Silence could be a purchase also. Could prevent the alarm from being raised. Invis melee and silence on one or both allowing us to deal with guards quietly. If we could get close enough silence alone might work.
Aurica tells Austru to stay put with the others; this is a job for one. She slinks forward through the night-time streets, sticking to the corners of the buildings. She feels exposed all the same-- it's not like a forest, with trees every-which way; here there's broad open lines of sight, and hard geometric shapes that she can't pretend to blend in with.
When she's across the street from the warehouse, she drinks the expensive potion, trying not to think about how much gold is flowing down into her belly. It's a strange feeling, not being able to see your own hands...
Then, she sets out towards the warehouse, eyes darting around to look for guards or other problems.
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A pair of guards stand in front of a slightly ajar door. Aurica slips between them, brushing the door as she passes, and causing it to creak. Both of the guards turn at the noise, but, of course, cannot see the invisible Aurica.
"Musta been this damned wind off the lake," one of them remarks in a thick Arcadian accent. The other man merely grunts and shrugs in response.
Inside, Aurica sees a rather cluttered warehouse floor, with some (to her) strange metal barrels sitting in front of a smaller space. A woman stands in front of a desk in one corner of the room, staring intently at a sheave of papers in her hands.
In the next room and giant stack of boxes, chests, and barrels takes up nearly the entire room. The stack rests upon a large pallet with wheels. Two large metal rings protrude from the pallet, a rope tied to each, the loose ends carefully coiled at the base of it on the floor. A man stands guard in front of a shelf near the wide loading door on the north wall. After a short search Aurica finds a trapdoor in the southeast corner of this room, mostly hidden beneath to rolling pallet.
Aurica holds her breath when the door creaks, but exhales in silent relief when the men justify the gap to themselves. She pads quietly around, throwing sharp glances at the woman and the three guards-men.
Unseen, and trying hard to be unheard as well, Aurica sidles behind the large load on the pallet, glancing over the crates as she crouches down to put her ear to the trapdoor, and listen for any noises from below.
Aurica lets out a low, long breath, and sidles back the way she came, tiptoeing through the gap in the door.
Back outside the building, she jogs, unseen, towards the waiting others. Time is of the essence and she wants to take all possible advantage of the three minutes of the potion's duration.
As soon as she's within talking distance of the others, Aurica begins doing that:
"It's me. Four people I can see, and a trapdoor that I'd wager our folk are behind: couldn't hear nothin' down there, though, so I dunno how many more snakes might be hidin'.
"Two ways in: that door you can see, got two guards on it, an' a big ol' rollin' steel door with one guard inside. There's a woman inside too, a clerk mayhap, not armed I could see, less she's a magicker type.
"Bunch of crates and such on top of that trapdoor. They're on a rollin' deal though; Droskar might be able to pull it off. But ain't no way we can move that quietly. Gonna need to take out the guards."
As Aurica's voice quickly speaks, she uses one of her arrows to scratch a very crude line map of the two major rooms, tapping to indicate guard locations. "I say I run back in while 'm still ghosty, call up a little critter on the outside guards. When you see 'em go for it, come runnin', an' I'll try and use my last bit of ghosty to put an arrow in that inside guard."
Maleghk will move forward three hexes(one away from the corner) and wait for Astru's attack.
Droskar nods at Aurica and says, "I will wait for your signal."
Lailani summons the thickest suit of ice armor that she can manage, and then goes to stand with Droskar. "I'm ready."
"Alright. Hit once they start shoutin'," Aurica says, and jogs back the other way once more. As she runs, she murmurs the words of a spell...
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At the sounds of Aurica activating the wand, the woman in the room turns around, and seeing no one, says "Who's there!?!" in a frantic voice.
Aurica completes her casting and the stirge appears outside the door. It tries to sink its long proboscis into one of the guards, but can only find armor. One of the guards shouts "Wha' tha' hells? Kill this damned thing."
The woman inside is alarmed at the guard's shouting and crouches in the corner beside the desk, her arms covering her head. She appears to be obviously no threat to anyone.
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Unseen, Aurica breathes out, glad she didn't send an arrow into someone who doesn't seem to be any sorta threat. Just some poor lady doin' her job. That'll free her to focus on the job at hand, then.
Droskar charges forward at the commotion, hoping to stun and overwhelm the defenders. Unfortunately, the stirge was not as distracting a foe as he had expected, and the guardsman ducks beneath his blade easily.
__________
Maleghk charges the nearest guard and swings his longhammer. With the charge it should have been 16 but that still misses.
Lailani darts across the open space from the alley, and ducks behind the corner of the warehouse, taking cover there.
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One of the guards, finding himself suddenly surrounded, breaks and runs inside the open door, though he receives a nasty gash from Droskar's sword and a dent in his armor from Maleghk's hammer in the process. Once he gets inside he fumbles at his pouch for a moment, retrieving a clear glass vial bearing a light blue colored liquid.
The other crossbow bearing guard runs inside as well, before turning and launching a bolt at Maleghk. The guard's offbalance shot only manages to drive a bolt into the dirt at the dwarf's feet however.
Lastly, the large, axe-wielding guard that Aurica saw earlier hustles into the room at the sounds of the commotion.
Droskar continues to pursue the men into the building, pausing only when he must to make an attack at the intervening guardsman. He drives the sword deep into the man's belly.
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Round 2?
The summoned stirge is a simple creature; it flaps forward and once more tries to shlurp some blood from the man it previously attacked.
Aurica whistles sharply for Austru. Outside, the roc perks up at hearing his mistress's call, and starts a low, streaking flight over the street towards the building. The powerful wings make short work of the distance, and the immature roc crashes in through the open double doors, flying past Droskar's ear, and tearing at the poor guard who has a stirge on his face.
Aurica looks at the big axe-wielding guard bearing in on them. She raises her bow, still invisible, and sends an arrow at him, while calling on the spirits of the mountain cats to make her arrows fly true.
Her arrow loosed, Aurica darts to one side, guessing she's going to have the axe-wielding guard in her face in a moment.
Maleghk will double move to the spot marked on map.
Lailani moves behind Droskar and Maleghk, trying to get a line of fire. She sees one of the crossbow wielding guards, and throws a spray of ice shards at him.
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In a matter of moments both of the crossbow wielding guards are down, one to a combination of a slash from Droskar's sword, a gouge from Austru's beak, and finally Aurica's arrow. The other guard looks on in horror, but before he can react, a particularly large shard of ice from Lailani's blast rams into his throat. He drops to his knees shuddering and groping for the shard. He succeeds at removing it, only to immediately pass out as blood gushes from the nearly fist sized wound.
The remaining guard turns and runs back the way he came heading toward the farm wall where the trap door lies.
Maleghk will double move on his short stubby legs.
Lailani moves into the room, standing next to Droskar. "Get what we came for, I'll cover you!"
Round 3
Aurica whistles, and both the summoned stirge and her roc look up. "Hunt!" she yells, pointing after the fleeing guard.
The stirge... ignores her, carrying on sucking the blood of the downed guard as its nature bids it. Of course, it's fading back into non-existence in the next six seconds, anyway...
But Austru flies forward, the bird's big wings careening it through the warehouse open space. The roc is still only a shadow of the creature it might someday be, but it's still an impressive sight, especially as it closes on the hapless guard in but a few seconds, and tears at him with a sharp predator's beak. It misses, though-- it has yet to learn all the ways of hunting grace.
Not as fast as her feathered friend, Aurica runs forward, and just manages to get a line of a shot on the guardsman.
Unfortunately, Aurica's arrow misses as well.
Droskar nods and runs off around the corner, and rushes to the guard fighting with Astru.
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Maleghk hurries to get back into the fight.
Double move
Austru's instincts lead the bird to keep pace with the fleeing figure, still slashing with beak and claws.
The hapless guardsman manages to narrowly dodge two attacks, but the third claw rakes across his belly.
Aurica stays where she's at, an arrow nocked on her bow's string. "Lady!" she yells out to the woman hiding behind the desk. "We're not gonna hurt you, long as you stay where you are and don't do nothin' dumb!"
She considers telling the last guardsman he ought to just throw it down and get out of their way. Poor bastard's just doing his job too, she supposes, but... well, he shoulda ran for the door, she supposes. The door out, not that trap door.
"We'll need to move those boxes!" she shouts to Droskar. "Once we get this fellow sorted, you reckon you can pull that freight pallet on its little wagon?"
Droskar grunts an affirmation as he takes a powerful swipe at the guard, missing entirely in his zeal to fell the man.
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Lailani moves up to the corner and peeks around to get a better view of the unfolding situation.
Maleghk swings his longhammer while the guardsman is focused on Droskar. Possible Crit confirm A solid hit strikes the guardsman on the shoulder bringing a grunt of pain. (15 damage)
Austru shrieks savagely and continues his assault.
Aurica hurries over to the door by which they entered, peering out at the street before shutting the door to a mere crack, through which she can keep an eye out. "I'll watch for other operatives!" she hisses to the others. "Just get that guard done, then haul that wagon off, and let's get that door open!"
Droskar snarls at the axe-wielding guardsman that remains, and lashes out with his sword and hooves in an attempt to either skewer the man or trample him to the floor. One of his hooves manages to snap the man's clavicle with the force of the impact.
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