Waldhaxen Channel

[Graybeard]

"What's that?" Grope said, noticing Lucas as they approached the shore.

"I don't know. That's your Small One friend, right?" Scrobian said, instantly on his guard; there was something in Grope's tone that didn't sound good.

"I don't mean Lucas. He's got company. Looks like one of those bird-things we saw earlier that the Small Ones call a 'pinguimho.' They're not much trouble on dry land, but in the water they ... what's that?" Suddenly his blood ran cold, and he pointed at the prostrate troll.

"Growf's testicles," the younger troll swore. "I see her too..."

Grope didn't wait for confirmation. Howling "GRAAAWW!", he leaped out of the boat, still not well secured on shore, and swerved to the attack, his nephew right behind him.

----------

Things were a bit more peaceful in Kugelheim, at least for the moment.

Layla fielded the knock on the door, expecting it to be Soc, as indeed it was. "You doing okay this morning, kid? You looked pretty beat yesterday," the man said, reminding Layla none too subtly of the way she'd flown off the magical handle.

I should never, ever, ever lose control like that, whether doing magic, hand-to-hand, gunplay, whatever. But that bitch... "Yeah, I'm better, and I won't do that again," Layla admitted. "Let me get my son settled in with his grandmother and we can get at it. What's on for the day?" With Zachary and Faye soon happily gurgling in each other's presence, they started walking toward the laboratory.

"Hate to say it, but this day will be a little more boring," Soc said. "This is mainly classroom stuff, theory of magic and all that. To control it, you have to understand it. Get ready for exploding-head syndrome."

Layla's mind, however, wasn't on the day of lessons ahead, but on the droning noise she heard above them. There goes Ace, and he's already cloaked. I don't know why, but I'm getting a bad feeling about this...

[Viking-Sensei]

Lucas heard the "GRAAAWW!" coming from behind him. "Oh, good, Grope's coming... that'll make this easier."

Unfortunately, the creature heard Grope's enraged battlecry too... it turned, for the first time noticing Lucas. Suddenly, seeing it's face, something clicked in Lucas' brain. Pinguimho. He'd heard about these... far, far to the south, well beyond the southern continent, but they were supposed to be intelligent. This creature was not intelligent... it's wild eyes darted back and forth, it's dirty and filthy beak cracked and it let out a deafening squack. Answering the creature's squack, two more of them came from the water, each as deranged and damaged as the one standing before him.

Lucas hadn't wanted to use magic... if possible... but now that the odds were shifting decidedly away from he and his incoming troll backup, it looked like he was going to have to counter their mad muscle with a little of his mad magic. Seeing their feet and the speed at which the two approaching creatures were moving at, he figured that speed was going to be his best option... he ran towards the cavern wall, away from the water, and got over to the injured troll. "Friend... help... coming." He said, trying his best to get his intentions across in the little pidgin Troll that he had picked up. Then, he lifted his hands towards the bird and invoked "PROTECT SHADE!" An opaque barrier formed between he and the bird, shielding he and the wounded troll from the onslaught that was about to break out.

Well... almost... one of the massive creatures started wobbling his way, around the 2-dimensional flat shield.

[Sareth]

"GRAWWWW!"

My head snapped up. I had just been loading gear into the dinghy the two trolls had conveniently found for us (and no explanation as to what it had been doing there could be found, but why look a gift boat in the oarlock?) The sound, however, was one of those sounds that just could not be ignored. In fact, I found myself surprisingly unsteady, even knowing it had not been directed at me.

I snatched up my rifle, screaming a few imprecations as Nera began to wail, apparently no more happy with the sound than I. I spun around, bringing the rifle up to see what had caused that sound to be uttered, only to see Grope and his friend charging some shadowy dome thing surrounded by three...

"Whathehellarethose?" I barked, then squeezed the trigger.

[AdamZero]

"Oh well that's just great..." I sighed as Jamie started to open fire on the creatures. "Giant Feral Prinnys. Not fair, dude."

My grumbles were overshadowed by the gunfire Jamie was rolling out; which seemed to calm Nera, disturbingly enough. I muttered a few words and pointed my index and middle finger at the nearest of the giant bird monsters. The black flame I'd used to cut the tree with appeared again, but instead of forming a blade and staying attached, it shot out like a dagger thrown at the creature.

It struck, and blood started pouring from the wound, but it wasn't really a fatal hit, not by a long shot. I cracked my knuckles as I started on another spell, hoping the combined damage of bullets and death magick would be enough to bring the things down, or at least even out the edge with the trolls.

[Graybeard]

"Whatever those things are, they're tough," Scrobian said as he pulled out his sword. He'd just seen one of them take two bullets to the torso, plus what looked like a frighteningly magical dagger launched by the spell-casting Small One, and not only was it still standing, it wasn't even wobbly, beyond what its ungainly legs required. Still, it was bleeding from the wounds, and blood loss would catch up with any flesh-and-blood creature soon enough -- wouldn't it?

"You take one and I'll take one," Grope grunted. "The humans can take the wounded one. Best we can do." He'd become aware that he'd left his sword with the Robe, but no matter; the oar from the lifeboat made a perfectly good cudgel, and it was even sized about right for a troll. He screamed again and landed a mighty whack against the thing's midsection ... and it didn't even seem to notice.

Another bullet whistled in and struck the wounded creature, and it looked like the damage was beginning to tell; it emitted a squack (half scream, half quack) and put a flipper to its torso. They were tough enough, but they weren't really well equipped for doing damage themselves -- at least on dry land. Change of tactics, maybe? "Hit the wounded one!" Grope yelled. "Get it down, then we gang up on the others." Yes, that seemed to work better; Scrobian got a good sword thrust into its midsection as Grope landed a blow to its weird head. The giant bird-thing tottered, and started to fall ... and Grope realized that he'd made a severe tactical error.

"SCROBIAN! NO! Get out from between them and the water!" he yelled ... but it was too late. The younger troll had allowed himself to get cut off. The bird-things noticed it too, and lunged with surprising power, pushing Scrobian into the water in front of them ... and now they were the ones with the terrain advantage, and the single, isolated enemy to fight.

[Sareth]

"SHIT!"

"Jamie!"

"Sorry mom!"

The whatever-they-weres had just dumped one of the trolls in the drink. It was bad enough when I was having to try to hit somewhat moving targets that were in close quarters with other large moving targets I wasn't supposed to target. I'd managed, though once one of them had given me a bit of a scare. But now, with them in the water...

I dashed forward. I needed a better vantage point. As long as they were in the water, hitting them was going to be very difficult, if not impossible. The water would slow the rounds rapidly, the waves obscured a lot of what I needed to aim at, and the light was refracted at angles that could deceive my eyes when aiming at what little I could see. I needed to get close!

"Jamie! Don't!" Mom yelled behind me.

"I know what I'm doing, mo*glub*"

A hand seized my ankle and pulled me under.

[AdamZero]

"F***!"
"YOUNG MAN!"

"STOW IT, JASMINE! And keep away from the water!"
I'd sworn as Jamie went down, and not at all in a positive sense. Not only had Grope's fellow grabbed not a tree or rock, but Jamie, all her powder and bullets were probably wet now, most likely useless under the water. I wasn't quite sure about the technicals.

It didn't matter, and going into the water with two of those things in good shape, and the last one bleeding enough to stain the water, Neither the troll nor Jamie was in a good position, at all.

I was trying to think of a spell, any spell, I could use in this situation and not screw the pooch and kill Jamie. The Troll... prolly could take a bit of magick splash, Jamie, not so much.

"AIYEE!" I suddenly shouted, as a Blue streak shot past me, a white one followed. "Boris?" The two non-human-construct-ish-beings splashed into the water, intent on doing... something.

(Forgot about her for like two pages didn't we?)

[Graybeard]

"Scrobian! Let go! She's on our side!" Grope shouted as the younger troll gripped Jamie's ankle. Moments later, Jamie emerged, sputtering and swearing ... but Scrobian was still beset by the two bird-things. One problem at a time. But now what?

Grope took the barest second to quickly scan the tactical situation. The bird-things were strong, but a troll was stronger, and Scrobian was resisting their attempt to force him into deeper water. But he was losing ground. They were maybe ten feet off shore now, in water still not much higher than a troll's waist (or an erect Small One's neck). If it got much deeper, the advantage would turn to the bird-things ... which would be bad, Grope was pretty sure.

Damn. I had to go and leave my sword on shore. Well, trolls were good at making do. He'd been wielding the oar as an improvised cudgel, but it did have a blade on one end, after all; nothing sharp enough to inflict slashing or piercing damage, but it still might be good for something. He howled and swung the oar blade sidearm, and a crack could be heard as it impacted on a bird-thing's muscular neck.

Well, that was progress. But what were the two magical accomplices of the Small Ones doing? He watched them rush by as he readied the oar for another slash, a primitive part of his consciousness screaming at him to get out of the way before their magic reached out to get him...

[Sareth]

I came up spluttering and coughing, having gotten a lungfull of water in my little misadventure. I desperately attempted to get my feet under me, happily finding the ledge or whatever did extend out into the water, so I was able to stand in water up to the bottom of my less-than-ample breasts. Something felt wrong about the footing, but I would leave that for later. For now I had a bigger worry.

My rifle had fallen into the water, and I wasn't certain where. I was now more or less disarmed. Even if I could find it I wasn't sure that was a good thing. The rounds were sealed, so they would still fire if the hammer struck. But the water in the mechanisms might slow the hammer. And more importantly, with water, and maybe mud, in the barrel, the weapon could explode on me anyway.

This was not a good thing. Not by half.

A blue streak, followed by a white streak, suddenly exploded into the water beside me. "What the..."

[Graybeard]

We're winning, Grope thought. The blow he had delivered to the second bird-thing had apparently hit something important, if not vital. Its stubby knees buckled and it toppled into the water, squacking in a disturbingly Small-One-like, high-pitched voice. Grope wasn't sure whether to administer the coup de grace or move on to the last one, but the weird blue-glowing woman answered that question for him, as she grabbed the bird-thing's head and gave it a fierce twist. There was another loud crack, the bird-thing slumped silently, and Grope remembered the scene at the warehouse. Magical blue-skinned women were not to be messed with ...

The third pinguimho reached the same conclusion as Grope. It released the other troll and dove into the water, arrowing out into Growf's Drainpipe at a remarkable speed. No ground-bound biped who swam only out of necessity was going to catch it. (Well, some of the Small Ones' weird magic might, but that wasn't Grope's problem.)

Scrobian appeared to be intact, and the two bird-things on scene were finally, convincingly dead, so Grope decided it was time to turn his attention to the injured female troll on shore. Something about her looked familiar, but he couldn't be sure. And what of her injuries? If only Zhbrigeeul was here to work her Priestess' healing ...

Wait a minute. I can do that, somehow -- but probably only once. He bent to examine the troll woman. Contrary to his initial thought, the broken arm looked the most severe; the bone was protruding through the skin of her forearm. He'd seen enough compound fractures over the years to know that was bad. Left to itself, not only would the arm never heal right, it would grow angry and red and inflamed as an abscess formed -- and even a troll's immune system might not be enough to overcome it. Grope didn't know about bacteria, but he knew a potentially life-threatening infection site when he saw one.

Did he have any strength left for this after healing his own knee not that long ago? Well, there was only one way to find out. The troll woman looked dully at him as he touched her arm; she was clearly in shock, which was yet another problem to deal with -- but he knew how to address that without Zhbrigeeul's magic. He touched her arm, and thought, be whole, be healed, be clean, be well ...

And it was so.

Without the Many-Fathers-God-Wisdom-Robe.

Just before he fainted from the effort of casting a Healing that he had no idea he was capable of, he could hear Scrobian's astonished voice behind him. "Harzh'biah?"

Must be her name, Grope thought as he blacked out.