Chrys eyes Kess's loss of control with some concern, but the battle raging around them quickly takes her focus away. "Kess! Focus!" she grunts as she scrambles forward. Pointing her finger at the orc chieftan she transfers her hunter's mark to him, bull-rushing him with Due Process.
Probably figuring that Kess and Nym can handle the two remaining orc sentries, Chrys takes of running at full speed and rushes into the camp to try and help Lumen, who now has three orcs and the chief very close to him. However, the chief, who is next to the camp fire is about 50 feet away, so it would take Chrys a full round of movement to dash up to his location. Charging forward, she arrives by the camp fire ready to deliver judgement with Due Process on her next turn.
Seeing the armored dwarf approach, the female orc lieutenant with the chain shirt turns her attention away from Lumen's illusion and engages with Chrys in a clear move to defend her chief. With duty and the reflection of the fire in her eyes, she lays a forceful attack on the dwarf. Attack: 9 Damage: 15. However, the battle hardened Chrys leans into the attack, pushing forward with her shield to deflect the blows with loud metal on metal clangs that ring into the night air.
Meanwhile, the last two orc sentries continue their 2 on 2 melee with Nym Attack: 13 Damage: 8 and Kess, Attack: 6 Damage: 15 However, the two elves stand their ground against the pair, deftly parrying their great axe attacks with their quick agility and martial expertise.
One moment, Kess found herself frantically faced with the prospect of fighting three orcs at once, particularly the seared but standing chieftain and his cohorts. Though grateful to have Moonpetal in hand, Kess was far from the best swordfighter in Faerun; at best, she felt that she was good enough to fend off the common thug she may have found herself faced with in Luskan, or maybe the overly aggressive city guard who may have sought to take advantage of her fair frame for less-than-honorable intentions. Hurrying, Kess spun on her heel, desperately trying to bring Moonpetal and her scimitar up to block the vicious cleave for her midsection, but in so doing she nearly lost her balance and stumbled from the force of the blow. That then gave the orc all the opening he needed, and he used his remaining momentum to cleave into Kess' side. Kessdarra grimaced and hissed in pain as the axe bit through her armor and her clothes beneath, fighting back the urge to let tears fall from her eyes, when...
What... what happened? She smelled blood. Was somebody bleeding? It was warm, and close. Oh... she was bleeding.
She was bleeding.
Everything became a confusing red-tinged haze for Kess as something snapped inside of her, icy calm and the lightning of adrenaline giving way to unmitigated, unthinking rage that burned as hot as the forges of Mithral Hall.
Kess had little sense of what happened next; the elven maiden grimaced, irises contracted to predatory pinpoints as she pirouetted oh her heels, before everything in her memory went white.
Kill KiLl KILL KilL KILL kill... slice the meat, stab deep DEEP DEEP, spill the blood... Rip and tear, rip and tear, RIP AND TEAR-
"-ss! Focus!"
When reality came back into focus for her, Kess realized two things: she had been screaming as hard and as loud as she had ever done in all of her life (she could tell because her throat hurt), and both of her weapons were partially lodged into a mangled loaf of what had once been the chest of a male orc, and Kess realized that she was more than slightly covered in reddish-black blood, and most of it certainly was not hers.
She also realized that she had absolutely no memory of this pure outburst of savagery. And that frightened her.
What just happened to me...?
In fact, she was so distracted by the revelation that if it were not for the utterly clumsy swing and footwork of the orc before her, Kess was pretty certain she would have ended up with an axe lodged in her skull. Shaken by what had just happened but with no chance to process it, Kess pushed her worries as far and deep down into her mind as she possibly could before moving to defend herself, doing as best she could to ignore the horrific butchery that was apparently her handiwork.
Kess attacks the orc with Moonpetal: 22, Damage: 9 And then the scimitar: 26, damage: 6, CRIT: 6
Snapping back to her normal elven self, and relying once again on her finely honed weapons training instead of the mysterious blackout of butchery she just experienced, Kess wields her two blades with a high degree of skill and experience. The basic result is the same, she cuts the orc down in front of her, but it's done this time with a much more calculated and technical level of precision, as opposed to outright slaughter.
One orc remains in battle with Nym right next to her, the chief and his lieutenant is 50 feet away from them, and Lumen and the two other orcs are 20-30 feet behind them.
Foot work, fleet, focus, fan out... Nym's eyes never left her opponent as she parried his attack and immediately swept in for her own, though it felt like it didn't sink in as deeply as she would have liked. But her attention was broken as she noticed in her peripheral vision Kess attacked the orc before her...again...and again...and again. Blood had splattered from the butchered corpse onto the drow's cloak and a little on her armor. Her face had gone from stern and focused to blank and expressionless at the savagery shown by her companion. Chrys' voice helped more than Kess though and Nym pursed her lips with a blink and set her eyes back on her own opponent. "S-Shake it off Kessdarra."
Nym's technique is good, and she parries and attacks with considerable skill, but the orc's own parry prevents her from making a deeper, more deadly wound with her sword this round. Still, she fights on with a level of bravery that would mark Elistraee proud.
Over by the fire, the orc chief stands off with Chrys, with his lieutenant at his side. He doesn't attack, though, instead planting his feet and raising his great axe in front of him in a defensive posture. At the same time, he shouts with a roaring battle cry that seems to embolden his fellow orcs that fight near him.
25 feet away Lumen stands within his illusion, with two orcs still in front of him, at least one of them still wary of the figment. He's already injured one of them, and it's his turn now.
Lumen casts dissonant whispers on the orc chief. "RUN. RUN, MEWLING, TO YOUR DRAGON. OR FALL WHERE YOU STAND."booms from the illusion, but the words try to slip in simultaneously to the chief.
As Lumen casts his mind-jarring spell, the orc chief staggers, his mind wracked with terrible pain. Combined with the damage his body has already taken from the searing pain of Lumen's previous magic, it appears that the chief is fighting for his very life. A look of utter horror washes across his face, and he immediately turns and begins stumbling away from the fire, clearly intent on fleeing away from the terrifying illusion that Lumen has put up.
However, as he does so, he puts himself in immediate danger from Chrys, who is currently standing next to him and his lieutenant.
(Chrys can take an AOO on the chief.)
Still very wary of the illusion, and seeing that their chief is in mortal danger, the two knife wielding orcs rush over to the fire to come to his aid by attacking Chrys, still fueled on by the chief's battle cry. Attack: 24 Damage: 5 and Attack: 14 Damage: 5 However, even with the extra motivation, both orcs find Chrys to be a formidable opponent.
Afterwards, Chrys stands ready, aiming at the next closest orc who is still standing:
(transfering the Hunter's Mark as a BA if the chief died from the AOO, otherwise, no BA:)
Attack: 18 Damage: 14 (+ situational 4 from Hunter's Mark)
She swings her hammer with a loud grunt, letting out a yell from the force of her blow. "Y'all made some bad life decisions! Time to face up ta them! Raaagh!"
The orc chief doesn't get two steps before he's cut down and given his death sentence by a forceful slam across the back of the head by Due Process. His body falls lifeless to the ground with a twisted grotesque expression on his face and his silvered great axe beneath his burned body.
Then, swiftly turning back around, Chris swings hard at the female orc lieutenant, who has just watched with horror as her chief was so brutally dispatched. It's a very hard hit, but the orc remains on her feet, with fire in her eyes and a firm grip on her own axe.
If Lumen can, as a reaction (willing to spend one, or as a free action off-turn if not needed), he calls out to the female orc once the chief goes down. "This is your chance to save the Red Claws!"
Hearing Lumen's voice and clearly seeing the reality of the situation, the badly injured female orc disengages from Chrys and shouts a loud command at the top of her voice in the orc language.
"Red Claws and children of Bahgtru, Stand Down!!!! Your new chief commands you to heed the omens. We will not kneel to the beast. We will let these fools feel the wrath of the dragon upon their own skins, but we will not obey the misguided words of our former leader who has fallen because of his stubbornness."
For those of you who do not understand orcish, you hear the lieutenant shout at her tribe, and then the remaining orcs pull their weapons back and stand down from the battle.
Chrys hangs back, her hammer at the ready, and still wary of the spellcaster. But she understands when the orcs step back. Toeing the corpse at her feet aside, she picks up the silvery axe under the cheiftan's body and hefts it over one shoulder, still eyeing the orcish woman warily. An uneasy truce they might have reached, but the ambush in the forest was still fresh in her mind -- as was the tale of the elves, who were only able to be overrun by Duskbringer because they had been precisely fighting a marauding band of orcish raiders. Still, it would be folly to spit in fortune's eye, especially when one had a dragon to fight, so she keeps her counsel to her self, and simply watches the remaining orcs with a glint in her eye.
Lumen nods at the new chief, and walks out of the billowing cloud of the illusion, leaving it up (the figure, now crossing its arms in front of it, One Eye glowing and considering the remaining orcs). He says in common, "We can stand down too, if they see the reality of the situation, and stand down."He watches to see if the orcs all seem like they are disengaging.
Kess holds steady for the moment, but cautiously begins to lower her weapons, seeing if the orcs all are doing the same. These were, after all, the same clan who had murdered some of her kinsfolk.
Taking a moment to survey the scene, Kess caught sight of the butchered orc corpse, more meat than man from the amount of wounds on it, and shivered. Visibly disturbed, she sheathed her swords and began to gather up her bow, ignoring any dirty looks she might be getting from the orcs. Though she had been only a girl of 11 years at the time, Kess was old enough to remember the atrocities of orckind that had resulted in the formal dissolution of the kingdom of Many-Arrows. No doubt, that resentment was likely still fresh, and wasn’t helped by the enmity between elf and orc that had existed since long before her time.
For now, Kessdarra did the best she could to push her swirling emotions and concerns down into something manageable; there was a dragon to kill, a task that…. a task that suddenly seemed quite out of her league when she considered it. She was a barmaid, for gods’ sake! A barmaid trained in weapons and a bit of magic, sure, but a barmaid! And yet, she couldn’t - and wouldn’t - abandon her comrades.
What would her mother say, if she knew what she was about to do???
The three remaining orcs heed the words of the chain-shirted female orc and continue to stand down. She looks at Lumen and at Chrys, then speaks in the orc tongue, that's meant for her tribe, while keeping her eyes on you, also knowing that Lumen can understand her. (Kess can also understand since her spell is still active.)
"I said it before, this half-one did not wander into our camp for no reason. His appearance was a sign given to us by our gods. They have watched us suffer under the foolish leadership of an old mind gone mad. They have seen the Red Claws become diminished to pitiful numbers that belie our greatness. Our once mighty chief led us astray. He took us from our home into this part of the forest, and into a bloody battle with the shape changer elves, which has depleted our numbers to a pitiful few, and then he said that we are to bow to a sickly wyrm?"
"NO!!! WE WILL NOT!! We will not lay our fortunes and our pride at the feet of some dragon. We are not pitiful kobolds, we are proud and strong Red Claw orcs!! We will make our own fortunes, but not in this forest that is full of rot and sickness, a cursed place that has brought us to our knees. We will return to our former home, where we can rebuild our numbers so that we can achieve glory and greatness once again as the tribe our gods know we are. We will heed their warnings and make them proud of us, not embarrass ourselves in front of them with more useless deaths at the hands of those who will soon end up as dragon droppings. Let these foolish elves and dwarf follow their half-one to their own demise, but we will not latch our destiny to them or the misguided ideas of our former leader who brought doom to himself any more."
"Ownka Bonebreaker, chief of the Red Claws has spoken!!"
She mostly looks at Lumen while speaking, and he can easily tell that Ownka is doing everything she can to save face and save the lives of the remaining few of her tribe in light of this utter and total defeat that she could clearly see coming, especially after her chief fell so quickly, and without even swinging his own weapon once during the brief battle. She obviously has wary respect for Lumen's magical prowess, which set the tone for the entire fight, and she knows that she can use his powerful arcane displays as influence to solidify her place of leadership within her own ranks and hold them together as their new chief.
She the finishes by speaking directly to Lumen. "Half-one, you and your people can go seek whatever death awaits you at the feet of the dragon. You will give me the axe that our former chief wielded, for I lay claim to it as the new chief, and we will part here."
((Yes, I know!!! That's why I posted this... You're welcome to reply out of initiative turn.))
Chrys eyes Kess's loss of control with some concern, but the battle raging around them quickly takes her focus away. "Kess! Focus!" she grunts as she scrambles forward. Pointing her finger at the orc chieftan she transfers her hunter's mark to him, bull-rushing him with Due Process.
Attack: 21
Damage: 9+4 bludgeoning (13)
Probably figuring that Kess and Nym can handle the two remaining orc sentries, Chrys takes of running at full speed and rushes into the camp to try and help Lumen, who now has three orcs and the chief very close to him. However, the chief, who is next to the camp fire is about 50 feet away, so it would take Chrys a full round of movement to dash up to his location. Charging forward, she arrives by the camp fire ready to deliver judgement with Due Process on her next turn.
Seeing the armored dwarf approach, the female orc lieutenant with the chain shirt turns her attention away from Lumen's illusion and engages with Chrys in a clear move to defend her chief. With duty and the reflection of the fire in her eyes, she lays a forceful attack on the dwarf. Attack: 9 Damage: 15. However, the battle hardened Chrys leans into the attack, pushing forward with her shield to deflect the blows with loud metal on metal clangs that ring into the night air.
Meanwhile, the last two orc sentries continue their 2 on 2 melee with Nym Attack: 13 Damage: 8 and Kess, Attack: 6 Damage: 15 However, the two elves stand their ground against the pair, deftly parrying their great axe attacks with their quick agility and martial expertise.
Nym and Kess are both up now.
One moment, Kess found herself frantically faced with the prospect of fighting three orcs at once, particularly the seared but standing chieftain and his cohorts. Though grateful to have Moonpetal in hand, Kess was far from the best swordfighter in Faerun; at best, she felt that she was good enough to fend off the common thug she may have found herself faced with in Luskan, or maybe the overly aggressive city guard who may have sought to take advantage of her fair frame for less-than-honorable intentions. Hurrying, Kess spun on her heel, desperately trying to bring Moonpetal and her scimitar up to block the vicious cleave for her midsection, but in so doing she nearly lost her balance and stumbled from the force of the blow. That then gave the orc all the opening he needed, and he used his remaining momentum to cleave into Kess' side. Kessdarra grimaced and hissed in pain as the axe bit through her armor and her clothes beneath, fighting back the urge to let tears fall from her eyes, when...
What... what happened? She smelled blood. Was somebody bleeding? It was warm, and close. Oh... she was bleeding.
She was bleeding.
Everything became a confusing red-tinged haze for Kess as something snapped inside of her, icy calm and the lightning of adrenaline giving way to unmitigated, unthinking rage that burned as hot as the forges of Mithral Hall.
Kess had little sense of what happened next; the elven maiden grimaced, irises contracted to predatory pinpoints as she pirouetted oh her heels, before everything in her memory went white.
Kill KiLl KILL KilL KILL kill... slice the meat, stab deep DEEP DEEP, spill the blood... Rip and tear, rip and tear, RIP AND TEAR-
"-ss! Focus!"
When reality came back into focus for her, Kess realized two things: she had been screaming as hard and as loud as she had ever done in all of her life (she could tell because her throat hurt), and both of her weapons were partially lodged into a mangled loaf of what had once been the chest of a male orc, and Kess realized that she was more than slightly covered in reddish-black blood, and most of it certainly was not hers.
She also realized that she had absolutely no memory of this pure outburst of savagery. And that frightened her.
What just happened to me...?
In fact, she was so distracted by the revelation that if it were not for the utterly clumsy swing and footwork of the orc before her, Kess was pretty certain she would have ended up with an axe lodged in her skull. Shaken by what had just happened but with no chance to process it, Kess pushed her worries as far and deep down into her mind as she possibly could before moving to defend herself, doing as best she could to ignore the horrific butchery that was apparently her handiwork.
Kess attacks the orc with Moonpetal: 22, Damage: 9
And then the scimitar: 26, damage: 6, CRIT: 6
Snapping back to her normal elven self, and relying once again on her finely honed weapons training instead of the mysterious blackout of butchery she just experienced, Kess wields her two blades with a high degree of skill and experience. The basic result is the same, she cuts the orc down in front of her, but it's done this time with a much more calculated and technical level of precision, as opposed to outright slaughter.
One orc remains in battle with Nym right next to her, the chief and his lieutenant is 50 feet away from them, and Lumen and the two other orcs are 20-30 feet behind them.
Nym is up.
Foot work, fleet, focus, fan out... Nym's eyes never left her opponent as she parried his attack and immediately swept in for her own, though it felt like it didn't sink in as deeply as she would have liked. But her attention was broken as she noticed in her peripheral vision Kess attacked the orc before her...again...and again...and again. Blood had splattered from the butchered corpse onto the drow's cloak and a little on her armor. Her face had gone from stern and focused to blank and expressionless at the savagery shown by her companion. Chrys' voice helped more than Kess though and Nym pursed her lips with a blink and set her eyes back on her own opponent. "S-Shake it off Kessdarra."
Attack: 19 + 2 = 21
Damage: 2
Nym Durnodel - Aspiring Heroes of Faerûn // Danica Amastacia - Red Dead Annihilation
Nym's technique is good, and she parries and attacks with considerable skill, but the orc's own parry prevents her from making a deeper, more deadly wound with her sword this round. Still, she fights on with a level of bravery that would mark Elistraee proud.
Over by the fire, the orc chief stands off with Chrys, with his lieutenant at his side. He doesn't attack, though, instead planting his feet and raising his great axe in front of him in a defensive posture. At the same time, he shouts with a roaring battle cry that seems to embolden his fellow orcs that fight near him.
25 feet away Lumen stands within his illusion, with two orcs still in front of him, at least one of them still wary of the figment. He's already injured one of them, and it's his turn now.
(Are these the orcs who are axeless?)
(Yes the two closest to you are wielding hunting knives.)
Lumen casts dissonant whispers on the orc chief. "RUN. RUN, MEWLING, TO YOUR DRAGON. OR FALL WHERE YOU STAND." booms from the illusion, but the words try to slip in simultaneously to the chief.
9 psychic damage on a failed WIS 14 save
Orc Chief WIS Save: 4
As Lumen casts his mind-jarring spell, the orc chief staggers, his mind wracked with terrible pain. Combined with the damage his body has already taken from the searing pain of Lumen's previous magic, it appears that the chief is fighting for his very life. A look of utter horror washes across his face, and he immediately turns and begins stumbling away from the fire, clearly intent on fleeing away from the terrifying illusion that Lumen has put up.
However, as he does so, he puts himself in immediate danger from Chrys, who is currently standing next to him and his lieutenant.
(Chrys can take an AOO on the chief.)
Still very wary of the illusion, and seeing that their chief is in mortal danger, the two knife wielding orcs rush over to the fire to come to his aid by attacking Chrys, still fueled on by the chief's battle cry. Attack: 24 Damage: 5 and Attack: 14 Damage: 5 However, even with the extra motivation, both orcs find Chrys to be a formidable opponent.
Vesper and Chrys are up.
Chrys swings the hammer, hoping to connect with a solid blow:
Attack: 20
Damage: 14 + 4 (Hunter's Mark)
Afterwards, Chrys stands ready, aiming at the next closest orc who is still standing:
(transfering the Hunter's Mark as a BA if the chief died from the AOO, otherwise, no BA:)
Attack: 18
Damage: 14 (+ situational 4 from Hunter's Mark)
She swings her hammer with a loud grunt, letting out a yell from the force of her blow. "Y'all made some bad life decisions! Time to face up ta them! Raaagh!"
The orc chief doesn't get two steps before he's cut down and given his death sentence by a forceful slam across the back of the head by Due Process. His body falls lifeless to the ground with a twisted grotesque expression on his face and his silvered great axe beneath his burned body.
Then, swiftly turning back around, Chris swings hard at the female orc lieutenant, who has just watched with horror as her chief was so brutally dispatched. It's a very hard hit, but the orc remains on her feet, with fire in her eyes and a firm grip on her own axe.
Vesper is up.
If Lumen can, as a reaction (willing to spend one, or as a free action off-turn if not needed), he calls out to the female orc once the chief goes down. "This is your chance to save the Red Claws!"
Hearing Lumen's voice and clearly seeing the reality of the situation, the badly injured female orc disengages from Chrys and shouts a loud command at the top of her voice in the orc language.
"Red Claws and children of Bahgtru, Stand Down!!!! Your new chief commands you to heed the omens. We will not kneel to the beast. We will let these fools feel the wrath of the dragon upon their own skins, but we will not obey the misguided words of our former leader who has fallen because of his stubbornness."
For those of you who do not understand orcish, you hear the lieutenant shout at her tribe, and then the remaining orcs pull their weapons back and stand down from the battle.
Chrys hangs back, her hammer at the ready, and still wary of the spellcaster. But she understands when the orcs step back. Toeing the corpse at her feet aside, she picks up the silvery axe under the cheiftan's body and hefts it over one shoulder, still eyeing the orcish woman warily. An uneasy truce they might have reached, but the ambush in the forest was still fresh in her mind -- as was the tale of the elves, who were only able to be overrun by Duskbringer because they had been precisely fighting a marauding band of orcish raiders. Still, it would be folly to spit in fortune's eye, especially when one had a dragon to fight, so she keeps her counsel to her self, and simply watches the remaining orcs with a glint in her eye.
Lumen nods at the new chief, and walks out of the billowing cloud of the illusion, leaving it up (the figure, now crossing its arms in front of it, One Eye glowing and considering the remaining orcs). He says in common, "We can stand down too, if they see the reality of the situation, and stand down." He watches to see if the orcs all seem like they are disengaging.
Kess holds steady for the moment, but cautiously begins to lower her weapons, seeing if the orcs all are doing the same. These were, after all, the same clan who had murdered some of her kinsfolk.
Taking a moment to survey the scene, Kess caught sight of the butchered orc corpse, more meat than man from the amount of wounds on it, and shivered. Visibly disturbed, she sheathed her swords and began to gather up her bow, ignoring any dirty looks she might be getting from the orcs. Though she had been only a girl of 11 years at the time, Kess was old enough to remember the atrocities of orckind that had resulted in the formal dissolution of the kingdom of Many-Arrows. No doubt, that resentment was likely still fresh, and wasn’t helped by the enmity between elf and orc that had existed since long before her time.
For now, Kessdarra did the best she could to push her swirling emotions and concerns down into something manageable; there was a dragon to kill, a task that…. a task that suddenly seemed quite out of her league when she considered it. She was a barmaid, for gods’ sake! A barmaid trained in weapons and a bit of magic, sure, but a barmaid! And yet, she couldn’t - and wouldn’t - abandon her comrades.
What would her mother say, if she knew what she was about to do???
The three remaining orcs heed the words of the chain-shirted female orc and continue to stand down. She looks at Lumen and at Chrys, then speaks in the orc tongue, that's meant for her tribe, while keeping her eyes on you, also knowing that Lumen can understand her. (Kess can also understand since her spell is still active.)
"I said it before, this half-one did not wander into our camp for no reason. His appearance was a sign given to us by our gods. They have watched us suffer under the foolish leadership of an old mind gone mad. They have seen the Red Claws become diminished to pitiful numbers that belie our greatness. Our once mighty chief led us astray. He took us from our home into this part of the forest, and into a bloody battle with the shape changer elves, which has depleted our numbers to a pitiful few, and then he said that we are to bow to a sickly wyrm?"
"NO!!! WE WILL NOT!! We will not lay our fortunes and our pride at the feet of some dragon. We are not pitiful kobolds, we are proud and strong Red Claw orcs!! We will make our own fortunes, but not in this forest that is full of rot and sickness, a cursed place that has brought us to our knees. We will return to our former home, where we can rebuild our numbers so that we can achieve glory and greatness once again as the tribe our gods know we are. We will heed their warnings and make them proud of us, not embarrass ourselves in front of them with more useless deaths at the hands of those who will soon end up as dragon droppings. Let these foolish elves and dwarf follow their half-one to their own demise, but we will not latch our destiny to them or the misguided ideas of our former leader who brought doom to himself any more."
"Ownka Bonebreaker, chief of the Red Claws has spoken!!"
She mostly looks at Lumen while speaking, and he can easily tell that Ownka is doing everything she can to save face and save the lives of the remaining few of her tribe in light of this utter and total defeat that she could clearly see coming, especially after her chief fell so quickly, and without even swinging his own weapon once during the brief battle. She obviously has wary respect for Lumen's magical prowess, which set the tone for the entire fight, and she knows that she can use his powerful arcane displays as influence to solidify her place of leadership within her own ranks and hold them together as their new chief.
She the finishes by speaking directly to Lumen. "Half-one, you and your people can go seek whatever death awaits you at the feet of the dragon. You will give me the axe that our former chief wielded, for I lay claim to it as the new chief, and we will part here."