Port Lorrel- Puppet Masters (part 2)

[Alberich]

The semi-consicous Jargalan recovered quickly after the jolt that made him groan. His wig was lost, leaving his short hair and prominent elf ears easy to see, for he hadn't the energy to worry about his normal illusions. Clumsily he grabbed for his stolen staff and got a shield back up while he fought to clear his head. Drusia was here - good! That meant she'd made short work of the lesser errant.

"Well, I have to admit, I expected more. There were Summoners during the Errant war who could maintain dozens of powerful creatures and coordinate their attacks. Compared to them, you're a rank amateur...There weren't any demonic Chihuahuas avaliable? In the old days, I used to have to slay small armies of summoned demon bears creatures that stood four meters high. Now those were proper summons."

An evil smile split his face. Say what you would, she knew how to talk to errants, all right! Exploit their instability - make them blow their tops and fight wild - then crush them. He used the staff as a prop to struggle to his feet. Then he focused his hateful gaze on the errant and joined in the mockery.

"He understands summons about as well as he understands tactics," said Jargalan. "The way he splits his forces so we can kill 'em in detail, won't lead his troops in person - typical chickenshit errant." Between mocking words he joined in the battle as well, timing his blasts so as not to hit his allies. He didn't need to be in the forefront just now and wouldn't be at full strength for a few seconds yet. His purpose was simply to add to the pressure.

* * *
Meantime, down below, Udo grabbed a historic halberd from the museum's collection. He still had a ways to go to reach the fight.

[Jack Rothwell]

OOC I think I see the endgame on the horizon. Let me know if this is ok Dru./OOC

Drusia's taunts did something to inflame Aleron's anger, but the half-elf mage focused his hatred into a cold, vicious strategy as the elf rushed to attack him. Eli wasn't the only who'd learned under her tutelage after all, and one of the things the former Snamish resident knew was tactics for fighting peregins.

"Disarm!"

He swept the staff the broad arc to connect with his opponent's durus blade, magic flared, sending the weapon skittering across the rooftop and rattling to a halt near a pile of broken stone. Aleron blew a cloud of white smoke into her face a moment before the melee broke apart with the flash of the elf's teleport; it was a terror spell, one that would rack her vision with technicolour nightmares for the next several moments. As the smoke cleared the Ralkin Leader swung around, levelling his staff at the reappearing fighter for a deathblow...

A black and white blur collided with the elf and bore her to the ground as a streak of dark energy passed overhead, and finished the job of toppling a second spire from the increasingly precarious platform. Tamina waved a frantic hand at Jargalan and Angrist to get Aleron's attention as the pair clambered to their feet.

"Glad you're ok!" The kobold managed, gasping to catch her breath.

OOC The terror spell has a very short lived effect, basically 5 or 6 seconds and Dru'll be right as rain. Of course, what she perceives and how she reacts to it in the meantime are entirely up to you. /OOC

[Alberich]

Shielding himself, Jargalan retrieved the fallen durus. It wasn't his own weapon of choice -- he liked plain steel or magic blasts, and nothing in between -- but he had to make sure Aleron didn't blow it off the roof with a gust of wind. As soon as Drusia recovered he'd toss it right back to her.

Ducking down he gave another blast. It couldn't penetrate the errant's shield. The fight, and the ordeal with the dispel trap, had taken more out of him than he'd ever admit. Yet the wounds Drusia had inflicted were draining the errant's strength too. When she recovered he'd rearm her and they'd finish him together. Meantime maybe that Angrist could do something with another of his flurries...

* * *

His sandals flapping on stone, Udo pelted through the room with walls of night sky and the sparking, silvery tangle that had almost killed Jargalan. He wasn't calculating whether they needed him up on the roof or what he could hope to do. Tamina was fighting the enemy there - so that's where he belonged!

[Browncoat]

As Jargalan straightened from ducking, Angrist took advantage. The monk pushed off the elf's shoulders for extra height as he leaped up above Aleron. Time seemed to pause for a moment with one half-elf held above the other. Then Angrist turned downward, tucked into a tight roll. Aleron sent a blast toward this easy target, but the monk slowed his spin just enough so the spell's first point of contact was the satchel still tucked in the back of his belt.

[OOC: All yours Jack]

[Drusia]

"Disarm!"
Aleron blew a cloud of white smoke into her face a moment before the melee broke apart with the flash of the elf's teleport; it was a terror spell, one that would rack her vision with technicolour nightmares for the next several moments.
A black and white blur collided with the elf and bore her to the ground as a streak of dark energy passed overhead, and finished the job of toppling a second spire from the increasingly precarious platform. Tamina waved a frantic hand at Jargalan and Angrist to get Aleron's attention as the pair clambered to their feet.
"Glad you're ok!" The kobold managed, gasping to catch her breath.

(OOC: Hmm... **gets out a real d20 and rolls it. 15. I'm gonna call that a successful save.**)

For an awful moment, I'm back at Malacia, watching it fall into the sea. No. I'm not there - it's just an illusion. If it hadn't been for my flashbacks in Tsuirakushiti lately, I'm not sure I could have overcome this, but those flashbacks were caused by real events. This, while awful, is but a hollow shell of that.

Tamina tackles me, keeping my momentary distraction from being fatal. I'd thank her, but there's no time. My Durus is gone for the moment, so I draw my steel dagger. The Durus was no advantage anyway, what with that staff of his, so there's no real harm in downgrading.

Jargalan and Angrist are already in the thick of it with Aleron. And Aleron expects me to be out of commission for a few seconds more. Time for a surprise.

Tamina is helping me up. I give her a brief smile and then vanish, gating myself back into the thick of things, not even fully on my feet. But that's all part of my plan.

I appear just as Angrsit's distraction and Aleron's retaliation opens a momentary weakness in his shield. I'm not dispelling specialist, but a quick dispel at the weak location is enough to break the shield in a very small section. I grab Aleron's arm with one hand and bring my dagger down on his wrist, stabbing him there. I leave the dagger in and let go as his shield reforms, the energy burning my hand and giving me a good shove backwards. I roll with it, draw my second steel dagger, and kip up to a low croutch a few feet away.

My dagger isn't there for bloodloss - already accomplished that earlier. This one was to sever the tendons in his hand. Without those, he'll have a very hard time holding on to that staff of his.

"And that's how you disarm someone," I snark, even as my left hand tingles numbly from where his shield shocked me.

Technically, that would have been funnier if I'd cut his arm off, but I'd have needed my Durus for that, and I doubt I could have put enough energy into breaking his shield if I had to maintain my Durus anyway. Sometimes steel is better - like when you've been casting a lot of gate spells really quickly.

-- Drusia

OOC: Yes, I know this isn't really D&D, but sometimes I like to roll dice to help me decide how to react to something. Drusia has seen a lot of scary stuff - I wasn't convinced that a fear spell would have the desired effect on her, so I rolled for it and got a Drusia success result. I did this in part to avoid "god moding" Drusia - I used random chance.

[Jack Rothwell]

Aleron's spell crashing against the satchel the monk wore illuminated the roof in a flash of bright orange as the magic made contact with the Damarass stones he'd retrieved from the companion's camp. The effect was simply an energy overload, the lightning erupting in an explosion all down it's length which both hurled the brave monk to the ground with the pack he wore blazing, and sent a column of fire into the staff the Ralkin leader had used to cast the spell. The magical aid hissed, charred, smoked, then clattered to the ground as it drew blisters on Aleron's palm. Drusia's follow up attack wounded the half-elf an instant later as she took advantage of the distraction.

The old half-elf gasped and clutched at his bleeding hand with fury and fear dancing in his eyes, he briefly regarded the burned-out staff on the stone of the roof, the four opponents standing before him, then turned to run. Sprinting the short distance to the edge of the roof behind him.

A line of symbols flared behind the Ralkin leader as the kobold yelled and raced after him, expending the last of her mana in a burst to catch the author of her life's miseries. A fresh wave of wrenkray burst in a shower of rubble from the decimated rooftop and shot towards the invaders to buy their master time to escape. All, that was, except one of the beasts, which wheeled and followed Aleron to his sheer drop of an exit.

Tamina watched through the blur of the spell which propelled her as the creature took him by the shoulders and lifted him clear of the deathtrap the building had become. The wrenkray flapped once, twice, then lurched sharply as the humanoid leaped from the tower and landed on it's back. The summoned creature wheeled and shrieked, shaking itself to dislodge the kobold as they began to lose altitude.

All Tamina knew at that moment was the knowledge that stopping Aleron was worth any cost, even if that cost was her life. It was the faces of her lost kin which drove her as she raked bloody gashes down one of the wings of the flailing monster which supported them. She heard the Ralkin leader roaring below her, angling his uninjured hand upwards, aiming for a clear shot at the woman who sought to make them plummet to their deaths.

[Alberich]

Jargalan shielded his eyes from the bright orange flash, then looked up to see the situation. With a foul elf-soldier's curse he blasted an outlying wrenkray, but couldn't aim at the others for fear of hitting his allies. But Drusia was back in the fight --

Drawing his sword to complement his staff, he ran up to the battle at the tower's edge. One of Drusia's opponents got a bone-cracking jab to the ribcage, then a vicious stab to the vitals. She hardly needed the help. She was quick with plain steel and these monsters' wings were getting in each other's ways. And then more help came.

Puffing up the stairs in pants and sandals, Udo jabbed the spearpoint of his halberd into the lower back of the nearest wrenkray. He hooked the axeblade under another's ankle and heaved, but thanks to Drusia's steel it never even hit the ground. Sensei seemed to be having the time of his life finishing the last two by himself. What mattered was Aleron and Tamina and -- whoah! What the...

He looked in desperation to Jargalan. "My staff!" he said. "I can catch her!"

Jargalan's eyes flicked from Udo to Tamina out there on the wrenkray with Aleron to Drusia -- and then, with a half-shrug, he snapped the staff right into Udo's hands. The halbered clattered to the roof. Udo unhesitatingly jumped off the tower roof, spread the gliding force-wings, and aimed himself the right way. He couldn't make Tamina's altitude, but if he could get under where she was, she could grab him as she fell.

Stepping to the edge, Jargalan handed Drusia her durus. "I'll help him stay under her," he said. "You make sure of the errant." He didn't think she needed any further advice on how to do that. So he stood at the edge of the tower, gesturing to control the magic wind he was raising, getting Udo below the midair melee and keeping him there.

[Drusia]

Stepping to the edge, Jargalan handed Drusia her durus. "I'll help him stay under her," he said. "You make sure of the errant."

I nod to Jargalan. Hitting a falling target is alwasy tricky - acceleration is tricky - but I've done it before. Udo looks to be rescuing Tamina, so I focus on Aleron.

Or, rather, his mount.

I step off the side of the building and fall. It's easier to match falling if I'm already falling, I've found. And then I gate, once, to just below the wrenkray. I slice with my Durus, taking the wrenkray's head and a piece of its remaining wing. And then, before I fall any further, I gate again - to the ground, pointing upward. Gravity reversed, I fly only a few feet into the air before dropping back to the ground.

I hope Udo grabbed Tamina... because nothing on that wrenkray is likely to survive its impending crash.

-- Drusia

OOC: "Now Drusia's thinking with Portals!" Yeah, I'll fully admit I was thinking of Portal (the game) when I described Dru's landing.
Anyway, like I said, I hope Udo successfully saves Tamina. Or that Tamina has some other way to not die on impact. And if Aleron has a trick for this up his sleve, then that's fine too - I just liked the image of Drusia teleporting, hitting the beasty, and then teleporting to the ground to watch it go splat.

[Alberich]

Jargalan looked on with satisfaction as Drusia's flashing blade severed the wrenkray's head. Like all Ralkin-summoned monsters, it dissolved as it died. This left its "passengers" nothing to do but fall. Tamina caught Udo with her claws midfall, and the elf could now stop his magic wind. They'd glide to the ground -- or, at worst, the water -- together and find their way back to Drusia soon enough. The fun part was watching the errant, mountless and hopeless, fall to the city street below -- where Drusia could finish any work that gravity left undone.

Jargalan turned back to Angrist, who'd finished what was left of the wrenkray by now. He struck his own brow with two fingers in salute. "I'm off, now," he said. "Tell Dru I said 'good hunting!'"

Then he prepared to jump off the roof himself, a mana-powered leap such as he did often, to get away from this group while they were scattered. He'd seen their seditious whispering back on the beach and saw no reason to stay among them now.

[OOC: I'm pausing here in case Angrist wants to try killing him. He's too suspicious to be sneak-attacked, and both he and Angrist are powerful fighters who've been sorely taxed by the night's combat. PM me if Angrist's attacking and I'll propose a way to resolve it.]

[Browncoat]

{Tell her yourself}
Angrist chased after the elf.
{You don't get to just walk away from this}.

[OOC: Personally, I like the idea of Jargalan dying. However, Angrist isn't a big fan of killing.]