The War of Necromancy, The Roleplaying Thread Options

[grif11]

Falius:

"Namiras breasts! "Falius cursed.
He had been silently trying to pick the lock of his cell with a small bone when the door to the cells was kicked in. The warrior then attacked the prison guards.

"so is this one man the cause of all the noise outside?" he thought.
"no way could one man kill all those guards on his own,not even the champion of cyrodiil could."

Falius then spotted the vampire entering the room.
"You better hurry up with those grunts!" Falius shouted "Gotta vampire behind you!"

[Dantrag]

Aerona did as Swift said, and headed in the direction of the cells. She stayed crouched, and walked silently, though she doubted that anyone could hear her footsteps over the sound of shouts and ringing steel. It was simple enough to find the wood elf's cell, as he shouted a warning to Aren. The mention of a vampire made a shiver creep up her spine, but she made herself look anyway.

She saw him enter, adorned with sturdy ebony armor and carrying a sword as black as night. She knew enough about vampires to bring a fire spell to her mind, but her destruction skill was nothing extraordinary.

I can only hope it will be enough if something goes wrong...

"Shh," Aerona whispered to Falius, hoping that he could see her well enough to understand that she was camouflaged, and would like to stay that way, "We're here to get you out, just sit tight and don't draw too much attention to us."

It was too dimly lit in the fort to tell where Swift was. She hoped he would come quickly with the key.

[jack cloudy]

OOC: Took some liberty with Aren. Got to explain why the fight is taking long enough for the jailbreak after all.

Still sticking to the shadows, Swift-like-Fish made his way to the opposite end of the room. Experience had taught him that when looking for something that moves fast and at waist-height or higher, in this case the sword of a fighting Dunmer, slow or immobile objects tended to be ignored. So he forced himself to be slow and low, grateful for the dim light that only enhanced the effect.

Fortunately for him, the three against one situation had forced the battle into a stalemate. If Aren committed himself to taking down one of his opponents with a decisive blow, he would leave himself open for the other two. If his opponents attacked together, they would only be in each other's way and attacking one at a time would only let them be slaughtered. So trivial blows were exchanged, not to end the fight, but to keep each other at their toes.

He reached the key without incident, slipped it off its hook and crouched down again to avoid being spotted. The Argonian weighed the key in his hands. He had no plans of making his way around the room again just to reach Aerona. It would take too long and any movement he made put him at risk of being discovered. Besides, if he'd planned to open the cells himself, he wouldn't have sent the woman there. No, from the onset his plan had been to toss the key over but even with the sounds of battle, he was wary of the sound the key would make upon striking the floor.

"Gotta vampire behind you!" The voice suddenly rang out above the clamor of steel. Swift looked at the entrance and indeed, the vampire was there. He had no more time to worry about making noise. Aren was in no position to guard his back as well as his front. So the fisherman tossed the key in the direction of the voice, gambling that either Aerona would be there as well, or that it would land close enough for the prisoner to take it and free himself.

"And now, to help my other comrade, this one shall...must hunt the humans." Swift-like-Fish thought and subconsciously bared his teeth. He took the only weapon within reach and leapt towards the back of one of Aren's foes, pressing the burning end of the torch firmly against the man's shirt. The flames greedily began to devour the fabric and their owner screamed as he dropped his sword. His attention had fled from the Dunmer before him and now solely rested on his flesh being burned.
"Death by fire, horrible...but necessary." The Argonian recoiled in horror at his own deed while swinging the torch wildly, hoping to catch anyone else or at least keep their swords away.

[grif11]

Falius heard a faint voice over the noise of the dunmer and guards.

"shh," it said, "were here to get you out, just sit tight and dont draw too much attention to us."

Falius nodded in the direction of the voice he renembered.
"hey, I know that voice, you were at the palace!"

before he got a reply, a metallic thunk came from outside the cell, and an argonian Falius recognised appeared, who followed the dunmers lead.

"I came for action, and the bloody fisherman is getting more than me!" Falius thought.

[Dantrag]

Aerona was not prepared to catch the keys, and they fell to the stone floor with a metallic clank. She searched frantically for a moment, skimming her hands on the surface of the ground to find them in the darkness. She finally felt them, and fumbled with them for a moment before finally finding the one that unlocked Falius' cell.

"Are you hurt?" she asked the wood elf as she opened the cell door.

Just as the words escaped her mouth, she felt a hand grip her shoulder painfully. In her fright, she lost concentration, and both her and Swift were now just as visible as anyone else.

A darkly-clad aspirant nord with crooked teeth grinned at her, "Trying to hide are you, elf?"

Aerona tried to squirm away, but the nord only tightened his grip.

[grif11]

"Well, to be honest, I-" Falius started to say, but before he could finish, a guard had found his rescuer.

"Tell me, who used to live in this cell?"Falius asked the Nord.
"Huh! What kind of plan are you thinking?!"He scoffed.
"Well, if he was a pain in the neck to guard" Falius slyly said, picking a bone he had been whittling "He can't be much worse than THIS!"

He leapt at the Guard at the speed of a black horse, and plunged the bone into the Nords beefy throat. As he slowly suffocated and struggled to maintain balance, The Nord had swung his great black hammer into Falius's Chest, Knocking into the far wall.

He landed dazed, with a feeling of great pain in his chest. "Divines, this feels worse than that bottle of daedric whisky I drank."

Falius's vision was blurring, but he was able to make out the dunmer warrior and argonian struggling beneath the assault the vampire was giving them. Taking a secreted vial of poison from a slot in his armour, he laced one of the arrows that lay around him. The poison was concentrated daedric blood, poisonous to the touch, causing instant death.

Picking up a bow that had been abandonned, he aimed as best he could with a destroyed chest, and let loose the arrow.
________________________________________________________________________________

Mardus

"Ha! you underestimated the power of an elder vampire!" Mardus taunted his two opponents "six hundred years of immortality is more than enough time to learn how to kill a couple of adventurers!" The fight had lasted a long time now, and he could see the two mortals were now wearing out, making mistakes that were almost fatal, and striking weakly. It wouldn't be long now.

Suddenly, a strange feeling took over The vampire. He looked down, and saw an arrow protruding from his gut. Mardus chuckled and prepared to start his assault again, but his muscles suddenly clenched, and wouldnt move right. "What trickery is this!" He said, fear apparent in his voice.

[Dantrag]

Aerona was freed from the nord's deathly grip, thanks to Falius, but she found herself on hands and knees gasping desperately for air. She watched in horror as the nord made one final hammer swing before collapsing in death. It sent Falius flyng over her and into the wall behind them.

She willed herself to get back on her feet, still trying to catch her breath. She made her way towards Falius; even though he was not dead, she could tell by the way he moved that he was severely injured. She watched him let an arrow fly, but didn't bother to look back to see if it hit the target. She was a healer first and foremost, not a fighter.

"Don't move," she instructed. Falius' chest was crushed; she could tell by his labored breaths. It was just difficult to tell how bad it really was. She could barely see in the dark dungeon, and Falius wore thick leather armor that she would need time to remove. The injury was beyond using simple healing spells. She went to work doing what she could to preserve his life until she could operate under better conditions.

She fortified his endurance, so that he could better fight the injury, and used a moderate frost spell on his chest both to numb the pain and to slow any internal bleeding the impact of the hammer may have caused. It was all she could do to help him at the moment, so she turned her attention to the fight. She did not involve herself directly, but gave herself the duty of protecting Falius in his vulnerable state.

[Tellie]

Aren had been fighting his four opponents for some time, doing a simple slash and block routine, designed to do nothing more than keep the enemy busy from getting his allies. Naturally this also meant that he could not launch any proper strikes for fear of getting struck himself.

The status quo changed swiftly as a vampire came in from behind him, yet to Aren's great fortune he seemed more interested with boasting and posturing than to kill the only real warrior in the room. By now their last ally had been freed only to get struck by a hammer wielding nord. Seeing Aerona do her best to heal him he started to look for a way to end the fight.

The oppertunity arrived in the form of Swift who lit one of his opponents on fire. Before his remaining enemies could gut Swift he went into action. In one seamless motion he deflected an incoming strike and followed up with a quick jab of his gauntleted hand that chrushed the juggular of his enemy. Diving under another strike he came up standing beside Swift and a blindingly fast slash of his sword opened up a pair of bloody grins on the throats of his enemies.

Looking at the vampire who was looking around dazed he activated the enchantment on his sword. Instantly his sword was wreathed in flames and he stepped towards the abomination. "Learn my face beast, it will be the last thing you see before your soul is ripped to shreds in the depths of Oblivion" Aren growled at the vampire before launching his attack.

Instead of doing it with caution, trying to gauge his opponents skill he laid into the vampire with all he had. Using every century of his skill, speed and strenght Aren launched a never ending series of strikes from all angles with such speed that the others were struck with inaction. After a minute he gave a mental yell of triumph as he managed to unarm the vampire and before anyone could take stock of what happened he swung his sword against the neck of the abomination.

The look of panic on the face of the vampire was one of the most satisfying sights Aren had seen for some years and he grinned with triumph as the now headless vampire turned into dust. Turning back to Aerona he snapped out his orders. "Do what you can for him end get out the way you came from, I'll divert the enemy and follow later...if I haven't returned by an hour I'll be dead, so good luck and it has been an honour to meet you", then he tightened the grip on his sword and fled the room to go towards the upper levels of the fort where he would see if he could find the one person who could best him in combat.

This post has been edited by Tellie: Apr 23 2011, 12:59 AM

[Dantrag]

Before Aerona could argue, Aren had already fled. She sighed heavily.

And just how am I going to get him down a well and through flooded tunnels?

Aren's strength and fighting skill would have helped carry Falius, not to mention protect them should they encounter trouble on the way out... She made herself stop thinking about what-ifs and focus on the task at hand.

"Hang on, Falius, we're going to try to move you in a minute. Tell me if it starts to hurt too badly, and for the love of the Nine, do not fall asleep."

"Swift, can you help me carry him? We'll have to be very careful with the upper body, so I'll take that. You grab his legs."

OOC: if you need his stuff grabbed, maybe swift could do it?

This post has been edited by Dantrag: Apr 23 2011, 05:37 AM

[jack cloudy]

Swif-like-Fish was in shock, sitting on the Floor where he had fallen after tripping over his own feet. If anyone had desired to harm him, now would have been the time, time Aren did not allow as he swiftly took advantage of the opening the Argonian had provided. Within moments only the vampire was left and he too fell to the Dunmer’s blade.

Aren vanished right away afterwards, leaving Falius, Aerona and Swift in the room with the dead. With Aerona calling for him, the fisherman slowly returned to his senses.
“Yes.” He only hissed as, still trembling, he knelt down beside the Bosmer to take his legs. The task helped clear his mind of what had happened and he refound his tongue.
“How to get him out, ideas? This one could drag him out through the well and back to the surface in under a minute. But harmed as he is, this one believed his wounds would only become worse.”

OOC: If you want to get Falius’ stuff gathered, its probably best if Falius says so. Swift wouldn’t think about it himself. He'd be more worried about getting Falius out.

[Dantrag]

"I don't think we have any other choice, Swift," Aerona replied, "There'll be trouble if we try the door, and Aren is our diversion. We have to take the tunnel."

She didn't want to say anything about it, but she was fading. Besides the mental strain of repressing panic and acting on pure adrenalin the past few hours, Aerona was feeling the indescribable drain associated with over-exhausting her magickal abilities. Between the fight outside, and the subsequent rescue mission, she hadn't given much thought to how many spells she'd been casting. If they met trouble, she'd be no help.

I don't want to scare Swift with my problem...we'll just have to be quick and silent.

She carefully lifted Falius with one hand supporting his back, keeping it as straight as possible. They began shuffling back the way they came. Aerona just hoped that they'd survive long enough to reach her supplies. Her potions could do for Falius what her spells could not.

OOC: perhaps aren could find falius' things?

[grif11]

After firing the arrow, Falius had blacked out. He was still concious, but everything was a blur. He remembered his chest becoming cold and not as painful, and him being lifter up, but he couldn't see or hear anything.

He tried saying a few words but they only came out as wheezes. Finally, he said something coherent. "A-A chest, vampires room," Falius wheezed out. a fit of coughing overtook him and he began to feel the pull of the black void drawing him in. But he wouldn't go yet.

[Dantrag]

The young healer wasn't sure how wise it would be to fetch Falius' belongings from the vampire's room, but then again, she wasn't sure of much at all anymore. Perhaps the wood elf owned some enchanted item that would get them out of this mess.

She set the bosmer down as gently as she could.

"I'll fetch his things, Swift. If I'm not back soon..." she decided to let that statement drop. There was no time for a backup plan. Her mind was too tired to think of one anyway. She wasn't even sure if she would be able to cast water-breathing when the time came.

Aerona shuffled away, into the blackness of the old fort. She found the room easily; the coffin on the floor gave it away. It was dark, so it took her a few moments to find what she was looking for. A chest in the corner. It wasn't locked, and the items inside looked as if they belonged to a hunter. There was a bow, a knife, a very basic mortar and pestle, and a few poisons. She took it all and found her companions again.

"I've got it," she said, somewhat disappointed that there was no powerful magickal device. Now they had a person and a bunch of stuff to carry. With a sigh she slung the bow over her shoulder, stuffed the mortar and pestle inside Falius' armor, threw the poisons to the floor (she figured she had enough alchemical supplies at the wagon to replace them), and presented the knife to Swift.

"I think we can go now," she said, struggling to keep her eyes focused as she lifted Falius once more.

This post has been edited by Dantrag: Apr 27 2011, 04:51 AM

[grif11]

"Take a sip from the flask, and give it to me." Falius wheezed out."

"You'll need it". The mead Falius had brewed from his Mothers recipie would give an instant energy boost and helped with wounds, meaning it could well save their lives when it came to leaving.

[jack cloudy]

At Falius' behest, Aerona left to fetch the Bosmer's belongings. It wasn't long till her return but to Swift-like-Fish's feelings it was far too long. He had been tempted to go after her, but he couldn't leave Falius and in his current state, carrying the young man by himself would only serve to worsen his injuries.

Upon her return, Aerona handed over a knife to Swift who tucked it behind one of the loops in his harness after which they picked up Falius once more. By now, it had become obvious that the healer was at her limit. She was barely able to carry Falius and would be no good in a fight, nor would she have the strength to run. Even the swim back through the tunnel could very well be too much for her.
"When at the well, rest in the shadows. This one will bring our friend to the shore, then come back to get you."

[Dantrag]

Aerona took a sip of Falius' mead and gave it back to him. She and Swift carried the wood elf back through the corridors of the fort. By the time they got to the well, whatever effect the mead had was gone. As much as she didn't like it, she was going to have to take Swift's advice and rest while he took Falius to shore.

She helped Swift lower Falius into the well before seating herself in the darkest corner of the room, leaning heavily against the stone wall. She couldn't help but close her eyes.

"Do what you can to keep his back straight," Aerona instructed weakly, eyes still closed.

"And Swift? Please hurry. I don't like this place."

[jack cloudy]

Swift-like-Fish

Swift-like-Fish rechecked his harness which he'd strapped around the Bosmer. It wasn't much as far as improvised braces went, but he hoped it would at least help keep the young man's back straight. Still, he feared that the underwater journey would worsen his wounds or perhaps even prove to be fatal.
"He'll need more medical attention once on the shore. And the only one this one knows who can provide that attention will still be here. Best hurry." He thought as he tightened the last strap.

"And Swift? Please hurry. I don't like this place." Aerona had her eyes closed and looked so tired it was hard to tell who was in worse condition, the Bosmer or the Dunmer. Swift found it almost odd that he was still bursting with energy, but put it down to a mixture of the adrenaline still coursing through his veins and not having done as much as she had.
"This one shall return as swift as possible. Stay safe till then." He said, keeping his voice low out of fear for being heard. He didn't know what happened to the group that had stormed towards the entrance, or what became of Aren. He could only hope that the distraction from their comrades outside would serve its purpose and that the Dunmer could hold the attention of anyone left inside.

"Hold breath deep." He whispered to Falius after a moment and once he had confirmed that the Bosmer had indeed taken the deepest breath he could with his ruined ribs, the Argonian dove. This time around, he could no longer use his arms to propell himself forward, occupied as they were with holding Falius and preventing the wounded man from hitting any of the many protruding rocks of the tunnel. His legs were likewise occupied with preventing the Bosmer's own legs from flailing about, possibly injuring himself even further or just slowing them down. All that the fisherman had to move them through the tunnel was his tail which sweeped back and forth. And his tail was all he needed. Having grown strong from a life spent underwater, it propelled Argonian and Mer forward through the dark tunnel and up to the shore.

Swift's earlier assesment of taking merely a minute to reach the shore turned out to be wrong. It had been nearly two since they dove down through the well till they reached the surface of the lake. Still, he had no time to check on Falius' condition. Every second wasted was one more second that someone might find Aerona and she was the only one who could take care of any complications that had occured after the journey underwater. Even worse so, the sky had darkened and it appeared to be raining. But being as used to water as he was, whether it came from the sky or a pond, the Argonian paid it no heed. The fisherman pulled Falius onto the shore, laid him out flat as possible and checked to make sure the Bosmer was still breathing and his heart still beating. After that, he instantly dove back into the lake and raced down the tunnel once more.
"This one hopes no one will find him lying there. While the cover of the vegetation growing next to the shore is strong and will hide him well, he is helpless."

Reaching the well took scarcely more than a third of the time his trip with Falius had taken. Now unhindered by anything and becoming more aware of every obstruction in the tunnel with each time he passed through, he was as swift as the fish he hunted. At the end of the tunnel, he used his legs to cushion the impact with the well's wall and propelled himself up to the surface.
"Are you well? This one will help you swim and leave the dark place."

This post has been edited by jack cloudy: May 2 2011, 08:59 AM

[Dantrag]

Aerona sat alone for what seemed like an eternity. She fought to stay awake, and fought harder to keep her food down. Something wasn't right. She was tired to be sure, but she hadn't done so much that she should feel this awful.

I must be getting sick. she thought to herself.

She must have dozed off for a moment because the next thing she remembered was Swift asking if she was ready to leave.

"Well as I can be right now," she said, pulling herself to her feet, "Let's go."

[jack cloudy]

Swift nodded.
"This one left Falius on the shore. The bushes hide him well from errant eyes..." He hissed, then paused as a thought occurred to him. "But with the unexpected rain, he won't dry and cold may grasp is wounded lungs."

He helped Aerona into the water before proceeding. He had expected the rest to do her well, but she looked just as, if not more, tired as she had been when he left.
"This one will pull you along through the water and make the journey faster. Can you breathe water?"

[Dantrag]

I'm not sure. she thought, but kept to herself.

Aerona didn't reply to Swift, she simply cast the spell. It worked, to her surprise, but now she could feel the drain even more.

She lowered herself into the well, and they made their way out of the fort. Her hand gripped Swift's tightly as he propelled them both through the water. Aerona's eyes were closed in the water, and with the tunnel's twists and turns, she quickly became disoriented. The feeling was gone as soon as it came; Swift brought her to the surface more quickly than she had expected.

Her eyes were open now, and she was treading water. Tiny red droplets fell in the lake around her.

"Is that...blood?"