Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="spyscribe" data-source="post: 2902556" data-attributes="member: 5808">Part the One-Hundred Ninety-SixthIn which: the party gets a little smaller.Before the question has even finished leaving Lira’s mouth, Lady Tempeste reaches behind her and whips out her spiked chain, which comes swinging around with blinding speed, straight into Lira’s left shoulder.The end of her question becomes a scream, and Lira just has time to think, this, is not good, when the pain from the blow is immediately followed by an agonizing electric crackling that shoots all the way down her arm.  A second, piercing shriek rends the air above the barge.  Thatch, just preparing to disembark, looks around in confusion for the source of the sound.  Then he notices the blood running down Lira’s arm and spattering the deck.  There’s a ring of steel as Lady Tempeste’s male guard draws his sword.  Scrambling for their weapons, Anvil and Thatch are not far behind.At the other end of the boat, Eva’s keen ears catch the guard behind her reciting some kind of invocation.  She whirls around just in time to see the other woman pointing at her over the top of her raised shield.  A small white sphere shoots from her outstretched finger, hits Eva in the chest, and blossoms into a circle of searing cold.The captain of the boat looks around helplessly.  He is a sworn liege of the Count, but this is far out of his expertise.  With their commander frozen in inaction, the three sailors also hold their peace.  Two draw crude clubs which they hold vaguely at the ready, but they make no obvious move to join the fray.  The one who spent last night playing cards with Eva and Thatch is too confused to do even that.Meanwhile, the battle is joined.Seeing that the sailors don’t seem to be getting into the fight immediately, Eva and Thatch concentrate their attention on Lady Tempeste’s two guards.  Eva makes a stab with her rapier at the one who cast the spell at her, but the tip merely sinks into the opponent’s raised shield.  Thatch charges forward and draws blood on the other guard, but barely manages to bring his sword up in time to parry an answering blow.  Sparks fly as the two blades meet.Reyu takes a step away from the sailor she had been standing beside at the stern and casts call lightning.  Overhead, the thin clouds begin to thicken, and the wind picks up, just a little.  She then quickly puts out a hand to keep Lira from backing into her.The sorcerer is not in good shape.  Trying to get out of the reach of Tempeste’s swirling chain, she’s taken another blow to her side, and is bleeding freely.  Unfortunately, it’s not a large boat, and she doesn’t have a lot of room to get away, especially not from the reach of the long, spiked chain.  She winds up beside the mast, packed in between Reyu, Anvil, and the still-unmoving captain.However, she is, at least for the moment, relatively secure.  Lira takes a deep breath and fires a pair of magic missiles back at Lady Tempeste.They hit, unerring as always, but it’s barely a scratch.  And an instant later, Tempteste steps forward, the chain licking out once again.Locked in combat with the guard, Thatch can only watch in horror.  This time, the chain catches Lira full across her middle.  Lira goes pale, eyes wide as the impact comes, her mouth flies open… but no sound comes out.  It’s almost as though Ehkt grants that instant to give a young woman’s soul time to flee her body before the horrors about to be inflicted on it can come to pass.  It’s impossible to know for sure, but the light in her eyes is gone.Then blood is flying everywhere, followed by the sickening crack of Lira’s spine snapping, and seconds later the wet thud as her body hits the deck, nearly ripped in two.Euro lets out a sound of such despair that it hurts to hear it.Time should stop, but it doesn’t.Desperately, Thatch launches a wild attack, but the guard continues to match him blow for blow, parry for parry—keeping him stuck uselessly on the other side of the boat as Lady Tempeste advances towards his friends.  Already she’s cleaving into Reyu, adding dark elven blood to the crimson lake still spreading across the deck.Lady Tempest might be thinking she can take the entire party down one by one.  Anvil has other ideas.  Spattered with the blood of his companions, he charges forward, holy symbol brandished in one hand, straight for Lady Tempeste.  She chokes up on her chain, bringing it around and slashing down his side, but Anvil just keeps coming, colliding with her and calling upon the super-human strength granted him by Kettenek to drive her back ten feet, over the deck rail, and splashing into the water below.Tempeste shouts in frustration.  Despite her equipment, she manages to keep her head above water, and then, swings her chain one-handed back up towards the deck, rips down Anvil’s leg.Anvil feels his vision dimming.  As blood pours out of his wounds he’s nearly overcome by a wave of vertigo accompanied by a loud buzzing in his ears.  Sitting down, just for long enough for the world to stop spinning, is a very attractive option.  But he manages to cling to the conviction that he still has work to do, and with the last useful consciousness he has, steps back from the edge of the deck and heals himself.As Thatch’s sword clangs and Eva ducks another lesser cold orb from the guard, Reyu reaches carefully past Euro, bristling by Lira’s corpse, and gently removes Sheesak’s hunting horn from where it hangs on the sorcerer’s belt.  Rising, she puts it to her lips and sounds a mighty blast.  In the water beside the boat, a green vortex forms, and the water below the surface begins to churn.Seconds later, a gout of water and foam bursts upwards from the water, splashing the deck.  Barely visible in the froth are eight, giant, sucker-covered tentacles, all reaching for Lady Tempeste.  Grappled, squeezed, and about to be pulled under, Tempeste does not bring up her weapon.  Instead, she reaches down for something out of view beneath the water’s surface, and then, in a flash of white light, she vanishes.Anvil swears.  Eva lets out a yell of frustration, grabs the guard she’s been fighting, and pushes her over the rail and into the water.  Weighed down by her armor and shield, the guard thrashes madly, face just below the surface.  Eva watches in grim satisfaction for a moment, then pulls out her rapier, and uses the point to make sure the woman cannot come up for air.Thatch brings his sword down once more, finally felling the other guard.  And just like that, the fight is over.Eva turns and sees the captain staring, open-mouthed.  She pins him with a look.  “You.  Do.  Not.  Move.”“Y—Ye—Yes ma’am,” he stammers.  He has been liberally spattered with Lira’s blood, but underneath it, he’s gone completely white.Reyu scoops Euro up in one hand and tries to comfort him, but the weasel is having none of it, twisting against her in an effort to get back to Lira’s body.  Holding him isn’t made any easier by the fact that his fur is slicked and matted with blood.  Reyu gently sets him back down.Euro pulls vainly on Lira’s ear.  Boss… Boss!…  Come on, Boss.  You got bad guys to take care of...  Boss?  The only answer is the creaking of the deck and the soft sound of the sea lapping against the hull.</blockquote>

Verification