Red Branch pushes through the door, his antlers scraping the frame and at Arloric's signal, launches himself at the enemy he indicated.
;
Red Branch makes its way into the building, but its horns snag on the doorway and it is unable to make an effective strike against the foes. The enemies continue their cadence, trying to stab or smite the heroes, as appropriate.
Arloric catches the crusader's heavy mace right in the gut.
Alexa, looking more desperate as she sees Arloric take a massive hit, tries to shank the tiefling before her again...
Alexa hits, but doesn't manage to hit hard enough to drop the tiefling, who looks woozy but hangs on to his weapon.
Shuffling past the dead tiefling, Uriel moves to the mace-wielder's opposite side from Arloric, and addresses him. "This is the last day of your foul life. Today is your end."
Arloric grunts in pain and grimaces at the sound of his cracking ribs, glaring at the false crusader before him. As Uriel bears his sword down on the foe, Arloric swings as well, Old Faith and New fighting as one!
;
Seeing his human friend wounded enrages Red Branch, who rears up and brings his antlers down on the tiefling Alexa has just struck.
;
Red Branch brings its horns down on the tiefling and gores him badly. The tiefling falls to the ground in a spray of blood. Who knew that giant elks were carnivores...?
Uriel slams his attack home against the mace-wielding man, which doesn't kill him but rings his shield arm badly and probably sprains his shoulder and wrist.
Aberus continues his dash to the fallen woman on the far side of the library, confidant that Arloric will be safe now that only one remained. As he reaches her body, he draws upon Sarenrae and lets her power flow through him. Showing his holy symbol, he says the words to a spell and reaches down to touch her body. I hope this isn't too late.
The glaive of pure force takes its final swing at their foe before winking out of existence.
The wizard will attempt to daze the big man attacking the paladin
DC 13 will
The evil crusader winces for a moment, but shakes off Telerin's attempt to halt him.
He makes a grunt and swings his mace in a wild overhand swing at Uriel, angered that the paladin has been clobbering him!
His mace crashes down and Uriel only barely deflects the worst of the blow. Though he's not brained, he takes a hard hit to his shoulder!
Aberus checks the woman lying in front of him.
The spiritual weapon hammers into the false crusader from the side, and he grimaces as the blow causes him to spit out blood while it rings his helm.
The woman on the ground is in a bad state; her head was staved in by a powerful blow from the mace, but Aberus' healing magic prevents her from dying immediately. She remains unconscious, though.
"TE MATE KI TE HUNGA KATOA E TINIHANGA ANA I NGA ATUA, TE HAPU ME TE TEINA TOTO!" Arloric cries as he and Red-Branch attempt to strike the traitor crusader in tandem. His sword clangs harmlessly off the man's armor, and Red-Branch is too concerned for his friend's safety to strike.
;
; ;
Alexa twirls her sword, advances on the armoured crusader, and stabs at him.
Alexa hits and the man groans as her blade finds a weak chink in his armor. He stumbles, his defenses wavering.
She renews her aura of protection
Uriel lets out a grunt as he swings his heavy sword around again at the injured false crusader.
The crusader drops his mace and says, "Wait! I surr-" but Uriel cuts him off - literally - and he falls to the ground as his armor is crumpled inward by a forceful slash.
The librarians huddle together, sobbing and shaking, barely willing to look up in your direction.
"What happened? What happened?" says Aravashnial, casting about blindly.
The badly-wounded woman remains unconscious but at least it seems she may live.
Seeing the last of the attackers fall, Aberus says, "Make sure they are completely gone, and I will channel Sarenrae's power to heal. I am sure we can save this woman, too."
Arloric nods at Aberus' words and removes his eyepatch again, using his soul sight to make sure their enemies were dead.
She will relay what happened to her fellow elf, in their language.
Arloric scans the tieflings and the crusader and watches their souls depart to their just rewards.
As Aravashnial calls out, one of the librarians says, "Gatewarden? Is that you?"
Aravashnial says, "Yes. Yes! These good folk helped me back here. Please, tell me what has transpired."
The librarian explains that when the disaster happened, the vaulted ceiling kept the central library intact, but the outlying buildings were destroyed almost as if they were singled out among the structures in this part of the city. The librarians closed ranks to protect their books, but when a wounded crusader came to their door, they let him in, in hopes of aiding him and garnering protection. Unfortunately, the crusader was a fraud, and it seems that he was bent on committing vile acts in hopes of drawing the attention of a demonic patron. At last his terror is at an end.
Aberus only partly listens to the librarians' story, being more concerned with the injured woman in front of him. Then he hears the woman say something about a crusader, and he turns his head sharply to face her, giving her his complete attention, as she finishes her story. He starts to say something, but it looks like changes his mind and then stops. He shakes his head slightly, and then asks, "Who still needs healing?"
Arloric reties his eyepatch and raises his hand as he walks over to Aberus.
"That bastard busted up my ribs pretty good, Aberus. I could use some of the Sun-Mother's warmth."
He listens to the conversation about what happened here and frowns.
"Did he succeed in destroying any books? How many?"
Red Branch clops over to him and makes a concerned noise.
"I'll be fine, friend. You did good."
He fishes some dried berries out of his pocket and offers them to the mighty deer.
Aberus looks up to Arloric, takes not of his wounds, and then calls upon Sarenrae a second time. The energy flows through him and out into the library around him.
As Red Branch munches on a few berries, one of the librarians says, "He only arrived recently, fortunately. He defaced a few books but it was obvious that he meant to do horrid violence. I think he was going to burn us alive in a pyre of our own books!"
Aravashnial shakes his head slowly. "This is my charge... I have to see to this library. I may be the last Riftwarden!"
The mace-struck woman slowly fades into consciousness. "Uhhh..." she grunts. "This is the worst headache I've ever had."
Telerin looks through several of the tomes and finds a mish-mash of volumes - clearly the crusader didn't care about organization - ranging from the history of the Worldwound, to treatises on the geography of Numeria, to examinations of various kinds of unstable planar gate phenomena.
Telerin doesn't immediately find a spellbook , but does find several strips of dried flesh among the stacks. They look like small, finger-sized leather gray strips - about a half-dozen in all. Closer examination shows that they look more like hollow, worm-like tubes.
As the woman comes to, Aberus turns his attention back to her. "You took a slight knock to your head, madam. Don't try to sit up too quickly."
"Riftwarden? What are you talking about, Aravashnial?"
Aravashnial explains, "The Riftwardens are specialists in the magic of interplanar travel, trans-dimensional nexes, and gates and rifts of all kinds, both natural and artificial. Here at the site of the Worldwound, such rifts are nearly commonplace - creatures from the various demonic realms would pour through unchecked if not for the efforts of various magicians to stem such a tide."
Horgus looks like he's about to say something snarky, then thinks better of it and instead says, "Then the demons roaming through the city - the Riftwardens would banish them?"
Aravashnial says, "For an invasion of this scale it would be impossible to banish them all, but in general, yes, Riftwardens would work to drive out these demons where possible, and especially to stop them from summoning more of their kind. But if the library has fallen and the head librarian is gone, then it is possible that the Riftwardens, too, are no more."
The woman on the floor slowly sits up and, holding her head with one hand, says, "Quendys wasn't here when the invasion happened! I don't know where he is."
Aravashnial practically lights up and says, "Then there's hope! If Quendys is still alive, then at least some of the knowledge of the library can be salvaged and protected."
The librarian woman says, "But there are so few of us left. And we don't have the means to defend what's left of this structure."
Aravashnial says gravely, "All the more reason that I must stay and help however I can."
The woman nods to Aberus and says, "Thanks, I think I'll live." She slowly gets to her feet. "Well, there's not enough food for us to stay here. What do we do then?"
Aravashnial says, "We need to at least reorganize these books. The time will come when this knowledge will be necessary to drive back the forces of the Worldwound, and we cannot have the library in disarray with books unprotected and scattered about when that comes to pass. We can at least take a day or two to make sure that none of the volumes are destroyed by inclement weather or lost in rubble. Then... it will depend on whatever continued survival is possible in Kenabres."
Aberus listens to the discussion between Aravashnial and the librarians, and grows concerned when it turns to talk of staying in the damaged building.
"Aravashnial, I would be remiss if I didn't ask. Are you sure it's safe enough for you and the others to remain here?"
"As long as we barricade the main entrance, I think we can hold out," says Aravashnial. "But any help that could be spared would be useful. I am hardly a combatant in my current state."
Anevia chimes in, "Neither am I, sorry."
Aberus nods at Aravashnial's reply. "We have enough provisions, I think, to spare a few if you are worried about food. I can also create water if there is something in here that can hold it. You can go a couple of weeks without food, but water is another matter. We'll also talk this over and see what else we can do."
Arloric, now mostly healed of his injuries, sheathes his sword.
"Where do you think we should go next? Lord Gwerm's home? The Tirabade home? I'm ready to fight anew."
Joining the Riftwardens is one of the reasons I traveled here from Kyonin. she remarks.
Know Arcana to see if she knows that the strips of flesh are.
She will take 20 to see if she can find a spellbook
You search the area more thoroughly. This is, of course, a central book repository; jugs and canteens are not high on the list of accoutrements. Aberus eventually scavenges up a pair of watertight scroll tubes and a large decorative floor vase and, after dumping out the flowers, fills all three receptacles with as much water as they can hold.
Telerin does not know what the strange strips of flesh are from, but as she reorganizes the books that were scattered around the librarians (presumably to burn them alive), she does find a spellbook!
The spellbook is damaged, of course, but contains the following legible spells: alarm, dismissal, dispel magic, magic circle against chaos, resist energy, and [/i]versatile weapon[/i]. In additionl a parchment folded in its pages contains an arcane scroll of dimensional lock.
The injured librarian says, "If you are a Riftwarden-in-training, then Aravashnial is the last mentor we know of in Kenabres!"
Aravashnial shakes his head sadly and says, "A situation that we must remedy if we are to repair this disaster and prevent future incursions."
The librarian says, "My name is Fenna, by the way. Before the crusader showed up the library was largely sacked. Some kind of demonic aberration stalked about blowing up the outlying buildings, but it ransacked several of our arcane relics before it left. I'm afraid I don't know where it went, but I guess we're lucky it left us alive. I think that head librarian Orlun - that's Quednys Orlun - was up by the Cathedral of Saint Clydwell when everything went awry, but we haven't heard anything else about him."
Arloric follows Telerin and when she finds the wormy bits, he thinks on whether he's seen something similar.
Alexa is quiet as the others set about gleaning information from the library and its staff.
When the others have paused in their questions, she steps forward with one of her own. "Have any of you seen a thirteen year-old boy around here? About a few inches shorter than me, with mousy hair?"
Arloric looks at the weird bits of flesh and, while he doesn't know what they are, he realizes they are from no natural creature.
One of the librarians replies to Alexa, "That describes a lot of youth in the city! There's an old orphanage north of here about six blocks, maybe someone took lost children there?"
"Don't know what those things are, but they're not from anything native to this world, that's for sure. Doesn't smell right," Arloric comments.
He nods at the librarian's words.
"We could take a look. It's probably on the way to Old Kenabres, which is where we'll probably find Lord Gwerm's and Lady Tirabade's homes..."
"Ooh!" says Horgus, speaking up suddenly. "If we get to my house, I would of course be able to help resupply you with food and a chance for a good night's rest!"
Anevia says, "Well... my better half is probably out fighting demons, honestly. At this point I just hope there's a cleric left alive who can fix my leg."
We should check to see how the children at the orphange are she says, concern in her voice.