Tris grins at the bolts of arcane energy that slam into the orc in front of her. She presses the attack, feinting low with her blade, then stabbing at the same spot where Carter's magic had struck.
Esaul moves around the dwarf-pillar and closes the line of attack against the Orc Leader, bringing his sword down over the leader with a savage fury, which demolishes the heavily armored enemy! Light follows Esaul's lead, but not with that much skill, as he bite totally misses the Orc.
"Well, then lets get out of here as soon as these ones are dead!" Devan says to Tris. He fires his crossbow at the worg rider, the eagle disappears in a flash of golden light. His shot misses the rider.
"Aye, less put down tha blasted buggers an' scamper off afore an army runs we six down!" Thondrir follows through with another overhand chop at the worg rider, hoping to dispatch his foe quickly so they can escape the reinforcements the myriad horncalls belong to.
The worg rider's blade cuts under Kel's shield, leaving a painful red sting on his side. Wordlessly, Kelbows takes the opportunity to step in closer, kneeing the orc in the belly and then -- as it winces -- giving it an elbow to the nose, feeling cartilage break as the orc yowls in pain and rage. Kel tries to follow up with another punch, but the orc barely gets his shield up between them.
The eagle attacks the orc between it and Tris. Its talons rake across the orc's eyes, shredding bloody gashes in its ugly green face.
Carter joins the eagle in ganging up on one of the orcs. He fires upon the enemy with his wand. "Ha! Always a sure thing!" he boasts as the bolt of energy slams into the orc's right shoulder. Carter then takes a scroll out of his bag to prepare for the approaching foes.
Tris grins at the bolts of arcane energy that slam into the orc in front of her. She presses the attack, feinting low with her blade, then stabbing at the same spot where Carter's magic had struck.
The two mortally wounded orcs swing. The one attacking Tris falls down in its follow through. The other one is glassy eyed but still fighting.
Horns echo throughout the valley.
<< | | | >>
Esaul tries to finish the remaining enemy now, and indeed his swing leaves a mighty wound, almost cutting through the creature's hearth.
"Find a horn, I've got an idea! Make sure all of them are dead!"
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Devan moves over to the fallen worg rider, and looks for his horn. He trusts Esaul, and as soon as the young man says he has a plan Devan is pretty sure he knows what it is. "Who's going to create the false trail?" he asks.
Carter raises a hand. "If I'm understanding you two correctly, then I think I can help. I can run... somewhere." Carter waves his wand around in all directions. "And when I get there, I can use magic to make a little sound, and then teleport. Or just teleport. To kill the scent, you know," he suggests, hoping to make sense. Planning schemes! So complicated! He gulps. "And then, I guess I have to meet you guys somewhere later on, and hope they don't find me."
"I don't know though, splitting up's not always the best idea. We don't know how many of them are out there. 'Army' would seem to indicate quite a few..." Devan hedges. "They have wolves to follow our scent anyway. We'd best be off to Fairhaven as quickly as possible and pray to all the good gods that there's nothing too terrible between here and there. We all need to rest and recover our strength before we take on more of this army."
With the bandit still up, Light tries to take it down, but fails.
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Seeing the remaining orc focused on Tris, Kel seizes the moment to duck behind his foe and punch him in the back of the neck.
He then turns toward to his friends and nonchalantly says, "Ugh good point. Without their wolves I think it's a brilliant plan. With them though, I think we oughta just hustle to Fair Haven as quick as we can."
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Kel trips on a root giving an opening for the last glassy-eyed orc who unsuccessfully slashes with his falchion before getting his neck snapped by the brawler's deadly punch.
miss
Esaul immediately retrieves his longbow from the bushes, heals, and tries to decide what's the best course of action. "Then let's just go somewhere else to get an advantage point. They will not be able to track us faster than we move. Let's go back through the trail for one mile and take another path to the city."
"Nice shot, Kel," Tris huffs, grimacing down at her own bleeding shoulder.
"What about this-- can Arend blow that horn? I know you've got to call him back first, Devan... but even one of your other pets--"
"If we get the hell away from here, have one of your pets take the horn, go the other way, blow it there-- maybe they'll run to the sound of the horn. Your critter goes away after a bit, leavin' them chasin' nothing but a dropped horn. Either way, we need to get scarce right now."
"Or we can search for a place that favors archery and take them down there. It seems they don't have much by ranged capability. Aside from a half-dragon, of course."
Thondrir nods to Tris' plan before turning to Devan. "Less do whate'er gets a trail behind us an' right quick-like."
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"I don't have any servants who have mouths unfortunately. Arend will take too long to summon. Let's backtrack for a few minutes, then break off and follow a new path to the city like Esaul said. Anything else seems too risky to me. If we see a defensible spot, we can hole up there and hide for a while."
"Then let's go! We could certainly use some more healing..."
Carter puts one wand away and draws the other one. He strides over to Tris and uses the wand to heal most of her injuries. "That'll take care of most of it. What about the rest of you?"
Tris bares her teeth at the sensation of the devil's blood starting it's coursing through her veins. It's not that she's not grateful for the healing; she is-- she's just never gotten used to how that feels. Like something's sizzling along underneath her skin, itching and biting... but it puts injuries right as rain, and she's never been particular with methodology as long as it gets the job done.
"Much obliged, Carter," she says. "Let's move, then?"
Tris will start back the way they came, since their plan was to backtrack along their trail.
"Hit me again with the wand please, Carter," Devan says. He follows quickly after Tris.
After a dozen seconds, the horns continue to echo and approach. With your immediate combat concluded, you think you can make out four distinct horns closing on your location. One clearly closer than the other three. You estimate that you have less than a minute before they arrive.
After consensus, you quickly backtrack the trail and after a few minutes of running you dive off the Peak's Wood path. Over the next four hours, you mix running with pauses to listen for your hunters while panting and sucking back water. You don't find any caves instead focusing more on putting distance between you and those bloody horns. Eventually, you collapse inside a deep thicket where consensus votes to stop, because few of you can see much further than five feet in the weak moonlight. It has been an hour since you last heard a horn, so you quietly start to make a fireless camp for the evening.
Tris rubs at her ribs where she's got a fierce side stitch going on. Owr. She wipes sweat out of her eyes, not that it lets her see anything around her, and takes a few moments just to catch her breath.
Once she has her breath back, she whispers, "Thondrir? I want to set up a line, but I can't see my own hand. Help a girl out?"
Tris feels around in her magical haversack until she finds the coil of twine she carries, and the dented tin cup, plate, and cutlery of her mess kit. "Just get me to the edge of the thicket... we'll tie this string low, just a few inches above the ground, and hang the pots and such from it..."
Devan throws up as quietly as he can. "Gah! I hate running," Devan whispers fiercely. He sits in the leaf cover and leans against a shrub. "At least we're all alive. Thanks guys, that was pretty hairy back there."
The night passes uneventfully. The weather turns quick in the dead of night to bring a quick cold spring rain that soaks everything. Most everyone's sleep is fitful with the chase toward the evening overcoming the sweet bliss of exhaustion. Like the previous morning, you see the dawn arrive at the other side of the valley hours before it would reach your camp. In the wee light, you break camp again without a fire to warm and dry you. Your muscles ache, and it requires liberal use of magic to feel dry. These are the rough mornings when you question your career direction.
After the twine is returned to its pack and mess kits are used, cleaned, and repacked, you negotiate to escape the thicket surrounding your camp. The abnormal silence of the forest peaked your instincts while you avoided the last of the thorns, but it didn't strike you until you stopped being stabbed.
When you emerge, you realize that something is very wrong. Not only is it deadly quiet, but the only movement comes from a weak wind caressing the small conifers. Light whimpers; Esaul comforts his companion and walks around the area a bit to get his bearings. He steps on something that he picks up and returns to show the team. It's a stone sculpture of a bird with an insect in its mouth which looks amazingly life-like.
Before leaving the thicket, Devan summons Arend. He then heals the eidolon, who is still injured from battling the orcs.
“We’ve got a problem people, there’s a medusa here.”
Esaul was about to mention the same, but he was taking a look at the surroundings first.
"Medusas are dangerous. We must be prepare to fight it if the worst happens. I've got my Obscuring Mist prepared to help us."
Tris groans as morning comes, trying to stretch out the worst of the aches and pains from yesterday.
When Esaul shows off his find and Devan says the dreaded word, Tris goes a little pale. She doesn't fear orcs or worgs, but the thought of being transformed in an instant into stone sends a visceral dread up her spine. Locked into a statue's body, helpless to move, frozen...
"...we need to get out of here, then," she mumbles, rubbing her upper arms with her hands. "Quiet as a night-runnin' ship."
She takes a moment to rummage in her pack and get out the small hand-mirror she keeps for signaling purposes. She wants it close at hand.
"I agree, hopefully it's not already watching us. Remember, if it does show up, close your eyes. Otherwise you're likely to turn into a statue. Which way to Fairhaven, Esaul?" Devan asks. Arend stands near the summoner, quiet since his return. He appears to be in a deadly serious mood since the events of the day before, and is even more dour than normal.
"Dinnae wish t'offend—ah'm sure tha lot o' ye'd make fine statues. If tha beaut' come fer us, ah'll try'n draw 'er peepers." Thondrir finishes suiting up as quick as possible and collecting belongings. "Least 'ere's nary a campfire t'worry 'bout dousin' this time round."
"Ok, let's go then, slow and silently."
He had already looked around for the sunlight to indicate the direction to follow, and there was a little map of the mountains and he had a pretty accurate guess as to where they were.
Slowly, he starts to move through the bushes, with his bow at hand and Light one step behind him, hoping not to meet the Medusa, but if he did he would try to avert his eyes from it.
