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Message: <blockquote data-quote="carpedavid" data-source="post: 879635" data-attributes="member: 6971">Session 5, Part 1 - In which the characters all very nearly die. Again."Well," Erendil says solemnly, "I guess they know we're here.""We need to move before they trap us in here," Quara says as she starts toward the door."Right," Shoji sighs, "I'll go first.  You guys cover me." With his companions holding swords, bows, and wands behind him, Shoji takes a deep breath, then kicks the iron door open. As soon as he is revealed, four archers, who were waiting in ambush, fire. Two arrows splinter on the stone near his head, but the other two find their mark, puncturing his right shoulder and left bicep. He barely has time to survey the scene before another volley of arrows streaks toward him.Two archers peek out from the doors to the north and south, while two others kneel in front of the door to the west on the level above. Directly in front of him, floating in the middle of the central shaft, is a <a href="http://www.thehumanproject.org/trinis/index.asp?formMode=book_entry&id=50" target="_blank">devastatingly beautiful woman</a>. Her long ginger hair floats lazily over her shoulders, her ice blue eyes twinkle with malicious glee, and her lightly freckled, milk-white skin provides sharp contrast to her black leather boots, skirt, and bustier.As Shoji dodges the second volley of arrows, the woman screams at the top of her lungs, "What in the sea of fire are you doing in my prison?" She follows her outburst with a lash of the whip that she holds in her left hand, flooding Shoji's body with intense, blinding pain. A thousand needles tear at his skin while fire floods through his veins, and he immediately begins to repeat a meditative mantra in his head. The pain fades, but his skin burns where the whip touched him. Mental note, he thinks to himself as he rushes the guard to his right, avoid the flying bitch's whip.Wrayce pushes past Quara, draws the wand that he had picked up in New Charleston, and sends a golden bolt hurtling toward the flying woman. Quara fires her bow through the door, past Wrayce, and hits one of the archers on the upper level. A yelp of pain that echoes up and down the central shaft brings a smile to her face. Laurel follows Wrayce's lead in pushing past Quara, then charges the archer to her left, cutting deeply into his side with her ancestral longsword. Erendil decides that discretion is the better part of valor, and remains hidden, waiting until he can get a better shot.The guard hit by Laurel recoils from the blow. He staggers backward until he is out of sword range, then lets loose another arrow, managing to graze her leg. The guard who was rushed by Shoji drops his bow and pulls a longsword from his belt, but can't find an opening in the monk's defenses that will allow him to press the attack. "By Chironex's bow", Quara quietly curses to herself as she sees the archer that she hit quaff a potion, "that's going to make things more difficult." She winces as two arrows from the other archer on the upper level splinter themselves on the breastplate of her armor, and then looks up to see the flying woman swing her whip at her. She just manages to sidestep the blow, feeling the air rushing past as the whip cracks an inch from her face. Right, I'll get to her in a minute, she thinks as she watches another of Wrayce's magic missiles slam into the woman's side, first, though, I've got to take out these archers. Summoning all of her training, she blocks out the chaos going on around her and shoots three arrows at the potion-quaffing guard in the time it takes a quickling to blink. She is rewarded with a gurgle and a thud as the man collapses. "Oh, well, that wasn't as hard as I thought it'd be," she says under her breath.Her delight is short-lived, though, as a <a href="http://www.thehumanproject.org/trinis/index.asp?formMode=book_entry&id=51" target="_blank">man in black plate mail</a> gently floats down the central shaft and positions himself right in front of her. He has the same ginger hair and ice blue eyes as the flying woman, but stands over six and a half feet tall, and holds a very sharp looking longsword. "That was my soldier you just killed, you whore," he snarls in a nearly unintelligible Avengardan brogue, as he brings his longsword up over his head and buries it in Quara's shoulder, drawing a spray of blood.While the plate mail clad man slices into Quara, Erendil fires two arrows into the flying warden. She giggles in delight as the arrowheads pierce her flesh, and winks at him as an arrow flies over her shoulder and embeds itself in his sternum.Laurel, meanwhile, swings at the guard in front of her and misses, ending up with an arrow in the gut for her trouble. Shoji is more successful with his guard, and lands a punch squarely on the man's jaw. The guard responds viciously, though, and nearly slices off the hand that the monk had used to hit him. Shoji immediately hears his old sensei's voice in his head, scolding him. "Don't leave your strikes extended," the old man would say, "It looks flashy, but you'll get a hand lopped off by doing that."Wrayce, for his part, continues to lob golden bolts of force at the flying woman. He watches her pull out a potion and quaff it, so he sends two more bolts in response. She winces, and then gives him a look that makes him hope that he has enough missiles left to finish the job.With Erendil behind her, Quara can't retreat from the man in the plate mail, so she simply lets loose with her bow, knowing that doing so will open her up to attack. Three arrows bury themselves in the man's chest, and he lets loose a string of curses as he takes advantage of the opening. Quara winces in pain as his longsword slices into her ribs, but manages a smile when three of Erendil's arrows streak past her shoulder and join the ones already in the man's chest."Seamus!" the flying woman screams as the man in front of Quara staggers. She dashes through the air to her wounded brother, and places her hands upon his back. "Great Mistress," she intones, "I beg you to heal this man and share his pain!" A silver light spreads out over Seamus' body, and Quara can see his wounds visibly heal.Laurel, meanwhile, is inflicting wounds, not healing them. She takes an arrow in the thigh, but ignores the pain and cuts the archer down with a mighty blow from her flaming sword. She steps over the dead man's crumpled body and dashes toward the guard entangled with Shoji.Shoji dodges the guard's sword as he sees Laurel point to the warden, who is now hovering over the catwalk. Nodding his assent, he breaks off from the guard and moves to engage the woman."Now, Great Mistress," the woman intones as she pushes past Seamus, "return the pain tenfold!" Her hand erupts into black flames, and she reaches out to touch Quara's shoulder. As the negative energy pours into the archer's body, the woman cackles with glee. She withdraws her hand just in time for two more arrows to penetrate Quara's already injured torso. Quara attempts to draw back her bowstring, but is so weakened by the warden's magic that she can barely nock an arrow.Wrayce sees an opportunity open up, so he draws his scimitar and steps between the warden and her brother. He tries to bury his scimitar in the woman's back, but ends up impaled on Seamus' sword. "Ow!" cries the druidic wizard as he stumbles back, blood pouring from his stomach. Ok. Fine, he thinks, back to using magic.Laurel closes the gap to the guard that Shoji broke away from, and begins trading sword blows with him. She finds this guard much harder to hit than the other, and curses in frustration as her sword repeatedly glances off the man's armor. His sword, on the other hand, finds much better purchase. Though he does little damage with each blow, he manages to find the gaps in her armor each time he strikes.The warden, too, finds easy purchase in the lightly armored Quara. After drawing a short sword, she steps in and pierces the already weakened archer's torso. The trauma is enough to send Quara into shock, and she crumples into a pool of her own blood. Shoji, seeing his companion in trouble, tries to lodge his fist into the warden's kidney, but slides on the blood-slicked catwalk, and ends up facing a snarling Seamus."Get your filthy hands off my sister," he growls as he swings his sword in an upward arc, catching the monk in the center of his torso. Shoji is lifted off his feet by the force, and lands on the back of his head, knocking him unconscious.Erendil looks at both the warden and her brother, and decides that the man looks to be more of a threat, so he sends two arrows into the fighter's side. Wrayce follows up Erendil's arrows with two golden bolts of his own, and the man visibly shudders. The warden takes advantage of Erendil's choice in targets by healing herself with magic, but screams when one last set of magic missiles slams into her brother, sending him hurtling, dead, into the charnel pit at the bottom of the shaft."You son of a bitch!" she screams, charging Wrayce, slashing him furiously with her short sword. Wrayce takes the full force of her blows, feeling the white hot pain of his flesh being torn open, but staggers back and unleashes more magic missiles from his wand. Erendil steps over Quara's crumpled form and sends an arrow into the warden's back.Realizing her precarious position, trapped between the archer and the mage, the warden retreats by flying up the central shaft. Wrayce pulls out the healing wand that Laurel had loaned him earlier and points it at himself. A soft blue glow envelops his wiry frame, and he no longer feels like he is in danger of collapsing from blood loss."Guys, a little help here!" Laurel yells, still trying to defeat the guard in front of her. Erendil sends two arrows into the guard's side while Wrayce stumbles over to Quara's crumpled frame. A touch of the healing wand revives the archer, who immediately rises to her feet and shoots three flaming arrows into the back of the remaining guard, felling him."Shoji!" Quara yells, pointing to the fallen monk. Wrayce turns and uses the wand once again, and Shoji opens his eyes, groaning with pain. Laurel leaps the now dead guard and dashes back to her companions. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the ghouls in the charnel pit, tearing apart the body of the warden's brother."Oh, dear gods, we're in trouble," Laurel says as Wrayce uses the wand on each of them. She looks at her companions, each battered and bloodied, covered in cuts and welts."Yes, but we still have a mission to accomplish," Quara manages between gasps for air as she leans forward, hands on her knees."Well, then, we'd better make it quick," Erendil says seriously, "because I guarantee that woman's going to be back with reinforcements."Session 5, part 2 to come soon...</blockquote>

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