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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 1950058" data-attributes="member: 143">Home sick today... so an early Friday cliffhanger.* * * * * Chapter 298Beorna reached the top of the stairs, Hodge just a few steps behind, to see Arun charging a quartet of poorly dressed archers who seemed extremely reluctant to face him.  A mangled heap of what looked like it had been two men remained in his wake, along with the slumped form of Fario. “Tend to the elf!” the paladin shouted, as he batted aside a thrust from a hastily-grabbed falchion and sank his sword to the hilt in the man’s chest.  That was enough for the other three, who threw down their weapons in unison.  “Quarter, we beg quarter!” they cried. “Get over there in the corner, and do not move,” Arun ordered.  Amazingly, the paladin had yet to be injured, though he’d killed four men in the seconds since Beorna had hacked the opening in the wall of the inn.  “Hodge, watch them,” he said, starting toward the back corner of the room. “Where’s the secret door?” he asked the prisoners.  For a moment they feigned ignorance, but when Arun raised his bloody sword one of them pointed to a panel that appeared to be just part of the surrounding wall.  The dwarf gave it a quick look, then gave up and slammed at it with his sword, the wood splintering before his strength and steel. “Don’t go off getting into more trouble without me,” Beorna said, moving to join him.  Behind her, Fario stood weakly but determined, healed but still looking like a man who’d lost a dozen fistfights in quick succession. Despite being pressed from all sides, Dannel clearly heard the last sounds of the bear, and he spared a glance to see Mole down, threatened by another rogue.  With a spinning feint to drive back his attackers he turned and leapt at the man.  His thrust with Alakast failed to connect, but it drove the man back two steps to the nearest curtain, allowing Dannel to take up a protective position over the fallen rogue.  She wasn’t moving, but he didn’t see any obvious wounds; the mystery was resolved a moment later as a cold feeling descended over him.  Knowing that they were both dead if he faltered, he fought off the spell, looking around in an attempt to find the caster.  He deflected a pair of strokes with Alakast as the rogues pressed him, barely keeping them at bay with counters from the long staff.  There.  A flicker of movement in the corner of the room, near the ceiling.  Looking up, he saw a small figure, a halfling, clinging to the wall, the outline of his body shifting with magical displacement, a shield up before him.  Unfortunately Dannel wasn’t in a position to do anything about the enemy wizard at the moment, as a painful cut made its way through his defenses, ripping his mail links and scoring his back.  The rogue laughed and darted back out of the reach of his counter, while two others prepared for another coordinated attack from ahead.  “You won’t last much longer, lizard!” one of them snarled, as Dannel missed a parry.  Luckily his armor held, and he was able to turn out of the full force of the blow into a second that he did deflect, snapping the staff up into that attacker’s face.  The man staggered back, blood draining from his broken nose. “I don’t have to last much longer,” the elf said, even as the sound of breaking wood sounded faintly through the far wall of the room.  A beam of ruddy light shot down from the wizard, and Dannel’s strength faded as the familiar effects of a ray of enfeeblement settled upon him.  The rogues took this as a signal to rush in at him, and for a moment the elf was surrounded by a swarm of blades.  Alakast flashed and blurred in his grasp, and another rogue fell back, choking for breath through his crushed throat.  But Dannel was also bleeding from another wound, a painful gash that ran across his left hip down his leg. “Could use some help now!” he yelled, as the three remaining rogues gathered themselves for another rush. A panel in the wall exploded outward, falling from its mountings in a ruin of scraps and splinters. Beorna strode into the chamber, her adamantine sword once again proving to be an effective remover of barriers.  Arun was just a step behind her. Dannel parried a swing from a rogue who’d thought to take advantage of the distraction.  “Wizard!” he said, pointing with his staff in the general direction of the halfling before sweeping it around to block another cut.  The rogues, to their credit, held their ground, although two of those facing Dannel fell back to confront the dwarves. Unfortunately, they didn’t know quite what they were getting into. Beorna lifted her hand and unleashed a blast of searing light that slammed into the corner where the wizard crouched.  She got lucky and hit him through the misleading shield of his displacement, and his cry of pain was quite satisfying.  Apparently the sudden change in odds was not to his liking, as he swept his faded red cloak around his body, vanishing in a small flash of smoke.  Dannel put his remaining foe down with a pair of strokes that snapped ribs and cracked his skull, then bent to examine Mole as Arun loudly dismantled the remaining rogues.  One, clutching an arm ruined by the paladin’s backswing, tried to dart toward the broken window and escape, but Fario was on him before he’d made five steps, bringing him down with a thrust to the back. “How is she?” Beorna said, quickly crossing to Mole.  “I’m... I’m all right,” the gnome said, grimacing as she flexed muscles painfully tautened by the halfling’s hold person spell.  Dannel offered a hand to help her up, but she snapped her back and popped onto her feet in a single motion.  “I’m fine,” she said.  “Though you look like you’ve taken a fall into a heap of razors.”“Yeah, well, you did leave me four of them,” he said lightly, leaning slightly on Alakast while Beorna laid a potent healing spell upon him. Fario had already turned back to the wall opposite the windows, drawing back another of the red curtains.  “There’s another secret door here, somewhere,” he said, sheathing his sword and running his hands along the wood paneling.  He quickly found something and leaned in closer, but then his expression tightened into a pained grimace. “What is it?” Dannel said, stringing his bow. “She’s waiting in there with her blade to his throat,” he said.  “She intends to kill him as soon as we enter.”</blockquote>

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