NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="spyscribe" data-source="post: 3024687" data-attributes="member: 5808">Okay, that mental image just made my day.And now, without further ado, a bumper-update.Part the Two-Hundred FourthIn which: the battle is joined.Lord Marmion begins by singing a stirring battle-hymn.  Its effects on the guards are obvious, as they straighten in their places, take aim, and send a hail of arrows down upon Barnbaus, the constructs, and the rest of the party.  There are several warmages scattered among the arches who also let fly with readied spells, one of whom sinks an iceknife into Barnabus’ leg.  It does not take long for the party to strike back. Reyu starts off by covering half the wall, (and a quarter of the courtyard beyond) in a huge sleet storm. When several soldiers and a warmage come stumbling along the top of the wall out of the area of the sleet storm, tests out his new ring of the ram by knocking the warmage off the wall into the courtyard behind.  The warmage goes tumbling, and Anvil gives a nod of satisfaction.Meanwhile, Testy uses a wand of knock to open the main gate…which does not open.  Testy frowns.  Apparently, the Count has more than two spells or mechanisms keeping the gate shut. Thatch—not one to wait for such niceties as open doors—runs for the wall, then leaps up and grabs the edge, pulling himself up and over the crenellations.  He swings to his feet right next to one of the County guard.  A guard who is really sorry right about then that the weapon in his hands is a crossbow.Thatch looks down into the courtyard.  An open field stands between the wall where the party is attacking and the main keep where the Count makes his residence, and presumably, waits out the battle.  There are another fifteen guards at least in the courtyard beyond those visible on the wall, and who knows how many more in the barracks off to Thatch’s right.  He decides not to borrow trouble, and noticing that a knot of guardsmen, officers and warmages has formed at the edge of the sleet storm right on the other side of the gate, signals to Barnabus.  It appears that one of the Guard officers has noticed too, as he runs forward, shouting, “Scatter you fools!  You’re in perfect—”Which is when chaos breaks out.Or rather, Barnabus’ confusion spell breaks out.Guardsmen babble incoherently.  Some attack their neighbors.  Others run in terror, or just wander aimlessly.  In an effort to restore some kind of order, one of the officers caught in the effect bellows with great authority, “Monkey snot!  Demand refunds!”Above it all in swallow form, Kiara looks down on the beautiful chaos.  Lira would have been so pleased, she thinks.Reyu casts a flaming sphere centered on a warmage on the front wall who was not knocked off by Anvil’s ring.  This is enough for Lord Marmion to apparently decides that this battle has gotten too close for comfort and (casting one last spell on himself) turns and flees back towards the keep.He runs, skirting the mob of confused guards, officers… and one rather bruised warmage.  ###A warmage who is really not having a good day.He catalogues his latest woes:  There was the late shift last night.  Then up early this morning.  Cold porridge for breakfast (Most people find that the novelty of ray of frost wears off after a few months, he grouses to himself).  Then Lady Tempeste was on a tear all through their hours of standing review waiting for Barnabus to show up (okay, so he’d been napping.  So what?  Some people need to get their eight hours a night in order to DO THEIR BLASTED JOBS.  Sigh).And then comes the damned sleet storm.  Of course, just when he gets out of that, he gets hit with an invisible force that knocks him off the wall right on top of one of the mouth-breathing peons.  And yeah, even though everyone—well everyone in the mage’s corps—knows that the spear-carriers aren’t exactly recruited for their intelligence, they generally aren’t so addled that they mindlessly attack their own people.  Even when those people do happen to be falling out of the sky on top of them.It makes the warmage feel just a little better when another guard starts attacking the one on top of him, which at least gives him a chance to crawl out from under the bottom of the pile.And if there is one thing that he knows, it is that his day would be going much better if not for that archmage on the other side of the gate.  It’s because of Barnabus that he had to be up at the crack of dawn this morning, and Barnabus’ fault he was standing watch on the walls all day, and hell, he’s pretty sure that Barnabus is somehow responsible for that ray of frost in his oatmeal this morning.  Oh yeah, he’d like to get at that Barnabus and show him what for.  Except of course Barnabus is on the other side of that blasted gate…  Coward.Good thing I’m not affected by that damned confusion spell, he thinks to himself as he runs back into the sleet storm… making straight for the gate controls.###The pitched battle on top of the outer walls continues.  Thatch wastes the guardsman beside him and then calmly steps forward into the courtyard beyond.  It takes only a second for his new ring of feather fall to kick in, and Thatch cannot help laughing at the guards on the ground watching his slow descent, open-mouthed, as a sonic ball from Barnabus goes off behind them.Eva follows, using the slippers of spider climb to simply walk up the outside of the wall and then use the height advantage of her perch to start picking off confused guards like so many fish in a barrel.She’s not so worried about the guard next to her on the wall.  After all, his only reaction to her appearance was to shout, “Dizzy fish!” at the top of his lungs and gesticulate wildly.  However, confused or not, he’s very adamant, and as Eva continues to ignore him, his frustration grows until he attacks her in a desperate bid to get her attention.Eva lets out a yell of shock and pain as the guard opens a gash in her off arm.  “What is your problem?!?” she shouts back at him.“Polish keenly!”“Oh, well that clears everything up,” Eva mutters.  Seeing that this guy isn’t going to do her the favor of dropping dead by himself, she ditches her bow and draws her rapier.###Still outside the gates, Testy hears the unmistakable clunk of a final bolt opening.  He nods in satisfaction.  “That’s better,” he remarks to no one in particular.  Then, Testy notices that there is, unhelpfully, no handle with which to open the gate from the outside.  Hmm….  This is a job better suited to others’ talents.  And a particular other at that.  “Woodsy!”In two great strides, Woodsy lumbers forward.  His huge saw-hands sink easily through the metal sheathing covering the wooden gates.  With a backward heave, the giant doors begin to slowly open.Reyu watches the widening crack between the gates, looking for defenders who might use this new vantage for attack.  She doesn’t see any, but squinting into the swirling sleet storm, she does see the silhouetted form of what looks one of the warmages struggling at the gate’s controls.  Trying to get them closed again, she thinks grimly.  Without hesitation, she nocks an arrow in her new bow of bloodseeking and lets fly.  Undaunted by the mighty winds and weather, the shot flies true and the warmage drops.Although there is no way for Reyu to know it, it is a kindness, really.Seconds later, Anvil is forcing his way through the still slowly-opening gate.  The rest of the party is not far behind him.###Inside the courtyard, pandemonium reigns.  Thatch cleaves through guards two at a time, and soon those who have enough wits to do so are running for all they are worth.  Those that do soon find themselves caught between the burst of Barnabus’ cone of cold and the inexorable progress of Reyu’s flaming sphere.Woodsy advances through the ground troops, saws singing as they whirr through the air, “pruning” through anyone who gets in his way.  Meanwhile Testy alternates between firing off the wand of magic missiles in his left hand and the wand of sonic balls in his right.Eva guts the confused guard on the wall next to her and then runs down the inside face of the battlements to join the fray, falling into flanking position with Thatch around one of the few guard officers to remain on his feet.The sergeant takes a swing at Thatch, missing heroically.  He then takes just a split second to look at the battle around him.The sergeant is no fool.  He begins to shout, “Retrea--!”  But the sight of Eva’s rapier protruding from his stomach cuts him off an instant before his death does.Still, the intent of his order manages to carry to the rank and file.  Although, it isn’t so much an ordered retreat as it is vaguely directed bedlam.  Half of the still-living guards are confused, stuck in the sleet storm, or both.  The party continues to press their attack, now under fire from archers shooting from arrow slits in the front of the main keep itself.Taking note of this, Barnabus almost-casually waves a hand and a wall of stone appears, blocking off all of the arrow slits down the left side the building… and the front door.Eva and Thatch exchange worried looks.  “Umm…  How are we going to get to the Count now?”Eva shakes her head.  “I don’t know.”  She pauses to slash at a guard coming up on her right side.  “I’m going to worry about it later.”Thatch grits his teeth.  “Good plan.”###Woodsy continues to advance on a small troop of guards who are still managing to hold their ground.  “You are in my way,” the construct informs them.  “Prepare to be pruned!”  One of the soldiers bravely strikes out with his sword, hitting Woodsy’s torso underneath his raised arm.The blow lands with a teeth-rattling CLANG!  The reverberations so strong they nearly knock the sword out of the man’s grip.  The soldiers quickly decide to be somewhere else.###On the edges of the fray, Anvil notices one of the warmages has taken cover by the far side of the keep and looks like he’s about to cast at Barnabus.  The archmage is still limping from the ice knife he took in the leg, and Anvil will be damned if he is going to lose two arcanists to the County guard.Stepping forward, Anvil puts himself in the warmage’s line of effect, and casts a spell of his own: silence.The warmage stops abruptly in what looks to be mid-incantation.  Probably trying to figure out if the world has gone suddenly quiet or if he has gone suddenly deaf.  The distinction is about to be academic.“There!” Anvil shouts to Barnabus, pointing to the warmage who is quickly dashing to one side to see if the unnatural quiet has an area of effect.  It does, but Anvil keeps the warmage right in the middle of it.Meanwhile, Barnabus is casting.  “A little invention of my own,” he explains to Anvil as he completes the incantation.  “I call it the Grasping Hand.”“What does it do?”“Grasps things.”It’s not the most subtle arcane effect Anvil has ever witnessed, but then again, Anvil is hardly a slave to subtlety himself.  A look of abject horror crosses the warmage’s face as a giant, pale hand appears, closes around him, and squeezes.He’s eerily silent as he’s crushed to death.Suddenly Eva’s voice rings out across the battleground.  “Anvil!  Barnabus!  Behind you!”The two men whirl... ...And find themselves face to face with Lady Tempeste.</blockquote>

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