Novices of the White Tower IC - Part 1

[dmarks]

Lornelle nods, though she appears too distracted to truly heed Lilleah's words as she embraces Saidar itself and begins to weave an illusion.

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Weavesight for the Mirrors of Mists

But you have little time to watch as you follow the men round the corner. Having been slowed by their burdens they turn to see the women catching up with them, and at a nod from their leader heft weapons and stand ready.

"Just back off girlies and this doesn't have to get ugly, one of them taunts," but a pair of bowmen are already knocking arrows.

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Initiative!

New map

[An Amy]

Lilleah
The young novice sees her friend move forward and looks to see if the others move as well. She mains behind though, trying to gather her thoughts and find a way to Saidar though she is distracted with memories of what happened days ago and how she and Nicaene came close to... well, she doesn't want to think of that.

Feeling the warmth and coolness, the increased sensitivity that comes with embracing the One Power, Lilleah stabilizes herself with it, pushing it into a focus as if coming from one person, one individual in her mind. A single source. A single speaker.

Spoiler: OOC Rolls

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Weavesight for Mirrors of mist: (1d20+7)[10]
Composure to overcome block (dc 15), Lilleah's hesitant from the other day: (1d20+5)[23]
She succeeds in overcoming her block and will spend the next round embracing the source as well. I guess that leaves her still very close to the crowd?

[jamieth]

Nesta

"You won't dare!" Nesta declares with confidence she isn't really feeling - but then an Aes Sedai should never show the lack of confidence, should they? So the Seafolk girl starts making slow way towards the enemies, ready to drop at the moment of danger she isn't, after all, wearing armor...

Spoiler: OOC

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Initiative: (1d20+4)[15]

Standart action total defense; move action 6 squares straight to he left and draw the dagger.

[dmarks]

Nesta's defiant advance spooks the men, yet at a nod from their leader, two of them advance on Nesta. One of the archers, spotting Nicaene's weapon, fire on her, whilst the others try to make their escape.

Spoiler: Attacks!

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Spearman against Nesta: (1d20+3)[10] Damage (1d8+2)[3]
Swordsman: (1d20+3)[6] Damage (1d8+1)[6]

Archer vs Nicaene: (1d20+4)[21] Damage (1d6)[4]

Seeing his soldiers leaping into the fray, their leader draws his own blade and grins menacingly at Nicaene. "You're not really going to fight me are you girl? Ha, I bet you don't even no which end of that axe to use. WHen I'm done with you, you'll wish you'd never decided to play hero!"

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Intimidate: (1d20+5)[24] versus 1d20+Character Level+Wis+any bonus versus fear.

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Initiative:

Nesta
Brigands
Lilleah
Nicaene

Bold indicates it's your turn to act.

[Anyr]

Nicaene shied from the leader's gaze. Her group was outnumbered, unprepared and unarmoured. The trainee wouldn't let any of those facts scare her away. But try as she might to ignore her fear, it existed nonetheless. She could already feel it dulling her motions, as she rushed to Nesta's side. Her axe sliced at both of the enemies who'd dared to attack an Aes Sedai novice.

Spoiler: OOC

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Nicaene moves forward until she's beside Nesta; Then uses Steel Wind to attack both enemies.

Swordsman: (1d20+4)[7]; Crit confirm: (1d20+4)[24]; Damage: (1d12+10)[19]
Spearman: (1d20+4)[9]; Crit confirm: (1d20+4)[12]; Damage: (1d12+10)[20]

[Ifni]

Cirelyn gathers up her skirts and hurriedly follows the others, trying to put herself in the right frame of mind to embrace the Power. It's not easy, with these distractions - at Nesta's defiant words she grimaces in mingled admiration for the other novice's courage and worry for her safety. She reaches for her belt knife with one hand, but doesn't yet draw it: the Power will be a better weapon by far, if she can just reach it...

[jamieth]

Oh yes, it appeared the men did dare to attack Novices right under the eyes of a Sister. Stupid on their part, but... realizing that didn't bring Nesta much relief. Their weapons, even though the first swings were slow and unsure, were still dangerous...

And the fact that is was right under the sight of a Sister didn't help, either. It meant she couldn't very well use Rend... did anyone really expect a teenage girl with only a knife to hold her own against two grown men with real weapons?

As she often did those last days, Nesta decided that doing what's needed - for her survival, no less - today was worth getting punished for that later.

Taking a step back, and away from the spearman, the young Sea Folk started Weaving a perverted version of a healing Weave...

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5-foot step (already included on the map)
Rend on the swordsman as a 1st level veave
(1d8+1)[6] damage, Fort DC14 for half.

[dmarks]

The swordsman staggers as he feels blood vessels burst and his ribs break, but he doesn't go down.

"Take down that girl!" the leader shouts, though it might be unclear to his men exactly which one he intended. He leaps forwards to engage Nicaene with twin swords whilst the spearman, careful to skirt the trainee, follows after Nesta.

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Bow versus Cirelyn - (1d20+4)[11] Damage (1d6)[1]

Swordsman versus Nicaene (1d20+3)[13] Damage (1d8+1)[9]

Spearman, 5ft step move after Nesta (1d20+3)[10] Damage (1d8+2)[5]

Leader versus Nicaene: (1d20+3)[17] Damage (1d8+1)[3]
(1d20+3)[22] Damage (1d6+1)[5]

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Initiative:

Nesta
Brigands
Lilleah
Nicaene
Cirelyn

[Ifni]

Cirelyn ducks as an arrow goes flying over her shoulder. Indignation wars with fear; repeated confrontations with murderous heavily-armed thugs had not previously featured in her idea of a novice's duties. Of course, any initiate of the Tower knows she faces dangers in her training - but those are known risks, measured and balanced and willingly accepted. This is something else.

It almost makes it worse that Lornelle Sedai hadn't hesitated to recognize that fact, that she'd been so swift in releasing them to channel. Novices are children, the sisters tell them, to be taught and guided and protected - but there's no promise of protection here. Only their own half-taught skills.

She swallows bile as Nicaene faces off against the leader - for only a moment, before she crumples to the ground, blood pooling on the cobblestones. She's just a girl, likely younger than Cirelyn herself, and, and...

Cirelyn bites her lip, and forces her whirling thoughts to stillness. The focus you showed today... She hadn't known quite what to say to Lilleah's question; she'd just said what came first to mind, letting the words flow. The deck can shift under your feet at any time... ride the changes, not letting them fluster you or distract you from what you're trying to do...

Half-taught they may be, but she knew less when she stood on the prow of the Gull and caught the winds in her hands, leashing the storm to her will. The Aes Sedai may call them children - but she was a child then, and by any standards save the Tower's she is now well-and-truly a grown woman.

Arrows are just flying wood, no greater distraction than a swinging boom. She could die here; well, so. Living in the Tower has made her soft, if she can no longer keep her wits just because death is whispering her name. There is exhilaration in the storm, as well as peril.

She sets her feet firmly, and breathes in the familiar smell of the river and fish, and remembers that exhilaration - and in that moment, she senses the Power surging at the edge of her mind, like an ocean of coruscating light.

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This is just the post to go with my first actual decent roll to get past Cirelyn's block.

Cirelyn may be a very closeted adrenaline junkie

After this, her next action will be to embrace the Source. She's also going to five-foot-step up and to the left on the map, so she gets closer to the action.

[Ifni]

It is at this point that Hala comes running down the alleyway, evidently having heard the yells. Her long stride looks deceptively casual, more of a lope than a sprint, but it eats up the yards in mere seconds. Sparing only a brief glance for the downed Nicaene, she barrels into the spearman facing Nesta, with a quick vicious kick to the side of his knee as her hands snap out to shunt his spear to the side.

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OK. I'm going to put this up so we can proceed, but if anything is wrong, just let me know and I'm happy to edit or delete. (This is my first time attempting to run a TOB character.)

From the map, I think Hala (with 40ft move) can fairly easily charge from the mouth of the alleyway to J58. I believe she doesn't have her spear with her, so she's going to use an unarmed strike. (If she knocks this guy unconscious, she can take his spear!)

She gets +2 from the charge and +2 from the "flank" with Nesta (via Island of Blades). If I can activate Stone Bones with the attack at the end of a charge, I will attempt to do so; if not, then not.

Her ordinary attack bonus is +6, so that goes up to +10.

Attack: (1d20+10)[13]

If she hits, damage is 1d6: (1d6)[2]

[An Amy]

Lilleah

She sees the attacks against her friends and becomes somewhat frightened further. She has yet to fully grasp the One Power. Within the moment, she has, though it took the span of several heartbeats to do so and all she could manage in that moment was taking a step back away from the attackers. She maintained her demeanor despite all that, though her eyes spoke honestly of her fright and hesitation to step forward once again. Lessons learned recently keeping her from bravery. Both with rushing into a situation and rushing to channel.

Just embracing the One Power, Lilleah stood nearby, ready but still effectively helpless and useless thus far.

[jamieth]

Nesta

There was that one thing about One Power; all the gestures Weaves required made it extremely inconvenient to try Weaving them when someone tried to pierce you with a spear. Of course, Nesta expected that, and didn't even attempt to harm her attacker with another inverted Healing.

After all, she was a Sea Folk sailor before she was a Novice, and knew that when the spear's point just rushed past you, it was exactly the most convenient moment to stab the spear-holder with a knife...

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Attack the spearman: (1d20+4)[17], damage (1d4-1)[2]