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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 55421" data-attributes="member: 143">Book II, Part 9The minotaur loomed over the fallen genasi, who had lost consciousness and could not see the coming stroke.  But Lok was not alone, and his companions had witnessed his fall.  His tenacious defense had bought them precious time, time used to defeat their other foes and now could use to come to their friend’s aid.  Cal was the first to act, unleashing a color spray that wrapped the minotaur’s face in a blinding wreath of flaring lights.  The minotaur was far too tough for the spell to take it down, but it dazzled it, causing it to shake its head as it tried to clear its overloaded senses.  Delem was crouched over the prone form of Dana, having just stabilized her with the healing power of Kossuth’s cleansing fire.  He lifted a hand and summoned his own innate power to cast a stream of flames that swept over the minotaur’s torso, charring its matted fur and crisping the flesh underneath.  It roared out as the pain penetrated its muddled mind, and it projected all of its pain and fury onto the helpless form of Lok before it.  The axe began its downward course…Benzan leapt over his fallen friend, shouting a cry of defiance as his magical scimitar cut a gleaming swath through the air before him.  Scimitar and axe intersected paths as the tiefling swept past the towering beast and spun into a smooth turn as he landed smoothly on the slick deck, his blade coming around in a ready flourish.  Several feet away, the axe—and the forearm that still clutched it—fell to the hard decking in a bloody mess.  The minotaur reared up, blood erupting in a fountain from the stump where its arm used to be.  For a moment it tried to regain its focus, and its remaining hand even reached for the dagger at its hip, but then it crumpled to the deck, its lifeblood pouring onto the polished wood around it.  Their leader had fallen, but the pirates were still far from beaten.  Even as Cal moved quickly to aid Lok, they could hear the cries of yet more raiders as the crew of the final pirate vessel, which had finally pulled alongside, clambered onto the low central deck of the Raindancer.  The fore and aft decks were clear of enemies, for the moment, but in addition to the ten newcomers, several of the pirates stunned by Cal’s color sprays were stirring, starting to shake off the lingering effects of the wand’s magic.  Only mere minutes had passed since the first pirate had swung onto the Raindancer’s deck, yet the surface of the ship resembled the floor of a slaughterhouse, with the bodies of pirates and crewmembers scattered about.  “Let’s finish this,” Benzan growled, recovering his bow and drawing another long arrow.  Ruath came up beside him, and completed an invocation of the power of her goddess.  As the halfling finished her spell, a small cloud of smoke erupted in the center of the lower deck amidst a group of pirates.  The cloud dissipated to reveal a pair of celestial badgers, who immediately tore into the surprised raiders.  “Again with the badgers,” Benzan muttered, dropping a pirate as he clambered over the ship’s rail.  Delem joined in the defense, unleashing the power of his own wand into a knot of raiders.  A half-dozen succumbed to the magical sleep, and suddenly the odds shifted dramatically again in the favor of the defenders.  Six crewmembers of the Raindancer still held the raised foredeck, firing their bows into the milling pirates below and using the heavy ballista bolts as impromptu javelins.  A quartet of pirates tried to rush up the narrow stair, but their charge faltered as Benzan sent an arrow into the back of the first to reach the summit, and the defenders pushed him back into his companions, sending them all down the steep steps to fall in a heap on the lower deck.  And just like that, the attack turned into a retreat, and then a rout.  Several more of the dazed pirates milling around at the base of the stairs up to the aft deck fell to the missile fire from the defenders above, who included Captain Horeth, restored to consciousness again by clerical magic.  Delem’s magical bolts felled several, and Benzan’s bow hummed a song of death as arrow after arrow found their lightly armored targets.  Abandoning their blinded and sleeping comrades, several of the pirates retreated back to the small vessel that had been last to dock.  Benzan strode to the rail and continued firing, dropping another pirate even as they cut the ropes connecting them to the Raindancer and started pulling away.  Benzan seemed possessed with a fury for vengeance as he launched arrow after arrow at the pirates, who now seemed bent only on escape.  A few stragglers leapt from the Raindancer and started swimming for their departing vessel, or tried to make it to one of the other ships, but none of them made it.  Captain Horeth and the rest of his crew, backed up by the companions, swept the lower deck, subduing the few pirates who could still put up a fight and binding those still asleep from Delem’s magic.  Delem and Ruath began moving among the injured crew, using their powers where needed to stabilize the seriously injured.    The escaping pirate ship had gained only a short distance when a dense mist rose up out of the waters, cloaking the retreating vessel in a concealing shroud.  Apparently the pirates had at least one spellcaster left among them.“Damn!” Benzan said, firing one last arrow into the mist.  “Let them go,” Lok said, coming to the rail and laying a restraining hand on the tiefling’s arm.  The genasi had been restored somewhat by Cal’s wand of healing, but he still looked a frightful sight, his mail and shield battered and his face bloody.  “Maybe they’ll spread the word that the merchantmen from the north aren’t easy pickings.”Benzan lowered his bow reluctantly, as reason replaced the frenzy in his eyes.  “Thanks,” Lok said earnestly.  The tiefling nodded, as the gaze of both warriors shifted back to the massive corpse of the dead minotaur.  The battle was won…</blockquote>

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