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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jon Potter" data-source="post: 1097107" data-attributes="member: 2323">[PLAIN][Realms #234b] A Chance Encounter[/PLAIN]Feln crouched low, avoiding the creature's flailing tentacles and spinning on the ball of his left foot even as he drove his right piston-like into its side. The giant cuttle worm staggered sideways from the impact, blood spraying in a dark cloud from its sphincter mouth. It took one half step and then collapsed in a boneless heap, its lifeblood continuing to pour from amidst its rubbery tentacles.The half-orc rose slowly, easily to his feet. A pair of eight-foot long carrion crawlers lay dead in the underbrush around him. He wasn't even breathing hard. A few paces distant, Windstryder went about the business of collecting those of her arrows that were still serviceable. Anta regarded them both from a nearby tree branch.The worms had struck without much warning as the two companions passed through this forest north of the caravan trail, Merchant's Way. Only Windstryder's ability to resist paralysis kept her from falling during the creatures' initial attack, but the two combatants, long used to acting in concert on the battlefield, soon turned the combat around. Feln relied on his superior speed as well as his uncanny ability to avoid the worms' attacks in order to take control of the melee while Windstryder stayed on the periphery, pumping arrows into the carrion crawlers two-at-a-time. Neither needed to speak to the other; their counterattack was silent, swift, and brutal.Windstryder suddenly froze nearby, her head cocked to one side. Instinctively, Feln melted silently into the shadows cast by the noonday sun while the ranger crouched low, following the faint sound she had heard coming from just over the ridge to the southeast. She eased herself onto her belly and crept forward to peer over the edge into the clearing below.There she spotted a halfling slinking out of a cave that opened in the ridge almost directly below her vantagepoint. He was wearing an overstuffed backpack and bore a shortsword at his hip. He was rather filthy, and his shirt and trousers were stained with blood. As he turned, surveying his surroundings, Windstryder was obliged to duck back down lest she be spotted. But in the brief glimpse of his turning she saw that he had a rather large and very fresh wound to his belly.Feln crawled out of the shadows to her right and looked pointedly at her. Windstryder shrugged and held up one finger. She gestured for him to circle around to the south while she moved around to the east; the ridge was less-pronounced there and would provide them both with an easier descent if it became necessary. The half-orc nodded and pulled out his Hat of Disguise. In a moment, he looked like an elf; his features were similar enough to Windstryder's that he might have been confused for her brother. With practiced grace, he moved silently away to the south.Windstryder stole another look over the edge of the ridge and saw that the halfling had disappeared - most likely back into the cave. She rolled to her feet and moved along the edge of the ridgeline, darting expertly from tree to tree. When she heard a rattle and clank from the clearing below, she dropped to the ground and crept back to the edge for a look.The halfling had returned, but this time he wasn't alone. With him was a redheaded woman the same size as Feln, if not larger. She was dressed in leathers with a basket-hilted sword at her waist. Over that, she wore a voluminous cloak trimmed in cloth-of-gold. It was clear from the unnatural tint of her coppery skin that she wasn't human, but what race she did belong to the ranger couldn't say.The tall woman was struggling backward, dragging an armored warrior, her hands threaded beneath the smaller figure's arms. Considering the numerous dents in the smaller figure's half-plate armor, and the glistening patches of blood that adorned it, the warrior was either dead or very lucky to be alive. As they moved further away from the cave and Windstryder's view improved, she was able to recognize the cut of the half-plate armor as that worn by the King of Elcadan's elite Janissaries. The ranger eased forward a bit more to a better angle... and dislodged a clump of dirt from the edge of the ridge.As it started to fall, she was already jerking her head back out of sight, but Windstryder feared it was already too late. An owl that she hadn't noticed previously launched itself from a nearby tree and began circling over the trio in the clearing below. The elf silently cursed her clumsiness.Sequestered silently and invisible amidst the trees, Feln watched the scene unfold. The way the owl hooted and the way that the tall woman reacted to it told him that this was no ordinary animal. She lowered the injured fighter to the ground and gathered her cloak around herself. The halfling had already disappeared beneath its folds."Show yourself!" the redhead cried. Her voice was rich and clear in the mid-day air. "Be warned! I have powerful magic at my disposal! My companion may be injured, but if you mean us ill, you must still deal with me!"</blockquote>

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