Dolgrin had not fled, but stood blocking the lizard's way. As the unnatural beast bent itself to charge the dwarf spoke in tones of bewilderment. Kenna saw that his confusion would be his death.
"Bar-zel'azs!" she cried, "Had'ra! Ds'ak, na'utz!"
Eythil glanced back briefly at the shouting that was occurring at the higher platform. He paused long enough to cast a spell but did not stop his movement as he descended the makeshift ramp.
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ON THE MONEY!!
Dolgrin only understood two words: "Ironbottom", and "Run"
His eyes widened as the creature leaned forward as the last step to it's charge. Dashing away as fast as possible, the Dwarf leapt over the platform like the window when the clan caught him in his human lover's bed.
Teral's face remained a mask of concentration as he flipped the coin through his fingers. Walking calmly a few steps to the southwest, he peered over the edge of the platform and raised his mace to point at the dwarf below. All the while, the tiny animal at his belt continued its strange chuffing. Nothing visible happened, but he nodded as something unseen took hold.
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Spectrum shook his head against the pain in his skull and tore a page out of his book. He handed it to Thedra. "You do it. I am reduced to petty trinkets.";
"I've seen your petty trinkets." Thedra said quickly. "Why don't you use one of those summoning bullet things?"
Spectrum shook his head. "They are uncontrolled. There is no way to be sure they wouldn't turn on us."
Thedra looked like she was about to follow Ariela in a crazed leap, but sighed and grabbed the scroll, puzzled at it for a moment and then spoke a single word in Draconic.
Vance and Kestrel looked at Ariela and then to each other. Vance smiled. "She's crazy. Let's do it."
Judging by the way the beast's ire seems focused on Dolgrin, Talas decides to take a risk and attack-- hoping to whittle it down, while its fury remains fixed on someone else...
Talas curses as his attempt is not even close to hitting the lizard.
Garridan spots the Witch doctor now and begins rushing towards the orc as quickly as his exceptionally quick feet take him.
The enormous lizard began it's charge, moving down onto all fours with it's head low and it's tail high and thrashing behind it-
Ariela, Vance and Kestrel sprang into action...
As the creature begins to charge, Ariela takes a deep breath, counting in her head, timing everything. At the key point of the beasts charge she jumps from the platform, plummeting towards the creature's back, to drive her fist slamming down into it's hide.
Ariela leaped, Vance and Kestrel following close behind her. The three ascetics all landing and grabbing on to various spines and horns. Ariela's focused strike slammed down and rippled through the beast hard enough to crack bones in it's shoulder.
It's charge crashed straight forward into the platform, snapping ancient timbers and continuing through until it's head collided with the tree. It shook, a mass of loose leaves and branches from above raining down.
Spectrum tried to grab onto the doorway of the tree-room, but fell, careening down to the ground below.
He managed to roll with the fall ending up down on a knee with his back against the tree and a very angry look on his face.
As the three monks landed and slammed down on the creature it bellowed a horrible, wet, ethereal honk and thrashed it's head around trying to reach the tiny things riding it.
At the breach in the flames, the surprised Orc snarled and summoned a handful of fire, ducking to it's left out of the line of sight behind the flames.
The Direwolf continued to gnaw at it's rope and cower.
Dolgrin steeled himself as he leveled his heavy crossbow and targeted the massive lizard. He made an effort to target the creature's backside, right to the thigh. His hope was that he could fire at the creature without risking hitting his insane, but very very brave allies.
Eythil glanced over at the charging beast as it crashed into the upper reaches of the fort. A strange sensation coming over him that he had never quite felt before. He took the entire scene in faster than usual as he eyed where the Dire Wolf had been and let out a sharp disappointed sigh.
Useless beast! All that work and... No, no point wasting time on the matter.
He glanced ahead at the wall of flames that had been undone. Seeing a distant figure duck aside he began to run after it and found he was moving far faster than he had been a few moments prior. He sped across the ground at speeds only the Howlers and a few other forest creatures he had seen move at. He slowed his pace for just a moment but found that he still moved more quickly than he had ever ran at a full run. But rather than break his momentum, he grinned and lowered his head as he ran for the break in the flaming wall.
"Whoah!" Teral flung himself back from the edge of the splintering platform, almost dropping the coin as his concentration wavered. He raised his mace overhead, the hedgehog continuing its unnerving squeaks.
Thedra watched the trio jump onto the creature's back with a grin "That's how you do it! She joined them, diving off th shattered platform onto the thing's back. At the last moment before landing she flickered for a moment, going from free fall straight to burying her knife in the thing without bothering with the stuff in between.
Thedra's dagger went straight into the thing's eye. It popped, releasing pressurized ichor, the same kind as the black stuff that was dripping from the sores on it's back. The massive thing let out a bellowing honk of agony.
Spectrum's lips pursed. The beast was dangerous, but not the true threat. He was frustrated and having trouble concentrating. Him mind was on fire. The effort of trying to cast his earlier spell had burst a number of blood vessels in his eyes creating a bloody corona around his irises. He took a breath and shook his head to clear it. Scrolls were useful, but mostly utility effects. He watched the ring of fire complete itself. Aside from the small break Ylmen's had created, they were completely encircled now. He looked down at the dire wolf and narrowed his eyes.
A simple spell, really, but very versatile. He carefully wove the pattern and released the illusion. Suddenly the sound of howling dire wolves tore through the clearing again. It was answered, same as before, by other more distant howls. They were closer than before. Spectrum smiled.
Garridan follows behind Eythil, looking around for the witch doctor... ready to pepper him with chakram...
As Thedra's attach punches through the creature's eye, it's wild thrashing is too much for Ariela to maintain her footing on the beast.
Plummeting to the ground she crashes down hard, slamming into the ground beneath it. Ignoring the pain as best she can, she rolls up into a standing position, driving a punch into the joint of the creature's foot with a powerful cry.
".....or we could mount a full assault on the ground against the monster lizard," Talas says to nobody in particular from his spot on his platform.
He dropped his sling and drew his blade as he ran. The magical speed made his limbs move with unnerving grace: he launched himself into space, trying to land behind the giant beast in a roll-- then come up out of it into a pivot-turn-slash at the lizard's hamstrings.
Talas's blade would have struck through if not for the strange... flicker... that pulsed from the strange symbol on the ground beneath the creature's feet. It lit up just as Talas passed over it and swung his blade, the lines of the symbol bursting to life and raising a field in front of him. A tear in the fabric of reality. He might have been able to abort his swing and throw himself free, but he just wasn't used to how fast he was moving now.
He ran dashed into the tear ad found himself in another place. The rest of the recruits could see him, standing on a platform where the grass had been a moment ago. It was like the strange tear had overlapped two places. Wherever Talas now stood had ground made of tiled stone, not jungle grasses and dirt.
The lizard continued to thrash. It stepped into the rift. A muffled yell of surprise echoed through the hole in reality.
Talas was on a platform about a foot off ground level, on a bustling street that reminded him of a Varisian marketplace. In front of him was a man dressed in blue clothing that gave the impression of a military uniform. The man held with a transparent tablet covered in strange moving writing that glowed and shifted. He was speaking Draconic very quickly and concentrating hard. Talas knew enough to recognize the sound of it now, but he didn't know what was being said. The man frantically tapped his tablet. Then his eyes went wide as a massive reptilian foot crunched down right next to him. he stepped back quickly and slammed a few more symbols on his tablet, clearly swearing.
Then the field collapsed, shunting the lizard's foot out of the mystic rift, the strange energies trying to pull the creature's flesh in every direction across two dimensions.
It collapsed, it's foot there, and then gone, and then there again.
Talas was nowhere to be seen.
The man in the blue uniform spat rapid fire gibberish at Talas as he stared around him, gaping.
The platform he stood on gave him a fantastic view of a slightly curved road that ran out to his right and left. It was packed with people. And... not-people. And monsters. They were walking, haggling, yelling. A few of them were flying low over the crowds. He saw something that was clearly a humanoid elemental made of water. He saw what he could only guess was one of the legendary Efreeti Djinn.
Someone was selling a three-headed cas the size of large dogs on the other side of the street in front of him. They werren't caged, or even leashed. They wore leather barding and sat with trained discipline while thier trainer haggled.
The whole street was cast in strange colors. Bands of colored light drifted slowly across the street painting everything in odd hues. He looked up. In the sky was a... structure of some kind. Like a floating fortress far above, madde of what looked like stained glass.
He had heard that places like Kaer Maga and Katapesh were cities of many wonderous inhabitants and amazing sights. He had never heard of anything like what he was seeing now.
The wide, curving street was walled in front of him and behind him. The walls raised nearly a hundred feet. He could see the glinting steel of armored figures and siege weaponry atop the walls.
Flanking the platform he stood on were two pairs of black-clad soldiers in matching uniforms. Three humans and a dwarf, armed to the teeth, and watching him like a hawk, clearly on edge from the sudden appearance of the massive scaled foot. The man in the blue uniform continued to talk to him barking something to get his attention again, cycling through a number of languages before one of the black-clad guards finally cast a spell.
It was the same one Spectrum had cast earlier. Suddenly the words made sense.
"...anything? I need to know what the hells that was and what happened to my Operatives!" The man in blue blinked. "Oh, good. Thanks, Jax. Alright you, talk fast. What's happening?"
Garridan heard a massive crash behind him. The lizard was down but still moving.
From where he was he couldn't see the witch doctor. He waited for it to reveal itself.
As she hits the ground Ariela grunts at the impact, her eyes widening as she sees the massive lizard falling directly toward her.
"$#!+" she mutters throwing herself into a back-roll and pushing up into a back handspring, launching herself clear, just as the massive creature comes crashing down.
Ylmen flies northeast, holding his 60' elevation. While en route he casts mage armor, and ends adjacent to the large tree of the center platform, ready to continue around the perimeter of fire and reveal what it may obscure.
Talas stared, severely disoriented, his hands keeping hold of his blade mostly by habit as his fingers were limp and nerveless. Fortunately, Talas had a fairly keen natural intellect, and the word Operatives made things click: surely he must be speaking of Thedra and Spectrum.
...was this The City? The one they were going to? Gods above.
He shook himself like a wet dog, his mind quickly trying to prioritize the most important details. "Forest of Dread-- fire orcs've herded some-- demon-lizard thing at us-- Spectrum can't cast spells--"
Kenna's tired eyes caught the pigman just as he slipped away into the fire.
"Chac," she swore, and swung her bow around to aim instead at the great beast. The mad thing barreled into the higher platform and she ducked as spars crumbled above her. Spectrum fell; Thedra leapt, her blade flashing. Ariela was thrown from the beast as it writhed and bawled.
Kenna hied herself around the trunk and dropped into a crouch.
She braced her bowstock against the tree, held a breath, and fired.
Garridan and Eythil breached the wall of fire and nearly plowed headlong into the Orcish Witchdoctor.
Their nemisis quickly took a step back to throw flames at the two of them, but Garridan's fast reflexes let him launch a chackram first. The witchdoctor's hasty retreat had given Garridan just enough room to let fly.
The circular blade carved a nasty slice out of the witchdoctor's burned skin, but didn't stop the orc from retaliating with fire.
In front and behind the two recruits noticed two more orcish skirmishers in their strange masks throwing piles of brush and branches onto the wall of flames to build it up higher. They drew weapons and began moving in as soon as they saw the pair of outsiders.
Meanwhile, back inside the circle of fire, the giant lizard thrashed and started to right itself. Kenna's bolt found it's flank and it jerked again. It's head had nearly crushed the dire wolf. Crazed with fear and anger at the giant lizard that had suddenly collapsed in front of it, the giant wolf lunged at the larger beast.
The wolf's jaws grabbed the lizard's lip and opened a bloody tear. It tried to retreat, but had nowhere left to go because of it's rope.
The big lizard pulled itself upright. The wolf lunged again...
...but the lizard managed to juke it's head away.
Angry at the wolf, the lizard retaliated by swinging it's head-blade down and headbutting.
The wolf yelped and snarled, a huge gash taken out of it's back.
Vance and Kestrel were too busy recovering from their fall and trying to get out of the way to take advantage of the opening as the lizard stood.
Eythil stepped to the side of the ball of fire. It sped past his head and hit a pile of brush that the skirmishers had dragged over to feed the wall of flame.
The whole thing went up, suddenly putting more fire at their back.
Spectrum knew better than to risk the most powerful spells in his arsenal. The magic could unravel dangerously if he couldn't manage to keep his mind perfectly focused.
He stepped forward and wove another easy spell, touching Ariela on the shoulder.
But he didn't count on the lizard's whip-quick tail!
Spectrum was a veteran of many battles and knew how to move when he needed to. he ducked and the tail whistled over his head as he passed his enchantment to Ariela.
Dolgrin heaved out his windlass to reload the crossbow once again.
Twirling his mace and flipping the coin again, Teral points down towards Ariela below, his concentration slipping slightly as he leans closer to the monstrous reptile.
Whoof, that is a big lizard. Many teeth.
Still just starting to get a grasp on his new speed, Eythil ignored the surrounding flames and stepped in towards the Witchdoctor, lunging at him with a surprising amount of speed. He stabbed twice with supernatural speed.
The Witchdoctor fell to a pair of fast, brutal strikes from Eythil before it even had a chance to recover fully from Garridan's chakram.
More howls echoed through the woods. They were much closer, and still moving.
Vance and Kestrel both got out from beneath the huge beast, quick-stepping in opposite directions to get to safety.
The vance lashed out as best he could, but punching giant lizards is not easy. he ended up being shoved by a massive foot, and half tossed toward the snarling dire wolf
Kestrel had better luck, her rope blade slashing the thing across it's thigh.
As the huge lizard continues thrashing, Ariela presses the attack, rushing toward it and vaulting up it's body, for a momant throwing herself into a full one handed hand stand before reversing her momentum, driving her full weight behind a knee that decends with a crack of breaking bone.
Garridan nods to Eythil's quick take-down of the witch-doctor, but pauses when he hears the howling. "Let's make quick work of those orcs and get back to the others!" He takes a step away from Eythil to gain a clear line of sight to the nearby orc and with his enhanced speed, sends three chakram streaking towards the foul creature!
The orc full, three circular blades buried in it's chest.
The lizard howled an otherworldly honk and dropped to all fours, shuddering and looking around to escape. Seeing nothing but fire on all sides, it bellowed again before locking onto Dolgren. Again, it's otherworldly purpose overrode it's fear and survival instincts. It huffed and bared it's thorny white teeth, staring down the dwarf.
The man in blue didn't miss a beat. "You have the intel on the site and still have a planar resonance with the forest. You're going back. Get everyone on the gate. I'll only be able to hold the field for about ten seconds. Anyone left behind is going to be stuck there for at least an hour." he moved a few sigils on his glass tablet. "This might not be much fun. Sorry."
The world lurched and for a moment Talas was in two different places at the same time. Then the two places merged. He felt like he'd been stretched across unimaginable distances and then roughly pushed back together again.
The strange symbol on the forest floor lit up again and crackled with a slowly rising field that was clearly unstable. A rip appeared in the fabric of reality, wavering and straining, trying to close itself. The lizard shied away, trying to stay away from it this time.
A silhouette flickered in the center, clearing to reveal Talas. Then he was gone again. Then back. He looked... blurry for a moment, then was finally there.
Whatever had happened to him looked like it hadn't been pleasant.