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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wulf Ratbane" data-source="post: 337136" data-attributes="member: 94">LORD OF THE IRON FORTRESS-- Part IV (cont.)With the death of the female, Wulf thought for a moment that the party was about to have a rare, unspoiled victory. Foolish thoughts, of course.A glowing portal opened on the north end of the battlefield and two familiar figures stepped through.“It’s Engram and Rourmed!”There was no mistaking their intentions; they’d come ready to bring the heat. They appeared to be hasted, Engram had multiple mirror images swirling around him, and Wulf suspected a shield spell as well. To top it off, Wulf had a nice, warm, paranoid feeling about the crooked staff that Engram brandished in one hand. Even so, he was far more worried about what Rourmed could do-- if only because he knew too well what Dorn could do; still, when the priest started running across the cavern away from the battle, he had to admit to himself he had no idea what Rourmed would do.“Kill the priest!” Wulf shouted.“Which one is the priest?” Dorn yelled back.Wulf rolled his eyes and pointed. “He’s the one makin’ a beeline for the naked boy!”Wulf would never know what the priest originally had in mind, because his shout had brought the priest up short. Rourmed stopped at the edge of the depression and turned to look up at the shelf where Karak had retreated to seek healing from Dorn. The paladin was sorely wounded from his fight with the dragon, and when Rourmed’s blade barrier whirled into force about four feet above the level of the shelf, Karak was sliced to ribbons. He dropped below the level of the blades.Keldas had moved forward to deal with Engram, the wizard. He hovered in mid-air and launched a bolt of conjuring just in time to disrupt Engram’s spell-- some sort of summoning, though it was beyond anything they could identify. Unfortunately, Keldas was far too close, now, to the bull dragon. Khalataic turned in mid-air and blasted Keldas and Wulf with a bolt of lightning. Wulf dodged, of course, and although Keldas wasn’t particularly hurt, his protections would not last much longer. Wulf watched as something invisible attacked Keldas, but soon enough he had problems of his own. He couldn’t see his attacker either, but the stench reminded him of half-orc, and the thing’s battle-cry smacked of barbarian desperation. Wulf suspected that his foe had hoped to rattle his nerves, but he was unimpressed.“Yer’d be a lot more intimidatin’,” Wulf said, “if I could ser yer...” He hefted Taranak and squinted around for his opponent.Dorn had managed to crawl beneath the blade barrier to Karak’s side. The paladin wasn’t quite dead yet. Dorn laid a hand on the assmar’s brow and healed him nearly to full strength again. When he was satisfied the paladin was going to make it, he carefully unrolled his carpet of flying and charged out to help Wulf with the raging half-orc.Engram gripped his staff and pointed it at Keldas. “I’m killing you with your own staff,” he said, as fist-sized hailstones pounded down on the elf. Keldas had had enough. “I’m leaving!” he said.Karak had managed to recover his feet, and ignoring the blade barrier as best he could, he grabbed the portable hole and ran to Keldas’ side. Keldas grabbed him and they disappeared.“We’re not done dancin’ yet,” Wulf said, slashing into the half-orc with a flurry of attacks. Several times, Wulf whizzed his chaos mace through empty air before striking elsewhere with Taranak. Not every blow struck true, of course, but Wulf took particular glee in the sickening crunch and sizzle of the ones that did. He’d figure out where his opponent was, line him up with Dorn, and then…“Dance is over,” Dorn said. He grabbed Wulf by the back of the neck and cast plane shift.</blockquote>

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