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The Rise of Felskein [Completed]
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<blockquote data-quote="Iron Sky" data-source="post: 4265933" data-attributes="member: 60965"><p>Session 5, Part 1</p><p></p><p>-Note: Played session 30 last night. I can sum up a large piece of the session with these tiny exerpts:</p><p></p><p>Excerpt 1:</p><p>[Spoiler]</p><p>*Pre-established attack word if diplomacy goes wrong = "banana."</p><p>Player 1: "We brought you this banana."</p><p>Bad guy: "What's a banana?"</p><p>Bad guy dies horribly.</p><p>Player 2(Sanzuo ^^): "What's a banana?"[/Spoiler]</p><p></p><p>Excerpt 2:</p><p>[Spoiler]</p><p>Player 3: "My stuff got ganked."</p><p>Player 2: "No, your stuff got kyped. You got ganked."</p><p>[/Spoiler]</p><p></p><p>Sub-note: How do you do the Show/Hide thingies? I thought it was via [/spoiler] but I guess not.-</p><p></p><p></p><p>"All right, Mister Secretive, don't tell us what you spent the last two days doing out in the Hills with the elves," Ming said with an exaggerated shrug and leaned back against the table. "I don't actually care, I was trying to be polite."</p><p></p><p>"You? Polite?" Ilsa said, with a mock expression of shock. "Suniel, quick, pinch me. Am I awake?"</p><p></p><p>Ming elbowed Ilsa, but smiled. Harold didn't answer Ming, as expected. Instead, he said, "we have another mission."</p><p></p><p>"This one straight from the King of the Crystal Towers?" Ming said with a crude attempt at a curtsy that made Ilsa burst out in guffaws. "You know I'm at the Crystal Towers' service, always."</p><p></p><p>"Crystal Towers is a republic, we have no king - not that I'd expect you to understand something like that," Harold said flatly. "No, when I was out with the elves, we spotted fires. Many fires. If we leave tomorrow, I think I can lead us to the camp where the Iron Tribes are making their rafts."</p><p></p><p>"More accurately, lead us to an ambush where the Iron Tribes are making their rafts," Ming said.</p><p></p><p>Harold ignored her, speaking to Suniel. "We could do much good for the people of Northmand." His gaze turned to Ilsa. "I'm sure the Council prefer allies who prove themselves worthy." To Ming. "And there's probably a lot of them. That means a lot of ears which means-"</p><p></p><p>"I know what it means, archer-boy. You sure know how to sweet talk a lady," she stood up and one hand moved towards Harolds crotch. He stepped out of reach quickly.</p><p></p><p>Ming laughed and walked to the bar for another tankard. If they were going to head out tomorrow, she was going to get good and drunk tonight.</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>It was getting dark and Ilsa could tell Ming was getting crotchety. Well, more crotchety. Hiking with a companion that complained for the first half of the day about how early it was and about her hang over and the other half about how late it was getting and that there wasn't any alcohol was rapidly ceasing to be entertaining.</p><p></p><p>"Quiet," Harold said, dropping to one knee and nocking an arrow.</p><p></p><p>Ming rolled her eyes and spoke loudly. "Oh, the great scout has finally shown us the way to our foes, praise the-"</p><p></p><p>"Shhh," Suniel said, dropping to a crouch as well.</p><p></p><p>Ming looked as mollified as Ilsa had ever seen her and dropped to a crouch as well, her greatsword scraping from its ring on her back.</p><p></p><p>Ilsa readied her shield and drew her sword. In the light of the rapidly setting sun, she saw faint smoke trails drifting up from over the next hill, smelled a faint hint of tar on the wind, and heard distant voices shouting and cursing.</p><p></p><p>In goblin.</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>Suvok snorted and backhanded the chief poleman. "I said the raft should hold thirty or forty, like the last one. This one barely floats with ten on it."</p><p></p><p>He pointed to the raft that sat half-submerged in the alcove. The greasy tar-splotched hobgoblin that had replaced the last poleman cringed. "I'll do better Suvok, just give me another week."</p><p></p><p>Suvok kicked him in the chest, drew his sword, and stood over the fallen hobgoblin. "I should gut you like that sniveling runt you replaced. You have until Sub-chief Thoslar gets back."</p><p></p><p>The poleman's eyes grew huge. "But, but, Thoslar is supposed to be back-"</p><p></p><p>Suvok kicked him again and buried his sword in a log a foot from his head. "You heard me."</p><p></p><p>"Wait," the polemain said, half sitting, "I thought I heard-"</p><p></p><p>Suvok snarled, buried his sword in the hobgoblin's throat, wrenched it free, and watched the poleman writhe and thrash. Then he heard a horn from the lookouts on the top of the hill.</p><p></p><p>He glanced up to see one of his scouts tumbling down the hill, two arrows buried in his chest, then glanced back at the dying poleman. He turned to Sergeant Shodfeet and shrugged. </p><p></p><p>"You heard him, I guess he thought he heard something. Take the archers up, I'll send the rest up shortly, along with the beasts."</p><p></p><p>Shodfeet nodded and set off at a jog through the raft camp, shouting orders and pointing up the hill with his sword. Suvok stepped into his dug-out dwelling and grabbed his bow and quiver. <em>A little battle is just what I need</em>, he thought with a grin and headed quickly towards the pens.</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>When he got to the top of the hill, two-thirds of the workers and half his troops were already dead and there were sounds of fighting from the outcropping they'd named The Outlook. He stepped into the shelter of another rusty outcropping and found Shodfeet slumped against it, his leg and lower torso blackened, smoking, and smelling like cooked meat, an arrow sprouting from his shoulder.</p><p></p><p>"Situation, Sergeant!" he said, leaning slightly out from the outcropping, looking for the enemy.</p><p></p><p>Shodfoot gasped and wheezed. "Mage... to the left... swarms of bats. Archers... no, just one archer... right. Dwarf... berserk woman... Outlook. Killing everyone..."</p><p></p><p>Shodfoot took another rasping breath and slumped down for good.</p><p></p><p>Suvok watched two of his archers at another outcropping thirty feet away. They leaned out and fired their arrows down the hill, ducked back behind the outcropping, and leaned out again. One took an arrow in to forehead and flew backwards. The other cursed and fired wildly before ducking back again.</p><p></p><p>Suvok traced the direction the arrow had come from and aimed at a likely outcropping. He didn't have to wait long. A figure in dusty blue leaned out to take a shot and Suvok loosed. He wasn't sure where he hit, but the figure below disappeared from sight behind its outcropping. Suvok smiled.</p><p></p><p>His smile widened to a ferocious grin when he heard a bellowing roar, quickly followed by the Dire Apes he'd loosed thundering over the hill, the lashes he'd given them having driven them into a rage. As soon as they crested the hill, no more than fifteen feet from his hiding place, one of them was thrown backwards in a sudden explosion, filling the air with cries of rage and pain and the stink of burning fur.</p><p></p><p>It staggered to its feet and charged after the other, arrow after arrow thudding into them as they ran. Suvok glanced down the hill and saw that the enemy archer was firing as he ran towards a small clump of trees at the base of the hill where Suvok thought he saw a horse. Suvok fired another arrow, but then the beasts were between him and the archer, blocking his shot.</p><p></p><p>He shifted position to the other side of the outcropping, with a view of the Outlook. The fighting seemed to have died down and all was silent there. A brief surge of unaccustomed fear surged through him as he scanned the hill ridge and the camp, accompaniment to the realization that he was probably the only one still alive.</p><p></p><p>Then a huge woman covered in dust, blood, and armor stepped out around the outcropping and buried her sword in his head.</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>Thoslar roared at the oarsman again as he watched the battle. "Faster, faster you fools!"</p><p></p><p>From his spot on the raised platform at the back of the giant, walled raft, he saw the blue figure on horseback bring down the other Ape as well, trotting circles around it and putting a few extra arrows into it to be sure. Atop the hill, he saw two armored figures throw the body of a huge hobgoblin that had to be Suvok down the hill.</p><p></p><p>"Faster, ready the ballistas! Pole to the shore. Ballistas, take out that horseman. Everyone else, up the hill. Send the beasts up to tear them apart. Kill them all!"</p><p></p><p>Thoslar jumped down from the platform and pushed his way to the front of the raft, next to the drop-wall held loosely in place by ropes. The ballista crews loaded their weapons and checked them.</p><p></p><p>It seemed to take forever until the raft scraped across gravel. </p><p></p><p>"Now!" he shouted. </p><p></p><p>Two hobgoblins chopped the ropes and the drop-wall fell. Thoslar leapt into the water with a roar, a war chant surging from the throats of thirty hobgoblins behind him as they followed. He saw a ballista shot fly, far over the horseman's head. Arrows thudded into the hobgoblins behind him and one of the beasts roared in pain.</p><p></p><p>He had just reached land and glanced back when the other ballista creaked like a tree falling and exploded, wooden splinters flying in all directions, mutilating its crew and dropping half-a-dozen around it. <em>Shoddy human craftsmanship</em>, Thoslar thought. <em>After we kill these invaders, I'm going to find those human traders and have them tortured to death.</em></p><p></p><p>He waited for the main body of his hobgoblins to form up around him and they double-timed up the hill, the beast-keepers struggling to keep the Apes from pulling loose and going after the horse-archer that had shifted his focus to them. Two of the Apes already had half-a-dozen arrows protruding from their leather barding and were bleeding heavily.</p><p></p><p>Dust kicked up as they stormed up the hill. One of the beasts took an arrow in the neck and went down, his troops leaping clear of its death-throes. They reached the Outlook and he sent half around one side, half around the other. He took the ones going left and barely ducked in time to avoid being decapitated by a huge sword blade that buried in the hobgoblin next to him.</p><p></p><p>"Kill her!" he roared as she stepped back into the cover of the outcropping. He glanced back as his troops surged after her, saw another Ape go down, dead before it hit the dirt, a dozen arrows sticking from it. Half-a-dozen of his troops were dead when he got around the Outlook, their bodies heaped about the feet of the woman and a dwarf with a huge battered and pitted wooden shield.</p><p></p><p>With a roar, the woman cut another down and suddenly an elf in dirty brown robes appeared next to her. An arrow flew past Tholsar from behind and dropped one of his sergeants instantly. The dwarf hacked and stabbed, grunting as a mace came down on her shoulder.</p><p></p><p>The elf chanted something and a rope dropped from nowhere. Thoslar's troops backed away superstitiously and the woman took the opportunity to run another through.</p><p></p><p>"Kill them, kill them, kill them!" Thoslar roared, lunging forward through a gap in the press of troops surrounding the human, dwarf, and elf. His sword caught the woman in the side as she tried to pull her sword free from the trooper she had run through and she went down.</p><p></p><p>The elf scrambled up the rope and disappeared, calling something down to the dwarf, but a moment later the dwarf went down in a swarm of hobgoblins. Thoslar ran to the rope and looked up, to see the elf kneeling in a shimmering silver space visible through a hole in the air. Thoslar grabbed the rope, but with a jerk the elf pulled it from his hands and vanished utterly.</p><p></p><p>Arrows continued to fly and Thoslar's priorities shifted. "Keep these two alive! Get behind the rocks, away from the archer. Now!"</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>Suniel looked down from the cramped pocket of something in the nothing, watching as the hobgoblins quickly stripped Ilsa and Ming down, crudely bandaged their wounds, and took cover behind the rocks. There was one that seemed to be giving orders - the one that had dropped Ming.</p><p></p><p><em>There has to be something I can do</em>, Suniel thought as he watched, helpless. His hands shook with exhaustion and his breathing was ragged. The desire to drop the rope and go down there was almost overwhelming, but he knew all he would do was die with his companions.</p><p></p><p>The leader was shouting something down the hill, strangely mute since no sound could reach Suniel in this non-space. There was a commotion below and the remaining seven or eight hobgoblins dragged Ilsa and Ming's bodies out into the open, one hobgoblin kneeling on Ming's back with a dagger at her throat, another with a sword leveled at the base of Ilsa's neck.</p><p></p><p>Peering intently, Suniel had a surge of hope. Ilsa and Ming were still breathing!</p><p></p><p>The leader was shouting down the hill and Suniel shifted to get a better view. He saw Harold walking up the hill, hands up but still holding his bow. The leader shouted again and pointed at Ilsa and Ming and Harold dropped his bow. He shouted something else and Harold began walking slowly towards them, arms still raised.</p><p></p><p><em>They'll all be captured, but their are only eight or so hobgoblins left, Suniel thought</em>, the strain of maintaining even this tiny space making even thinking an effort. <em>Perhaps they'll forget about me and I can find a place to rest. I can follow them and tomorrow I'll catch the hobgoblins by surprise, set them free and-</em>.</p><p></p><p>Suniel watched in shock at what happened next. </p><p></p><p>Harold, about twenty feet from Ilsa and Ming, reached back to his quiver and pulled another whole bow out, loosing two arrows before the hobgoblins could react. Suniel grabbed his rope as he saw the two hobgoblins on Ilsa and Ming fly back. Harold fired two more arrows, killing two others that rushed towards Ming and Ilsa's bodies and Suniel began to make the series of gestures that would allow him to open the space and drop down to help...</p><p></p><p>The world seemed to slow as Suniel stared at the scene below. The hobgoblin leader turned back to the last few of his hobgoblins, motioned them forward, and buried his sword in Ming's back. Suniel let out a cry and saw Harold put two arrows in the leader, staggering him back, but the huge hobgoblin managed to reach Ilsa's body. He sneered at Harold, beheaded Ilsa, and died in a second later as an arrow slammed in the center of his chest.</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>Harold loaded the last of the gold, maps, and documents from the raft camp into his saddlebags and grabbed a torch. His arms ached and his wounds throbbed as he lit the camp afire and walked his horse to the top of the hill where Suniel sat next to Ilsa and Ming's graves, staring at the last of the setting sun's light.</p><p></p><p>"It's done," Harold said, gesturing towards the quickly-burning camp below. "We should move on in case there are more nearby."</p><p></p><p>"Ilsa and Ming are dead," Suniel said, without looking up.</p><p></p><p>Harold paused for a long moment as he looked at the raised dirt of the graves. "I know, I was there. I had a choice to make and I made it."</p><p></p><p>Suniel turned to him and Harold saw tear-channels washed in the dust of his face. "Why?"</p><p></p><p>"They would have killed me and them as soon as they knew I was defenseless. I did what I could to save them. You did no better."</p><p></p><p>"That at least is true," Suniel said, bitterness in his voice. "All my magic and there was nothing that I could do to save them."</p><p></p><p>He looked up at Harold again. "You didn't know they would kill you. They probably would have taken you prisoner. If you had just surrendered and-"</p><p></p><p>Harold shook his head. "I doubt it." He looked down at the graves again, thinking back on all the funeral pyres he had lit in the battles against the Ashen Tower, thought back to digging through the ash and breaking the bones of the fallen so the Ashen Towers couldn't dig them up...</p><p></p><p>"Soldiers die, here and everywhere. There's not more that can be done. Decisions made in battle are best left in battle," he said.</p><p></p><p>Suniel turned back to the setting sun and together they watched it set.</p><p></p><p>"Come, we must go now," Harold said, leading his horse away. He glanced back to see Suneil take a handful of Ming and Ilsa's grave dirt, tuck it into his robe. A chill went down Harold's spine.</p><p></p><p><em>Never trust a wizard.</em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Iron Sky, post: 4265933, member: 60965"] Session 5, Part 1 -Note: Played session 30 last night. I can sum up a large piece of the session with these tiny exerpts: Excerpt 1: [Spoiler] *Pre-established attack word if diplomacy goes wrong = "banana." Player 1: "We brought you this banana." Bad guy: "What's a banana?" Bad guy dies horribly. Player 2(Sanzuo ^^): "What's a banana?"[/Spoiler] Excerpt 2: [Spoiler] Player 3: "My stuff got ganked." Player 2: "No, your stuff got kyped. You got ganked." [/Spoiler] Sub-note: How do you do the Show/Hide thingies? I thought it was via [/spoiler] but I guess not.- "All right, Mister Secretive, don't tell us what you spent the last two days doing out in the Hills with the elves," Ming said with an exaggerated shrug and leaned back against the table. "I don't actually care, I was trying to be polite." "You? Polite?" Ilsa said, with a mock expression of shock. "Suniel, quick, pinch me. Am I awake?" Ming elbowed Ilsa, but smiled. Harold didn't answer Ming, as expected. Instead, he said, "we have another mission." "This one straight from the King of the Crystal Towers?" Ming said with a crude attempt at a curtsy that made Ilsa burst out in guffaws. "You know I'm at the Crystal Towers' service, always." "Crystal Towers is a republic, we have no king - not that I'd expect you to understand something like that," Harold said flatly. "No, when I was out with the elves, we spotted fires. Many fires. If we leave tomorrow, I think I can lead us to the camp where the Iron Tribes are making their rafts." "More accurately, lead us to an ambush where the Iron Tribes are making their rafts," Ming said. Harold ignored her, speaking to Suniel. "We could do much good for the people of Northmand." His gaze turned to Ilsa. "I'm sure the Council prefer allies who prove themselves worthy." To Ming. "And there's probably a lot of them. That means a lot of ears which means-" "I know what it means, archer-boy. You sure know how to sweet talk a lady," she stood up and one hand moved towards Harolds crotch. He stepped out of reach quickly. Ming laughed and walked to the bar for another tankard. If they were going to head out tomorrow, she was going to get good and drunk tonight. *** It was getting dark and Ilsa could tell Ming was getting crotchety. Well, more crotchety. Hiking with a companion that complained for the first half of the day about how early it was and about her hang over and the other half about how late it was getting and that there wasn't any alcohol was rapidly ceasing to be entertaining. "Quiet," Harold said, dropping to one knee and nocking an arrow. Ming rolled her eyes and spoke loudly. "Oh, the great scout has finally shown us the way to our foes, praise the-" "Shhh," Suniel said, dropping to a crouch as well. Ming looked as mollified as Ilsa had ever seen her and dropped to a crouch as well, her greatsword scraping from its ring on her back. Ilsa readied her shield and drew her sword. In the light of the rapidly setting sun, she saw faint smoke trails drifting up from over the next hill, smelled a faint hint of tar on the wind, and heard distant voices shouting and cursing. In goblin. *** Suvok snorted and backhanded the chief poleman. "I said the raft should hold thirty or forty, like the last one. This one barely floats with ten on it." He pointed to the raft that sat half-submerged in the alcove. The greasy tar-splotched hobgoblin that had replaced the last poleman cringed. "I'll do better Suvok, just give me another week." Suvok kicked him in the chest, drew his sword, and stood over the fallen hobgoblin. "I should gut you like that sniveling runt you replaced. You have until Sub-chief Thoslar gets back." The poleman's eyes grew huge. "But, but, Thoslar is supposed to be back-" Suvok kicked him again and buried his sword in a log a foot from his head. "You heard me." "Wait," the polemain said, half sitting, "I thought I heard-" Suvok snarled, buried his sword in the hobgoblin's throat, wrenched it free, and watched the poleman writhe and thrash. Then he heard a horn from the lookouts on the top of the hill. He glanced up to see one of his scouts tumbling down the hill, two arrows buried in his chest, then glanced back at the dying poleman. He turned to Sergeant Shodfeet and shrugged. "You heard him, I guess he thought he heard something. Take the archers up, I'll send the rest up shortly, along with the beasts." Shodfeet nodded and set off at a jog through the raft camp, shouting orders and pointing up the hill with his sword. Suvok stepped into his dug-out dwelling and grabbed his bow and quiver. [I]A little battle is just what I need[/I], he thought with a grin and headed quickly towards the pens. *** When he got to the top of the hill, two-thirds of the workers and half his troops were already dead and there were sounds of fighting from the outcropping they'd named The Outlook. He stepped into the shelter of another rusty outcropping and found Shodfeet slumped against it, his leg and lower torso blackened, smoking, and smelling like cooked meat, an arrow sprouting from his shoulder. "Situation, Sergeant!" he said, leaning slightly out from the outcropping, looking for the enemy. Shodfoot gasped and wheezed. "Mage... to the left... swarms of bats. Archers... no, just one archer... right. Dwarf... berserk woman... Outlook. Killing everyone..." Shodfoot took another rasping breath and slumped down for good. Suvok watched two of his archers at another outcropping thirty feet away. They leaned out and fired their arrows down the hill, ducked back behind the outcropping, and leaned out again. One took an arrow in to forehead and flew backwards. The other cursed and fired wildly before ducking back again. Suvok traced the direction the arrow had come from and aimed at a likely outcropping. He didn't have to wait long. A figure in dusty blue leaned out to take a shot and Suvok loosed. He wasn't sure where he hit, but the figure below disappeared from sight behind its outcropping. Suvok smiled. His smile widened to a ferocious grin when he heard a bellowing roar, quickly followed by the Dire Apes he'd loosed thundering over the hill, the lashes he'd given them having driven them into a rage. As soon as they crested the hill, no more than fifteen feet from his hiding place, one of them was thrown backwards in a sudden explosion, filling the air with cries of rage and pain and the stink of burning fur. It staggered to its feet and charged after the other, arrow after arrow thudding into them as they ran. Suvok glanced down the hill and saw that the enemy archer was firing as he ran towards a small clump of trees at the base of the hill where Suvok thought he saw a horse. Suvok fired another arrow, but then the beasts were between him and the archer, blocking his shot. He shifted position to the other side of the outcropping, with a view of the Outlook. The fighting seemed to have died down and all was silent there. A brief surge of unaccustomed fear surged through him as he scanned the hill ridge and the camp, accompaniment to the realization that he was probably the only one still alive. Then a huge woman covered in dust, blood, and armor stepped out around the outcropping and buried her sword in his head. *** Thoslar roared at the oarsman again as he watched the battle. "Faster, faster you fools!" From his spot on the raised platform at the back of the giant, walled raft, he saw the blue figure on horseback bring down the other Ape as well, trotting circles around it and putting a few extra arrows into it to be sure. Atop the hill, he saw two armored figures throw the body of a huge hobgoblin that had to be Suvok down the hill. "Faster, ready the ballistas! Pole to the shore. Ballistas, take out that horseman. Everyone else, up the hill. Send the beasts up to tear them apart. Kill them all!" Thoslar jumped down from the platform and pushed his way to the front of the raft, next to the drop-wall held loosely in place by ropes. The ballista crews loaded their weapons and checked them. It seemed to take forever until the raft scraped across gravel. "Now!" he shouted. Two hobgoblins chopped the ropes and the drop-wall fell. Thoslar leapt into the water with a roar, a war chant surging from the throats of thirty hobgoblins behind him as they followed. He saw a ballista shot fly, far over the horseman's head. Arrows thudded into the hobgoblins behind him and one of the beasts roared in pain. He had just reached land and glanced back when the other ballista creaked like a tree falling and exploded, wooden splinters flying in all directions, mutilating its crew and dropping half-a-dozen around it. [I]Shoddy human craftsmanship[/I], Thoslar thought. [I]After we kill these invaders, I'm going to find those human traders and have them tortured to death.[/I] He waited for the main body of his hobgoblins to form up around him and they double-timed up the hill, the beast-keepers struggling to keep the Apes from pulling loose and going after the horse-archer that had shifted his focus to them. Two of the Apes already had half-a-dozen arrows protruding from their leather barding and were bleeding heavily. Dust kicked up as they stormed up the hill. One of the beasts took an arrow in the neck and went down, his troops leaping clear of its death-throes. They reached the Outlook and he sent half around one side, half around the other. He took the ones going left and barely ducked in time to avoid being decapitated by a huge sword blade that buried in the hobgoblin next to him. "Kill her!" he roared as she stepped back into the cover of the outcropping. He glanced back as his troops surged after her, saw another Ape go down, dead before it hit the dirt, a dozen arrows sticking from it. Half-a-dozen of his troops were dead when he got around the Outlook, their bodies heaped about the feet of the woman and a dwarf with a huge battered and pitted wooden shield. With a roar, the woman cut another down and suddenly an elf in dirty brown robes appeared next to her. An arrow flew past Tholsar from behind and dropped one of his sergeants instantly. The dwarf hacked and stabbed, grunting as a mace came down on her shoulder. The elf chanted something and a rope dropped from nowhere. Thoslar's troops backed away superstitiously and the woman took the opportunity to run another through. "Kill them, kill them, kill them!" Thoslar roared, lunging forward through a gap in the press of troops surrounding the human, dwarf, and elf. His sword caught the woman in the side as she tried to pull her sword free from the trooper she had run through and she went down. The elf scrambled up the rope and disappeared, calling something down to the dwarf, but a moment later the dwarf went down in a swarm of hobgoblins. Thoslar ran to the rope and looked up, to see the elf kneeling in a shimmering silver space visible through a hole in the air. Thoslar grabbed the rope, but with a jerk the elf pulled it from his hands and vanished utterly. Arrows continued to fly and Thoslar's priorities shifted. "Keep these two alive! Get behind the rocks, away from the archer. Now!" *** Suniel looked down from the cramped pocket of something in the nothing, watching as the hobgoblins quickly stripped Ilsa and Ming down, crudely bandaged their wounds, and took cover behind the rocks. There was one that seemed to be giving orders - the one that had dropped Ming. [I]There has to be something I can do[/I], Suniel thought as he watched, helpless. His hands shook with exhaustion and his breathing was ragged. The desire to drop the rope and go down there was almost overwhelming, but he knew all he would do was die with his companions. The leader was shouting something down the hill, strangely mute since no sound could reach Suniel in this non-space. There was a commotion below and the remaining seven or eight hobgoblins dragged Ilsa and Ming's bodies out into the open, one hobgoblin kneeling on Ming's back with a dagger at her throat, another with a sword leveled at the base of Ilsa's neck. Peering intently, Suniel had a surge of hope. Ilsa and Ming were still breathing! The leader was shouting down the hill and Suniel shifted to get a better view. He saw Harold walking up the hill, hands up but still holding his bow. The leader shouted again and pointed at Ilsa and Ming and Harold dropped his bow. He shouted something else and Harold began walking slowly towards them, arms still raised. [I]They'll all be captured, but their are only eight or so hobgoblins left, Suniel thought[/I], the strain of maintaining even this tiny space making even thinking an effort. [I]Perhaps they'll forget about me and I can find a place to rest. I can follow them and tomorrow I'll catch the hobgoblins by surprise, set them free and-[/I]. Suniel watched in shock at what happened next. Harold, about twenty feet from Ilsa and Ming, reached back to his quiver and pulled another whole bow out, loosing two arrows before the hobgoblins could react. Suniel grabbed his rope as he saw the two hobgoblins on Ilsa and Ming fly back. Harold fired two more arrows, killing two others that rushed towards Ming and Ilsa's bodies and Suniel began to make the series of gestures that would allow him to open the space and drop down to help... The world seemed to slow as Suniel stared at the scene below. The hobgoblin leader turned back to the last few of his hobgoblins, motioned them forward, and buried his sword in Ming's back. Suniel let out a cry and saw Harold put two arrows in the leader, staggering him back, but the huge hobgoblin managed to reach Ilsa's body. He sneered at Harold, beheaded Ilsa, and died in a second later as an arrow slammed in the center of his chest. *** Harold loaded the last of the gold, maps, and documents from the raft camp into his saddlebags and grabbed a torch. His arms ached and his wounds throbbed as he lit the camp afire and walked his horse to the top of the hill where Suniel sat next to Ilsa and Ming's graves, staring at the last of the setting sun's light. "It's done," Harold said, gesturing towards the quickly-burning camp below. "We should move on in case there are more nearby." "Ilsa and Ming are dead," Suniel said, without looking up. Harold paused for a long moment as he looked at the raised dirt of the graves. "I know, I was there. I had a choice to make and I made it." Suniel turned to him and Harold saw tear-channels washed in the dust of his face. "Why?" "They would have killed me and them as soon as they knew I was defenseless. I did what I could to save them. You did no better." "That at least is true," Suniel said, bitterness in his voice. "All my magic and there was nothing that I could do to save them." He looked up at Harold again. "You didn't know they would kill you. They probably would have taken you prisoner. If you had just surrendered and-" Harold shook his head. "I doubt it." He looked down at the graves again, thinking back on all the funeral pyres he had lit in the battles against the Ashen Tower, thought back to digging through the ash and breaking the bones of the fallen so the Ashen Towers couldn't dig them up... "Soldiers die, here and everywhere. There's not more that can be done. Decisions made in battle are best left in battle," he said. Suniel turned back to the setting sun and together they watched it set. "Come, we must go now," Harold said, leading his horse away. He glanced back to see Suneil take a handful of Ming and Ilsa's grave dirt, tuck it into his robe. A chill went down Harold's spine. [I]Never trust a wizard.[/I] [/QUOTE]
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