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Message: <blockquote data-quote="eris404" data-source="post: 2626304" data-attributes="member: 5338">Accident does not accurately describe the scene in the barn. The students are huddled together, weary and sad, their eyes unable to rest comfortably anywhere on the scene. The hay is soaked with fresh blood from Othic’s slain body which is nearly cut in two. Upon his back are impressions where the horses in their panic had trampled him on their way out of the barn. The farm hands are still searching for them.Serai is sickened, as much from grief as horror, and leaves the barn to question the farm hands. Dante murmurs a familiar spell while touching the air, searching for the tingling, electric presence of magic and finding none. With a sigh, he crouches to examine the bloody tracks with Jade, but the elf shakes his head: they are too jumbled or perhaps he is too distracted to make sense of them. He turns instead to the body.“George,” Dante says wearily, and without needing to be asked, his friend helps him right the corpse.  He examines the arms and hands and finds no scratches or defensive wounds. There is still a wallet filled with coins at his belt. There are large bites at his neck, however, and waist. But they are most chilled to find a horse’s bit shoved into his mouth.Dante glances about the barn and explains his theory, “He was attacked from behind from here.” He points to a spot about a third of the way inside. “Whatever it was that killed him was already inside.”“And this?” George asks, pointing to the bit.“Most likely, he put it in himself, probably at the command his attacker” Dante says. “I can’t explain it otherwise.”“Dante!” Serai’s voice is shrill with fear. The body of their former host is forgotten in their rush to find her. She is only a few feet from the barn, but she is paralyzed with terror. Ishii is beside her and looks at her in puzzlement. When the three reach him, he merely shrugs.“There,” she points. At the gate, three horses are standing, tossing their heads and snorting.“Serai, it’s just Othic’s horses,” Dante replies. And then he sees one lifting the gate’s latch with its teeth. The other two snort, stamp their hooves and flick their tails with impatience. A nearly tangible wave of menace hits our little group. Dante staggers a moment and shakes his head to clear it.Serai answers his question before he can ask it. “They are psionic. They attacked me before you got here.”Dante nods, a bit shaken by the encounter, but chants a spell for summoning undead. A tiny zombie, the rather ripe body of a recently deceased kobold, answers his call and plods in the direction of the malicious horses. Panicked, he hides in the barn.Ishii unties the bola from his rope belt and slings it around the legs of a horse, which stumbles and falls with a loud shriek. It rolls, frees, then rights itself.George trembles while loading his pistol and silently curses himself for not loading it properly beforehand. His hands shake so that he loses the shot in the grass and has to start over. The horses are nearly upon him when he takes his first shot and misses.Serai’s eyes glow with power as she utters a word in a language strange to George. Whatever she intends, it does not stop the horse galloping toward her. She backs away, but not in time, for the horse nips her on the shoulder. Ishii punches it, then jumps to kick it squarely in the jaw, thus giving Serai time to get away from this monster.With his mighty bow, Jade shoots an arrow true and strikes a horse in its flank. Something changes in their demeanor after this, for they circle round to the gate to flee in panic. Attuning with Nature, Jade calls upon Her magic again and performs several small miracles. First, he makes the grass near the gate grow and writhe to cling to and hamper the legs of one of the horses. Another he causes to stop altogether, and though it is far from docile, it no longer tries to bite or kick. The third he chases, all the while striking it with swift arrows until it collapses dead from its many wounds. While Jade is occupied, the entangled horse breaks free and flees. George shoots but is inexpert at hitting moving targets and does not strike it as it disappears into the woods.Breathless as frightened rabbits, the students gather around the remaining horse,.“Don’t kill it,” Serai says. “I want to try to talk to it.”George swallows hard, but reloads his pistol. “Tell it I’m watching it. If it tries to get away, I’ll shoot.” He cocks the pistol and points it at the horse’s head, and adds with more bravado than he actually feels, “And I won’t miss this time.”With hands raised in a gesture of peace, she tells it, “We won’t hurt you. Please, we just want to ask you a few questions.”It snorts, then tosses its head, assenting.“How did you come to be?”An eerie, croaking voice from a throat never intended to use speech replies, “Little blue men from the forest came. They free us. Make us strong. Now you, you will wear the saddle.”The horse rears with a snarl. George shoots a glancing blow that grazes its neck. It sprints away into the forest, while George reloads and gives it parting shot. If it hits, it does not slow the creature and it vanishes into the trees.</blockquote>

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