NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="arwink" data-source="post: 1428505" data-attributes="member: 2292">Yip coughs a small mouthful of blood onto the ground, one paw groping for a healing potion as the other pulls the arrow free from its place in his flesh.  He can hear the distinctive metal clank of his comrades coming up behind him, the sounds of spells being cast.  He’s even distantly aware of more arrows coming out of the darkness, but with his instincts honed by pain he nimbly stumbles aside.  Geoffrey and Blarth are both charging towards the lava-pool, Amarin and Halgo letting loose with spells and psionics.  Then he catches sight of a potion vial spinning through the air, its reddish contents sloshing dangerously as it moves.  His own potion stoppered with one of his fingers, Yip leaps to the side mere seconds before the thrown vial lands and billows into a fireball.  The pain in his stomach is intense as Yip tumbles, beating at a few clinging sparks with his free paw, and even as he rights himself he brings the healing potion to his lips.  Flesh fuses together, the taste of blood recedes into a memory, and the empty potion vial smashes against the floor.The wound in his stomach healed, Yip gets his first real look at the field of battle.Glitterdust suddenly flares into existence around a figure lurking on the shoulder of one of the statues, a lean humanoid wearing a silvery facemask that resembles a serpent.  One of Amarin’s constructs, this time crafted to resemble a silvery mongoose with wings, suddenly skitters across the sky towards another archer with a similar mask that hides on the head of a second statue.  Geoffrey has leapt onto the wall, his slippers of spider climbing allowing him to avoid the lava and travel along the wall.  Blarth is faced with a more difficult path – the stone bridge is crumbling and requires anyone crossing to jump from place to place.  Despite his great strength, the half-orc seems discouraged from making the attempt by the lava’s great heat and a pair of mask-wearing warriors waiting on the far side.  Both the warriors are armed with large, curved swords that require two hands to use, and they stand ready to knock anyone who lands on their side of the bridge back into the water.  Yip spies a third archer, on the far side of the from Geoffrey’s advance and the fluttering construct, so the kobold quickly leaps onto the wall with his own slippers and starts scurrying towards the final archer, his paws flexing angrily as he sees the shortbow swinging in the direction of Amarin.  As he sprints, Yip hears the telltale roar of Blarth using his flute, and the sickening sound of one of the sword-wielding warriors falling into the fire as his eardrums rupture.  The other warrior merely screams, as does the glitter-dusted archer. Two of the archers fire, their arrows far less accurate when the targets are aware of their presence.  The third swings his bow widely, trying to aim by sound alone, and Halgo watches with delight as the missile goes wide.  Even as the archer attempts to slink back into the shadows cast by the statue he’s standing on, it’s obvious that the glitterdust has blinded him as effectively as it highlights his position, the sniper stumbling as he takes a tentative backwards step and almost falling from his perch.  Yip reaches his target and flicks out a paw that paralyses the snipers arm, drawing a cry of surprise from his opponent as he whirls and tries to draw a dagger to keep between the kobold and himself.Blarth leaps over the crack in the bridge, his armoured form landing noisily next to the still-staggered swordsman.  Luckringer flashes in the reddish light of the lava, and the second swordsman follows the first into the molten liquid.  Geoffrey and Amarin’s construct start teaming up against the third archer, the wall-crawling cleric and the fluttering mongoose taking turns to batter at the snake-masked enemy.  Although the snake-mask is quick to draw a long knife, his haste to avoid his opponents proves to be his downfall.  Like the other two snipers, he has taken a position on the shoulder of a statue nearly thirty feet high.  Unlike his companions, he isn’t as sure-footed, and he slips from his perch and bounces noisily to the floor.   The construct dives downwards towards the prone form, delivering a final blow that ensures he never regains his feet.At the rear of the combat, Amarin is struggling to load his crossbow.  He’s dimly aware that there are snipers out there, and that he has little chance of hitting either of them, but something about trying to load the weapon makes him feel better about his situation.  His bird-thin arms struggle with the crank, pulling back the bowstring and trying to place the bolt in at the same time.  Whether Amarin is as surprised as the blinded sniper when he accidentally misfires the crossbow is debatable, but in the fleeting moments of pain the sniper has after the misfired bolt pierces his thigh is certainly a clear indication that he got the raw end of the accident.  Fortunately the sudden shock of being shot is enough to distract him from his more immediate problems, and at least he never has to watch the ground rushing towards him.  Or, at least, that’s the thought Amarin consoles himself with as the sudden pang of guilt over killing his first human being seeps into his soul.The final archer, barely holding his own against Yip, does little to live up to the devastating effectiveness of his first attack.  Skilled as he is with the bow, the sniper is no match for the kobold monk in hand to hand, and once both Geoffrey and the construct move in to assist the kobold and split the archers guard, the kobold’s small paws are quick to snap leg bones and send the archer tumbling to the floor.  This sniper does have to watch the floor rushing to meet him, but he handles it stoically and with a minimum of screaming.</blockquote>

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