Age of Ice and Blood: A Pathfinder System Heroic Fantasy Quest

Third Day of Elnu-Hamba (Elnu Descendent), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

"With me!" you call in place of a warcry in the minds of battle. "With me!" Though you can barely hear your own voice over the shouts of rage and of pain, over the thunder of Silver's hooves and the great booming of the war the soldiers of the Fellowship have no need of encouragement save for the sight of the white coat and the burning sword.

You charge and over the sand turned to much and reeking of death and brine, you jump over the bodies of those broken by the brute and then at the last it turns towards you, as though sensing that you would be a greater challenge to the will of its maters... and there at the last you see its face. Broken and ruined it is, a bloated thing of sickly green and rancid blue and yet even among the ravages of death and the curse that denied it you could still see the face of the giant. It was... he was young, barely more than a boy, now made a puppet of dark masers. He does not want to kill you, that you know from the look in tortured eyes.

Durendal slips aside as the rotted boots on the left leg and not the flesh of it as you had meant to as the giant leaps aside with uncanny nimbleness. He does not want to kill you but he is made to do it just the same.

On sheer instinct you manage you manage to block the first kick with your shield, hands numb from the sheer weight of the blow, then just as an Anwari archer manages to strike an arrow through the horror's chest, the second blow strikes with such force that it sends you and Inge tumbling from Silver's back and landing on the fouled earth.... into the water that seems almost to reach out to drown you.

You take 8 damage
Inge takes 1 Damage

As her head smashes back painfully against your chest Inge is sill reaching for the threads of power... still calling to the judgement of Ikomi and from those threads a webs is spun that falls over the hosts of your foes. In the press of the shieldwall half a dozen are caught... more.

"Kill them! Gut the sons of whores!" As warcries go far from the most inspiring, but a bruised and battered Negu is ready to charge into the weakened center of the foe... just as the winged beast tears the net from George's hands and lunges again, seeking to tear the man who had so snared it limb from limb. Though you call out a warning you know it is too late, the press of bodies too close and his horse all but rearing...

Lo a golden light shines upon the brow of Moru, oracle of Inoko of the Twin Flame and his light is of warding... George screams and falls under the beast but only for a moment as Ziku charges it from behind and with deadly blow of his curved blade hews the thing's left wing off.

More you do not see as the giant looms over you trying to grip and to tea. It's all that you can do to lunge under the corpse's hands, though it is between you and Silver now, leaving your friend no chance to get to you and Inge as his hooves sink in the soft sand.

"Leave us! I'll take this one!" The words have more of bravado than confidence, but in the heat of battle one might in place of the other serve.

As Durendal finally finds the leg of the beast, sinking into the rotted flesh and scrapes against the bone of the beast even as the foemen's shieldwall begins to waver even more, some of their number falling without a hand on them. You would laugh to hear men who serve in the company of such horrors say 'witchcraft' in a tone of alarm, but alas you have not the breath. The giant had managed to grasp you this time, to pull you up and squeeze you in a grasp like iron... though still the sword falls.

Blackened fingers fly loose like worms on the muck and that is when Tom spears the giant from behind in the small of the back, the sheer weight of man and horse charging like a lancer, though he bore no lance toppling the corpse. A bite from it tears away your boot and sends pain shooting up your leg, but now its' neck is near enough...

You take 7 Damage

One final stroke of the sword ends it and from its ravaged visage a sigh that might perhaps have been relief escapes.

Just as the battle seems all but won, the winged beast on its last legs fighting the brothers, a great cry of horror rises from the ranks of the Anwa as Negu who had been fighting at the front crumples to the ground. You might have thought he had taken some bleeding wound or blow to the head earlier in the battle, but for the fact that Silver shouts almost at once:

"Assassin! Assassin in the shieldwall!" A moment passes and then he says. "He's gone now, a glamor!"

What do you do?

[] Focus on getting healing to Negu, he is your ally and the battle might yet be lost if he dies

[] Focus on protecting your companions, if there is a killer in the middle of a chaotic ambush than you will need to stand back to back not go charging in

[] Try to hunt the assassin

[] Write in

OOC: And once again perception to the rescue... well that and Tom with a spear on the charge.

Third Day of Elnu-Hamba (Elnu Descendent), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

Ten steps, that is how much is between you and the fallen lord of the Kormani... it might as well be ten leagues. As your leg shakes under you, breaths coming in gasps and the taste of blood on the tongue mingling with the foul odor of the corpses you stand and wait, for Inge to reach out and offer a prayer of healing.... You need it else you will be no good to anyone. And so the swirling tides of battle close again as Silver rears with iron shod hooves to ward off a warrior with a great man-splitting axe Sudeenlyis another shriek from the midst of battle that does not belong on the tongues of men, the beast is dying, but it does not die clean nor without malice, its claws raking at Ziku, rage curdles into spite even as you kill the axeman and two o his companions fall to the ground as though struck by an unseen blade with a hiss of Esha's magic.

You heal 7 Damage

Five steps now, carving your way though the battle, near blinded by a flash of fire, one of Zaia's pots landing nearby, but then as your sight clears you are shocked to see Negu standing beside you, looking whole and hale as he had been this morning. Did he have his own healing potion, you wonder., for a moment, but then you realize he is not wearing the sane scale he had been then...

Almost faster than the eye can see the silver blade in his hand darts forth and sinks into your flesh under the arm where the armor does not reach. It burns...

You take 10 Damage
You are poisoned

"Traitor! Traitor! The Witch's blade has betrayed us!" the man, who you now realize had only stolen Negu's face shouts and in the din and chaos of war two of the warriors of Negu's Household, not you note his nearest guards, heed them and charge you.

One blow glances off your shield, the other one barely scratches your arm, but they have done more than enough to distract you, to give the assassin his way out of honest battle. Guarding yourself as best you can in the midst of the still chaotic melee you scream at the warriors that they are letting the real enemy escape... and perhaps more in surprise than belief they step back giving you a chance to lunge at the retreating killer... What you do next is not wise, in truth it is about as far from it as you have ever gotten in the middle of a battle, showing your unguarded side to people who might yet decide yo stab you, but still you lunge and Durendal slices open the killer's back tearing though his black cloak and something harder, leather perhaps, though it it hard to tell. the enemy lunges over a fallen warrior, friend or foe you cannot say and then he vanishes again.

"Where is it!?" you hear Inge shout, but it is too late. As Ziku lays about his with a shining blade and Moru conjures flame and terror both the enemy ranks finally break and in the rout it is impossible to tell one foe from another.

The assassin is gone... and in the grim aftermath of battle as you count the living and the dead, relieved to see none of the latter among the Fellowship, you find nonetheless that he had serves his task. Negu is dead, leaving those still along the shore bewildered and uncertain of where you are to go next.

You Resist the Poison successfully

To the southern villages, as the plan has said... to look for giants? Behold a giant, some say and they point to the corpse. Obari had been here before you and there is nothing to find, only more ambushes, only more death. Ohun is caught between two demands, of the warlord and the priest. The former is called on to press on, the latter to see to the dead.

Lost 38 Warriors

Vengeance drives him and so you might yet sway him to battle over lengthy rites, but if you do not move the warriors to your cause then more will be lost to desertion than death.

What do you do?

[] Try to rally the Anwari to continue at once (DC 30 diplomacy, on failure will lose troops)

[] See to it that Negu is buried properly (Restore moral, lose time)

[] Write in

OOC: Yes you did just power through poison and that was good poison by the way, expensive stuff. Let's just say it would have been messy if you can actually succumbed to the stuff right then.