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Message: <blockquote data-quote="genshou" data-source="post: 2809416" data-attributes="member: 13164">Christmas Update, Part IIShirl narrowly dodged a pair of knives by stepping back a few inches, and then waited until she had an opportunity to leap back out of harm’s way and draw her whip.  She lashed out with it immediately, stabbing the blade tip into one of her attacker’s entrails.  He doubled over in pain, dropping his knife and clutching at his stomach as blood leaked out between his fingers.  One of the bandits attacking Evendur replaced him, leaving two facing each of them in melee.Evendur’s staff moved as though it were a whirlwind, knocking his attackers’ weapons aside and striking them in the sides with the impact.  He wasn’t hitting them hard enough to knock them down swiftly, but was certainly making progress.The thug in back saw an opening and fired his crossbow, missing Evendur by only inches as he anticipated the angle of the attack and narrowly dodged.  In doing so, however, he left his arms out too wide and found a dagger grazing his right forearm.  He grunted in pain but kept his grip on the staff.  This isn’t good, he thought.  I’m in some trouble if this goes on much longer… I don’t have the energy left to dodge all of these attacks.  Shirl didn’t seem to be faring much better.  Just when things couldn’t seem to get much worse, the leader shook off Shirl’s spell and leveled his crossbow at her.The thugs advanced on Shirl as she readied her whip for another strike, slashing at her midsection with their knives, but she managed to narrowly avoid disembowlment by stepping back just far enough to avoid their reach.  She moved back a bit further and then swung the whip around her head for a moment to give it momentum.  Her strike flew wide of its intended target.  Seeing Evendur begin to falter, she reached into her belt pouch and retrieved a hard, mahogany-colored berry about the size of a small grape.  “Evendur!” she shouted as she held the berry up for him to see.Recognizing the berry, Evendur turned away from his attackers, and one of them took the opportunity to stab him in the back.  He cried out in agony, but stayed on his feet and rushed toward Shirl.  He stayed just outside the reach of the men attacking Shirl in order to avoid another attack directed against him.  He took the offered fruit from Shirl and placed it between his teeth.  As the berry burst within his mouth, the mystic energies within coursed throughout his body, restoring some of his vigor.  Though he was still just as badly injured, he felt a lot more confident now.  “Thanks,” he mouthed around the berry as he gripped his staff, ready to take on the rest of them.The thugs came at them, slashing mercilessly.  Evendur’s staff protected him from most of their attacks, and their blades were unable to cut through the stout oak.  Shirl did her best to stay out of reach, letting Evendur deal with them up close while she provided support from the rear.  Evendur focused his efforts on one foe at a time, beating them relentlessly until their bodies could no longer withstand the assault.  First one and then another collapsed beneath the crushing force.  Shirl’s whip dagger lashed out again and again, slicing the men even as Evendur dropped them.  It was when they were down to two bandits in melee, both wielding knives, that Evendur’s luck ran out once more.  A knife punched deep into his chest, causing him to stagger backward and drop his staff.  He coughed, and a trickle of blood ran down his chin.  Shirl gasped and pulled one of his arms over her shoulder.  “Come on!”  She pulled him back just as the knives lashed out once more, then the two of them ran down the alleyway and down a corner.  A pair of crossbow bolts struck the wall behind them just as they leaped behind cover.Spotting a stack of crates in the alleyway ahead, Shirl pulled Evendur along toward them.  Their enemies nipping at their heels, the two heroes, both beginning to grow fatigued, could barely stay ahead of their pursuers.  “Just a bit farther!” Shirl reassured her companion.Just as their attackers had almost caught up with them, they passed by the crates.  Shirl leaped to the side, using the full force of both their bodies to throw the stack out of balance.  As she jumped forward with Evendur barely hanging on to her shoulder, the stack of crates fell, crushing one of the pursuers and temporarily halting the other on the opposite side.  Shirl dragged Evendur into a dead-end alleyway just as the other two caught up and fired their crossbows.  The bolts shattered as they struck a nearby masonry wall head-on.She turned Evendur to lie flat on his back, seeing with dismay that a great deal of blood had run his chest from the wound.  From the look of things, his heart and lungs had been missed, but a major artery had been struck, and he wouldn’t be surviving for long without help.  She reached into the bag from which she had retrieved the previous berry and pulled out another one, this one a darker and more strongly red shade.  She placed it between his lips and gently commanded, “Eat this.”  He did as instructed, and the hole in his chest sealed over within a matter of seconds.  “How are you feeling?” she asked worriedly.Evendur coughed up some more blood and groaned.  “Terrible.  How many more of those berries you got?”  Shirl couldn’t help but smile slightly, despite the circumstances.  She pulled the small bag of berries out of her belt pouch and emptied it into his hand.  At least a dozen berries fell out.  “As many as you need.”  She focused her hearing on the alley they had split off of.  From the sound of things, the bandits were still pursuing them.  “They’ll get through that blockade quickly.  What should we do?”Evendur surprised her when he forced himself to stand, waving off her attempts to stop him.  She asked, “Are you sure you should be standing after that injury?”Evendur put another berry in his mouth.  “I’ll be fine now that I’ve been healed,” he mouthed around the juices.  “You said you had enough energy for two spells.  What can you do with the last one?”Shirl paused.  “I forgot about that last spell during the fight.  I can charm, heal, or create an illusory sound.  I don’t have the energy to do so at a distance, so I don’t think that’ll be particularly helpful.”Evendur placed one of the berries to her lips, mostly to stop her from talking.  “Hmmm… that does present a problem.  Let me think for a moment.”  He chewed on one of the berries himself as he pondered.  “Could you cast the illusion on a mobile object, then control the spell after it is moved away from you?”Shirl shook her head.  “I can’t control it, but I can anchor the spell on something so I don’t have to be near it anymore.  What do you have in mind?”</blockquote>

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