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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jon Potter" data-source="post: 909478" data-attributes="member: 2323">[PLAIN][Realms #222a] A Hero Falls[/PLAIN]Valdymyr shrugged his cloak back off his shoulders and a pair of enormous bat wings unfurled at his sides. The great wings snapped downward with a sound like a sail flapping in a stiff breeze and he came off the ground. With two more beats, he was airborne and headed straight for Ixin. He drew his gleaming shortsword as he came.Steeling herself, the mage leaned casually against the damp cave wall with her arms crossed. One of her hands moved toward a hidden pocket within her cloak wherein was secreted a number of the Hibernian's scrolls. She smiled winningly and called out, "Come now, friend! Surely you do not begrudge a lady taking advantage of an opportunity when she sees it?"Valdymyr faltered in his advance, he jerked clumsily in the air, like a marionette manipulated by an inexpert puppeteer. He landed a few paces from Ixin and sneered at her. "We're not friends, witch!" he growled. "Your magicks may have debased me once, but I'll be damned if I let it happen again!""I understand your embarrassment, surely," Ixin purred. "But your actions can remain our little secret." She winked at Valdymyr and saw a smug smile play across the werebat's face. His eyes, however, did not lose their malicious glint.Draelond jerked his head backward at the last moment and the point of the werebat's shortsword passed through the air directly in front of his eyes. Before the winged skaven could recover from the back swing, Ravager rose upward in a massive arc that found the creature's guts at the midpoint. It fell backward in a messy, broken heap.Draelond flicked wet hair out of his eyes and turned toward the sound of battle in the far recesses of the cave. Finian was there, defending against the predation of the two enormous bats he had seen earlier. And he wasn't doing well at all.Clutching his sword firmly, Draelond bounded across the cavern with as much speed as he could muster on the uneven ground.A strategic withdrawal. That was the only thing that would save him, Finian suspected. He resolved himself to that  course of action, but the bats were too fast and they harried him mercilessly. Their great, beating wings and dangerous, snapping teeth seemed to be everywhere. Before he had taken a single step, one of the creatures was sinking its fangs into his chest, filling his face with its stinking fur and a splatter of his own blood. He somehow managed to push the bat away and take a halting backward step before the second bat tore into his right thigh, opening a wound there that was the match for the one that was currently slicking his right leg with red.Finian sagged, a surprised expression on his face. Darkness was creeping in around the edges of his vision, and it swallowed all sight even before he'd collapsed to the floor."There's no hiding my failure, witch," Valdymyr cursed. "You've slain my troops and compromised our secrecy.""Listen, we did not come here looking for a battle," Ixin explained. "We simply came to gather up two missing people. If only you had informed me of the girl upstairs, we could have avoided that whole messy encounter."The werebat's face scrunched into a disappointed scowl at the possibility that he might have come away from the encounter with a victory rather than an ignominious rout. He told the mage none of this, but turned to look when she pointed out across the cavern."This one appears to be going little better for either of our parties," Ixin told him, indicating the ongoing battle between Draelond on the two gigantic bats. The warrior swung at the nearest bat as he charged up, but the rodent narrowly dodged the flashing bastard sword. It snapped its fangs at him ineffectually. The attack served to distract the man enough for the second bat to sink its teeth into Draelond's right shoulder."All we want is to know if you have a certain sidhe," Ixin went on. "If you do, we'll just take him back and be on our way. We'll write it all off to a misunderstanding."As Valdymyr watched, Draelond reversed his grip on Ravager and drove the blade through the torso of the bat that had just bitten him. It squealed and spasmed weakly before falling to the ground like a broken kite. The bat's mate darted in to half-heartedly attack the warrior, but its jaws found only air."Call off your half-orc and we'll talk," the skaven leader muttered, looking hatefully at Ixin.</blockquote>

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