffled through the cards until she found the bird. She quickly stuffed it into the second slot, where it disappeared down inside the wall. She then ran forward, grabbed the whip, and retreated back into the illusion.
Another few seconds ticked by, then the dial hit 0. The bird door lifted up, revealing a metal fenced coral behind it. Three tall creatures darted through the door and into the stadium, then stood in a triangular formation, looking around.
They were about four feet tall, and at least 8-9 feet long, including their long tails. They were covered in short brown feathers, and had longer ocher feathers on their wings. Or were those arms? It was hard to tell, but they definitely had a few claws on the ends of them.
The feet were three-toed and taloned, with a long, curved talon in the middle. They seemed to have a cross between a beak and a muzzle - and it was full of small, pointed teeth.
The three animals stood together, heads darting this way and that, as if confused about their surroundings. Without seeming to move their mouths, they emit a series of high-pitched clicks and whistles, then begin slowly to step forward. They stay together in a pack, in a triangular formation.
Rex positioned himself in front of the others. "Okay. I guess stay away from them...Except Jibril. I might need your help corralling them..." Or saving me if I mess this up...
He stood with the whip at the ready, waiting for them to get near, before cracking the whip in front of him and shouting to try and encourage them to run around the arena.
Quinn watched from a distance as their new challenge made an appearance. She was surprised that there were three of them but relieved that they didn't appear to be any kind of bird she recognized. In fact, she wasn't really sure if they were birds at all. The important thing was that it didn't look like they'd be able to fly and attack her from above...or poop on her from above for that matter. She could be wrong but her assumptions made her feel better.
Knowing that her bolt wouldn't do much to harm them and not wanting to make them angry, she didn't fire right away. She waited to see what affect the whip would have on the creatures.
She kept an eye on the door they had exited from, trying to determine if they were supposed to corral them back through it. Otherwise, what was the purpose of the whip? It wasn't like it was going to wound them.
Dizzy's eyes widened. She certainly had NOT been expecting three of the strange birds! She wondered if they were as dangerous as they looked, and assumed the answer was YES.
Jibril positioned himself on the far left of Rex and listened to Rex's cues. If Rex was corralling the lead then Jibril watched for strays, tried to enhance an atmosphere of calm, but most of all kept away from Rex's whip end. Getting struck would only rile up the creatures.
He was late again, a step behind the creatures. Mostly, Jibril tried to be present. It was too easy to get lost in Rex's command over the arena. He was moving the whip deftly, side-to-side, not at the creatures. Controlling not threatening. Rex suddenly looked the old hand at corralling dinosaurs.
In a calm voice, "They're deinonychus and they're pack savvy. They may already know the others are here - very sensitive hearing. Maybe keep the crack of the whip back a bit ... and they're smart. Don't underestimate them."
What did the dial do?
The deinonychus moved their heads back in forth in synch with the movement of the whip. When Rex shouted, motioned and cracked it, they broke together as a pack and ran clockwise around what appeared to be the boundary of the arena.
'So far, so good,' Vilhelm thought as he saw the bird-like beasts responding to Rex's efforts. 'But now what?'
The dinos ran clockwise around the arena, skirting the area where Rex cracked the whip. They ran upright, surprisingly fast, their curved talons making strange tracks in the hard-packed dirt floor. Their heads turned constantly, even as they ran, and it was clear they were assessing the situation.
As they approached Jibril, they broke formation. Darting all around him, they quickly had him surrounded. Lashing out with pecking-like motions, they attacked simultaneously, trying to bite the half-elf.
The first two missed, but the one on Jibril's right sank a row of pointed teeth into his hip, shredding flesh as it released. The smell of blood seemed to agitate them even more.
Blood oozing and staining through his trousers, Jibril tried to dive over the middle creatures tail to go into a tuck and roll, then bolted for the door.
"Drive them towards me and I'll try to lure them to the cage!"
Rex looked uncertain, as the creatures nipped at Jibril. "Are you sure?" He started to ask. However, the creatures were moving quickly and their wasn't much time for discussion. "Yargh!" He shouted at the creatures, cracking the whip behind them, trying to drive them to follow Jibril to the cage.
DIzzy's spiritual mace had been hovering hear her since the bear went down. When she saw the dinos savaging Jibril, she sent it to his aid with a thought. The mace flew to the nearest dino and began to beat it savagely.
Dizzy then focused her will, and that of the goddess, on making one of the dinos attack another one.
Quinn watched Rex, surprised by his ability to handle the creatures with the whip, and Jibril, impressed by his willingness to be their target, from afar. She kept her crossbow at the ready in case the creatures broke formation but made no effort to help. She had no desire to get that close to a large creature resembling a bird.
Vilhelm let loose a blast of Eldritch energy, drawing once again upon the frozen wastes. Unfortunately, the quick, sudden shifts of position by the attacking reptile-birds confounded his aim. The north-most dino's head whipped around as the energy blasted by its head, staring for a moment at the spot in the arena's wall where it seemed to have come from.
As Jibril leapt and flowed past the two flanking deinonychus, the leader lashed out with a clawed foot, hoping to slice its escaping prey. The sharp, curved talon caught Jibril's calf as he flashed by, opening a long, shallow slice from knee to ankle.
The dinos, urged by Rex's whip, chased Jibril to the door. Two continued to attack and harry him. However, the third bird turned and attacked its neighbour, producing another strange string of trills and clicks as it did so. All three birds were distracted by Rex's whip-cracks and shouts, and the mysterious spiritual weapon, and Jibril was able to dodge both attacks. The enspelled dinosaur was unable to connect with the dino it attacked, and moments later shook off the spell's effect.
Miss
Hit Jibril
Pass
Miss
Miss
Miss