She ran because of some damn fool idealistic notion that she'd be protecting us by it. As to where, I can't say. The girl would say nothing of her past, nor much even of her present. Wait - what do you mean you can't show up empty-handed?
Kierana's eyes narrow in suspicion. Answer me this, and answer me true. Do you intend merely to discover the mystery around the girl, or is your presence here to ensure your employer is the girl's captor instead of someone else? Because I have no intention of aiding in sending the girl into enslavement - by your mysterious patron or by anyone.
"Slavery? Surely you must be joking. I may not know much of my employer, but I have never known him to endorse the slave trade." He flicks his tail in annoyance, but continues his explanation. "I couldn't tell you what his plans are, but the girl won't be harmed or sold, that I can tell you honestly."
After a moment, Twist starts following Korihor's tracks out into the woodlands. "Let's go find the damned foolish girl before she gets herself kidnapped or worse."
Kierana follows after Twist along the trail. And how are we to be assured of this when you'll not say who the f&#! your employer is? she mutters to herself as they proceed into the woods.
Auto sighs quietly and rolls his eyes as he follows Twist and Kierana. He
Looks back over his shoulder to Pyrrha and the rest. "Well, looks like it's time to find out what sort of trouble our little runaway has gotten herself into."
Why'd I take this job? Shoulda kept my head down and my nose out of it.
"..." Pyrrha follows the others without protest.
'Damnable tiefling, I'll not have you play us for fools. I'll not trust you until you've given me reason to.'
"You wouldn't know him even if I told you. He's... a reclusive sort of fellow." After a while, Twist's tail swirls in the air, stopping short. "Someone's here. I'm not sure who, or where, but someone's nearby. We need to tread carefully, it may be the fools who tried to abduct her yesterday."
-----
As Korihor watches the her former captors from the brush, she can hear the echoing voices of her compatriots, likely having followed her tracks. "Look, there's that tiefling bastard!" one of them says, drawing back an arrow on his longbow. "Let's see how well he does with an arrow through 'is eye socket!" The other men with him laugh quietly, the man taking aim at Twist's head, looking around cautiously.
In response to Twist's warning, Ahto slowly draws his daggers from their scabbards, holding them low, but ready to throw.
"Point 'em out when you see 'em," he mutters quietly, trying not to move his lips too much. "I've collected enough scars. Time t' dole some out."
Korihor's voice rings out through the woods. "Get down!"
As she hears the men readying to attack the others, she suddenly breaks from the underbrush, her little feet pounding in the dirt. "Get down!" With a yell, Korihor leaps onto back of the guy with the bow.
At Korihor's shout, Kierana's instincts kick in, and she ducks behind a nearby tree, pulling her sword from its sheath on her back. Acharn, to me!
While the ruffian isn't taken aback much by Korihor's assault, it does throw off his aim enough that his arrow whizzes past Twist's head by a mile. The rest of their number react with shock and surprise, some wheeling around to face Korihor while others draw their bows to face the rest of the party.
Three archers step from behind their hiding places, all three taking shots at the party. One arrow clips Ahto's arm, while the rest of the arrows are fired one after another towards Pyrrha, all thudding into the ground at her feet or flying past her. Two more men draw their swords, charging towards the party with their shields raised.
Initiative Order
Zeph growls low as the men attack them, it seems the world is conspiring against me to turn me into a font of anger and frustration. The wind picks up around him, whipping through his hair and clothing as he swings his hand in an arc, a burst of lighting flying from his palm towards the men.
Korihor wraps her arms around the attacker's throat and squeezes. "Run, Pyrrha, run!"
An arrow whizzes from the tree line and catches Ahto's arm.
"Sonafab*+%+, that hurt. Someone's gonna pay!"
Seeing the two men emerging onto the road, Ahto takes a step for ward and hurls his dagger at the nearest one.
An arrow whizzes from the tree line and catches Ahto's arm.
"Sonafab~!$!, that hurt. Someone's gonna pay!"
Seeing the two men emerging onto the road, Ahto takes a step for ward and hurls his dagger at the nearest one.
[dice=Attack]1d20+4
[dice=Confirm Critical]1d20+4
[dice=Damage]1d4+3
Pyrrha traces one smooth edge of her sword with two rigid fingers while she zig-zags to meet both charging thugs in melee. As she reaches the thugs the sword crackles to life with arcane energy and slashes at the uninjured one.
Seeing Pyrrha in the thick of a melee, Kierana dashes from her hiding place to join in, taking position opposite Pyrrha and swinging her sword. Acharn, them! She points to the thugs near Korihor, and Acharn flies to them, jabbing her wicked stinger at one of them.
As Pyrrha charges in with her scimitar, her blade slashes through leather and chain, leaving a gaping wound across the man's chest. Kierana's blade digs hard into the other man's shoulder, chopping deep into his collarbone. While still standing, both of the men clutch at their wounds, clearly in pain. Twist moves swiftly past Pyrrha and Kierana, taking a leaping kick for one of the archers. His foot catches them squarely in the chest, sending them reeling backwards, nearly dropping their bow. He lands low, his hands up close to his body, ready to defend against attacks.
The last group of attackers, still taken unawares by Korihor, take a moment to recover their wits. As Acharn comes in, swooping by with a massive stinger, one of them takes cover behind his shield. "The hell are these bastards?" he shouts, trying to keep distance between himself and the giant wasp. The other swordsman moves towards Korihor and the man she has in her grip, trying to pry her off of him, afraid to attack for fear of striking his companion.
After a moment, Twist shouts from his own fight, towards Korihor. "Dammit girl, use your magic! Put them down before they do the same to you!"
-----
Surprised by the initial assault, the two men fighting Pyrrha and Korihor make their best effort to fight back, taking long swipes with their blades as they attempt to staunch the flow of blood from their wounds. Their swings go wide, leaving them wide open to counter-attack. The archer whom Twist attacks drops his bow, drawing a dagger from his belt to fend off the tiefling, while his companion moves to take a shot towards the party. Twist blocks the slicing dagger, catching his opponent's arm on his own, while an arrow thunks into the ground again at Pyrrha's feet.
The three archers farther down the path unleash a volley of arrows. One catches Twist along his side, scraping past his armor. Yet another arrow whistles past Pyrrha, while another smashes harmlessly against a rock on its way towards Kierana.
With a yell Korihor digs her finger into the man's right eye, pulling his face to the right, towards his comrade.
Pyrrha spins and ducks under the thug's wide swing as blood spurts from his wound, while simultaneously striking at the thug that turned his attention to Kierana. Pyrrha's blade throws off arcane sparks as more magical energy rushies into the weapon in a brief surge.
Not waiting to see if his dagger throw connected , Ahto draws his club from his belt while keeping his remaining dagger is his off-hand.
He joins the fray, moving to engage the nearest thug. He swings hard, intent on smashing the man's head like a melon.
Zeph tries to rein his powers in and launches another electrifying attack at one of the men with a shout.
Seeing that her companions have the two they've already engaged well in hand, she darts toward Acharn, joining in her companion's fray. Acharn steps to face her, and together they attack.
Twist takes a step to the side, weaving towards the other archer as he makes a shot towards Pyrrha. He slams his fist into the other man as he moves, sending him wheeling to the ground. He yells again towards Korihor, this time a tinge of anger in his voice. "Would you just FIGHT them? They'll kill us all, sell you into slavery! Torture you! Just FIGHT!"
As he yells, the other man rips Korihor off of the thug, tossing her backwards. Shaking himself off, he takes up his bow and fires at Kierana, but his shot misses by a mile. A second later, the two thugs nearest Ahto, Pyrrha and Zeph both fall in crumpled heaps, bloody and broken.
-----
With three of their number dead, the archer nearest Twist turns tail and flees, taking off into the forest. The archers down the path move to find better shots, sending arrows downwind towards Twist, Ahto, and Pyrrha. Another arrow whizzes past the magus, but both Ahto and Twist take an arrow in the gut.
Korihor draws her dagger, steps up and stabs one of the assailants in the back. "I am no one's slave!"
Kierana takes another swing at her assailant, and is rewarded with the satisfying sound of her sword striking bone. Acharn, there! she shouts, pointing to the thug harassing Korihor.
Acharn turns to face Korihor and jabs at the thug between them.
Ahto curses as an arrow bites deep into his abdomen. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he rushes down the trail, and swings his club at the archer in front of him.
Pyrra haste fully strides across the field following Kierana's lead, flicking the blood and arcane energy off of her scimitar with a cold determined gaze. When she reaches Kierana's side, Pyrrha re-grips her sword and brings it down on her foe with abandon.
Zeph darts forward as the men fall and joins Kierrana and Pyrra in combating the men which Korihor attacked. With a flick of his wrist another burst of lighting travels from his fingers. I hope Twist can help out Ahto, he has himself against quite a few opponents there.
Kierana's blade eviscerates the man before her, his entrails spilling out from between the plates of leather. Zeph's blast of lightning catches the other in the chest, while Pyrrha's blade chops deep into his side. Twist, for his part, comes swiftly around the rocks, a fist slaming hard into the gut of another archer. Ahto's club catches one archer across the face, sending him reeling backwards.
The swordsman nearest Pyrrha takes a swing towards her, with his blade finally coming away red as he catches her across her sword arm. "Jes' leave the b$+~*, would ya? This ain't yer fight!" he shouts, keeping his blade level despite the paleness in his cheeks. The archer, his back against the rocks, manages to shoot Zeph in the gut as the lightning arcs from his palms.
-----
The men facing down both Twist and Ahto draw their daggers, dropping bows at their feet to fight their opponents. Neither score direct hits against their targets, but both manage to have their knives catch flesh. The last archer of the group snaps off a shot towards Twist, which catches him in the center of his chest.
As her foe drops, Kierana steps to the next, motioning Acharn to join her. Together, they back the man into an alcove, attacking fiercely.
Korihor carefully backs away from the man she just stabbed, rounds a bunch of rocks and comes up on Zeph just as an arrow hits him in the gut. "Zeph! No!"
Cutting into her foe, Pyrrha attempts to shrug off her wounds as she tries to drive her blade through and finish the man off.
Zeph gasps in pain, but steadies himself. Now isn't the time to run or roll over and die. My friends need me! Pushing through the pain he smiles at Korihor as she dashes towards him, "I'll be fine, lets take care of these bastards and then we can patch up our wounds." He takes a step forward and tosses another bolt of electricity at the man who wounded him for emphasis.
Amid a flurry of blades and lightning, the man backed into alcove falls, blackened and dead. Pyrrha's mark too falls dead, dropping as another slice chops deep into his ribs. Ahto's swipe with his dagger misses wildly, but his club smacks the man hard across his dagger arm. Twist, for his part, slams a fist into the face of the man next to him, dropping him to the ground.
-----
As the last two men stand before Ahto and Twist, both turn tail and run down the trail, one leaving a trail of blood in his wake. Neither stops to pick up dropped weapons or drag their fallen comrades away, instead opting to flee in hopes of escaping the party. "I hope..." Twist starts, breathing heavily. "I hope you all trust I'm on your side now." He winces as he pries an arrow from his armor, grimacing as the tip is ripped from his skin. "They're not going to stop, not while they've the upper hand."
"As far as I am concerned you are not on our side until you speak clearly as to who you work for and who "they" are. Your blood is shed for your own agenda otherwise, not ours." Pyrrha argues in a miffed response while trying to examine where the nagging pain in her sword arm was coming from. "Least it isn't bleeding," she says a moment before mouthing an expletive when he finger found the deepest part of the wound.
She stops to stare coldly at Twist, but realizing his wounds are bad enough punishment for now she looks to the fallen, and sets to searching them for loose coin, weapons, ammunition, jewelry or other fanciable goods she can carry back to town to pawn for some money.
"Sit down, Zeph, here." Korihor says, gesturing to a rock. She looks around at the others. "Does anyone have a healer's pack? How's your arm Pyrrha? Ahto, are you alright?"
Zeph sighs and does as Korihor bids. Slumping as the adrenaline leaves his body. "I'll be okay, but I would not complain about having this patched up." Looking over at Twist's wounds he can't help but feel lucky, "At the least I trust you to fight at my side for now, I'll give you that much, but I would greatly appreciated the elaboration on your part that Pyrrha requests."
"If, by alright, you mean not dead, then I'm fine," Ahto replies with an acerbic tone. "If I may, my lady, I wouldn't be bleeding from multiple wounds if you hadn't decided to run off into the woods without us!"
He looks at her as if he were witnessing the ranting of a lunatic in the town square.
"Let me make this clear. You are not safer without us. In fact, whenever you run off on your own, we nearly get killed. Stop doing it. Now!"
His expression is one of utter frustration.
Korihor tears a sleeve off her shirt, rips it into strips, and does her best to bind Zeph. She answers Ahto without meeting his eyes. "So these men would have decided to stay here, thirty meters from where we slept, and decided not to attack had I stayed inside? Near Zeph's mum?"
"I don't care about my safety. I care about others safety. When I run off, I might get hurt, yes." She tugs the strips around Zeph's chest a little too vigorously.
"But you won't, unless you pursue me."
"This is going to turn into a never-ending loop. You run, we run after you, some gang of goons tries to kill us. You run, we let you go. Some gang of goons kidnaps you, a dangerous stranger rises to power, and the same goons show up to murder us in our sleep. We are stuck together at this point, whether you like it or not!" Ahto retorts, trying to pry the arrow from his gut.
"They, the ones Twist is being so annoyingly vague about, are going to keep coming for us regardless of your bleeding heart Korihor. Aren't you supposedly capable of channeling or casting magic? Is that a lie too?" Pyrrha shoots another look at Twist before huffing and continuing combing over the fallen for supplies.
"You're bloody welcome by the way! You technically owe us your life twice over now.Too bad you're so set on being an ungrateful shrew... Worse than my sister; she only tried to kill me once."
Korihor stops working on Zeph's wound. She does not look up, but steadfastly keeps her head down.
Come, now - I like a good shouting match as much as anyone, but this bickering does us no good. And when I'm the voice of reason, something's gone seriously wrong. Kierana begins to aid Korihor in tending to everyone's wounds. Now, I'll tend to the most seriously injured with magic. Pyrrha, a healer's kit wouldn't go amiss, if any of them happens to be carrying one. Or any magical curatives they may have been carrying.
Korihor, I think the point everyone's trying to make is, we're a part of this now - we know of them. If they have any intention of keeping their plan a secret, they have to remove us from the picture, whether we intend our active involvement to continue or not. Your intention to try and keep us out of harm's way is noble, but ultimately without purpose.
If you wish to keep us safe, then bring all your abilities to bear to make it so. The tiefling's spoken of your magic, and it's plain you fear it, but it's how you can best protect us, rather than running away. Can you get that through your obstinate skull?
Korihor snuffles, and laughs a little. "I'm sorry. It's just...I didn't want to..." she looks up at Pyrrha, "...you said it. I heard you. You didn't want to be dragged into my mess, if it could be avoided." She sighs. "I guess it can't. I'm sorry."
Could have, should have, didn't want - all immaterial. Kierana includes everyone in her stern gaze this time. The question is, what do we do about it now? It's too bad we didn't manage to capture any alive - a chance at interrogation would have been beneficial. But I suppose our concerns at the moment were far more pressing.
Looking around, her gaze falls on Zeph and Ahto, both nursing grievous injuries. She extends a hand to each of them, chanting invocations.
Now, if no one else is in grievous danger, let's finish searching the dead and head back into Absalom. It may be the valuables they carry will allow us to buy a few more magical curatives to keep on hand. My own magics are still limited.
"Perhaps one is still alive. Do they have any identification papers on them?"
Good thinking. Or any religious symbols, perhaps, or symbols of another organization?