His ears ringing from sensory overload, Caiten continues crashing through the underbrush.
Lisi claps hands to ears in time. "Thirsty bastard. Try some of this."
He glares at the sabosan, his contempt unmistakeable.
And then snaps a hand out, speaking in Druidic. A ball of flame appears in his hand, and he tosses it at the bat creature.
Caiten shakes his head to try and clear the ringing, but doing so proves to be ineffective. He continues through the brush for a bit, then sees an opportunity to harass the enemies a bit more. He fires off another burst of divine energy at the boggard directly to his west.
Yasami covers her ears as the bat-creature lets out the sound. But it seems it is too late for that. With her ears ringing, she tries to speak, but does not hear herself. An angry grimace crosses her face when she looks at the leather-winged shrieker. She secures the bow on her belt, pulls out her ceremonial sword and charges forward to stand between Lisi and the sabosan.
"If you just took music from me, you flying weasel..." she spurts as she walks closer, still angry that she can not hear herself.
Catalina cringes when she hears the shriek nearby, gritting her teeth as she skids to a halt and whips around to stare at the source for just a moment before turning to Oren. "I...don't feel good about that," She says, gesturing toward the source of the shriek. "The others aren't following."
The angelkin takes a deep breath and then darts to the west, just to the edge of the treeline, before using the skill that Dario had taught her to reload quickly and fire off a shot at the nearest enemy to her .
Lisi and then Yasami face off with the sabosan, who does, indeed, look a bit like a flying weasel. The sabosan's confidence is shaken by Lisi's glare , it is pummeled by a blast of fire for 10 points of damage, and the whole experience leaves it fatigued, desperate to drink the blood of Yasami, who steps between the bloodsucker and the druid.
Caiten steps to the treeline and launches force a shimmering beam of divine energy that nearly takes the nearest boggard to the ground. It is shaky on its feet and holds its chest.
Seeing her friends engaged, Catalina also approaches the treeline and kills the nearest boggard with a punishing blast from her pistol.
Oren is up and then the rest of the foes.
Oren smiles approvingly as Catalina deletes a boggard and then smiles ominously and makes a shooting motion at the nearby charau-ka, as if to indicate that it's next. Then he takes cover behind a nearby tree.
[ooc]Actions:Demoralize, Take Cover[ooc]
Finally understanding the situation, the charau-ka butchers plunge into the jungle. One of them reaches Yasami, one of them reaches Caiten, and the third reaches Caiten and is able to attack. The charau-ka manages to thrust his trident accurately through the branches .
The two charau-ka to the north run away from the spider towards the melee, which will likely cause the spider to follow them.
The charau-ka that Yasami mocked runs into the jungle after her and misses twice . Another charau-ka plunges into the jungle and attacks Yasami from behind but foliage interferes with its hatchet blow.
Another warrior plunges into the jungle but fails to reach the party. Another warrior remains entangled in Lisi's grabbing grasses and weeds.
The final two warriors run and attack Catalina from either side. The first, the frightened one, who attacked before Catalina was flanked, almost penetrates her armor with its blow, but at the last second it looks nervously in the direction Oren went and fails to put enough power behind the attack ). The second charau-ka does connect with its hatchet, .
Round FIVE Initiative order:
First group: spider; boggard swampseers; sabosan
Second group: all PCs & Hezle
Third group: all charau-ka and boggard warriors
The giant spider gives chase and reaches out with its long legs at the charau-ka warrior in the back. The spider barely connects, but the blow is brutal and the charau-ka is crushed under the heavy limb.
The boggard Caiten injured stumbles into the jungle, its fury carrying it forward, and swings at Caiten with its staff, but again the foliage interferes with the attack . Up close, Caiten can tell it is on its last frog legs.
Seeing the blasted corpse of their companion and realizing the threat posed by Catalina, the two remaining boggard swampseers each cast acid arrows at her. One connects with a sizzle into Catalina's shoulder .
Finally, the sabosan repeatedly claws at Yasami, with a desperate look in its eye, but each time it fails to reach the slippery swashbuckler, who uses the dense terrain to her advantage.
The entire party is up!
Caiten stares at his charau-ka enemies. The same ones that nearly killed him yesterday. The battle-trained android shows no emotion or expression on his face of any sort, but running through various tactical combat simulations does not result in a positive outcome in the majority of cases.
He carefully and nimbly weaves his way through the brush while keeping an eye on his enemy's weapons.
From there, he makes a gesture with one hand and speaks a couple of words, then opens his mouth and an annoying sound blasts through the area in front of him.
He takes a moment to reflect on how strange it is to not be able to hear his own speech or sonic spell.
With her ears still ringing, Yasami doesn't really talk. She simply vocalises a few quiet grunts as she slices her sword at the creatures around her. She first strikes at the butcher that had just arrived..
Immediately afterwards, she grabs grabs the hand of the previously taunted warrior and attempts to lead it dancing to her position. As she does so, she moves towards Caiten.
And after that is done, she adds an extra cut directed at the nearest butcher.
You make an incredibly graceful attack, piercing your foe's defenses. Make a Strike with a weapon or unarmed attack that would apply your precise strike damage, with the following failure effect.
Failure: You deal half your precise strike damage to the target. This damage type is that of the weapon or unarmed attack you used for the Strike.
You sweep your foe into your dance. Attempt a Performance check against an adjacent enemy's Will DC. If your swashbuckler's style is battledancer and you succeed, you gain panache.
Critical Success Your foe is swept up in your dance. You both move up to 10 feet in the same direction, remaining adjacent to one another. Your movement doesn't trigger reactions from the target (and the target's movement doesn't trigger reactions because it's forced movement).
Success As critical success, but you both move only 5 feet.
Failure The foe doesn't follow your steps. You can move 5 feet if you choose, but this movement triggers reactions normally.
Critical Failure You stumble, falling prone in your space.
Lisi steps back and unleashes a barrage of flame at the butchers and sabosan.
He then hisses at the nearer blue Charau-ka butcher.
Catalina tries to dodge the oncoming hatchet, but the sharp blade slices through her coat and digs into the silvery flesh beneath. She hisses in pain, taking a ◆few steps away from the warriors to distance herself from the creatures.
Now feeling confident in the move, the thaumaturge reloads her implement and makes uncomfortable eye contact with the creature she had hurt just seconds ago before she fires it at center mass.
The angelkin grins and carefully reloads her weapon, staring down the other charau-ka.
To the butchers' surprise, Caiten skillfully withdraws, denying them an opportunity to respond, and they shrink back a the blast of loud and annoying sound . The boggard covers its ears but the sound is still too much for its frail system and it falls dead.
Yasami delivers a devastating strike to one of the butchers, weakening it substantially. It looks at her with shock and watches as she pivots away. The warrior is equally shocked to be swept up in the dance, and then is thrust through the heart by Yasami's sword; it collapses from her arms.
Lisi directs a cone of fire at the sabosan and the butcher and warrior on either side of it. The Sabosan and butcher nimbly avoid taking the full fiery blast (3 hp damage each) but the warrior is not so nimble (7 hp damage). Both charau-ka avoid the fatigue.
The butcher also shows no reaction to Lisi's attempt to intimidate.
As Yasami swivels away, the charau-ka butcher strikes out with his trident,
Catalina confidently puts some distance between her and the charau-ka and she turns to level her pistol at the boggard that just hit her with an acid arrow. The blast opens a big hole in the creature's torso and it falls down dead.
Oren is up, and then the charau-ka.
In fact, I'm going to resolve the actions of those two charau-ka now...
The charau-ka south of Catalina charges at her with its hatchet, and she blows its head clean off in an explosion of gore . The second charau-ka, already grievously injured, flees to the south, disappearing into the jungle.
Trusting that Catalina is good, Oren moves towards Yasami, hoping to get a weapon that will allow him to contribute in the fight.
A charau-ka warrior moves a bit further into the jungle and strikes at Yasami twice with its hatchet, coming close on the second strike.
A very bloodied butcher, the same one that just struck Yasami, shrieks wildly in an apparent attempt to build into a frenzy and steps up to attack Yasami with its trident, missing only because of the cover provided by the thick foliage.
Another charau-ka attacks Lisi twice with its hatchet, missing twice.
The surviving charau-ka that was fleeing the spider spots Catalina, shrieks wildly, and runs at her. It swings its hatchet at her, and the hatchet just barely fails to penetrate her armor. Seeing all the blasted corpses on the ground and glancing over its shoulder at the giant spider, the charau-ka keeps running past her.
Most dangerously, the two charau-ka butchers in front of Caiten make frenzied shrieks and appear to put themselves in an enraged state, and they move to either side of the android. The first attacks Oren, The second attacks Caiten from a flanking position and plunges its trident deep,
Round FIVE Initiative order:
First group: spiders; boggard swampseer; sabosan
Second group: all PCs & Hezle
Third group: all charau-ka and boggard warriors
The next spider reaches the scene of combat, sees the corpse of its comrade, sees the sabosan at the edge of the jungle, and sees signs of other activity in the jungle. It moves over to the sabosan and chomps down on the flying weasel .
The remaining boggard swampseer is panicked and furious, seeing its fallen comrades and the approaching spiders. It moves away from the spiders and emits a croak that sends forth waves of destructive sonic energy -- .
The bloodied and fatigued sabosan shrieks in pain and takes to the air. It spots Catalina in the open and plunges down and attacks with its claw, but the terrifying attack misses.
The whole party is up!
Lisi gives the charau-ka butcher closest to him a deathlike stare and hisses like a snake.
He then looks to his left and drops rocks on the wounded charau-ka threatening Caiten and Oren.
Caiten glares at what is quickly becoming his most disliked foes. He then remembers the Barghest and the Vrock and realizes that while these zealots are very dangerous, they are not as brutally evil as some other things that he has faced.
Looking around him quickly, he sees a bit of a clearing and nimbly steps between Oren and the Charau-ka to get there. He heals himself up to prepare for whatever else these militant monkeys do.
Sulee, seeing Caiten coming her direction, keeps ahead of him as he moves so that she ends up at Caiten's heels, but on the opposite side from where the Charau-ka are. "Caiten, do you really think you and Oren alone are going to be able to take on both of these monkeys?"
She gets even more concerned when Caiten doesn't answer.
Trying to protect himself and Caiten, Oren tries to strike fear in the butchers heart while striking twice!
Despite its bloodied state, Lisi fails to intimidate the charau-ka butcher nearest him. He then sends a rain of rocks on one of the charau-ka threatening Caiten and Oren, but the butcher manages to avoid some of the rocks .
Caiten moves a short distance away and heals himself.
Oren targets the same charau-ka targeted by Lisi. Lost in its rage, he fails to intimidate it, but he does stab it twice with the halberd . That butcher now looks quite bloodied.
Yasami and Catalina are up and then the charau-ka.
Yasamina grunts as the butcher slices her ribs with a spear while she is in the middle of a routine. She gives both charau ka a quick glance while she continues her pirouette she smiles at the warrior next to her, and gingerly adjusts the grip on her blade. As she is turning, the blade extends into a vicious uppercut targeted at the butcher to slice him across the torso in an upward arc. She exhales loudly as she does so, almost pulling a muscle, but quickly revising her form.
She finishes the maneuver, and extends her other arm still mid-spin to grab the other nearby charau-ka and pull them with her deeper into the undergrowth.
Catalina winces from the shriek, the sound sparking a raging headache. She gritted her teeth against the pain, staring down the creature with hatred and destruction in her gaze. This monster, the one that destroyed so many of her friends and hurt them all so badly...
She takes a step back to create a little bit of distance and eyes the creature, assessing its strengths and weaknesses.
She can't think of anything she had heard of, necessarily, but she knows that it stands for everything she hates...so she pulls her symbol of Yuelral out and lets it resonate on her pistol briefly before reloading it and firing at the sabosan.
Catalina lets out a shriek of frustration and stares at her gun...it seemed her luck was taking a turn for the worse, and she felt dread creep into her chest.
Yasami whirls around, to the confusion of the charau-ka around her. Then she REALLy confuses the butcher when she cuts open its torso, killing it. She then grabs the charau-ka warrior and dances away with it.
Catalina's luck does seem to take a hiatus, as she comes up blank about the sabosan and then fails to hit it.
The charau-ka warrior that ran by Catalina flees South into the jungle. The charau-ka warrior entangled in the grass and weeds remains entangled.
The charau-ka warrior that Yasami swept up in a coerced dance hacks at her in fury, missing once again. Having now failed to hit Yasami over five times, it glances at the corpses around it and climbs the nearest tree and retreats South. The other charau-ka warrior nearby sees its kin flee, glances over its shoulder at the giant spider, and also runs through the jungle. Catalina sees it emerge from the jungle, fleeing South.
The two butchers step on either side of Oren. The first, quite bloodied, attacks Caiten twice with its trident. The first strike is a brutal blow that rips apart the android's thigh (). In swiveling the trident for a second blow, the ferocious primate licks the blood on one of the prongs and then plunges the weapon Caiten's other thigh (). As Caiten passes into unconsciousness, he marvels at the amount of brutality in such a small package, and feels some small satisfaction that his calculation of the probability of success had been vindicated.
The second charau-ka attacks Oren twice from a flanking position. It's another brutal blow, for 46 points of damage. It too licks its trident after the strike. The second trident strike misses its mark.
Round SIX Initiative order:
First group: spiders; boggard swampseer; sabosan
Second group: all PCs & Hezle
Third group: all charau-ka and boggard warriors
The giant spider that was near Yasami and Lisi moves South after the combatants move further into the jungle. It approaches the sabosan and flicks its legs, flinging spiky hairs in a 15-foot cone. The bloodsucker nimbly avoids the full barrage and takes only modest damage, but it has no interest in taking on the spider and it takes to the air and flies away to the West.
Despite the mortal threat posed by the spider, the boggard remains focused on Catalina, hoping for revenge before it meets its own imminent desmise. It croaks an incantation and embiggens its staff and strikes at Catalina with it. It connects, for .
The second spider approaches the entangled charau-ka and flings spiky hairs at it. The warrior sees the attack coming and dodges effectively, but still takes 9 points of damage and is seriously terrified.
The whole party is up!
Lisi growls in frustration as Caiten falls. "Oren, Sulee, keep Caiten safe! Let's bring these unnatural things down."
He casts Scatter Scree once again, aiming for the charau-ka that felled Caiten.
He then taps Yasami for Guidance.
"...and I can heal him in a minute. Oren, try to get that other butcher out of commission!"
Yasami takes a few quick steps and flanks the nearest butcher with Oren. "Hey monkey-man!" she shouts at the butcher to surprise him. "Think fast!" and immediately slashes at the charau-ka.
She looks at Caiten, slumped on the floor. A sense of dread anchored in her mind since yesterday begins to creep up.
"Focus, idiot. One thing at a time." she mutters to herself, shakes it off, and looks at the butcher behind oren.
"Now or never, Oren. We'll pull through."
Lisi and Yasami are horrified seeing Caiten get knocked unconscious and Lisi responds by sending a rain of rocks on the butcher that hit it squarely, then Yasami steps up and finishes it off with a decisive blow from her sword.
Oren notices the remaining charau-ka butcher glancing around nervously. Catalina faces down a looming spider while a bloodied and desperate boggard fumes next to her.
Oren and Catalina are up and then the charau-ka.
We also need Caiten’s recovery check, of course.
Oren's only response to Yasamina is a nod, as takes a step back to make use of his superior range and then strikes twice with the halberd.
Catalina takes a brief moment to clean out the misfire while dancing away from the boggard, snarling at the creature angrily as she puts distance between herself and her enemies.
The thaumaturge glances around her, unable to catch sight of her companions, and feels a sense of dread building in her chest. She doesn't hear screaming, just the clash of metal and grunts from their enemies, so she feels confident that they are doing well...
She reloads her weapon quickly again and aims at the boggard who hit her, hoping to finish it off.
Catalina takes one look at the giant spider and the remaining boggards and decides to let the spider take care of things whilst she makes her way back into the jungle, heading to where she hears her companions fighting as she clears the misfire from her pistol.
Catalina heads for the cover of the jungle and Oren scores two solid strikes with the halberd on the remaining butcher.
The butcher looks at the corpse of its kin, hears the sounds of other charau-ka retreating through the jungle next to it, and sees the determination in Yasami and Oren's eyes. Although the butcher still looks in ok fighting form, it fights back its bloodlust and turns to flee South through the jungle, running right past Catalina, which leads to a moment of surprise for both.
The other charau-ka warriors continue to flee to the South, except for the hapless one still stuck in the entangling grasses. The spider approaches the edge of the entangling area, stretches out a leg, and pummels the charau-ka to death. It then starts dragging the charau-ka towards it.
The other spider approaches the remaining boggard and bites it in half, carrying away the top half as it moves North again.
The sabosan also continues to flee.
Four boggard warriors appear on the far side of the pit and start to survey the situation.
Hezle appears out of the jungle right next to Yasami and asks, "How are we doing?"
The party is up! We are effectively out of combat, but let me know your immediate actions.
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Sulee looks absolutely panicked, but is trying to keep it together. "Yasami, Lisi - do something. Please. I like this one. I don't want to have to go back into the pools. It takes years to find a suitable match again."
"On it..." Yasami tries to calm down Sulee. Seeing the butcher flee, the woman looks at Caiten and rushes in to check his condition. The wound seems nasty at first glance, and Caiten is not responsive. "Lisi! I need some help here!" she shouts at the druid. "At least stop the bleeding and I'll get the man on his feet when we retreat further!"
"Then we'll get back and finish off everything walking in this damn mine." she mutters to herself.
Hezle's question is not ignored, but Yasami only points at the unconscious witch on the jungle floor. "This is a priority now."
While she waits, Yasami tries to staunch the bleeding by applying some pressure and gauze.
Yasami manages to stabilize Caiten.
Hezle looks down in surprise at Caiten, apparently not having seen the fallen ally before. "Oh, yes! Of course. I'll go see what I can see and let you know if there's trouble coming." With that, Hezle very quietly slips back into the jungle, heading in the direction of the treeline.
"I'm on it," says Lisitsei to Sulee. "He's special to all of us."
Lisi gathers any and all hurt people near him, with Caiten in the center, and unleashes a healing burst.
He stands up from a kneeling position, looking better as well. "Thanks, Lisi," he says quietly, patting his own back.
He eyes the spiders dragging off their coccooned prizes.
"They must be like a giant trapdoor spider. Just don't walk too near the pit. They're usually a lot smaller in Avistan..."
The spiders seem satisfied with their vengeance for being disturbed, and happy for the food supply. They wander back up the mud pile without giving mind to the PCs' activity in the jungle, or to the boggards on the other side of the pit.
Those boggards walk to the bottom of the mine pit, and from that vantage they are able to better see the carnage of the battle, including the corpses of the boggard swampseers. They also see the fierce but bloodied sabosan in flight. The boggard warriors flee to the jungle to the West.
After 30 seconds, the second baby elephant emerges from the pit and stands filthy and confused, but happy to be eating fresh grasses.
Hezle observes all this, as can any other PC who comes to the treeline.
Within a few minutes , the spiders have disappeared back into the mudpile and a quiet falls over the mine camp, the only sound some soft rainfall. The remains of Hezle's huts smolder and gradually are extinguished by the rain.