The two on the ground inadvertently pull each other away from both the end of Azraels scythe, and the wizards bullet, but not Abels foot. He strikes the thug.
"Hey! Who are you trying to hit!?" Lembe's eyes manage to widen even further than they were. He tries to lock the thugs arm behind his head with the pipe.
"Get away! " There's some level of desperation in his voice now.
The other conscious thug decides he likes Gwynn's idea.
"Yeah uh, awright. Ey, look, Shawn's an ass, but you gotta get da foreigner off him. What if he catches somethin' contagious?"
Initiative: Round 2
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Seraphina
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Round 3
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Abel
Azrael
Thug 1
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Serephina continued her spell, hoping it would help the others end this sooner.
As soon as her new friend leaves the room, Gwynn raises her pistol and snaps off a shot at the nearest non-occupied hostile.
Abel continues his attempt to knock out the hostiles
Lanliss drops his now empty rifle and takes up his shotgun, aiming it at the thug tangled up with Lembe. Basically what the paladin said.
Agreed, no more violence needs to occur
Before Azrael finishes speaking (and thus, the responses), Gwynn rather impressively cracks off a shot from her pistol without dropping Sully. The loud bullet flies straight on target, and the smoke from the barrel moves longer than her target does afterwards.
Lembe gets up with a start, luckily only baring a graze in his forearm sleeve. He looks around at the party and mutters something unintelligible to himself before he locks his gaze on the remaining man who accosted him.
He gives a snarl and hurls the pipe at him. As the pipe sails through the rain, losing height as it arcs down, a peculiar finish to the event occurs. The moment the pipe lands on his head, a second gunshot can be heard from down the street, and this man falls down in a burst of red mist as if the earth itself is pulling him.
The cat mans ears go down, and his eyes grow in disbelief.
Serephina winced, the spell she was holding dropping away. "What in the name of.." Stopping, she looks and tries to see who took the shot.
Gesturing in the direction of the odd movement, she glanced at the others. "Can any of you make it out better than I?"
Gwynn tries to hold down her lunch as her eyes remain unblinkingly on the new corpse for a long moment before trying to see what in the nine hells just happened.
As an afterthought, she remembered that the characters in her favorite books would say something pithy right about now.
I-um... I guess he lost his... Nevermind. She said, backing away from the joke.
Lanliss squints towards the direction Seraphina is looking at. I can't see anything. Must be my age...
He picks up his rifle and begins to reload it. Then he loads his shotgun, just in case.
I saw someone or something on the scaffolding down the road during the fight, Abel comments.
Unfortunately, whatever Seraphina pointed out seems to be gone now. The rain continues to pour. Sully coughs feebly.
What next? There are two dead men on the street, and another about ready to join them.
Serephina used her abilities to stabilise the dying man.
Azrael walks over the dying man and kneels, muttering a brief prayer before toiching the man's chest.
[Dice=LoH] 1d6;"Make sure he doesn't escape." he says to the others as hr turns towards the definitely dead thugs "I need to make sure they pass on to the afterlife."
Be quick, we are pressed for time Abel nods turning tp go investigate what he had seen earlier.
Just point in it's general direction and maybe I can wing him. Gwynn said, tapping her pistol and following with the group.
"Wha... It was just a pipe... Hold on a moment. Who is this you brought? Is he..." Lembe tries to process the events of the last couple of minutes as he leans forward and squints to get a good look at Sully.
Lanliss stows his shotgun and tries to explain things to Lembe. Someone shot the guy, just when you were about to hit him. As for Sulivan, we found him badly hurt. We were just going o put him in the car to keep him safe, but... you can see why that's a problem.
Azrael occupies himself in the following way while the party speaks: (Moving to the bodies, the paladin starts searching through their pockets. This isn't common robbery as it could appear, but a procedure he needed to do: check if they had anything that could identify them.
Once he is finished searching, Azrael knelt next to them as he placed his sickle, his holy book, two candles and his flask of water om the ground in front of him.
"Allfather, I commend to you these two souls that whose time among the Community has been cut to an end. Their ways might not have been the best, they might had stepped out of your Way... but they were your children and therefore mine. I failed my duty of guardianship, and for that I ask your forgiveness. They failed their duty to the Community, and for that I ask your forgiveness."
Lighting the candles and spilling water over the sickle, he moved from one body to the next and with calculated movements pierced their skull where it connects with their spine. Azrael's face showed disgust and shame, but he knew all too well that any measure against undeath was worth the effort.
As he collected his belongings and stood up, the Paladin said "May their afterlife be kinder and full of joy than their life and may be find the Community in your Kingdom.")
"What? I... " Lembe curses a couple times in whatever language he speaks before continuing to speak through his hands.
"Right. Right, uh... I think we passed a hospital or a church on the way here. I could bring him maybe?"
Serephina nodded. "It would likely be wise." Looking at the other, she added, "Do we want to go too and return later, or do we want to keep investigating?"
I don't like the idea of splitting the group, we should focus on saving the whole, not individuals. The more time we take, the worse things will get
Our fight now, though. Too late to turn back now. Gwynn told her friend.
I agree with Abel, we'll probably do more harm, to ourselves and others, if we split up now.
Alright guys, plan of action. Do you escort Sully on the motor vehicle to the hospital, possibly losing track of the item you came here for to begin with? OR do you head back inside now and leave the driver and injured man to make the trip themselves?
Lanliss considers the options. We should stay and look for Gabe. Lembe, you think you can bring Sully to the hospital on your own? You might need something better than a pipe.
Serephina wisely decided to not split the party.
"Better than a pipe you say? Apologies, I left my armory with the caravan. Do not you worry about us. We'll make do." Lembe talks over the rain on his way to get his pipe back.
"Good luck with... erm. Whatever it is you're doing in there. I'll see him." Lembe carries Sully over to the car pulling out a handkerchief for the injured mans mouth.
The party re-enters back to the second floor of the building. Once more peering down the poorly lit hallway in which you found the poisoned man. You could venture a guess that there are three or four more floors. What next?
Serephina continued down the corridor, hoping to avoid any more traps, and past where they'd found the wounded man.
Take a gander at this place, won't'cha. Gwynn said, looking down the hallway. I wager we might find a ghost or something down here.
Abel silently continues onward, finding a spirit or two is a possibility, one i hope does not occur...One should not disturb the circle life, by interrupting it's cycle.
As the party rounds the next set of stairs, no ghosts appear (yet), but instead, at the top of the stairwell a pair of wooden bars stretch across the ceiling. They connect between two doorways across from one another.
These bars stand out as they're clearly recent additions to the decor.
Now why would someone put that there?
Lanliss looks under the bars. Someone might try to force us to step onto a pressure plate of some kind.
Perhaps a knowledge of engineering might help to figure out what these do.
But still, imagine what a great story at the pub it will make. She sayd to Azrael. Provided we survive the encounter, of course.
She responds to Kek'ra with a slightly emberassed shrug. You know what I mean. She said. Hey, can you do that essence-drain-thing?
We will live, i will do everything in my power to prevent unnecessary death.
Given her blessed lack of knowledge on engineering, Seraphina hung back.
Well, I guess we can force our way past these?
Lanliss shoulders his rifle, and a ball of acid shoots at one end of one of the beams. He moves his barrel, and does the same to the other end.