Part the Sixth:
In which: the party is attacked (duh).
Almost before the party can react, four bandits come running out of the woods, swords drawn, accompanied by another volley of arrows. Along with the arrows comes a sickening wave of dread.
Reyu immediately recognizes the effect of a bane spell. She blinks for a second and shakes off the effect. She can see several archers, hiding in the woods, along with a woman holding a quarterstaff. Since the woman doesn’t seem to be interested in closing to melee range, Reyu presumes she was responsible for the spell.
“Watch out!” Reyu calls. “There’s a spell-caster with them!”
Anvil grimaces through the wave of dread that seems to be settling over him. “That much,” he replies through gritted teeth, “is obvious. It will not help them evade Kettenek’s Justice.”
Reyu drops to one knee on the wagon seat to gain cover and retaliates with an entangle. The trees begin writhing as though alive, reaching down to ensnare the snipers hidden within. Reyu nocks an arrow, and prepares for whatever’s coming.
At last, Thatch thinks as he leaps off his horse and draws his greatsword. The bandits that emerged from the woods are already upon the wagon. Thatch is somewhat hampered by the grass growing up through the broken road, as it attempts to wrap around his knees, but at least the whipping branches are playing havoc with the archers’ aim.
Unfortunately, not quite enough havoc. Edmund, in rear of the wagon, stands up to cast. As he begins to loudly chant and wave his arms in an arcane incantation, an arrow comes flying out of the woods, and hits him full in the chest. He continues to chant as he sinks to the ground, barely conscious, and a sword-bearing bandit advances for the kill. However, just as Edmund slips into unconsciousness, a golden, glowing badger appears behind the swordsman and sinks his teeth into his knee.
Reyu has her bow out and is trying to sight the archers in the woods or the spell-caster with them, but the whipping trees are giving her arrows as much trouble as the highwaymen’s. Dennis has likewise been doing great damage to tree trunks and stray branches.
Not counting the one busy hacking at the enraged badger chewing on his knee, three bandits still surround the wagon. One leaps over the side and advances on Lira. Thatch runs forward (a damsel in distress, finally!) but is distracted by the two bandits that remain on the ground. With a mighty blow, Thatch pulls back his sword and swings, cleaving through them both like wheat stalks.
Lira, for her part, finishes the last words of a chant and snaps her fingers right in the face of the bandit leering down at her. Two wisps of white light streak from her fingertips into his eyes. He abruptly stops leering and stands there, blinking stupidly, quite literally dazed. Lira scrambles backwards, but finds herself pinned into a corner of the wagon.
The bandit blinks out of his daze and advances again. Lira, in a fit of desperation, pulls out her dagger and takes a swing at him. Her strike goes wide by a mile, but the sight of a five-foot tall, 98-lb girl slashing at him with a knife leaves the bandit almost as confused as her previous spell did.
Almost.
The bandit raises his sword to strike when he is brought up short once again, this time by the sight of a longsword protruding from his stomach. He falls, revealing Anvil behind him. Lira looks up from the pile of steaming entrails at her feet. “Er, thanks.”
From the road, Dennis shouts, “I see them, they’re running!”
Anvil calls back, “Smite them all!” Dennis obediently takes off into the woods in pursuit of one of the archers and the female caster, being careful to avoid the still active area of Reyu’s entangle. Anvil pauses to stabilize Edmund, then follows, Lira on his heels.
Reyu spies two more of the snipers taking off in another direction. Leaving the wounded Edmund behind to guard the wagon and its cargo, she calls for Thatch to follow and takes off into the woods.
While Edmund groans in agony in the back of the wagon, Thatch gets back onto Bob, and he and Reyu pursue the second group of snipers. Reyu’s ability to move quickly through the undergrowth allows her to easily keep pace with the horse.
As Lira and Anvil struggle through the woods after the first archer and caster (with considerably less grace than their Druid friend), Lira abruptly remembers that she has another weapon in her arsenal. Stopping short she concentrates, casts, and a bolt of blue-white energy suddenly flies out of her finger-tip, easily swerving through the whipping tree-branches and waving trunks to strike its quarry.
The bolt draws scant blood from its target, but the caster stops in her flight, glares, and creates an entangle of her own, right on top of Dennis, Anvil, and Lira. Anvil is immediately ensnared by a tree limb, while Lira almost makes it to the edge of the effect before being plucked off her feet by a rogue vine. Dennis, farther ahead of the other two, escapes the area of effect.
“What should I do?” he calls back.
“Smite them!” Anvil responds, struggling to escape.
Smite them, thinks Dennis. Riiiiiight….