GREYHAWK, THE GOLDEN ERA CY963: CHAPTER THREE

The Tide of Battle Turns...



Respen raises his hands, and makes a twisting motion, each hand turning in an opposite direction, the way one would unscrew the lid from a jar. Lightning erupts from his hands as he does so, and strikes the ground, and begins to slither toward the Captain like a magical snake. The Captain, who sees the thing coming, tries to sidestep, but an unseen force corrects the motion of the spell to compensate! Respen's spell slams into the captain, zapping him with a powerful jolt!



The Captain grimaces as the electricity courses through his body! "Stupid pups!" he snarls, "You'll pay dearly for your interference! I am a Scarlet Slayer! No one dares defy me!"

Father Xavier snarls back at the Captain, saying, "Hold ye still, betrayer of thy Oath, and face the justice of Saint Cuthbert!"



When the Captain hears those words, he pauses, as he realizes who spoke them. Apparently, he is aware of who and what Father Xavier is! He screams, "NOOOooooo!!!" as Father Xavier's spell freezes him in place!

As the Captain is screaming, Lieutenant Benquist raises his hand to his own chest, and concentrates. A wave of light sweeps over him, and most of his wounds disappear, almost completely healed by this single touch.



Benquist then snaps his fingers, and a glowing, blue Bastard Sword appears in his hand! He levels it at the Captain's throat and yells, "Stand down, your leader has fallen! Your lives will be spared if you surrender! If you do not, then there shall be no quarter! This is your only chance!"

Clarence, who was casting a spell, holds the completion of it, to see if the thugs surrender.

At that moment, a new opponent appears on the scene, out of nowhere, just as the Captain did, obviously with the aid of magic!

Moving with inhuman speed, a red-robed wizard, holding a blue, glowing staff, casts a spell at Beringer! 4 shards of light slam into the fleeing and helpless prisoner! Beringer stumbles face first into the dirty street, but he appears to still be alive, thanks to Xavier's spell!

Xavier winces in pain, as he draws enough energy from the spell to save Beringer's life!



Thug number 1 attacks Benquist's blade, attempting to sunder it! He does so fearlessly, without hesitation, clearly unimpressed by Benquist's threat!



Benquist chuckles as he deftly parries the thug's blade. "Your death will be as quick, and as painless as I can make it, friend. Your bravery and dedication is admirable."

Thug number 2 turns to face Angus, eager to repay the bear for his previous claw attack!



Angus is slow and lumbering, and the guard is quick, strong, and well-trained; he stabs the bear straight through his ribcage with the massive blade, dropping the poor bear with a single blow!



In retaliation, Father Clarence releases his held spell, and 4 motes of light slam into the thug that downed Angus!

Updated positioning:





LATHIR: It's your turn! Angus is down! What do you do?

Lathir, seeing his fallen companion but being unable to do anything about it, shows a momentary expression of rage.

• Dropping his halfspear, his form changes in the course of motion. It isn't an open hand that lashes toward the vicious thug, it is the clawed, furry hand of a bear, amazingly similar in appearance to the one lying on the ground.

Results of Lathir's attack



Lathir lashes out at the thug, bringing the power of nature to BEAR!



The thug screams in agony as Lathir's claws rake the flesh from his face and neck!







Vale & Gus: It's your turn! What do you do?

Vale and Gus Dance With The Red

~ Reinforcements. Magik-caster. These tossers are persistent. ~

The thought skirts Vale's mind in an instant. His instincts were military, his intelligence and common sense screaming at him to be wary. The combatants were not stepping from concealment. They were appearing from thin air. The first guard was clearly surprised. It took him a moment, and he let his emotion get the better of him. This wasn't planned. So how did he signal for help? Did they have vantage or high ground? Not in here. Too many short two story buildings to block line of sight. He didn't have a whistle or alarm. Had to be magical.

The next three stepped straight into melee and damn near carved up the officer coming out with his drink. That flail was a savage and unholy, unforgiving weapon. Damn torture device.
However, a brief instant was all it took for Vale to come to his senses from the surprise, intently searching for more of these people. The red blur appeared just as quickly, taking a moment to launch sorcery at Beringer. Vale felt his face turning red, righteous indignation welling up in his cheeks. His eyes glowed for a moment as he whispered his attack, actually a dwarven prayer, sounding much like the tearing of parchment or a tapestry. He controlled the spell's direction toward the red robes entering the fray, his hands curling and catching the air.



As Gus eyes the melee, looking for a proper new chew toy, er...target, he hears Vale's spell whoosh over his head toward the red blur. His attention goes with it. He runs straight at the red robes with lethal ferocity, flanking the new combatant and hitting him/her from the side. He's played this maneuver with his Vale a number of times to great effect, allowing the spell to hit before actually hitting the target.
Gus goes for the left arm, attempting to grapple and drag the red robes figure to the ground. Gus' bite digging into the arm, Gus hits him squarely with tearing robes and what would have been a ruckus except for the silence spell effects. Observers hear nothing, but see fur and red mangled together.

SILENCE REIGNS!

As Gus charges forward, Vale casts a spell.



Updated positions:

As Eldonius cowers in fear, Beringer rolls over (still prone) and starts twisting and pulling at his manacles, trying to use his thin wrists and high pain tolerance to his advantage.



Beringer succeeds in tearing up the skin on his wrists, resulting in a bloody mess, but that is all.






Dewydd, it's your turn; You still have line of movement / ability to charge the Wizard; Gus is clamped down on the Wizard's left arm, providing him with 2 pts. of partial cover; if you miss by 1 or 2 points, you will hit Gus instead. What do you do?

I grip my blade and roar as I do a charging leap toward the enemy wizard that has appeared and struck Beringer. Hearing nothing when I roar, I stutter in my launch and come just short of my enemy. I quickly catch myself and take an additional step, swinging my blade with all of my might. After the first blow lands, I whirl around in a frenzy and swipe at the wizard with a second attack.





Updated positions:




Sylvar: It's your turn. What do you do?

Seeing Thug #2 taking damage Sylvar decides its time to finish him off. Being too close to use the full length of the Naginata, he lets the haft slide halfway down his hands. He turns the blade so the sharp end is down, he chops down and attempts to take off his head at the shoulders.

Kasnik: It's your turn! What do you do?

Kasnik roars a battle cry and charges into the frey. Reining his mount to a halt just before the held captain, his lance lashes out at the Thug 1 to the north of Lieutenant Benquist. The man is run through, the lance exploding from his back and spraying gore all across the wall behind the lifeless sack of flesh. At the same time his steed rears and hammers Thug 2 in the chest with its hoof.

His voice a threatening growl, he utters but one word to the remaining thug, "Yield."