Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lars Frehse" data-source="post: 800828" data-attributes="member: 1674">Unwelcome visitors- part 4 of 4Torn and Niklas stood still, trying to find tracks in the sand of the bank. Then, Torn saw a new footprint appearing out of nowwhere, started running and pointed in the direction. Niklas picked it up, ran and slammed into something small and invisible, and Torn saw where she hit the ground, since sand sprayed up where she fell.He jumped forward, like a cat pouncing on a mouse, but when he landed, there was nothing under him but sand. Meanwhile Trepat, who had drawn the right conclusions, cast a spell from one of his scrolls that allowed him to see invisible creatures, and now he saw the halfling woman getting back on her feet and running along the banks. He cast a melf's acid arrow and hit the woman, and then as he ran up, he gave directions to Torn and Niklas who were moving through the darkness trying to corner the invisible woman according to the elf's orders.Just as it looked that the they had her, Trepat saw how she swallowed another potion. Now, she went to the rock wall and crawled it up as easily as if it were a ladder. He shouted:"Niklas, she's going up the wall!" and the monk reacted immediately. With lightning speed, he turned to his right, and grasped into nothing, and now he felt her, squirming in his arms. Torn pulled out a dagger and held it close where he expected the halfling's head to be and said:" I think it is time to give up".Indeed, the squirming stopped, and after carrying her back to the camp and tieing her up, she became visible again as well. Now, for the first time they got a good look at her. She was a brown haired halfling woman with short brown hair and a long scar under her right amber eye, and she was equipped with a masterwork chainshirt and a shortsword and an armbrust of comparable quality."What's your name", Ben asked.Her eyes were moving around, examining her surroundings, giving her the look of a cornered cat that wanted to break out:" My name is Lily."."Alright then, Lily", he continued:"what are you doing here?".Her experssion changed into one of curiosity:" You sound as if you come from the heteromony of Virduk as well!"."Yes, that's right. I had to leave it though."."Ah, what a shame.".Jan interrupted them:" That is not important now. Why have you been watching us?".She turned her head away from Ben and looked at the Paladin now:" I am a scout of the Calastian army."."How far away are the ones you scout for and how many are there?", Torn asked.She smiled:" I will tell you that. If you swear in the names of your gods to let me go unharmed with my equipment, that is."."Why should we trust you? Even if you tell us the truth the troop could be too strong for us anyhow.", Niklas wanted to know.In spite of her situation, she retained an air of confidence:" Well, I can assure you for once that if you attack them, you do stand a chance. And there isn't much you can lose, anyway. And you can rest assured that I wouldn't return and warn them either- after all, that I got captured means that I failed, and the Calastian army does not look kindly on failures...".The friends turned away from Lily and huddled together. After some frantic whispering for a few minutes, Trepat turned back to Lily:" Alright. But you have to tell us all the details you know abou the members of that troop."An hour later they reached the dome-like cave that Lily had told them about. The wily scout was already far in the mountains somewhere, heading to a new future far away from Calastia, and it looked like she had told them the truth. Torn had scouted ahead and saw the priest of Chardun he knew about from Lily's information sitting next to a campfire with two regular soldiers. In the back of the cave, there were several filled sleeping bags from which Torn could hear a faint snoring sound- those were the other soldiers, the mage and Colonel Gihjan.He still wondered why the dragoon was among their pursuers. Maybe Fiarun had heard about the encounter of the dragoon and the adventurers, and sent him along because he knew what they looked like, at least... Or maybe Enkili was playing tricks on them, bringing their paths together for the third time for reasons that only the god knew.Knowing that his friends were behind him at the bank of the river, he watched as Ben, now in his spiderform, crawled up the ceiling of the cave, trying to get over their enemies. Then, however a small rock fell down and one of the soldiers looked up. He didn't seem to see the giant spider, but he told the priest and his fellow soldier none the less. Then he went to the back of the cave- apparently he wanted to wake his companions, and Torn decided to wait no longer.He charged forward, surprising the priest and swinging his spiked chain, he hit him in the chest, right where it hurt. Reacting to his friend, Ben dropped from the ceiling and faced the soldier who had walked back and who's wake up call had now, that the sounds of battle echoed through the cave, become pointless.As the soldiers who had been asleep got up, grabbing their shields and swords, Trepat, Jan and Niklas ran up to the cave, attracted by the combat noise. The camplight threw their shadows to the walls, and to an observer on the other side of the Eni, who only saw those shadows, it must have looked as if flickering giants were battling each other.Among the six humans who were only getting up now, they saw Colonel Gihjan and one who didn't go for a weapon. Recognizing him as the wizard Lily had told them about, Torn stepped back from the cleric who was now being attacked by Jan and used the ring of spell storing they had taken from Tears of her Enemies to vanish for a short while. Invisible he approached the mage who was about to cast a spell and then he appeared seemingly out of nowwhere and killed him with one single strike.Fortunately for them, only the cleric and the two soldiers who had been on guard were wearing any armor. Torn, who was a bit ahead of the main battle kept the soldiers around him at bay with the superior range of his spiked chain until suddenly he stood face to face with Colonel Gihjan. The Black Dragoon was still wearing his woolen shirt and long underpants but he wore his steel shield with the symbold of the dragoon and his sword, and his face was frozen into a mask of hatred.Ever since Torn had been a child, he had been able to rely on his brute strength that had never failed to give him an advantage when he grew up in the backstreets of Durrover-city. But this time, he had found his equal. As they fought, Torn forgot the world around him, needing every bit of his concentration just to ward of the Dragoon.Locked in a struggle of life and death they fought until Torn, who was bleeding from several small cuts and bruises, found a vital opening and rammed the end of his spiked chain into Gihjan's gut. For a second, their eyes locked and Torn saw the mask of hatred smoothing and changing into the look of puzzlement as his miserable and hatefilled existence finally had found an end.By now, his friends had defeated the priest as well, and after a short while, when only two soldiers were left, those two threw away there weapons and surrendered, not wanting to sacrifice themselves now that the battle was lost anyway.For now, the friends had escaped the wrath of the archfiend Fiarun.</blockquote>

Verification