DM Note: What a good moment for a Surprise Round, and poor Principa's natural 1 on her very respectable Listen bonus was enough to ensure that!Gorfang rummaged in his pack, and pulled out one of the pieces of loot from the dragon hoards; a Helm of Teleportation. As he clapped it on his head, Lynien and Eloy leaned in and laid a hand each on his shoulders. The instant before the magic kicked in, he felt a wet, warm sticky feeling as Shamlakh's rough tongue made contact with his skin somewhere south of his belt buckle, and then everything tilted as they were whipped across the miles to the scene of their sighting of Principa, South Street in Lossal.
Eloy had briefed them in hurried words as to the dangerous nature of the lovely, psychopathic Principa, and all arrived with weapons drawn, and in Lynien and Eloy's case, invisible as well. Gorfang and Eloy took the the air and they rounded the corner Principa had turned.
The assassin, easily distinguished by her pale grey cloak, was still walking down the street, around thirty yards away. Gorfang was sceptical that the cunning foe might not have pulled some kind of a switch, but his Spirit Stance confirmed the monstrous hazard she represented. Accelerating, the three hurtled after her, slaloming through the pedestrians on the thoroughfare. "I want her alive," grated Gorfang, and the next moment they were upon her.
| DM Note: What a good moment for a Surprise Round, and poor Principa's natural 1 on her very respectable Listen bonus was enough to ensure that! |
Eloy and Gorfang were airborne and made almost no perceptible sound; even without Maedar's Ring, Lynien could have run across a wooden floor covered in dry branches without a sound. As a result, Principa had no warning of the impending attack until the first blow was struck. Turning his khopeshoi to strike with the flats, Gorfang launched a barrage of strikes, hoping to close the affair quickly by rendering her unconcious before she could relax. He was slightly taken aback by the results. The powerful blows battered the slight figure of the assassin from side to side, and grunts and cries of pain showed that they were not negated, but some power or ability was protecting her from the full effect.
Peeling off to the flanks, Lynien and Eloy positioned themselves for ranged support. Eloy wielded a Wand of Dispel Magic and felt some of their foe's active enchantments crumble under the assault. Lynien's shortbow sent four arrows sliding into the battle with pinpoint accuracy, and two of them cut painful and embarrassing gashes into Principa's rump. Their poison payload failed to reach her bloodstream, however, and Lynien saw that - as she'd expected - the other's training, similar to her own, prevented her from using a Sneak Attack successfully.
Gorfang persisted with his plans to stun the assassin, unleashing another barrage of non-lethal blows culminating in a sweeping overhand loop that brought the khopesh down with a dull whannnng! on the top of Principa's head. The woman's legs went rubbery and she stumbled as she began to turn, but she didn't go down. Eloy and Lynien renewed their archery - taking her alive of far less interest to them - but managed only minor wounds as the beautiful murderess finally got herself braced to react.
Whirling around, she reached to opposite shapely hips with each hand and with blinding speed drew a pair of scimitars. The one in her right hand was lit with a pale, nacreous glow that somehow failed to illuminate anything around it. Her left blade appeared of the same sort, but the glow was fitful, failing, and Eloy grinned; his Dispel Magic had suppressed whatever magic it was imbued with. Principa regained her balance after Gorfang's massive blow, and launched a flickering series of curved blows at the orc with her right-hand blade. Gorfang suddenly realized that he was up against a swordswoman approaching his own skill, though probably not his strength or speed, as three cuts drew themselves across his flesh and black blood began to flow across his armour. At the same time, Principa swept her left-hand blade in a series of well-guessed strikes aimed at the probable position of invisible flankers. Those flankers, however, were at missile range still, and safely out of reach, so her blows cut nothing but air.
Her eyes ran over the orc's massive torso, evaluating the wounds she'd inflicted in comparison with the battering she'd received. Everywhere her skin was visible, she was beaten and bruised, and a dribble of blood ran unregarded down from her nose. Even though the hurts were perceptibly healing, it was obvious that she wasn't going to win this fight, and she reacted accordingly. Swiftly, she spoke a succession of words in the language of magic - and vanished.
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Gorfang was just drawing breath for a bellow of elemental fury when Eloy spoke rapidly and urgently. "Dimension Door!" he snapped, having recognized the spell she'd cast. "Touch me and we'll follow!" Gorfang, despite his normal qualms at such a suggestion from the wily Eloy, reached out to sieze his hand, and the Man in the Shadows cast his own Dimension Door and hurled both into the unknown through the wall of the warehouse to his right.
Unbeknownst to Gorfang, although Eloy had correctly identified the spell Principa had used to escape, he was working on pure guesswork as to which way she had gone. No-one was more surprised than he, therefore, when the first thing the pair perceived after shaking off the effects of the jump was the sound of someone stumbling about on a wooden floor over their heads. They were in a high, spacious, dusty warehouse, stacked high with boxes, crates and bolts of cloth. The central area was open right to the pitched roof above, but two galleries went around the walls, one forty feet up and one eighty. The sounds of movement were coming from the lower of the two, about 300' ahead of them and a hundred to their left. Through the railings of the gallery, they could see Principa, who had regained her feet, starting to hustle along towards the far window.
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Eloy readied his wand again, while Gorfang slid his khopeshoi into their sheaths and whirled Gozân's doublesword off his back, before tapping his Boots of Speed and triggering their Haste power. Another blast of Dispel Magic enveloped the assassin, and Gorfang noticed with a grin that this time, the glow from her drawn weapons faltered and died.
Lynien had intentionally avoided touching Eloy, among other reasons because she wanted to flank their foe again rather than being pitched at random perhaps directly into combat with her. She took a short run at the wall Gorfang and Eloy had just disappeared through, and seemingly without pausing or slowing was scaling the wall towards the roof. Seconds later, she was perched on the tiles, scanning around for a way in. Over the ridge to her right she spotted what looked like a skylight, and made her way over to it.
The glass was grimy and obscure, but a quick wipe helped, and Lynien grinned as she looked down into the open-cored warehouse. She was looking across at the gallery where Principa was regaining her breath from the opposite side, which gave her the angle for unobscured vision. She could also see Gorfang and Eloy preparing themselves for combat directly below her, and decided to try and increase their chances. Drawing on her still-basic knowledge of Nebekheshut's magic, she worked and cast a Doom spell at the blonde assassin, and swore as it failed to take hold. Falling back onto her strengths, she pulled out a pry bar and jemmied the skylight open, ready to resume missile fire on their foe.
Gorfang was still wearing his Ring of Flying, and soared into the air, heading up for the middle gallery. "Sorry, 'my lady'," he called, "I was going to take you alive - but now I'm angry!" Principa evidently didn't relish a second encounter with the Orc; as he approached she cast a Jump spell and leaped for the next gallery. The terrible battering she had received told, however, and even with the magic to aid her, she fell short, and dropped lightly back to the first level.
Before she could redraw her weapons, Gorfang was upon her. Again, the doublesword of Gozân flashed, but this time Principa's enchanted leather armour wasn't protecting her properly, and the strikes crashed home with their full effect, finishing up with a sizzling backhand stroke that laid the flat of the gleaming blade along the side of Principa's head with a dull smack. Her knees buckled and she crumpled to the boards unconscious.
As Lynien bounded lightly down from the ceiling, Eloy took his ring off and became visible once more. "There you are!" he cried triumphantly. "Without my Dispel knocking out her armour and weapons, you'd have been in trouble. Good job I came along invisibly." Gorfang was genuinely puzzled. "You were invisible?" he asked. Wearing the Robe of Eyes, he'd not noticed the difference.
While he was speaking, he was busy. After disarming Principa, he stripped her and searched her - very thoroughly - piling all her possessions a good safe distance away. Then he used some of the hauling rope hanging nearby to tie her securely while the three of them looked over her equipment.
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