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Message: <blockquote data-quote="spyscribe" data-source="post: 1288284" data-attributes="member: 5808">Part the TwentiethIn which: *sigh* smoke, shadowbeasts… you were expecting?     Lira and Anvil both see the elf fall.  Almost at the same moment, Anvil sees Essela's eyes go wide as the Allirian ranger plunges his short sword into her gut.  She coughs once, spraying blood across her attacker’s face, then sinks to the ground.    Lira watches the shadow beast.  Unconcerned with its now unconscious prey, the creature is sniffing the air again.  It turns its head from side to side, searching, searching...  Abruptly, it stops, and turns straight towards her.    But I didn't do anything to this one! Lira thinks desperately, as she tries to come up with some means of stopping the creature.  Her wounds are only partially healed and she suspects that another blow will kill her.  Unfortunately, the only way to keep it away is to have someone else between her and it.  Once again, that someone is Anvil.    The Justicar readies his sword and attempts to defend himself as the beast bears down on him.    The shadow beast charges in.  Anvil parries, but as he lifts his blade to cleave the creature’s skull, it reaches in under his guard, and catches the Justicar with a full-on claw-swipe.  Anvil lets out a hoarse shout, and falls.**********Thatch is finally starting to have some luck in this fight.  He has found his rhythm and the tide of battle is beginning to turn.  Of course, he has to admit, remembering to drink the potion of bull’s strength we found on the bandits doesn’t half help.  Thatch has just sunk his sword deep into the chest of one attacker, a Seddelen rogue, and nearly pins him to the ground on the blade when he hears Lira’s voice, behind him yelling:    "Thatch!  Go kill that thing!"Thatch pulls back on his sword just as Dennis back-stabs the last standing attacker.  They turn back, and see—for the first time—the black beast upon the field.  Sword raised, Thatch dashes forward, Dennis on his heels.**********    Lira runs in the opposite direction to where Reyu and Essela have fallen within ten feet of each other.  Reyu has a healing potion and Lira attempts to revive her first, hoping that once the druid is conscious she can aid the bleeding monk.    Carefully, Lira pours the potion down the elven woman's throat, slowly at first, and then faster as Reyu gains life enough to swallow on her own.  Lira looks down, and notices that although the elf's wounds are healing, they remain raw and not completely closed.  A glance at her own belly shows that she too still bears marks from the creature's claws.    When Reyu blinks back to consciousness, the air is still filled with smoke and screams.  "Are they dead yet?" she asks the sorcerer kneeling by her head.Lira puts the bets possible spin on bad news.  “One of them is.”    Reyu gets to her feet and casts her last cure light wounds of the day on the fallen monk.  It barely raises Essela to consciousness.Across the quad, Thatch charges towards the remaining shadow beast.  He bears down upon it with a mighty shout, and in two sword strokes the beast boils away to nothing at his feet.  "Well," he thinks, "that wasn't so hard."**********Annika coughs hard on the black smoke that fills her small bedroom.  Even lying flat against the floor it's getting hard to find good air.  She can hear her classmates farther down the hall, screaming as the walls of their rooms catch fire.The gap between door and floor allows for a little circulation.  Annika stays as close as she dares, creeping forward for a breath and then scooting back as quickly as possible so that the thing outside can't smell her.She tries hard not to vomit as the image rises unbidden of Mai, her cat familiar, rent by horrible black claws.  It's as though a piece of her has been ripped out.As if the beast outside could hear her thoughts, suddenly, inches from her face, the misty black nose is back snuffling at the gap under her door.  Claws gouge at the wood, and Annika scrambles madly back.   She's choking on the heat and the flames, and as the door splinters, she just has time to register the thought that this is going to be the last thing she ever sees.</blockquote>

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