Zoisa shuffles around the battlefield until she's flanking the bugbear that nearly killed Faffnyr and strikes.
Arian keeps her flowing blade moving as she drives it to pierce a bugbear's neck, though he is able to smack the blade aside with his own weapon. Faffnyr, nearly sundered by the critical blow, retreats momentarily to administer some emergency healing to herself. Zoisa tries to lend her a hand, but her surprise blows don't have enough strength to get past the bugbear's natural tough exterior.
The gnolls rush up but spend their entire turn reaching the edge of the battle platform.
The bugbear's growl and both takes steps as they close in on Arian and Josria respectively to attack with vicious intent.
Off in the distance, you can hear the thrashing and crash of something in the city. What it is, you can't be sure.
With the bugbear now in close, Arian surprisingly shortens up on the haft of her glaive-guisarme and swings twice, once with the blade, once with the haft.
Feeling the blade pass her, Faffnyr
Zoisa takes a swing at the bugbear Arian is fighting, hoping that fighting who her friends are fighting will improve her chances.
Josria hurls a magic missile at the bugbear Zoisa is fighting!
Arian misses with the lethal part of her weapon but manages to get a forceful blow in with the shaft. Faffnyr gets a blow almost past the bugbear's defenses, but the crafty creatures steps into the attack pushes her off balance to ruin the strike. Zoisa capitalizes on Arian's hefty strike and delivers the final blow, knocking the bugbear down and out. Josria, finishing her focus, lets loose a torrent of magic missile's that fly into the final bugbear and take him out, the additional two missiles shooting out and executing one of the gnolls rushing onto the arena.
The gnolls split off, one for each of you, as they figure divide and conquer, and to the victor all the victim's spoils.
The placement of the viper causes one gnoll to move around and does not get its attack off at Josria, and one rushing for Faffnyr spends his action getting into melee with her. The other two rush up and attack Arian and Zoisa.
All the while, the rumbling and screams accompanying it get louder and louder.
The air wooshes out of Arian with an "Uhhh!" as the gnoll bashes her and she takes a hard blow on her armor. She grunts and double-slashes at the gnoll who struck her.
Moving forward again Faffnyr attacks again.
Zoisa yelps as the gnoll strikes her. She begins shuffling backwards to try and get out of reach.
Arian Gnoll: tbd
Faffnyr Gnoll: 0 damage
Zoisa Gnoll: 0 damage
Josria Gnoll: 0 damage
Arian manages to connect with one of her weapon's attacks. However, the rest of her team is having a hard time. Being spread out, its hard to support each other.
The gnolls, however, belive they sense weakness and press their advantage.
Arian continues to pelt the gnoll with her close-in double-ended attack, hoping to fell the foe so that she can rush to the aid of her colleagues.
Zoisa beelines it to get back to back with Arian.
Taking a step back Faffnyr quickly channels, excluding the wounded enemys.
"Thanks, Faffnyr!" manages Arian tersely, while she tries to keep staving off the gnolls.
Faffnyr manages to take out the gnoll who's attacking her, cutting its maw open and slamming the blunt end of her weapon so hard into it that its skull fractures and juts into its grey matter. With that settled, she moves to protect the small gnome.
Faffnyr blasts a healing channel, though the energy is weak. Looking up, you can see an almost malevolent aura exuding above you in this place.
Faffnyr Gnoll: 0 damage
Zoisa Gnoll attacking Arian.: 0 damage
Josria Gnoll: 0 damage
The gnolls keep up the attack.
Faffnyr presses the attack towards the gnoll that attacked him.
Arian keeps up the pressure with a brutal double strike on the gnoll that she's fighting!
Free from danger for the moment, Zoisa casts her spell and vanishes from sight!
Faffnyr, having been on the defensive for a while, sees that the gnoll is pressing harder and harder, confident that it'll get this easy kill. It winds up for a much larger swing, and Faffnyr swings her entire body bringing the head of her mace into the throat of the gnoll's throat, who stumbles back and falls to the ground, grabbing at its throat. It eventually falls silent.
Similarly, Arian is able to press forward forcefully with the blunt end of her weapon, breaking the chest cage of the gnoll attacking her, spins the blade, and pushes the blade into the broken and deflated crevice of a chest as the gnoll falls dead.
Zoisa channels her magic and disappears from sight. With only one gnoll left, she starts to feel safer. However...
The doors to one of the entrances fly open as a massive demonic creature rushes into the battle market. You can see its nostrils flaring as its attention turns to where the most blood has been shed. It looks like a 7-foot tall twisted abomination of a goat and man, howling into the sky and rushing forward.
Zoisa invisibly blinks in surprise. Knowing this would be a tense fight, she positions herself to flank the monster when it gets into melee. She only had one shot for a sneak attack here, so she had to make it count.
With her opponent felled, Arian moves quickly to assist Josria, so that the team can work together on their new foe without distractions.
Crashing and thrashing violently, the demon rushes into melee and directly at Zoisa. It pounces, but Arian slides in between them and attempts to block the blow!
The horns pierce into Arian's body as she and Zoisa are pushed back from the force, but Arian is able to hold back some of the force, and avoid being completely pierced through.
Faffnyr charges the demon ready to aid Arian.
Zoisa strikes at the demon, her invisibility dropping.
"Ugh!"
Arian pushes back with her pole arm as the demon hits her and only the brace of her pole keeps it from goring her straight through.
Planing her back leg, she swings at the demon with both ends.
Faffnyr tries to charge back at the fiend, but her force comes short of its writhing body.
Arian pivots as she pushes the force off her center, using it to wind up for a massive swing.
There are three distinct sprays of black blood as Arian, breathless, manages to plunge the cold iron blade deeply into the fiend. It shrieks in pain and flails as it's chest steams from its body trying to prevent the damage but failing.
Yet it still stands, much weaker, looking rough, but it violently swings at Arian to try and finish her. It pulls out a massivee halberd from its back, its wicked edge caked in dried blood, and swings it!
Taking a step back Faffnyr channels, excluding her most wounded enemys.
Arian staggers under the terrible blow, but Faffnyr's timely intervention keeps her from falling. Knowing that she is in a difficult spot, she does her best to finish the foe with another one-two attack. Timing it carefully as Zoisa moves in, she lashes out for soft points - joints, elbows, knees.
Faffnyr releases a powerful pulse of potent healing and her allies can feel the cold of the blood loss give way to the warmth of divine aid.
Zoisa tries once more to land a sneak attack, positioning herself to take full advantage of Arian's intimidating form. But her blows don't find purchase in the unnatural hide of the otherworldly beast.
The beast roars in frustration as Arian stands once more to keep fighting from an otherwise felling blow. He reaches up to strike down on her, but a swift strike from Arian to it's neck causes it to stumble. It releases it's large halberd and falls to its knees, before crashing to the ground, a vital point expertly broken by Arian and Zoisa's teamwork. Faffnyr pants, most of her holy energies expended, but her companions still standing.
There is silence in the arena, and those that did not flee when the fiend crashed into the arena look on in wonder. They do not serve Kardswann in so many words, but rather look after themselves.
Zoisa clambers up onto the body of the monster and raises her scimitar over her head.
"HaHA! Do you see now, Kardswann?! We are stronger together than any individual you can throw at us!" she crows.
Arian somehow manages to keep her feet without wavering. She plants her glaive-guisarme and holds the pole out at post and says in a low, gravelly voice, "I think we're done." She turns her head to one side and spits out a gobbet of blood.
Faffnyr quickly channels again. "Faith manages!"
"Manages? Kind of an odd choice of words for a prayer, isn't it, Sunshine?" Zoisa asks Faffnyr, spontaneously giving her a nickname.
"As long as it works, I'm not complaining!" quips Arian.
Zoisa shrugs.
"Fair enough!"
There is deep, echo-ous chuckling that fills the arena.
"Any individual you say?"
The crunch of stone can be heard as a massive figure takes to the sky and lands with a loud impact on the crushed stones of the arena before you. Kardswann, covered in scars and a glowing red hue to his eyes smiles as he greets the wounded party, you.
"You did well to survive this far, but you will fall as all the others have.."
He hefts his large, wicked axe from his shoulder and grasps it with both hands. With each step forward, he presence seems to grow.
But then-
A flash of steel as a lithe figure intersects between his path, jabbing at his throat, forcing him to block the blow. The figure speaks in a female tone and she tosses a satchel to you three.
"Quickly! Heal so we may end this!"
As the satchel snags on a piece of broken stone, three bottles: two potions of cure light wounds, and one potion of cure moderate wounds. Unfortunately, one potion of cure light wounds smashes on a jagged chunk, but the other two make it to your position.
Arian posts her glaive-guisarme, quaffs one of the potions, then grips the haft again and prepares for another round of battle.
Zoisa waves.
"Thank you, strange hero lady!"
The woman looks back at the sound of you voice, her face only partially illuminated by the falling sun's glow. The next moment is both delightful and horrifying, as the gleam of Kardswann's terrible axe driving itself into her shoulder reveals her full face, now in a twist of pain.
Haleen.
She screams and grabs twists her rapier to leverage the blade out as she rolls to the side. Panting, dripping blood from one useless arm, but alive.
Faffnyr quickly casts Bless again.
Zoisa's jaw drops.
"HALEEN!" she cries. "We have to help her! I'm not going to let my dream guiding me here after her be one of those ironic ones where I find her just before dying!"
She casts another spell to vanish from view, and begins hustling behind Kardswann's back.
With the party somewhat healed up, Arian takes up the frontguard, Faffnyr spreads her divine blessing, and Zoisa hurries to circle around.
Haleen backs up to meet with Arian.
"Unfortunately, I only have one arm to give here." she comments, readying her blade.
Arian shifts back to a long reach with her glaive-guisarme and moves to engage Kardswann.
"Don't worry, I'm a master-of-arms," she quips to Haleen before making a swinging slice at the huge foe.
Zoisa takes advantage of the opening Arian creates to strike Kardswann from behind!
Arian's normally impressive bladework is deflected by the sheer force that Kardswann puts into one swing to unbalance her, and the series of spins and jobs of her weapon shift to help her balance instead only letting one solid strike draw Kardswann's blood. Zoisa takes advantage of his momentary strike to move in for an attack of her own!
Kardswann winces as Zoisa's attack pierces his side, but a hearty chuckle starts deep within him and turns to face the small gnome.
"Goodbye."
Haleen rushes in and lunges with her rapier in desperation.
Damage Taken: 22