Alua's head spun for a moment. Two groups of enemies? Artifact? Were they after the Tower? How on earth could they know about it? Or were they after the obelisk? How on earth could they steal it? And the living spell - she bit the inside of her cheek, tasting blood, and tried not to fall into a fit as memories of the Mourning tried to wash over her.
The smell of smoke broke through her mental struggle. Fire! Grabbing a cushion from her seat, she leapt towards the nearest flaming couch. As she beat the fire with her cushion, she cried out to the other passenger, "Grab something, beat the fire out! Then we can get out of here!"
"Alright." Erix said to the two halflings, as he stepped past and pivoted in one smooth motion. His sword flickered through the air and stopped inches from the first halfling's head. "5 minute truce so we can team up on the guys with the spell-monster, and stop the carriage taking structural damage and killing us all?" He looked to Lupi. "Unless one of you is secretly a magi, looks like you'll need our flamethrower here. If it were my crew, I'd want the guy who horned in on my heist and killed my friend dead first."
Seeing the way to the flames blocked by Erix and his opponents, He needs help! No, fire first, fight after. Alua took a page from Phin's book and threw herself down ontop of the cushion, rolled between a bunch of legs, and came up neatly on the other side, cushion still in hand.
Phin didn't like being in between two hostile forces even though she was invisible. She slipped by Baran into the aisle and then moved towards Erix. She slid around Erix, keeping herself so close that she brushed against him so as to avoid the halflings. She just hoped that he would realize that it was her and not freak out and draw attention to her presence.
Once she was past Erix and the halflings, she did what she could to help put out the fire before it blocked their exit.
"Unless one of you is secretly a magi, looks like you'll need our flamethrower here. If it were my crew, I'd want the guy who horned in on my heist and killed my friend dead first."
”You know,” the halfling grunted as he tried his best to deflect Erix’s sword blow with his rapier… and perhaps believed he had done just so, as the brawler’s blade missed him by inches. ”It seems to be your “flamethrower” isn’t following the same script.” The leader could hardly miss the silvery missiles that had just struck his companion, nor the other halfling’s pained grunt. ”Besides… you didn’t think the four of us are storming this steel beast alone, did you? How about you drop your weapons and stay your spells and when my men in the next car over will hear the sounds of battle and rush to our aid I might consider this an honest mistake you are coming to regret?”
”Unless your dear little pyromaniac burns us all to dead before that happens,” he muttered, countering with a quick jab that Erix dodged without undue difficulty.
While the leader moved to cut Erix’s path his companion rushed at Lupi, stumbling as the two magical darts tore into him but he clenched his teeth and rushed towards the wizard who seemed the most immediate threat.
In the far side of the car, the leader of the Wands managed a clean hit on his nimble opponent, thrusting his short blade into the halfling pirate’s ribs… and just like his companion before, that small robber dropped on the floor like a sack of potatoes after the first wound. The leader grunted in evident satisfaction, but that warm fuzzy feeling turned into a muttered curse as he looked up and realized his most effective weapon had decided to advance on its own, rolling and slithering towards the position Baran had taken to protect the civilians – much to the four passenger’s initial joy, but now that the unnatural … thing was moving towards them, leaving its human handlers behind, and with one of the pirates now herding the fire-wielding elf towards them, boxing them in. that momentary relief was fast giving way to despair.
Taking a second to glance back and seeing no sign of his two men, while the threesome they had engaged were advancing unchallenged, while the flames Lupi had lit threatened to spread, possibly soon blocking the route for the reinforcements he had been hoping might arrive, the pirate leader seemed to be reconsidering his earlier statement.
”So, about that truce… the offer still good?”
”So, about that truce… the offer still good?”
"You let us go and we help you now! We keep our purses and weapons and you can have everything these Pilfered Wand mongrels have on them ... including a possible device to control that living spell! Sound like a good haul?! Are you in agreement Alua!"
Baran looked back at the Pirate leader and nodded. He looked to the sides at the innocent passengers and hoped that Phin was near and Lupi was ready. He knew he wouldn't last long but maybe he could create enough of a distraction to flank ... at least he could draw the creature away from the crowd ... for a bit.
"Yes, stand behind your monster! Hide behind it but know", He breathed in and bolted headlong towards the blue-black smoke and at the last moment tried to slide past it on the right, only to right himself infront of the 'so-called' men.
"You are never out of the reach of ir'Brock and their new friends."
Lupi was not into politics. Well, she did have her own little "Green lives matter" demonstrations now and then back in Sharn, but they were mostly just get-some-attention-and-then-run kind of events. She did notice there seemed to be some kind of truce coming up. "Maybe I should not attack the halfling again," she thought. She went as far as to apologise the halfling "Sorry, I will shoot that next," She pointed at the living spell and added a weak smile.
Lupi was familiar enough on her own abilities in the complicated field of in the middle of battle diplomacy, so she decided to try to cast the next spell more carefully, so she would not get halfling blade on her torso at the same time. She got another two Magic Missiles and ordered them to strike the blue and black smoking spell thinking "I sure hope this spell affects it..."
Alua coughed as her mouth filled with smoke. The fire wasn't spreading, but it wasn't out yet. She continued her efforts, smothering the fire with her cushion, trying to ensure she didn't make it worse.
The other passenger was just standing around, so she cried out again, "You there! Help us! Grab a cushion, or use your heavy cloak. We can contain this but we have to do it now!"
So loud was the crackle of the flames and her breathing harsh in her throat, that Alua didn't notice her team's attempt at diplomacy or Baran's call for backup.
Erix nodded to the Captain. "Sure. Let's go!"
Erix waited long enough for his new 'ally' to nod, then took off.
Phin knew that her invisibility wouldn't last forever but she didn't want to become visible again with the artifact strapped to her back. It disturbed her that the Pilfered Wand seemed to be looking for something specific but even if they weren't, the craftsmanship of the Tower would make it a valuable target for any group of thieves. Phin just wanted to keep it safe. She felt like there was still a lot to learn about the Tower but more than that, the core of her being told her that it needed to be protected. If only she had the time to disguise it, if only she could make it look different so that no one would give it a second thought.
Phin's upper left thigh began to warm to the point of being uncomfortable. Her immediate thought was that the fire had spread during her musings and was burning her leg. It never occurred to her that the uncomfortable heat was coming from where her dragonmark was located. The burning sensation snapped her back to the threat at hand and her invisible hands beat on her thigh to extinguish any possible flame.
The fire was becoming too much of a threat to their retreat should they need it. Seeing that the aisle was far too crowded for her to join the fray, Phin decided to help Alua with the fire. Grabbing a cushion, knowing full well that it would give away her position at least for a moment, Phin joined her boss in beating out the flames.
"You let us go and we help you now! We keep our purses and weapons and you can have everything these Pilfered Wand mongrels have on them... including a possible device to control that living spell! Sound like a good haul?! Are you in agreement Alua!"
”Deal! And may the Devourer kiss the trucebreaker goodbye!” the pirate leader shouted, then shouted orders to his remaining man. ”Right, change of plans. Forget the Firestarter and let’s show those buggers why they oughta fight someone their own size! Follow the big one,” he gestured at Erix, already sprinting towards the fray, his little legs pumping hard in an effort to stay close behind the brawler.
The other pirate threw a glare and an ugly curse in Lupi’s direction but obeyed the order and got close enough to slash at the amorphous creature, but if his dagger slash had any effect at all on the thing it was impossible to tell. Then Lupi’s magical darts flashed over his head, and were somehow ripped apart by the cloud’s boundary. For a moment, the creature was surrounded by twinkling silver fireflies at you saw pseudopods form and idly lash at them, but again, the living spell seemed unaffected by the attack.
Baran’s words shook the passengers out of their fear-induced immobility and as the pirates joined forces with the two musicians and their friends to stand against the other robbers, the foursome quickly fled towards the rear of the car, the mother shielding her daughter with her body while the two dwarves rushed to help with the firefighting as fast as their stubby little legs could carry them – for a simple fire seemed much the safer option than what they were leaving behind… and they had not missed the remark about more pirates lurking in the other cars. Alua’s words had already shaken the lone human passenger who had found himself trapped between a fire and a fight, and he was now copying the oracle’s approach on the other side of the aisle, where Phin materialized from thin air to assist him. Together, you managed to get at least part of the blaze under control, to stop its spreading uncontested.
Meanwhile, the living spell ignored both the attacks against it and Baran’s impressive acrobatics to get past it as if neither thing had not even happened and simply rolled over to meet Erix’s charge. To his horror the brawler found that his armor offered him no protection at all as the blob of semi-sentient magical energy simply rolled over him, engulfing him. The sensation was like nothing he had experienced before – the spell’s matter looked gelatinous, but its touch felt… almost refreshing. Like a cold, misty rain after a hot sunny day. He felt lethargic, both his will and strength seeping away, his eyelids impossibly heavy…
With a thud and clatter of metal Erix fell down on the floor, eyes closed and breathing deeply.
The Wands, however, couldn’t ignore Baran putting himself between them and their minion, and while the apparent leader stayed away the other rogue stepped up to meet the bard, slashing at him wit his blade and opening a nasty wound on the bard’s right hip, as Baran found himself unable to properly dodge the attack, with the living spell at his back.
The leader, meanwhile, produced wand from his belt holster and pointed it threateningly at Lupi. ”Right, you lot. That should be plenty of display to show why you don’t want to resist. Now drop your damn weapons and maybe, maybe, I won’t feed you all to my little pet.”
"You are fools if you think to threaten our most powerful weapons. Hero's Heart, Living Flame, and Secret Blade. Where the Rock of Sharn falters they will make you weep thick red tears!"
Now that the civilians had roused themselves from their shock and were helping with the fire, Alua turned her attention back to the fight. It seemed that they'd joined forces with the halflings, and... Erix was down!
Running towards the fray, Alua dropped to her knees besides Erix, but could find no injury upon him. Shaking his shoulders, she cried, "Erix! Wake up!"
Seeing Baran surrounded by enemies, and bleeding, she closed her eyes and focused on his life energy. "Thee to me, me to thee," she whispered, creating a link between them.
Phin heard a loud thud and turned from where she was battling the fire to see Erix on the floor. She immediately dropped the cushion and began moving forward. "Never send a cub to do a raccoon's job," she muttered as she drew weapons.
She looked down in surprise as a plain looking short spear made it into her hand rather than her thornblade. She wondered what had happened because she hadn't consciously chosen to draw the Tower to fight with and why did it look this way? Did the Tower manage to do what she had hoped and camouflaged itself? But now was not the time to contemplate such matters as Baran and Erix were in trouble.
She glided forward, slipping around her allies. She could feel the Tower responding and shifting its form in her hands but all she saw when she glanced downwards was a regular short spear. She lunged forward at the living spell hoping to pierce it through.
Then Lupi’s magical darts flashed over his head, and were somehow ripped apart by the cloud’s boundary. For a moment, the creature was surrounded by twinkling silver fireflies at you saw pseudopods form and idly lash at them, but again, the living spell seemed unaffected by the attack.
Lupi ignored most of the other events and concentrated on looking at the Living Spell. "Twinkling silver fireflies... pseudopods... Was that good or bad?" Lupi tried hard remembering more things about Living Spells.
Lupi had only little time to ponder on the arcane details. She took a step back and decided to change in one more Magic Missile spell.
The three passengers who had taken it to themselves to fight the fire were slowly winning, preventing the flame’s spread (thanks to in large part by Alua’s quick reactions to get the work started), and as the risk of being burned to death lessened the woman led her daughter even further away from the fight.
A fight that was heating up nicely. Baran advanced further to challenge the leader of the Pilfered Wands in melee, preventing the man from using his wand. Instead, he lunged at Baran with his sword (the bard noticed the blackened metal stained by some brownish paste – providing an explanation why the two pirates had gone down with the first scratch), sinking the blade deep into Baran’s guts… but much to the bard’s astonishment, the gruesome wound didn’t hurt nearly as much as it should have, and indeed, its edges began to knit together the moment the enemy drew his blade from the wound and took a quick step back, again brandishing his wand in the bard’s general direction.
Alua, on the other hand, grunted in pain as her blessing drew upon her life to protect Baran, allowing her to shoulder part of the bard’s injury. While the oracle hurried toward Erix to wake him Phin charged past her, stepping over the brawler’s slumbering form to lunge at the unnatural thing that had struck her friend down.
The spear passed easily into the strange mass of the living spell, and Phin did believe she felt the Tower’s blunted blade cutting through something that tried to resist its passage, but how much actual damage she had inflicted on the thing was impossible to tell – it didn’t react to her blow any more than it had to the pirate’s attack – or to the furious slash the halfling leader’s rapier produced as the feathered-hatted brave stepped up to Phin’s side, finally reaching the battle. His friend made move for the commander, dancing nimbly past the living spell (who didn’t seem to pay him any attention whatsoever in any case) to help Baran by locking the other rogue in combat.
The living spell continued its mindless progress down the car, throwing its mass at the elven dancer in an attempt to engulf her like it had Erix only moments before, but Phin proved much too quick for the attack to land. She did not, however, have any other choice than to give ground before the spell’s advance unless she wanted to willingly embrace the strange creature, and the spell rolled over Erix’s comatose body, seeping more strength from the brawler’s body with its passing.
Lupi got worried to see the Living Spell going onto Erix's sleeping body. "Erix...", she gasped, but remembered to try to find out some kind of opening on Living Spell's spell resistance. She glimpsed into the future, to see if trying to hit the Living Spell low or high would be better, but the future was too unpredictable to see. Instead she just conjured two more magic missiles and ordered them to hit the Living Spell in the middle. Then she moved away from the Living Spell.
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Baran felt the sword go in. He felt it go deep. And, as the cold ichorous steel withdrew, his breath momentarily left him. But quickly the wound closed, he didn't fathom why yet, his feet barely under him again. He spun a bit with his aching shoulder and the phantom ache he felt in his gut. He sliced at the leader's wand arm but nothing was coming together, he was nearly tripping over himself. But still ... he managed a little rhymn.
"What do you get
when you want to bloodlet
and your sandwiched between pirate and bard?
Perhaps you attack
that damn mouthy hack
by stabbing him deep in the lard?
Will you enough enjoy
that mil'try ploy
or pay for the wit that you lack?"
He gave a little wink to the Skypirate on the leader's opposite side.
"For If you're stabbing the bard
you've played the wrong card
'Cause you haven't been watching your back!"
Phin doubles down and prods the living spell once again with the Tower. As she dances around the slow-moving entity, she hopes that her poking it with her weapon will cause it to move off of Erix. She had no idea what that thing had done to him but surely having it right on top of him wasn't good.
She blanches a bit as Baran's words drift back to her. If that boy didn't tame his tongue, it may get him killed. But sadly she couldn't be in two places at once. Hopefully he'd be able to hold his own until she could get to him.
Lupi cast another duo of darts formed from near-invisible energy at the unnatural creature and sighed in relief as these ones seemed to endure contact with the living spell’s boundary and, instead of falling apart, ripped huge holes all the way through the thing’s gaseous body. And a moment later, Phin’s flickering spear cut off small pieces from its mass. But the wounds made by the spear and Lupi’s spells knit together mere moments after they had been formed, but you thought the effort of repairing itself was leaving the creature slightly smaller after every effort.
The pirate leader moved to flank the spell and delivered a heroic lunge that would have sunk his rapier almost to the hilt in the living spell, had the creature not lurched towards Phin a heartbeat earlier, leaving the halfling pirate cursing as his foe suddenly outpaced his attack. Phin had little trouble in evading the spell’s attack, and while she had to give ground and thus increase the distance between himself and Baran the spell’s advance meant that it rolled off Erix. Alua didn’t waste the opportunity and darted past the spell – a move the single-minded creature completely ignored – and dragged Erix a few steps away, interposing her own body between the creature that had felled the brawler and his comatose body, and proceeded to slap him awake.
As Baran continued his bold advance one of the rogues found himself flanked by the bard and a pint-sized pirate, and while he instinctively turned to concentrate on the larger opponent the halfling stabbed him gleefully in the back, eliciting an agonized moan of pain from the man. He whirled around, one hand pressed awkwardly on the wound that might just have cost him one of his kidneys and slashed furiously at the pirate, but his small opponent ducked under the blow with a gleeful little chuckle.
The leader of the Wands team didn’t like how the battle was turning out. Snarling in anger, he was forced to take another step back and to bring his wand to bear. A muttered word of power caused the wand to emit a ray of bluish light that struck Baran in the chest and suddenly the bard felt his body stiffening. He could not even shout out as his own momentum caused him to fall, but at least one of the nearby seats broke his fall and prevented any further damage.
'Oh nono no no no. Ah, arrrrgh. No ... that didn't ... ahhhh, I'm falli - oofff! Oh. A passenger's seat. Come on team! Fight! I'll be there as soon as I can ge ... well, at least we know what the wand does.'
(I'm back in cell service, so should be able to post again. However I'm doing it by phone and square brackets are hard to get to, so I'll ask our kind dm to do my roles. Also, life link would swap another 5 ho to Baran last round. )
Relieved, Alua saw Erix wake up unscathed... But he looked decidedly wobbly. She searched her mind for some way to help him, but she just didn't know how to. Then Baran fell. She groaned in pain as she absorbed some of his injuries... at least that meant he was still alive.
Rushing past the man being skewered, she saw that Baran's eyes were open and unblinking. A spell? She turned to the wand bearer, raised her morningstar, and struck.
(Acrobatics to avoid aoo and attack please)
Phin continued to carve pieces off of the living spell. She gave ground where she needed and pressed her attack when she could in order to keep it away from the others. She had never fought a foe like this before and she found it unnerving not to be able to tell if she was hurting it or not. However, one thing was clear, she couldn't stop fighting until the interlopers were dispatched.
Lupi was happy to see her Magic Missiles and Phin's attack did cause the Living Spell some injuries. However, it was agonisingly slow to change one spell at a time to a Magic Missile and then cast Magic Missile. For Lupi it was still the best she could think of, certainly better than starting burning things again. Thus, she changed her Burning Arc spell to a Magic Missile silently in her mind.
Now that she was amongst the passengers covering in fear, she felt she needed to try to give them some hope. The best she could think was "Could you... ummm.... root our group?"
Erix staggered to his feet out of the same damned nightmare, only to find a different nightmare in front of him.
Only the fact he'd taken his medicine let him move at all, and that... thing... had laid him out like a side of beef.
Baran was trying to hold the front line, and the boy was frozen in - no correction, just frozen. Dead? 'How long have I been out? Is this still a dream?.'
Instincts from a lifetime of fighting came to the fore, and he stepped forward and slammed a fist into the man in front of him. To his shock there was simply no force there, the attack as weak as a man twice his age - his real age - might throw.
As Phin kept ripping off bits and pieces of the living spell’s body there came a point when the creature could no longer hold itself together and quite suddenly erupted in a silent explosion, showering Phin and every surface near her with a cool, sticky liquid that faded away almost as quickly as it had formed, leaving nothing but a memory behind. Meanwhile, the others (save Lupi) continued to press their advantage – Erix and the halfling pirate challenged the closer rogue while Alua slipped past him to charge at the enemy leader, closely followed by the pirate leader with his great hat. Furious blows were exchanged, but the Pilfered Wand’s team leader managed to feld off both Alua’s mace and the halfling’s rapier while slowly backing away, cursing, and pointing his wand at the halfling leader. The little man proved he was made of sterner stuff, though, as he shrugged off the spell’s effects.
His underling was less lucky, however, as the other rogue’s sword chopped deep into his neck and the halfling fell down in a heap, arterial blood sprouting from his wound. The rogue spat on his falling enemy’s body while taking a step back towards his leader, eyes wild as he was clearly considering his chances.
At the far end of the car, the trio of passengers had managed to mostly put out the flame and the two dwarves led the fivesome out of the car, past the smoldering seats and deeper into the train – after all, things could hardly be amu more dangerous in the other cars, right?
Lupi was more than happy to see the Living Spell dissipate into a sticky liquid. She instinctively moved forward wanting to analyse the rare magical phenomena more closely, but as the liquid dissipated quickly, she stopped to consider the situation. She had just changed a new Magic Missile into her short-term memory and as the human rogue underling was in dire straits, she thought "One less blade against us...". She cast the spell and ordered the shimmering blue missiles to hit the rogue into head and chest. The man swayed on the hits and...
Phin grimaced as the living spell spewed goo all over her as it exploded under her blade. However, seconds later it was as if it never existed as the ooze simply evaporated into nothing. The absence of the living spell definitely proved advantageous to them but there were still too many foes and it was getting crowded where she wanted to get to.
She tried to dodge around Erix but he seemed uncharacteristically off balance and she had to stop herself short or be body checked into one of the seats by his lumbering form. This lost her valuable ground and she couldn't get to the leader of the Pilfered Wand. So she had to settle with an awkward jab at his lackey.
But she couldn't get the proper angle and so she regrouped, trying to figure out her way through the melee.
Baran stood up and prepared himself. Seeing the spell gone he smiled ... and immediately grimaced at the pain of his wounds. "Did you think you could just wave a wand and we would just lay down forever. We, the destroyers of the living arcane! You have made two foes friends! And you're going to have to face us all! And drown in the outcome."
Erix cheered when the spell dissipated, and moved up to stand side by side with Baran against the foe, though his back was bowed in weakness. He reached down to haul the younger man up, surprised how heavy the scholar seemed.
"Friend. You're F..." Erix's attempted quip falls silent as he throws a fist at the man threatening Baran.
Relieved to see that Baran and Erix seemed to be all right, Alua felt her sprits rise. They could win this fight, now that the living spell had been slain.
Stepping over the prone form of the fallen halfling, Alua raised her morningstar and deliverd a vicious blow to the wand-holder.
The Pilfered Wand rogue was considering leaping off a window broken by the arriving pirated and going for one of the dangling ropes in sheer desperation just as Lupi’s magical darts struck him, one of the blasting a small hole clear thought the man’s head and splattering the wall behind him with blood and brains. This created and opening for everyone else to rush the one remaining enemy, and even though Phin’s spear jab missed both Erix’s fist and Alua’s Morningstar landed with crushing strength and the man crumbled on the ground, battered and bloody.
As the man fell the pirate leader’s attention turned immediately to his fallen subordinates. His eyes lingered for a moment at the one whose head had got almost chopped off by the lucky sword blow, then turned to the two who had fallen in the early stages of the battle. It quickly became apparent that both small pirated were still breathing, and the leader sighed a giant sigh of relief at the welcome news.
”Well, now. That was a fight well fought,” the pirate said, turning to Baran, unsheathing his rapier after a quick flick to shake off the excess blood clinging to the metal. ”Now how I envisioned this raid going, but one has to take the good with the bad, eh? Now, about the agreement –“
The pirate’s words were interrupted by the door next to Lupi slamming open (barely missing the slender "goblin" wizard standing a bit too close for comfort) to reveal two more halflings, apparently fleeing from something, their eyes wide in panic as their gazes gravitated on their leader. ”Boss! We have to run! Now! Or we are all history!”
”Wha-?”
”Boss! We got no time! Hurry! Both of the pirates grapped ropes and scurried up it like squirrels, vanishing from sight in seconds.
The leader, clearly at a loss, spent a few more moments staring after his retreating men, but then a fierce reptilian screech from above and the sound of scraping claws followed by heavy wingbeats snapped him back to reality.
”I have no idea what just happened, but far it be from me to ignore my men’s advice,” he said, throwing off his hat as he snagged the closest rope and began tying it to the harnesses of his two unconscious men. "In the circumstances, I think it's only fair for you to claim those brutes' booty - priorities and all, you understand?"
As the pirates were clearly leaving Lupi shouted to others. "Are you OK?" She was concerned on pirate underlings news there might be another danger on the other side of the door, so she decided to move towards others.