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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Softwind" data-source="post: 1289336" data-attributes="member: 13893">Kill the betrayers!Twenty-first Session (part 2) Taken aback by the rapid reappearance of the Companions, the guards at first stand agape, surprised.  They regain their senses quickly and reach for their weapons.  “Ah ah ah,” admonishes Brynn, his own swords at the ready.  “You’ll be moving your hands away from blade, nice and easy.”  The dwarf sighs as the three ignore him.  He calls over his shoulder, “Remember, try to take em alive.”Skylar launches her blunts, hoping to dissuade the guards from trying anything foolish, like attacking.  Stubbornly, they refuse to lay weapons aside, and move towards the Companions.  Athena blesses the party, to assure steadier strokes in the coming battle.  Grimnyr, disgust evident on his face, rotates his axe 90 degrees, the flat facing the on-coming foe.  “Fagh,” is his only comment.  Brynn weaves his blades in front of him, defending himself as he watches for opportunities to buffet his targets with nonlethal blows.  Tombit is within his element, his hands and feet a blur as he uses them to hammer the guards into submission.  Unfortunately, the plate armor they wear provides enough protection for them to shrug off the attacks.  Qonos attempts to armor himself in magery, but lingering images from his month-long stint in the dark of the mines ruins his concentration, and his spell dissipates to no good effect.Calling upon the spirits of Nature itself, Genoa weaves an enchantment upon the very metal of the armor they wear, to increase the temperature thereof.  The success of the casting is shown in the sounds of sizzling, and the smell of scorched leather.Two of the three guards move in erratic patterns, encased in a shell that is rapidly heating up, struggling to remove it as quickly as they could.  Realization hits, and the two of them have a bare moment to look at each other, before the pouches carrying the explosive mix reach critical temperature.  The resulting blast deafens Qonos and Skylar, leaving the rest with just ringing ears and headaches.  Taking advantage of the confusion, Tombit tackles the last remaining guard, slamming him to the ground, and perching on his chest.  Temporarily deafened, disoriented, and now having his breath knocked out of him, the guard yields without further struggle, and lapses into unconsciousness.  The Companions take advantage of this break, and work to heal their deafened party members, but to no avail.  Athena and Genoa both sense the power to remove the damage, but have not the strength to mold it to their purposes.  Until they can get them to a more experienced healer, they will remain deafened.When Shemp, the remaining guard revives, he is questioned none-too-delicately.  Brynn hammers the prisoner with questions, seeking answers to the reasons behind the Guild guards’ betrayal. He is unsatisfied by what he can learn from the man, but unwilling to descend into torture.  Disgusted, he ties the man up, perhaps tighter than necessary, yet gains little pleasure from the cries of pain.  He tells his party that there appears to be a faction within the Guild of Miners and Merchants that sought to remove the threat from the mines, but allow no one to survive the attempt.  Further information would only be gained from the leadership of the Guild itself.  Athena points out that Larry, the leader of this band of guards, still remains on the surface, guarding the horses.  Brynn’s eyes light up with the thought of possibly getting more answers.“First, though, we have a job to finish,” he tells the party.  Astonished, they ask why he wants to continue this quest, now that they know there is a bigger picture they can not yet see.  “Because we agreed to this task, we were paid for it, and should these things leave here, who knows what harm they could cause outside?”  Pragmatic as always, the group agrees, and works on a way to return to the other side of the rubble choking the passageway.Genoa summons a dire badger, and casts a quickening spell upon it, to allow it to burrow through the rubble, which is conveniently altered by Athena into an earthen consistency.  Following behind to cancel the effects of the spell upon the rock, a formed stone tunnel is quickly crafted.  By the time the badger breaks through the other side, the summoning spell has run its course, and the animal fades away.  The party forms up on the other side, readying themselves for battle.  The corpses of the ant-scorpions lay where they had fallen, undisturbed, although further in chamber ahead, the sound of movement reaches the party’s ears.</blockquote>

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