Turn 139
Each of you search within the blackness for your opponents. Suddenly a
bright light appears before you, but before you can even react, you are
in intense agony. A fireball erupts within the blackness, engulfing all
within in it's greedy hungry flame.
The magical smoke suddenly vanishes as quickly as it originally
appeared. The party members are scattered throughout the hall, each
having contributed in some small or major way. Kay and Arilyn are
missing from the scene. It seems to have been a particularly messy
battle. Blood is sprayed everywhere, much of it your own,pooling in the
middle of the slanted floor and covering most of you, matting hair and
clouding vision. Eyes stinging from the mix of blood and sweat you view
the room through a haze of pain. Gazing at the mangled bodies, you note
these were definately not 'clean' kills. Severed limbs lay strung across
the floor, fingers still twitching, and 2 pirests have been decapitated,
eyes glazed over, seeming to stare up at you accusingly. Counting the
dead you realize you dont see the head priest among the bodies. In the
onslaught of fire and steel he must have escaped. Gareth is on the floor
grappling with the one remaining live priest. Unscathed by the fireball,
Wulfgar, Aerial, Shieal and Barbaxle are moving to aid him, but are
unable as he grips the priest in a bearhug unwilling to let go. All are
unable to aid the Knight for fear of harming him. He squeezes with his
gauntleted arms, trying to squeeze the life out of the priest who's face
is rapidly turning purple, unable to catch his breathe. Gareth's blood
is dripping from a small wound in his side adding to the pool from the
rest of you. Wulfgar, Aerial and Barbaxle check the wounded and find no
mortal wounds although all from within the smoke are badly burned. You
know you're going to have to rest for awhile to your chagrin. No one is
fit enough to attempt pursuit except the healers and Shieal. The death
toll rises as the priest in Gareths arms gives a shudder before 2 small
streams of blood drip from his nostrils, spattering Gareths face as he
rapdily loses consciousness himself.
"Ok, who cast the spell that caused all the smoke?" Barbaxle waits to hear
someone speak up. "What spell was it? I think I should cast a healing spell
on Gareth, but I don't know if it is going to back fire on me. We can't use
the potions on him because he is unconscious, and he won't be able to
swallow it. Does anyone know where the head priest might've taken Kay and
Arilyn? I'm sure that you couldn't see much in the smoke, but at least a
direction would be helpful." While waiting to hear the responses of the
group, you can see that Barbaxle starts to look around at his surroundings.
He didn't have time to notice where he was because of all the action that
has been going on. If you were to take a good look at him, you can notice
that he is starting to breath a little faster and something about him seems
to change a little bit. The long standing members of the group know what is
happening, but if you are a newcomer you would almost think that he is
getting scared of something. "So, do we have any suggestions for anyone?"
Wulfgar steps to the figure of Gareth and kneels beside him "Ah my friend
always the valiant hero even to, well almost to the cost of your own life !"
He places his hands either side of the wound on Gareths side and chants a
small prayer to Callus to help him heal the wounded man lying before him.
When finished Wulfgar pulls out the waterskin he filled from the well back a
few days and tries to feed some of the liquid into Gareths mouth. "Come my
friend it is time for you to rest and for the rest of us to do our bit to
help.!" He looks around at all the others who are bruised and singed. "Get
all the wounded together and away from the pool gather them beside the spot
where we came through the portal."
Keldar checks himslef to see if his supplies in his pack survived, going
for the waterskin of the healing water from the town before, and taking
a large gulp. He then checks the integrety of his spell books and other
posessions, bemoaning the potential loss of his precious magics.
In the middle of the searching, the gnome panics, "Who threw that ball'o
fire!?! Anyone know what spell or object did it?" The gnome cradles his
precious spell books into his chest, his other arm grabbing his magical
sword and holding it defensively before him.
At this, Rath looks up. "Whoever it was," he said almost snarling with
anger, "will be dead soon enough!"
He then searches through his pockets, hoping that he might have
carelessly slipped some of his medicinal herbs into one before he was
separated with his belongs. All the while he mutters to himself something
about not being in a warm bath has he should be.
Looking pitiful sitting on the floor she finally stands up deciding that the
scraches on her hands and knees will heal at there own time since they are
so tiny.
"I would like to help with the healing." she says to
barbaxle.
Turn 140