A Hastily Concocted Ambush in the Hills

Sister Hilan follows the rest of her crew up the rope, but not before taking one last look around the strange temple. It has brought up some questions, but not the heart of the one. No more insight into the change. Why magic itself shattered. The books Felazo found may well bring more knowledge on that time, but it seems as though this place was not expecting whatever happened. She shakes her head, and begins to climb up the rope. As I reach the top, Felazo is waiting by the pillar. Once she has both feet on the ground, he unties the rope and begins to roll it back up as the others look to Sari.

“The boat was that way,” she says, indicating towards one of the hilly areas. Likely the way to the beach, they way that they’d come in, though Sister Hilan couldn’t tell. Being in the dark, underground temple messes with one’s sense of time and direction. Together, the crew heads in the direction she indicated, her and Den at the front as usual, their captain and the musician in the middle, and sister Hilan taking up the rear guard.

Ren notices something, turning his head as he looks at Sari’s waist, and furrowing a brow as though lost in thought. Then, the arrow struck. Out of some unseen foe in the brush on the hill, an arrow whizzed out and impacts Sari in the shoulder. They all try to spot where the attacker was, but we can’t. Somewhere in those bushes. Meanwhile, another pair are standing on the opposite side of the hill, somewhat more visible. And, from the looks on their faces, the strange, muscular man and the doctor both look terrified. But not of the crew.

Sari moves slower than usual, drawing her bow. She glances between the bush, no clear target, the muscular man, and then her eyes fall on the doctor. The doctor looks used to combat, which means they need to be taken out first. She looses an arrow into his flank. Then, she falls to her knees. The noble huntress barely has enough time to whisper the word, “Venom,” before she falls to the ground. Eyes open, but slow breathing and no movement both indicating unconsciousness.

Felazo, hearing venom, immediately seeks out the greatest threat. To him, it isn’t the guy who might be able to keep their enemies fighting longer, but the one who seems capable of taking them out in a single hit. Then, he does something he normally reserves for fleeing on his ship. He raises his staff, tracing sigils in the air as he says the old words he learned long before he knew how to raise the dead. And rushing from above him in a straight line towards the bushes, a massive gust of wind begins to flow. The bushes rustle, but do not reveal the assassin. The wind remains, though, strong enough that the assassin will have to move if they want to launch another arrow at the crew. Or at least, the crew who remain in the formation.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, that formation is never a consistent thing in their fights. Because Denlo saw what Sari was trying to do, and more importantly, saw two foes who neither appear to have a method of attack at distance, near one another and far from the rest of the crew. Ignoring his wounds that are by far the worst of the group, Den launches himself at the pair of people. He swings wildly as he charges and the muscled man, clearly trained in some form, or forms, of martial art, weaves under the sword. However, the damage is already done. Den lets the blade move as it will, moving through the miss and striking across the doctor’s right arm as the man tries to step back. He then once more continues the motion, keeping the back of his blade close to his own body as he whips it around towards the muscled man. This time, the killer is ready when the muscled man tries to weave, striking a nasty wound across his face. With a flourish, he tries to hit the doctor one last time, but by now the doctor seems ready for a fight, and manages to deflect the blow with his rather large knife.

The muscled man sees Den’s blade as slightly out of place, and sees the massive man as temporarily distracted by his engagement with the doctor, and begins to thrash his limbs into the elfi’ika’s flank. But the first blow seems just a little off, and Den’s leathers manage to absorb the energy, only impacting the man enough to draw his attention and allow him to fully avoid the second strike.

Renalt pauses and thinks, drawing his lute and playing a bit of his more epic stanzas in the song he’s perfecting. The music is, admittedly, more inspiring than usual. As he does this almost halfconsciously, he looks first at the pair fighting Den, then immediately decides they’re unimportant, and turns to the brush where the arrow came from, and where the wind is blowing. He begins to chant something with a low, soft voice, in a language no one else knows, playing a subtle, almost soporific, melody. And nothing seems to happen, though having seen how Renalt’s magic tends to work, Sister Hilan is not surprised there is not an obvious burst of power. The bard is far more subtle.

Sister Hilan thinks rationally about the situation. She could be fairly helpful against the assassin, but there is another issue. If the assassin does the same thing to Den that they did to Sari, the three of them will die. Almost certainly. She is the best of them in a fight and most of her skill comes in protecting herself and others, not defeating the enemies. So, instead of aiding the mages, she runs over to Denlo’s side, reading her shield in case the assassin fires an arrow at the massive man.

The doctor shakes his head. “You don’t get it. Nowhere is safe. We need your treasure, so we can bribe the captain into stealing your ship and leaving this damned archipelago.” Then, using the moment where Den is processing his words, the doctor takes the large surgeon’s blade and strikes right into his lower abdomen, an area which, on a normal sized person, would likely be covered by the leathers. But Den could never afford properly fitted armor, and there is the smallest gap. Blood starts pouring from the killer’s stomach uncontrollably. Sister Hilan’s eyes briefly flash, trying to show the doctor the error of his ways, but the doctor does not falter in his earnest belief that this is the only way to survive. He tries to grab at Denlo, to make the Elfi’ika easier for his companion to take out, but between the blood and the killer’s fitness, the attack stood no real chance.

No one seems to notice a rustling in the bushes, and some movement. Then, standing in the valley, the assassin launches an arrow into Renalt, striking the musician in the thigh. The musician turns to face the assassin, now revealed to all. Her short but wiry frame, weirdly disorderly clothes, and matted brown hair all serve to make the strange elf woman hard to spot, if one doesn’t know where to look. If she were hiding, it would be difficult to notice a person’s silhouette.

Felazo looks at the assassin whom he’s been tracking the whole time, then looks at his sleeping companion. Then, he smiles, as he sees something near the assassin. And reaching out, he begins a chant the others are well familiar with, using his fingers to draw sigils in the air. And he pulls back to a semblance of life the headless okrativ-bear.

The undead bear lumbers over to the assassin, much slower than in life as whatever magic which allows the okraten of the area to move like mist is actively fighting the magic that Felazo is pumping into the corpse. And it plunges both talons into the assassin’s flank. The woman’s armor takes the brunt of the damage, but the bear has a firm grasp on her.

On the hillock, not even noticing the assassin’s current state, Denlo begins to laugh quietly. It’s unsettling how much he seems to enjoy the violence. And sister Hilan knows, he finds it unsettling as well. Because the Elfi’ika seems to know the pleasure isn’t entirely of his own volition. The killer strikes down hard into the muscled man’s arm, separating it from the rest of his body. The unarmed fighter, now even more unarmed, stares in shock as Denlo moves the blade around his body. Still facing the fighter, to keep the doctor from realizing what was about to happen, Den lowers the blade to moving around his waist. With a flick of his wrist and engaging his arm as the blade hits the bone, he removes the doctor’s left leg at the hip, slicing clean through the artery and bone. The doctor loses his balance, falling over as he realizes what is about to happen to him. Den continues around, striking at the other arm of the unarmed, muscled man, and while it was not as clean a hit as the first two, it still shreds through the muscle and contacts the bone. Pulling his blade free, he turns away from the pair of dying foes, and sees the assassin, held aloft by a bear in the valley. Behind him, the muscled man falls to his knees, growing pale as blood continues to drop out of his missing arm.

Ren, still by Sari’s unconscious body, looks at the arrow, then at the assassin. Shaking his head, he mutters some words as he approaches the woman. In between each word, he says a syllable with only magical meaning. “That. was. a. Mistake.” And his eyes flare with magic. The assassin’s eyes also seem to flare up, as they glaze over slightly at the words, or the magic. Or both.

The sister, looking down at the pair beneath her feet, sighs. The doctor is almost certainly dead already. The fighter, however, might be saved, so long as treatment occurs soon. But the only way she can help someone like that is through mending their wounds mystically, and that would bring their foe back into a fight. She sighs. Hopefully the man is not dead by the time they’re finished with the assassin. She runs into the valley to support the bard and bear.

The assassin takes a moment, shaking out of the stupor that Renalt put her in. With relative ease she slips out of the undead bear’s claws, drops her bow, draws a rapier, and stabs the corpse. The blade slides cleanly in, and as she withdraws the blade, a large chunk of the bear’s body comes out as well, but being undead, this does not seem to bother it much.

Felazo nods to the bear, but knows better than try to help. He would just get in the way of the already coiling spring of their most violent crewmate. Instead he makes his way over to the sleeping Sari. She said the word venom. So, pulling out a kit, he begins to use her blood to concoct some additional minor antivenin to aid in her recovery, whenever that might happen. The bear thrashes at the assassin, but she’s now ready and aware of him, and effortlessly dodges out of the way.

Unfortunately for her, all that dodging moves her attention away from the real threat. Denlo, still bleeding pretty bad, rushes across the battlefield and launches a massive blow, striking the woman in the shoulder. She turns her attention to the Elfi’ika, sees the masked face, and barely dodges his followthrough.

Ren sees the dodge and attempts to get the rapier out of her hands as well. This doesn’t work, as whatever fear drove the others seems to also have a hold of her, and the loose, proper grip is quickly becoming more desperate and white-knuckled. Realizing it isn’t working, he instead tries to distract her, playing a quick riff with a flourish. The assassin mostly looks confused by his choice of battle tactics.

Sister Hilan closes her eyes and gives a quick prayer of safety, as she goes low, attempting to use her shield to trip the woman. As the assassin deftly dodges the blow, she attempts to hit her with the same shield, but it isn’t braced like she normally does and so the shield merely brushes the assassin.

The assassin dances away, weaving through them before beginning to run up to the two fallen comrades. But the look in her eyes as she runs shows that she is not planning on stopping. She’s getting to the shore, where she knows their boat is, and abandoning them and her comrades to their fates.

Unfortunately for her, they have other plans. Felazo reaches down and grasps the dirt and grass. Rubbing it between his fingers, he lashes the arm out, leaving a trail of muck. Launching from the ground near the assassin’s leg is a vine that wraps around her, holding her in place.

Denlo lets out a hum and runs after the woman, just as fast. His blade moves even faster than his body, deeply scoring her body with cut after cut. But she keeps moving. Or tries to, at least. But Ren shakes his head and whispers, “Hush now.” Then, stepping towards her, he says the same syllables as before, though in a less threatening manner. Her eyes roll back, her mouth foams a bit, and the assassin drops to the ground, finally unconscious.