His eyes flutter open at the first of the loud knocking.
His mind is instantly alert which is more than can be said for his aging body. He is stiff and cold and as he looks across he can see Nasrin and Greyston already up and moving toward the door and he envies their youth.
Hearing the soldiers sneering tone he winces as he prepares himself for what may come.
stay calm Corum, for all our sakes he thinks as he limps toward Nadya and the others and says quietly.
this isn't necessary Corum, If Nadya wishes to go with them we must let her. We dont want any trouble here he emphasises the last word hoping the barbarian and Nasrin will understand.
As Nasrins comes around to the front of the house she stops and listens to the conversation. She is stunned to hear that Nadya wants to give herself up to the Jadwiga dogs. She has to know they are just going to torture and kill her! Still, it occurs to her that it may be the better way to protect her pack by following their lead. The feral girl leans against the wooden wall of the house and waits, expectant. She holds her hand out, ordering Jagar to do the same.
Sapphire stands behind Elleross, quiet and letting those that knew how to speak do so. Her hand rested on the hilt of her longsword in case the soldier's drew steel, but she would not be the first to draw and start a fight here in Nadya's home.
You can feel the tension rising. The lead soldier begins to lower his pike toward Corum's throat.
I won't tell you again, fool, these questions are for..-
Nadya steps forward beside the warrior.
It's alright, Corum. she says, placing a hand on his thick arm. I'll go with them. This is how it is here, besides I have a few questions of my own. Like what happened to my daughter. her face darkens and her jaw sets. She moves to go back inside and dress when one of the soldiers says;
Hey, there's more of them in there. Are they..? They don't look like they are from around here, let's take them all to the sarge.
Before the lead soldier can reply, Greyston notices something out of the corner of his eye. It is a long, bone-handled chopping knife, just floating in mid-air. It hovers for a second, quivering violently before a thin, high-pitched voice full of woe screams Thora! and the knife streaks across the room, through the door and toward the soldier. It slices passed his head, just grazing his cheek before more items; cups, plates, glasses, even the engraving you saw last night - are hurled toward the men by some unseen force.
Ahhhh! What the-?
Silently thanking the spirits for someone's common sense, Nasrin tightens her grip on the spear, and begins moving forward. She growls so Jagar knows to follow her in. The wolf however, soon out paces the girl and is already on the soldier.
Hunt. Two legs. That's is all Jagar needs to know and he is off towards the soldiers a grey and black blur across the top of the snow. He gets in close and bites into his prey's sword arm, swinging his weight hard against the man's balance.
for and
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Corum does not hesitate. His battle lust descends and he roars a challenge as he charges forward at the nearest soldier. He hits the man like a thunderstorm, his powerful arms driving his axe down onto the man's shoulder with incredible force. The blade bites deeply and the barbarian laughs at the carnage he has caused.
Power attack Charge (raging)
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crit confirm
damage
Nasrin is elated to see Corum punish the Jadwiga guard for his arrogance. For Nadya's tears! The feral girl unleashes a howling scream, her heart filling with bloodlust.
Elleross watches the scene suddenly explode Into violence.
Corum! No ! Stop this. We have done nothing wrong. he cries out as the warrior attacks the soldiers.
Sapphire do something stop them! They are the Law Corum! This is going to make everything worse. STAND DOWN ! PLEASE! he shouts as forcefully as he is able to .
Greyston turn to watch the dagger flot all by itself, then the cups and plates as hes about to warn the others he turn just as as the entire situation changes with Corum sprinting out of the house and slices down on one of the guards. "Corum! What have you done!" He desperately shouts out, moving o the font of the house. "I think Thora spirit is here... i saw the knife and all the cups just float on their on" He shouts out to the others.
Sapphire ignores her curiosity about the floating cutlery, whatever effect was causing it was evidently on their side after all, she draws her blade and dodges past Elleross and out in to the snow, shouting over her shoulder at the old elf.
No old friend, not only has the horse bolted the stables, we just set fire to those stables, law or not they will end us if we do not finish what has been started...
Turning her final steps in to a pattern allowing her to lunge straight at the guard, she lashes out with her blade
..well trained, he easily dodges away from her initial attack.
As the cutlery and crockery start flying Nadya briefly turns back into the house and shouts:
Hatch, no! but it is too late and Corum has joined the fray with a gleeful bloodlust while Sapphire and Nasrin also position themselves to attack.
Realising now that combat is inevitable, Nadya rushes forward, barefoot in the snow having sntached up her axe from beside the door. She swings it at the nearest guard, dealing him a terrible blow as it bites deeply into his neck.
Surprised by the sudden fury of the assault, the guards are caught completely unawares, the first of them hacked almost completely in half by Corum and Jager drags another to the ground. Now, they have the first chance to rally and start gathering in formation to defend themselves.
Hit?
Hit
Hit
Hit
Hit?
The soldiers are well drilled and each is able to lunge forward with their pikes (longspears) to good effect.
[url=http://i.imgur.com/KhoNDZj.png]Nadya's Cabin[/url}
Nasrin steps to the soldier Jagar has pulled down and skewers him. She spits at the man, "For Thorn!"
for
Embracing the hunt, Jagar closes to the next two leg and gets his teeth into the man, spraying the snow crimson.
for and
Seeing everything descend into madness, Greyston steps forward taking a bomb and decides to help defend his friends lobbing a bomb at the guards.
this is utter madness. what else is there to do? This is our course now and we are bound to it. I must help them he thinks as he watches Greyston reluctantly throw his alchemical bomb toward the guards.
Looking out into the Melee before him he sees Nadya reeling from a heavy blow and his heart lurches.
we mustn't lose her! For her children's sake
magia vis, potestas ictus ! the old elf calls forth the arcane words of power and with a swift twist of his wrist he opens his palm to reveal two glowing pyramids of pure force, the purple swirling pyramids are both three dimensional representations of his own arcane mark, a stylised Elven letter "E" surrounded by an intricate twisting triple helix that forms an equilateral triangle.
With a thought he sends them streaking outwards, they fly from his hand like arrows fired from a bow but they arc outwards and upwards avoiding all other targets before them as they streak toward his intended target. The soldier who struck Nadya.
Elleross watches the glowing pyramids slam into the man and he calls out.
protect Nadya!
Corum spits in the face of the soldier who attacked him. He swings his axe in a sweeping arc, a low oblique slash, rising under the man's guatd to cut him across the abdomen. As he attacks he shouts "Surrender or die!"
Intimidate
Power attack
Damage
Barely dodging the thrusts of the guards, Sapphire steps closer to one of them, inside his reach, incanting arcane words and pouring energy in to her blade.
Greyston tosses a bomb but it flies wide, landing in the snow and erupting with a burst of flame. It is still enough to end the soldier who was reeling from the concussive force of Elleros' spell.
Nasrin and Jagar continue tearing through the ranks of the soldiers, slaughtering them with tooth and blade.
Corum yells for surrender but still opens the belly of the man before him, spilling his guts in a steaming pile on the frozen ground.
The single remaining guard cannot believe the ferocity of the attack. He staggers back but knows he cannot retreat because they would surely cut him down as he ran. He lunges desperately, catching Sapphire in the thigh.
Hit
Greyston looks out as the guards fall. What have we done He thinks to himself. "Don't kill him! Take him alive. We've already spilt too much blood! Please drop your weapon." He looks at the last guard pleading.
With the battle frenzy upon him Corum charhes recklessly at the remaining soldier. Greyston's words fall on deaf ears and he ignores the lunge of the pike to swing his axe in a savage arc that descends onto the man's head.
power attack
Dam
Corum's axe blow splits the man's head like a piece of wood, sending streams of blood gushing in every direction. The snow beneath his fallen body turns a wide, spreading pink and long after he is dead his foot continues to twitch crazily.
Nadya slumps to one knee, holding her bleeding arm and breathing heavily, steam rising with every gasp.
I'm alright. I'm ok... She breathes
Elleros becomes aware of something beside him. A small, shivering figure. It's one of the boys.
Orm and Mjoli stand in the doorway, their pale faces bright in the first rays of morning. They shiver as they look upon the snowy slaughterhouse, Orm cries quietly while Mjoli holds his hand and just whispers;
M...M-mother..?
Nasrin looks out for the other two sleds. "They may have heard the fight. Be ready." She snaps her fingers and calls Jagar over to her. Jagar looks up from where he was rooting around one of the dying soldiers, whines once and lopes over to the girls leg. "We hunt and kill these men, but we do not eat them. We don't want their spirits to infect us."
turning toward the children he drops to one knee and forces them to look at him.
hush now little ones, your mother is ok. Come back inside where it's warm. Come on now he says in skald and he leads them back inside trying to shield them from the bloody scene.
Nadya, come inside. The little ones need you he calls back over his shoulder as he ushers them inside.
Nadya turns and upon seeing her boys on the porch she dashes over and sweeps them up in her arms and into the room, away from the scene of carnage.
Bad men, boys. she says, simply. They wanted to hurt us.
They talk in hushed tones for a fee moments. The boys seem too shocked to truly take in what happened but at the sight of blood on their mother's arm they begin to weep.
I'm fine. It's just a scratch. Like when you fall and scab your knee, it's just like that. she says, hugging them both.
Through the embrace she calls into the room;
You shouldn't have done that, Hatch. I know you threw the knife. But I didn't know you had come back.
There is a small noise, like a whimper, somewhere in the room. But you see nothing.
There's no time now, we'll talk later. she says, hurriedly. There are more at the Inn, they said. And if they wanted to talk to me about you, they probably wanted to talk to Rolf, too.
Boys, you're going to stay in your room. I mean it this time. Hatch it here and he's going to make sure you're safe. Aren't you, Hatch? she says, once again into the empty space and again there is a whimper though somewhat more compliant than the first.
She strides into the bedroom and dons her boots hastily, followed by her leathers.
I have to help Rolf. He's nothing to do with this. She doesn't sound like she is asking for your help.
Corum nods. "If there are more soldiers they will come looking for these. We may as well hunt them before they hunt us. We have surprise on our side. Where do you need us to go?"
Sapphire swears as the guard's speartip catches her in the side, leaving a deep and nasty-looking gash. She picks up a wad of snow and packs it in the wound, it would do for the moment and at least stop the bleeding.
Turning to the others and following them in to Nadya's cabin, she joins with Corum in assenting to go with Nadya.
This is not a debate, those were trained killers and if things had gone a different way it would be us lying in the snow bleeding. We want to help
Standing outside he watches as Nadya goes to see to her sons, then steps in front of the door staring up at Corum and Sapphire "There is no debate? We aren't here to kill everything that gets in our way, there are other ways other than running and killing the first thing you see. You have have to keep yourself in check Corum, this is no goddamn hunt they aren't animals."
He can see it falling on deaf ears. "I can't just assume these men would kill us. They have family's, how do we know what they would have done?"
Elleross watches Nadya rush off to get dressed and he cannot help asking
who or what is Hatch? he asks as he looks around the dwelling
there are strange forces at work here. he thinks to himself even as he gathers some of his things and dons his clothing.
As the others file in he hears Greyston's outburst and his anger is understandable.
it seems we have started an avalanche. now we need to prevent it from killing too many people he says as he pulls a scroll of colour spray from his pouch.
Greyston has a point, these soldiers were doing their job, we could have possibly talked our way out of trouble with their sergeant.
That all changed as soon as the cutlery decided to attack these men. I want to know what that was! It put all of our lives in danger. he says still awaiting an answer from Nadya.
Corum, Nasrin you should have waited, killing all these men in the middle of town was foolish. We now find ourselves in an impossible situation we have to prevent these soldiers getting back to the tower.
As Nadya emerges he says.
Nadya we will not leave you go up against these soldiers alone, if the priest is to be saved you will need us, and we need to stop these soldiers to save ourselves.
Sapphire pauses as the alchemist implores with the warriors
Greyston, I understand your urge for caution, but look at the facts. We've got a populace so scared they threatened us to get out of town at crossbow point, unnaturally large swarms of creatures scouring the land around the village and attacking anything they see, and Nadya's own daughter taken from her without consent...
she looks downcast as she continues
This is a dangerous land and whilst I appreciate your point that not everything can be solved with the edge of a blade, we need to be realistic. If we don't fight these soldiers here then we'll have to do so at the tower. Our intent is removing this witch from power, her soldiers will not simply stand by and watch. I'd rather face them in small groups where we stand a better chance.
Looking in to Greyston's eyes she reassures him as best she can
Now I'm willing to listen to reason, if you have a better suggestion then we should hear it, but if not then it looks like the next few hours will be full of red work. Look at it this way, good people do not follow evil orders, the soldiers must know when they cow and bully the populace that these are not good acts. Lawful perhaps under the jurisdiction of the witch's power, but never good... if they stand to defend her they are defending her evil ways. I for one will be happy to face such men and end them befor ethey hurt any more people.
Nasrin listens to the pointless debate about right and wrong. She adds her two pfennings worth, "Andorans say, 'when injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.' Now Waldsby resists. Better this way than the boys to see their mother killed." She gets ready to go and finish her new duty. Now, revenge.
Corum stands above the last soldier woth his blade dripping red. He watches as the boys help their mother. Greyston's anger washes over him and he just looks at the man impassively. "You are not a warrior. You do not understand. These men were dead already. As soon as we vowed to find the witch at the tower we made them our enemy. I would habe killed them at the tower anyway. In my world every problem can be solved with a blade as I just proved. And now we find the rest of them and they die too or we die trying. It is that simple."
He goes inside and retrieves his gear ready to go.
Hatch is a Domovoi - a house spirit. A kind of fey that helps around the house. Hatch has been wonderful for us, he loves Thora though he hasn't been around for a while, I thought he had gone.
She turns to Greyston and Elleros.
I don't want to hurt these men any more than you, but they aren't good people. Trust me, they had more in mind for me than questions. That's why I can let Rolf get involved. I just wish the boys hadn't seen it.
One of them said the rest were in the inn, so that's where I'm headed
Nasrin nods to Nadya. "We will come. Can we take their sled if we need to chase them?"
Corum begins marching towards the inn his ace dripping a trail of red. "Come on then. Let's finish them. "
Aye, it's there if we need it. Nadya replies. And I think we will if we mean to get to the Pale Tower before there a repercussions over this.
She sighs.
Our hand is forced now. Nazhena won't let this lie and I mean to ask her just what happened to Thora.
Greyston grits his teeth as he looks on at Sapphire shaking his head. "I wouldn't have thought you would think like.. like this barbarian Sapphire."
He looks to Corum again, he can just see how little the man cares. "A man who takes a life as easy as shooting a deer.In the woods we fought against creatures that attacked on sight there was no reasoning. The other soldiers won't let this stand to see their brothers hacked apart, what could have been us sneaking to the tower has turn to this i suppose we had better move." He again shakes his head and waves them off as he heads back in the house to grab his stuff.
I understand what you're saying, Greyston I honestly do. Do you think I would have wanted my children to see that? Nadya says softly. But this has gone on too long. I should have known Nazhena would not honor her end of our bargain and now we have no choice. It didn't have to be this way. But now it is the way it is.
It takes only a few moments for her and the party to gather their gear before they head across the village toward the inn. Another dog sled is stationary outside, the dogs happily lying on the snow sunning themselves.
As you pass, shocked and frightened faces look out from small windows in the houses around you until Nadya waves them back inside. It seems she commands a lot of respect here and they comply, shrinking back away from the windows where it might get dangerous.
@ Nadyas house
Moving across to Greyston Elleross tries to calm him.
I agree with some of what you say Greyston, the violence and killing does not sit well with me either.
I would have preferred to have talked my way out of this and approached the tower after we learned its strengths and weaknesses but that is out of our hands now he says
these men are cruel and ruthless in their duty. Do they deserve to die for it? Who can say, but they have chosen to serve the jadwiga and terrorise the people they should be protecting. Now many of them will die protecting their mistress and I will not mourn their loss. Not if it frees the good folks from the shackles of the witches he says truthfully. there is a simple harsh reality here, it now boils down to them or us and I prefer it not to be us Greyston.
As they gather outside the inn Elleross knows they face a difficult situation.
Inside are the soldiers and possibly a lot of the town folk, a lot of innocent people could get hurt here he says as they approach the Inn.
we need to get them outside, I suggest we call for them , I'm guessing if we insult them they will come out soon enough. Once they file out of the doorway I will hit them with a colour spray spell I have stored on this scroll. he says indicating the rolled up parchment.
I will stand to one side of the door and hopefully incapacitate as many as possible. Sapphire, are you able to do the same? Between us I hope we can affect most of them
He says offering a possible plan those that don't fall you will have to take down he says to the others.
Nasrin nods. She stands next to Nadya and growls, "Play along. Trust me." She then seizes the red woman's elbow and drags her roughly to a spot some distance in front of the door.
Greyston, I appreciate your idealism, without such shining light the world would be a darker place. You must understand that I am a thinking warrior, I do not always seek to solve problems with a blade. I am however a pragmatist in all things, and in this specific situation, violence is necessary. That does not mean I enjoy the 'red work', but I will devote myself to this course of action wholeheartedly whilst it is deemed the best solution to our problems.
she sighs
Look at it this way, it is inevitable in taking the tower that we would fight all the guards. Accept that. Now choose whether you would want to fight them all at once or in small groups. This is simply us being provoked and choosing the option that best suits us. These are not good men, as Nadya says, they have evil intent. Do not trouble your soul on their account, we need you to support us and not be having doubts about your actions
Yes Elleross, I can cast that, in fact let me cast first in case we can save the scroll...
Sapphire moves up to the door and waits for everyone else to move in to position.
agreed, I will wait around the corner. If your spell fails I will cast my own. Good luck lady he says to her good luck to us all and he moves across to the side of the building and waits to see if the soldiers will take the bait.