Initiative Order (holy crap thqts a lot of combatants):
Rana 31
Fighter Bad 27
XBowman Bad 27
XBowman Bad 26
Mage Bad 25
Fighter Bad 24
Elone 20
Big Bad 19
Fighter Bad 16
Alex 13
Akharos 13
Calain 13
Cleric Bad 12
XBowman Bad 12
Emcat 11
Ubaar 11
Fighter Bad 11
Cleric Bad 11
Orc 10
Kelnar 9
You rush in through the door to engage the defenders, moving in in a group to defend and flank for each other.
Rana dives under the reach of the fighter in U49 and procedes to attack him from W49. You watch a series of blindingly-fast strikes and parrys between them, with Rana's electrically charged gauntlets sending sparks into the air. She gets inside the reach of his polearm, and he holds it with both hands tries to use it to pull her in from behind. As he does, she backhands him accross the neck and the bladed crest on her hand slices his head off. The vampire dissipates into arcs of red energy and black ash as his equiptment falls empty to the floor. As that occurs, you notice a red glow eminating from under the cloaks of the 2 clerics.
The fighter in Q49 lunges at Alex with his polearm, but misses.
Two Xbowmen lead out from behind bookcases and fire four shots at Rana, two striking her in the back (21dmg)
The sharran mage strikes before Elone can shoot him, sumoning up an icy sphere in U52 that explodes violently into razer-sharp shards and send severyone ducking for cover (including the vamp fighter in Q49 (dmg: Ubaar 14, Alex 0, Elone, Emcat, Kelnar, Vamp(Q49) and Akharos 7.)
The two fighters above and to the left strike at Akharos, forcing him to divide his parry's until one of them lures him onto another's blade, which cuts through his armor by his shoulder (16dmg) and knocks him down. The other plunges his blade into Akharos' other shoulder. (17 more dmg)
Elone steps closer to the doorway and fires a volley of arrows into one of the clerics. Two hit him in the chest, sending red-black, energized blood spurting out, but they miss the heart (33 dmg).
She surveys the battle field looking for casters. The Big Bad and the clerics are casting, but the Big Bad is bearest to done. She fires an arrow at him, streight and true towards the heart, but suddenly he moves his hand to catch it by the shaft while the tip is a couple inches away from penetrating. in spite of the force of the arrow, his hand is not moved towards him even slightly, but rather it remains perfectly still.
He stares forward with a cold discipline as he extends his hand and does a "come here" motion with his hard, clawed, fingers. Elone suddenlyflies to his hand like a cannon ball. Ubaar dives out of the way to prevent her from crashing through him. BB steps forward with his back leg and lunges forward a step, moving his other fist to meet her forehead as she hurtles towards him. The blow about equally as powerful as the spell itself, and Elone crumbles to her knees in front of him. He jumps up and knees he in the chin, lifting her up somewhat, then grabs her in the air and throws her face-first into the book shelf in V43. She lands (along with a pile of books) on the desk at U43, which breaks as she falls on it (73dmg, hp -->-3).
Alex waits until someone sets him up a flanking action.
Akharos (garyh? yoohoo...) gets up and moves in toward the vamp fighter at S46. He brings his falchion down hard on the vamp's polearm (being weilded kind like a double weapon for close range), bringing his opponent's defenses down. For a tense moment, they pause with the falcion keeping the pole down. the sharran is strong, but Akharos is stronger. Akharos stares into the creature's eyes, and sees their burning red irises of hellfire. Akharos lifts his bladde, stepping forward and swinging it like a baseball bat against the vampire, and cleaving clean through his neck (Crit 51dmg). The vampire crumbles in the same manner as the others, and you again see sometihng under the clerics' robes glow red.
Suddenly, there is a burst of flame in R49. As it dies down, you see Calain. Or, at least, what you think is Calain. Half of his head is charred and skeletal, with long, stringy, blond hair. He speaks in the voice of a teenaged girl "Calain is a coward. As you know, he ran away one night. He ran from his challenge. He ran from his destiny. But he cannot run from his past...just like he couldn't outrun the angry mob that killed him long ago. But when he came back, I came with him...and I will not let him run." the voice suddenly becomes Calain again. Instead of the insolent, misanthropic Calain that you used to know, he instead seems scared and subdued. "Yes, Theresa. Yes. Kill. Yesss..." He starts casting a spell.
The wounded Sharran cleric finishes his spell as he digs his hand into his wound. e pulls it out, and the blood becomes a long, whiplike stream of energized blood eminating from his hand. He moves forward a bit and whips Akharos with it (6 dmg) The blood whip leaves his hand, and begins trying to attack Akharos on its own.
The Sharran in U44, crouching behind the desk that the BB broke with Elone, fires two shots at Ubaar, one being stopped by his aror, the other penetrating his chest (14dmg).
The Orc surfaces from his hiding place under a desk and enters U48 and taunts the badly wounded Akharos. "Abomination! How dare a pathetic half-breed like you dare to immitate the Order of Cleavers (Akharos knows that to be an order of falcion-weilding orcish warriors. The magical blades that they weild, called Orcish Cleavers, are highly prized because they make thier weilders faster and stronger.) He prepares to fight Akharos next round.
Ubaar channels the strength of the thunderbeast, growing somewhat as his muscles bulge and his mouth lets out a roar. He meets an oncoming fighter with a body slam and tries to bring his blade down to crush his head, but the fighter moves in under it slightly, causing the greatsword to fall short and Ubaar to pass him by. They both turn and Ubaar tries again. The fighter raises his weapon with time to spare, blocking with his haft, but a practically airborne Ubaar cleaves right through the weapon and shatters the vampire's head (sufficient destruction of the head i.e. dmg > total hp kills like decapitation), causing it to collapse into a pile of equipment, blood, and dust. Again a red glow comes from under the clerics' robes.
The other cleric uses a claw to cut his other palm (1dmg), summons a blood whip like the other one, whips Ubaar (4dmg) . It also leaves his hand to attack on its own.
Emcat runs in to help Elone, but the cleric in S45 tackles and grapples him in T45 (AOO). The two tumble to the ground as the vampire cleric, far stronger, tries to bite his neck.
Kelnar casts Prot from arrows on himself.
Map coming tomorrow. 3 of the 4 regular fighters on the other side are dust, one cleric is wounded. Ubaar and Akharos are taking goodly amounts of dmg. Elone is in very bad shape and Emcat is at risk of being blood drained soon.
