World of Warcraft - Interbellum (IC Thread)

[MrAbdiel]

Spoiler: OOC: Stealth

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Everyone beats a 10, so you seem concealed - fortunately, drunken ogres aren't terribly observant, and you manage not to draw attention to yourselves!

Spoiler: Jakk'ari's Perception

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Gazing down at the village revelry, you are able to discern some facts, but not the one you're seeking. The ogres are largely, but not impermeably separated by sex, in the celebrations below; through the male circles and female circles are no less rowdy and intoxicated than one or the other. The large number of ogre youth running about, wrestling and chasing each other through the festivities, tells you this is a whole-community event; and the daubing of ochre symbols on the flesh of those youths seems at first decorative, but at second glance, purposeful.
Confirming with Mor'Lag makes the picture clear enough - this is an after-party for a series of marriage arrangements. With some effort, you see pairs of the ogre youths with matching ochre symbols - too young to have much interest in each other yet, but promised to each other by their families and with the stipulations of those marriage contracts spelled out on their skin in temporary glyphs. Occasionally, you spot an ogreling with more complex markings - perhaps with a more complex marriage arrangement, or promised to an other settlement of Stonemaul or even another clan. Arranged marriages are the reality for many societies in Azeroth and beyond, for those who do not occupy the narrow band between "too poor" and "too rich" to consider exclusively romantic marriages, and for those who do not belong to a boldly forward-looking approach to generational continuity. Whether the Stonemaul do this as a welcome cultural extension of an ancient tradition or as a necessary evil to ensure the familial tribes that make up the greater clan are welded together for another desperately surviving generation is not clear; but the children don't seem to care for the moment, and the adults certainly seem to be having fun celebrating the end of this round of negotiations on behalf of their juvenile offspring.

But what passes for ogre architecture thwarts your hunt for an apparent jail. There are some loose surface huts made of tree trunks and thatch, unsuitable for such a purpose; but the majority of the buildings are ogre mounds: hills that have been hollowed out, with multiple entrances reinforced by big slabby stones, decorated with paint and animal hides and containing a potential warren for dozens or hundreds of ogres in their passageways and lacunae. The Stonemaul could have a hundred prisoners tucked away inside those mounds and you'd have no way to know. What's worse, your communion with the earth spirits here detects the same muddled drunkenness that you found in them at the camp site in the swamp. Someone has been here, with power enough over the elements to stupefy the local spirits into amnesia about their passing.

You ascend the bluff, keeping low and avoiding conspicuous movements that would draw the revellers eyes up to the idol. Stonemaul ogres are not especially pious folk, and given the choice of their attentions landing on cavorting comrades and grog, or casting them heavenward to their stone ancestor, the choice is premade in your favor.

Up close, the idol is crude, but not bad stonework. It depicts a masculine ogre with the very rare fatless phenotype; a thick, muscular form chipped from an almost cylindrical menhir. It faces down over the village, arms tucked to its chest. At its base, located behind its facing so to be at the terminus of the path you followed up, there is a bed of offerings left for the idol. You spot the withered remains of flowers and handfuls of predator teeth from crocolisks and raptors; but the majority of the offering is bones, and the decaying remnants of their former owners. Big swamp snakes, marsh deer, crocolisks... and you're quite sure, based on one prominent skull, at least one orc.

Around heap of offerings, carved into the earth within a day or two, are a combination of runic markings - some ogrish, as depicted on the bodies of those celebrating below, and some undeniably demonic, recognizable instinctively to anyone who has encountered demonic language before.

Spoiler: Investigation: DC 10

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Sifting through the carcasses, you discover exactly what you feared would be the case: the bodies of two alliance cadets, young men that can't be much over sixteen. They are cold, bloodless, and seem to have been dead for days. There's no doubt these poor boys are the remaining cadets you're looking for.

Cadet Felix hasn't seen them yet; he's keeping obediently at the back of the group, crouched in the grass.

Spoiler: Investigation: DC 15 (Marion, with +2 from Jakk'ari's Assist)

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You don't speak ogrish, so the runic circle is half unknown to you; but the other half is gibberish. These are demonic runes to be sure, but presented as if copied from half-glimpsed Legion banners and peppered randomly to create the illusion of a genuine demonic ritual. Someone has enough demonology to know basic elements of summoning magic, but wants it to look like these ogres are practising more advanced summoning magic, and that the dead cadets - and orcs - were sacrifices to fuel it. In the middle of the heap, beneath the bodies, is a large, hollow grey stone covered in scorch marks.

Spoiler: Investigation: DC 20 (Marion, with +2 from Jakk'ari's Assist)

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You've never seen one up close before, but you're certain - this is an infernal core. Typically, the legion summons them charged with fel energy in the upper stratosphere and they plunge like green comets toward signs of life, emerging as the demonic golems that are forever burned into the fear centres of Horde and Alliance veterans across the world. This one looks to have been exposed to fire recently - though you cannot guess why, except possibly a clumsy effort to revive the construct. Conventional fire does not have the magical nature to accomplish that feat, however; so perhaps it's just here to enhance the presentation of this fake 'ritual'.

Spoiler: Investigation: DC 15 (Isaera)

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The idol, sadly, is part of an elven runestone from the second war; beautiful Thalassian alabaster now stained and mistreated. It's still redolent with magical energies, though pooling idly within the stone with no remnant rune to channel it and no leyline connection to fuel it in an ongoing fashion: a piece of elven glory, bashed into the shape of some ancient tyrant. It looks like a summoning circle, but clumsy - and clumsy in a way any spellcaster knows they can't afford to be. Not the kind of clumsy that twists the spell, but the kind that makes it fall apart blandly. The poor cadets have been killed and drained of blood, perhaps for demonic use somewhere else. In the middle of the heap, beneath the bodies, is a large, hollow grey stone covered in scorch marks.

Spoiler: Investigation: DC 20 (Isaera)

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The stone's nature is demonic in some way; that much you can tell by the fel power radiating off it. But the scorch marks aren't exclusively felflame - the most recent exposure it's had to flame has the robust, heady arcane tang of dragonfire - and arcane ley energy bleeding slowly into it from the idol's nearness.

Spoiler: Mor'Lag's Ogre Insights

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Concerning the festival: The ogres are largely, but not impermeably separated by sex, in the celebrations below; through the male circles and female circles are no less rowdy and intoxicated than one or the other. The large number of ogre youth running about, wrestling and chasing each other through the festivities, tells you this is a whole-community event; and the daubing of ochre symbols on the flesh of those youths seems purposeful. This is an after-party for a series of marriage arrangements. With some effort, you see pairs of the ogre youths with matching ochre symbols - too young to have much interest in each other yet, but promised to each other by their families and with the stipulations of those marriage contracts spelled out on their skin in temporary glyphs. Occasionally, you spot an ogreling with more complex markings - perhaps with a more complex marriage arrangement, or promised to an other settlement of Stonemaul or another clan. Arranged marriages are the reality for many societies in Azeroth and beyond, for those who do not occupy the narrow band between "too poor" and "too rich" to consider exclusively romantic marriages, and for those who do not belong to a boldly forward-looking approach to generational continuity. Whether the Stonemaul do this as a welcome cultural extension of an ancient tradition or as a necessary evil to ensure the familial tribes that make up the greater clan are welded together for another desperately surviving generation is not clear; but the children don't seem to care for the moment, and the adults certainly seem to be having fun celebrating the end of this round of negotiations on behalf of their juvenile offspring.

Concerning the Idol: You don't read demonic, so half of the runic circle is impenetrable to you - but the other half is gibberish. They are clumsy ogre pictograms slapped into the circle to give it an 'ogre' flavor, but not one anyone who knew the language would mistake as having been written authentically. The offerings here infront of the ancestor stone are not uncommon tokens of ogre ancestor reverence, so it seems like this was a legitimate enough ancestor idol - but the folk cavorting below would have had no reason to come up herein the last few days because of the ongoing festival. Someone has come here to desecrate this place with demonic runs, but has for some reason wanted it to look like an ogre has done it.

[Feathersnow]

"This is bad"
"Warlocks intend something, and want to make the Ogres get involved "
"Must be either an attack on the Ogres or a true atrocity to not just hire them openly"

[Plaids]

Oh no..
Jakk'ari releases a silent tusked snarl to suppress a retch. The arrangement is reminiscent of the aftermaths of Dunemaul raids to the troll shaman.

He gestures toward Mor'Lag hoping to leverage the ogre's strength.
Grab this one. I'll take the other. We're leaving.

Quickly glancing towards Felix and making eye contact with the boy he extends an arm with a flat palm vertical to the ground to halt him. Before collapsing his palm into a fist with a single extended index finger signaling the cadet to back away. The last of the cadets had been found and the group's mission was almost complete. There was no need to escalate things. Now was the time to leave and recoup what they could.

[BananaPhone]

Marion Mordis

Marion's heart sank when they found the corpses of the two cadets, barely a few years younger than herself, strewn about in a macabre decoration to conduit whatever infernal ploy the dark practitioners were conducting.

What was equally disturbing was Marions inability to make sense of the arrangement. She understood Demonic, she knew the language and had read various black rituals that could be employed with living sacrifices. But this? She did not recognize this.

Withdrawing her journal from her pack, an ink pot and her pen, Marion started to quickly scribble down notes and jotted a rough outline of what she saw, so that she could return to this at a later date when experience had expanded her knowledge enough to face this puzzle.

Once that was complete, she sprinkled some sawdust powder over the page to help the ink dry before quietly blowing away, folding her book up and returning it to her backpack.

That done, Marion eyed the pile again, pursing her lips when she thought about retrieving proof of the cadets demise.

"Mor'lagh," the warlock asked, her voice soft and quiet as not to draw attention.

"Can you carry these two?" she asked, gesturing to the downed cadets.

"Returning their remains is our prerogative. Perhaps a priest may even be able to restore the damage done to their souls for the burial."

With her question asked, Marion turned her attention back to the pile...at which point she spotted something. Furrowing her brow, the Alteraci retrieved a stick and brushed aside the charred remains of orcs and ashened refuse to reveal the heart of the ritual - an unusually shaped heart of rock. To the uninitiated onlooker this may seem harmless, but Marion could sense something about it. She knew this was no ordinary masonry.

Putting a cloth over her hand, Marion retrieved the item and wrapped it in linen, before squirrelling it away into her backpack. She would study it later.

ooc:
Spending a VP to boost Investigation, and then retrieving the Infernal core.

[MrAbdiel]

"What?" Felix pushes his whisper; hope metamorphing through confusion into dread in his expression, as Jakk'ari's expression and gesture of warning give him the softest preparation for what is to come that such a precarious moment in such a place can afford. "What is it? Have you..?" But after backing up obligingly, there's no escaping a revelation for the young man. When he sees what remains of Gawin, a discoloured mockery of a man upon whom scavenging beetles and rot from the marsh conditions have set over the last few days, he pales and chokes and lets out a sound of haunting, inarticulate grief. He is struck with bizarre, and completely understandable indecision. A step towards Gawin's almost unrecognizable body, and then a step back from the horror of it; a step towards the bluff and back again when he sees the still, carrion hand he knows must belong to Xander. He reels back, tears streaming, face going from sheet white to tomato red as he seethes through hyperventilating breaths. He draws his sword half from its scabbard, and turns his eyes to the bluff and the sounds of ogrish laughing and dancing and drinking; and murder turns his countenance from frightened boy to avenger of blood; but he takes one step as if to launch himself in a diving stab at the village as a single, monstrous aggregate... and then all his strength empties from him, and the sword slips from his grasp to jab upright into the earth. His knees hit the ground, and with a full body convulsion he topples sideways drawing up into the posture of an infant; his mouth locked wide open as if to accommodate a scream of denial so loud as to shake the sky. But he doesn't release that scream; even in this state, he has the presence of mind to incarcerate it within his heaving chest and let it slowly die there, released in muted particulate as shuddering moans into his cupped hands. All the helplessness of his youth swallows up any soldierly affectation he thought to possess, and dumps him slack and mute into the reality of the dangerous world. Jakk'ari sets aside the body and turns his attention and care to the crumbling cadet Felix, with what seems to be incremental success in calming him down to those watching at a respectful step back.

"Must have let himself believe it was all going to be okay, when he learned the other two survived." The speaker is Zachary, who has arrived in the midst of the party so stealthily it's as if he manifested from smoke. "Damn shame."

[BananaPhone]

Marion Mordis

Contrary to popular belief, Marion wasn't a totally heartless, self-serving conniver. Though she presented a pleasant façade while pondering what suited her best within the privacy of her own mind, she still had the strings within her heart that could be plucked by those who knew either the correct words, stories or demonstrations. And Felix was one such individual, even if he didn't know it.

Though to be fair, his surreptitious agony was similar to that of her own, albeit with different variables. Marion herself had lost a lot in her young life: her position, her family, her holdings, her status, her prestige and her nation. Though she believed the weight of her calamity outstripped that of Felix's, she was not self-absorbed enough to think that it muscled it out for the spotlight of consideration in the present time. The academy had been Felix's world. These cadets, his family. Their actions, his alone to bear in this wretched swamp. Though he had chosen a military life in which he should be prepared for losing comrades to the depredations of malicious outsiders, he was receiving such a lesson at a particularly vulnerable age. This was not some war weary veteran who had seen fellows come and die - it was a teenager now saddled with the belief he had gotten his fellows killed.

"If you want to honour them Felix," Marion spoke, her voice surprisingly soft and soothing as she laid her hand on his shoulder.

"Help us safely return them to Theramore for proper burial. There is no more and no less that you can do for them now."

[WindStruck]

Isaera was both relieved and disappointed that the cadets were dead. Of course, it was a damn shame. It seems they had no chance at all. But at least, they didn't have to bother with the ogres anymore - and if they were lucky, neither demons nor warlocks- and they could just head back now. Felix was alive and well, and that in itself was a blessing. She would only hope he could take the bad news.

The fact that this elven rune stone was here, desecrated and used to some foul purpose bothered her, however. Probably just as much as the death of these cadets.

"Whatever these foul cultists are up to, I'm going to put a stop to it," she declared. Doing what elves like her did best, deprived of mana but always in control, it was a few trivial gestures, combined with a forceful and rather superfluous couple of syllables she used to draw the mana out of the stone completely. She didn't think she had ever felt so satisfied from drawing mana from anything before.

"Now, it will no longer..." she stopped, realizing Marion had taken up the stone herself.

"I hope you know what you're doing with that, Marion. Do you know what it is? All I can tell you is it is demonic, yet it smells like it was burned with dragon fire. I would suggest we find a way to destroy it, or just bury it somewhere in the swamp those cultists will never be able to find.. but something tells me you'd rather not." Isaera gazed at the warlock expectantly of an answer, and one very long eyebrow already raised.

-----

Down below the bluffs, where Felix waited, Isaera's mind was back to how he would take the bad news. And she was dreading it more and more. Sadly, it was Felix's own torment which caused Isaera to begin shedding some tears. She felt this kind of heartbreak when family did not return from war, and her dear friends suffered the same. These cadets must have all been good friends, as far as she could tell. To lose such a close friend.. well, the visible pain spoke for itself.

She was surprised to hear Marion say something that wasn't so flippantly sarcastic. For once, she could not agree more.

Isaera kneeled down to try to gently grasp his hand. She softly spoke, "We have all lost friends and loved ones. For what it's worth.. I'm sorry."

---

Then Zachary suddenly appeared. Good thing too. She slowly stands "Good timing, Zachary.. I know some of us may prefer to mourn.. but we need to go before demons ambush us, too."

[MrAbdiel]

"... but we need to go before demons ambush us, too."

Some time after this awful escapade, the ears that heard this comment may reflect on it as eerily prophetic; or perhaps just painfully ironic.

The party make their way back down the bluff. The infernal stone is secure in Marion's pack; the ogre idol hewn from elven runestone is denuded of its remnant of magical power; the bodies of Gawin and Xander are bundled in sheets to preserve them for the journey, with Jakk'ari's assurance he can offer them a herb-based respite from the rush of decay once they stop to camp for the night. Zachary gives his bland report - the ogres seem to be having some kind of celebration to blow off the steam generated by taxing marriage negotiations, and the festivities have been going since before he arrived. And Mor'Lag's physical power makes the whole operation swifter and less painful than it has any right to be. Halfway down the bluffs, well enough hidden for the bodies to receive their wrapping before they carry on, Felix catches his breath and nods in wet-eyed delirium at the warlock and mage's quiet reassurances. Between Jakk'ari's quiet, solid support in his most hysterical moment, and the words of the Marion and Isaera with hands settled on his shoulder and hand, the youth is able to shove his grief back into its casing; into the well of feeling where all soldiers must place their gentler selves, at the risk of one day being pulled in and lost entirely. "Thank you. Yes... Yes, I'm okay. Let's just go. I want to just-... Let's go."

And you're all ready to go. You're just about to go. And retrospect makes you wonder if timing had been a little different, how easilly it would have been to just go, or to arrive well after the fact. But as history in Azeroth prefers to gravitate towards such moments, you are there when the music stops, and the cheering and singing of the ogres turns to shock, and alarm. This, inevitably, draws your attention to the scene at hand.

Well - that's not quite right. Your first clue is a sudden movement from Marion's backpack; a quiver of its content and an ear-aching, keening hiss of noise just at the edge of mortal detection that suddenly fades and stops, just before the change in sound in the village nearby.

Spoiler: Perception DC 10

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Something magical almost happened, but then didn't. Whatever Marion put in her bag has just missed some trigger it was intended for; like a stick of goblin dynamite whose fuse has been pinched out just before vanishing into the powder.

Spoiler: Expertise: Magic DC 10

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It seems like the physical separation from the idol - or more specifically, the magic trickle from within it - has robbed this fel happening of some final, critical drop of fuel.

Then, glancing over the low edge of the cliff toward the celebration, you bear witness; just as so many others did, four years ago.

Spoiler: Witness me.

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https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxJiG...415snm-KCeYL-b

The sky does not rain green fire, today; but the earth blooms with it. Dozens of blazing beryl craters burst open around the village, amidst their celebrations; some within the primitive structures, some from hard packed earn in the streets, some from the face of the cliff on whose two you previously stood. The largest are upwards of thirty feet tall, looming over the tallest ogres in the settlement; and no sooner have they birthed from the memory of the last war do they fall upon those creatures nearest to them. Ogres are tough creatures by nature; a warrior culture stacked on top of a wrecking machine physiology; but these ogres are drunk, and confused, and well and truly off guard. The bloodshed commences immediately, and with frightful intensity. Nearest to where you are, two hundred feet beyond the foot of the bluffs and past the crude wooden palisades, you see one reveller blinking in shock at the emergence of three such beings - small ones, no more than twenty feet tall. One falls upon him with a battering ram blow from a green-blazing fist that breaks his mighty neck and catches flame to the body even as it topples.

There are not so many of the wicked constructs that it seems like the settlement is in danger of being overrun, even under these conditions - but they will pay a price in the blood of the jubilant, intoxicated adults and the dumbfounded children.

Spoiler: OOC Rolls!

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You're not technically in combat time yet; but I will ask you to make a Will Resistance Check against a DC of 14. Failure means you are dazed by the demonic shock of the scene.

[Plaids]

Jakk'ari breaths a sigh of relief as the core enclosed in Marion's bag rattles and screeches before anticlimactically petering out. Before being rattled by the emergence of dozens of cruel green flaming giants suddenly bursting from the moist ground. The roars are incomprehensible to the shaman and surely not a product of the elements.

The chorus of deep roars cascades over the frightened cries of a populace scrambling to understand what was happening while mounting a flatfooted defense. Thatched ogre mounds began to burn while gigantic figures lumbered in every direction. This was something he had never seen.

Taking his allies into account Jakk'ari sees the two inquisitive magical adepts who pawed so intently at the likely magical relics transfixed in horror. Felix was shocked but hadn't fallen into the freezing crevice between fight or flight like Marion and Isaera, thankfully a stern command would surely spring him into action. Then he looks to Mor'Lag and Zachary both exemplary fighters who would be irreplaceable in the next few minutes. Though if Mor'Lag's faculties were arrested by fear a full retreat would be nearly impossible given their size.

Seeking answers for what is happening Jakk'ari turns to the trusted ranger who had been at the villages perimeter the longest.
What is happening !? ...

Spoiler: OOC Backstory knowlege

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Given how isolated the sand trolls were I'm thinking that they have passed down tales of demon invasions long ago but lost some details to time and can't identify specific species but have an understanding of "I know it when I see it".

[WindStruck]

"By the Gods.. Th-Those can only be..." Isaera says, dumbfounded and just about scared out of her mind. Perhaps the shock would wear off, but needless to say, fighting these monsters would be foolish, if not suicidal.

Her eyes darted around and at the ensuing carnage. Drunk ogres and even ogre children about to get slaughtered, or at the very least, their homes destroyed. But what could they expect to do without adding to the causalities? How would they be received after the fact.. and where did these monsters come from??

[BananaPhone]

Marion Mordis


"I hope you know what you're doing with that, Marion. Do you know what it is? All I can tell you is it is demonic, yet it smells like it was burned with dragon fire. I would suggest we find a way to destroy it, or just bury it somewhere in the swamp those cultists will never be able to find.. but something tells me you'd rather not."

Marion looks over her shoulder at the elf, a small, but friendly smile crossing her features.

"What kind of lady do you take me for?" she asked with a playful expression.

And then the proverbial dung impacted with the proverbial propeller.

The Alteraci's eyes widened at the very sight before her, the macabre and grotesque spectacle reaching deep within her to clasp her bravery and squeeze it dry with a fiery, masoned fist. Were she observing one of those things in act, from a distance, Marion might have been more content. But this many? And so close? The fiery and violent terrain spread out before her as the titanic forms of the infernals, wreathed in flame, smashed against the meaty, towering stumps of the more numerous ogres in a battle that Marion could feel in her soul and through her feet.

Reaching out to the nearest companion near her, Marions eyes still agape with a primal horror, the teenager rapidly patted at whichever campion was closest.

"We have to leave. Now."

Her expression suggested not just the desire for expedience, but a recognition of what was before her, which lent itself to her wish for an immediate and hasty retreat.

[Feathersnow]

Mor'Lag was, more than usual, of two minds about all of this. She definitely didn't owe it to the Stonemaul to stop the Dorei desecrating their relic, not least when someone or something had already done far worse. She didn't owe it to them to save them, not least when it was unlikely she could actually help enough to matter

But all of this was wrong. Whatever started here wasn't going to end here. As the twins carried the corpses, she knew that even simple pragmatism would encourage her to at least see what this was

Then... a scene from the third war returned!!

Spoiler

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(1d20+3)[22]

[Plaids]

As the carnage unfolds Jakk'ari can't help but feel a pang of guilt and wonders briefly if the groups excursion has caused this disastrous event. Regardless he would not stand by idly in the grass. Stepping forward to the apex of the hill Jakk'ari pleads to the wind and water spirits found in abundance in the swamps and summons a downpour radiating 120 from him only excluding his allies. All in the hopes of dousing any flaming hulks nearby.

Spoiler: OOC:Distances

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I don't know how far away the infernal cores are but I'm taking some pre-emptive measures if there are any.

[MrAbdiel]

Jakk'ari's appeal to the elements is heard, and the spirits of water and wind conspire to darken the sky, and begin the opening salvos of a deluge. It patters and hisses off the infernals, partially muting their grand fires and greatly diminishing the spread of blazes on structures and unfortunate folk.

Spoiler: {Fluff} Jakk'ari's Call to the Elements

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The spirits require a forceful hand, right now; your invocations must be roared and your gestures must be sweeping and commanding. They are in disarray, here. Water and wind spirits are reacting with convulsive disgust at the fel monstrosities just as mortals do, but they honor the ancient promises when you direct their action. Frustrating are the spirits of fire that are rapidly drawn from the deep furnace of the firelands to the spirit nearness of this place. They vascillate between horror at the demon engines, and their inevitable, euphoric glee at the opportunity to burn things. They are as much obstacle as ally, here, which is very much fire's nature: a troll's most valuable tool, and his most ancient bane.

"...We should..." Zachary begins; green fire flashing in his eyes as the demonic invasion jags into reality to disrupt the otherwise simple search-and-find mission. His attention darts wildly about across the targets, and one hand twitches toward his rifled musket. But he seems stuck in a loop of actions - his hunter mind telling him to run before he becomes prey, his humanity reaching out sympathetically to these creatures who might have been his enemies in past conflicts, but are kin to him in the quality of their suffering right now. "...We should..."

While throughout the once festive town sprawl the same scene unfolds in some awful variety, the drama closest to you carries on. Just over the top of the palisade you can see the shoulders and burning stony skulls of the three lesser constructs, thrashing about with murderous purpose. One hoists a grown ogre, which bellows in pain and defiance, and hurls him blazing into the sloppy pailings of a nearby supply hut. It catches flame at once, the blaze incrementally draining from green to orange as the felfire gives way to its natural counterpart. Another seems to be in a protracted exchange with a defiant enemy, the sound of stony fists pounding into a table improvised as a shield crunching out into the air. The third's form hulks toward the palisade, angled down; and you hear a hysterical chorus from beyond. The sound is strange indeed - the wailing of children, but from throats as large as most race's adults.

"Light save us, there's kids. There's kids in there!"

This assessment, obvious as its conclusion is, comes from Felix. Felix, who seems to not be struck with the bonefreezing grip of fear at this scenario. The cadet's features, glowing in the green flame, are troubled with fear for certain; but they are also puffy and gleaming with the wracking bouts of grief that incapacitated him minutes ago. The party of unlikely allies witnesses a peculiar kind of alchemy happen in the heart of the boy soldier. Some combination of his emotionally exhausted state, catalysed by his disastrous idea of hunting demons in the swamp for the good of all the world, reacts with what an insightful observer would identify as the germinating seed of survivor's guilt and fills him with something so closely analogous to courage the effect is indistinguishable.

The short, straight blade rips from its scabbard, two feet of steel winking with the appealing banality of unenchanted, simple heroism. He lets out a shout that seems to fill the space where a superior's order to charge should be, and serves to release his feet from idleness; and he tears across the field, leaps through a man-sized gap in the sloppy palisade, and throws himself into combat with one of the creatures. You don't see the result of the charge - the permeable palisade nonetheless obscures the exchange - but the sound of the strike, the pitiable, small dink of his sword on the stone of the construct, rings out to your ears like a town bell, calling all hands to arms.

Spoiler: OOC Rolls And More!

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We're in combat! You can move through the sloppy palisade when you get there, if you want to; but there's nothing stopping you from turning and leaving Felix and the ogres to their fate, or hanging back and volleying magic over the wall. That'll provide your enemies with cover, but it means you can keep away! The palisade is about 90ft away, and the closest lesser infernal 20 ft beyond that, with another two distracted by their own destructive pursuits positioned at the other two points of a rough triangle with 40ft sides.

Felix's action is to charge! Normal humans have a move of 0 (30 ft). He has a 'charge' move ability with a move speed of 1 (60ft), so he uses extra effort to pump it to 2 (120ft) so he can make it there in one move action, and swing his sword at the infernal for a mighty dink.

(1d20+2)[16] to hit! Looking for a 17 to hit in melee.
(1d20+7)[22] toughness, if it hits.

Fortunately, the sword has a damage rank of 3, which is just enough to beat the Lesser Infernal's Impervious Toughness rating.
Additionally, if he hits, the infernal makes a Reaction Damage attack with his felfire.

(1d20+2)[6] to hit, looking for a 13. And if it hits, Felix will make a toughness check or be burned!
(1d20+8)[25] toughness, looking for a 17.

If you're wondering why Felix's toughness is so high, it's because he's getting a +5 against all fire descriptor attacks from Jakk'ari's elemental downpour!

Additionally, Felix's idiot charge into danger to help his historical enemies entitles all who witness to a +2 to their repeated will resistance to shake off the fear. Marion and Isaera are entitled to roll at the 'end' of their idle turns that have just passed, so you can roll before you make your first in combat action turn and then again at the end of that turn, if you are still shaken.

Edit: Dink! No 'hit' from the sword, so merely a cinematic dinking off one big fiery stone leg. Your move, adventurers!

[BananaPhone]

Marion Mordis


Marion was still feeling the primal fear of these wretched things gripping at her essence, a paralysing gnawing that seeped across her nervous system and halted any movements that were too advanced for finer motor functions to accomplish.

She hated these things.

For a second, however, it seemed like her words might bear fruit and the group of them would turn and use the opportunity to slip away.

But then Felix just had to...

"No!" Marion shouted out, even attempting to grip the cadet before he carried forth with his foolhardy decision. But it was too late. Off he took, charging forward and discovering how little his weapon meant to the infernal siege engines of the Burning Legion.

Damn fool! Marion thought quietly, her lips pursed as she drew her hands up.

Uttering a single syllable of power, Marion pointed her right hand towards the towering infernal as shards of black-green energy leapt from her fingers to strike the thing in the chest...


ooc:

Marion is casting Shadow and Fire.

To Hit: (1D20+4)[17]
Homing Next Round: (1D20+4)[13]

As it's Multiattack the Damage gets +2 damage per degree of success for hitting. Going for Shadow descriptor instead of Fire.

So DC 19 + any modifiers.

[WindStruck]

A realization hits Isaera. "These ogres aren't responsible for the demons..."

But then, of course, Felix has to do something rash and stupid. Exactly what he promised he wouldn't be doing.

"Felix, wait! Arghh!" Isaera says, as she makes some half-hearted attempt to run up to and catch the cadet, but he's just too damn fast and foolhardy.

Now a bit closer to the action, Isaera tries to complement the rain by extinguishing the infernal's flame.. with Frost Bolt!

Spoiler: ooc

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yeaaaah I think it's impervious but whatever. Isaera's never fought one before. Or seen one. I am not sure if afflictions will still work even if its toughness doesn't get phased though.

attack: (1d20+1)[20]
damage 1
-Affliction 7 (dazed + hindered)
---Limited Degree 2
---Extra Affliction

And affliction is resisted by fortitude DC 17.

[Plaids]

While orchestrating the downpour Jakk'ari's attention is brough to the young cadet dashing past him at an impressive pace.
Seeing Felix's trajectory towards the village Jakk'ari scrambles after him by stumbling down the steep bluff then breaking into a taxing sprint.

Through the pitter patter of rain and squelching rain Jakk'ari can't keep pace with the young man but doesn't lose sight of him for long as the troll hops atop an opening in the battered palisades.
He sees Felix next to a flaming infernal as well as two others engaging their individual own ogres.

Intent on protecting Felix Jakk'ari compels the earth, summoning a coiling cyclone of mud between Felix and the infernal ready to intercept any strike aimed at the cadet.

Spoiler: ooc mechanical actions

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Jakk'ari uses extra effort to raise his speed to 1. With a movement of 60 Jakk'ari moves to the palisades and uses his Deflect power on Felix.
I'm assuming Jakk'ari was closer to the palisades than the rest of the group since the group was going downhill and away from the village and then went back up to summon the rain.
(1d20+1)[11] Rolling to use deflect on Felix assuming Jakk'ari is at a medium distance from Felix.

[Feathersnow]

Lag is aware that daemons are there, right there, hurting Ogre children. If she does nothing, she deserves everything she suffered since her fathers' deaths. If she saves anyone important and lives, she might never need suffer those insults again .

Mor, for once, is the less rational. What she thinks cannot be put into words easily, only violent imagery of daemons being sent back forcibly to where they came from across the Nether.

They see where another Ogre is being attacked and attempt to flank the aggressor!

[MrAbdiel]

Long troll legs carry Jakk'ari in big, loping strides up to the palisades, and with a desperately outstretched hand. Sympathetically, the elemental spirits produce a reaching hand of the same shape and arrangement as Jakk'ari's; but an effigy rendered from mud and loose stones, lurching from the soil to intervene between Felix and his towering, flaming adversary. When that infernal spins, it brings a wild, devastating backhand of stone to bear that could smash a mortal body with a direct it. It carves through the muddy apparition; but in the blur of the movement, it may have lost just enough momentum from its strike to save the cadet's life. He raises his sword to parry the strike, and his blade is pushed against his chainmail, his body knocked skidding onto the mud and then, incredibly, the momentum carries him with a weird, accidental elegance tumbling back to his feet again. He pounces forward and slashes at the infernal's legs, with another pitiably brave ring of steel on stone that yields no effect on the monstrosity.

Marion's roiling blast of shadow roars over the palisade, but the angle to avoid a wasteful impact against the wood means the missiles sing overhead of her marauding target, curling back around as they instinctively calibrate their destructive focus on the target of her searing hate. Isaera's casting is more formalized and precise; a spinning spear of ice coalescing in the air above her shoulder at the delicate sculpting of her scintillating fingertips, rattling in its unseen arcane binding as it builds power. The third member of the ranged assault team, Zachary, brings his rifle to his shoulder and squeezes off a shot so swiftly that it should by no rights hit the target; but luck is with the ranger in that moment, and as his shaking hands are moving to reload the musket, keen eyes can see a neat bullet hole in the stony skull of the infernal bearing down on Felix. The injury jets sputtering green flame, which one must hope is a kind of analogy to a bleeding wound. Headshot doesn't seem to notice - it lets out an unearthly roar and redoubles its murderous efforts upon Felix.

The infernal that had flung its ogre prey into a nearby hut stalks purposefully into the building, its bulk smashing the burning, crude structure apart, and delivers a stomp that reverberates through the ground and fills the air with a grisly cracking noise that hearers do well not to imagine mapping to the specific interaction of stone foot and ogre head. Curbstomp, its foe extinguished, cranes its burning, rage-crazed eyes over to the palisades, and the attacks flying over the wall at its companion. From there, its attention wanders slowly, almost thoughtfully, to Zachary, Isaera and Marion.

The ogre facing off against the other infernal is an older male, a cyclops by injury not birth, with the horn in the middle of his forehead broken sideways and healed oddly. He is possessed of a grunting, inarticulate stubbornness that might be considered admirable. Further in the interior of the town, the battle is raging and it seems likely that in due time the ogres will win; but they will win from the inside out, and if this warrior is to survive - and preserve the lives of the cluster of six ogre children pressed back in paralyzed fear into the muddle base of the inside of the palisade - he will have to punch above his weight for some time. He has hoisted the heavy feast table in both hands and deflected one blow; and manages to deflect another. But the second blow catches the improvised shield on green flame, and its usefulness quickly threatens to turn to liability. His one good eye catches the storming approach of Mor and Lag, however; and with an unspoken interaction between the ogres, Brokenhorn roars and makes several feigned assaults on the demon-engine that instinctively shifts its bulk to deflect, before darting out a hand and snatching the table away, smashing it on the ground in a display of mindless, furious dominance. Tablesmasher does, in that way, keep focusing on the older ogre, exposing its back to Mor'Lag's coming blow.

[WindStruck]

Noticing another of those infernals seemed to be lumbering over towards them, this whole situation was going from trying to rescue the cadet from his own stupidity to probably being in danger themselves.

Isaera doesn't want to get closer, but she still immediately begins charging arcane energy in her hands, and soon sends the arcane missile flying at the infernal soon after her frost bolt strikes it.

Spoiler: arcane missiles

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attack: (1d20+3)[20] (and then there's palisades)
has homing 3
damage 4

since she hasn't taken a move action, this should go off somewhat faster

"Felix!! Get out of there!! Another one is coming!" Isaera shouted at him, as she tried to concentrate on her spell.

Persuasion: (1d20+14)[15]

[Plaids]

Seeing Felix in danger Jakk'ari attempts to get closer to Felix while walking through the saturated mud disturbed by his attempts to protect Felix.
Hearing loud boom and sharp metallic crack Jakk'ari sees Zachary's shot crack the infernals faceplate. Following Zachary's example he brings some of his own lightning to bear against the infernal.

roll]1d20+8[/roll]

Spoiler: Mechanics

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Jakk'ari moves 15 feet closer to Felix and the infernal to now be 15 feet from both. He then uses blast on the wounded infernal closest to Felix.

[MrAbdiel]

The arcing frostbolt strikes Headshot's blackstone chest, and the sidewinding arcane missiles thread through the palisade and burst one after another in a pock-marking string up its right side. Jakk'ari's lightning scintillates across all six of his fingers, and leaps from his digits at the demon-thing.

And through all this, it bellows and rages on; the accumulation of chips and cracks to its body slowly building, but not yet hindering it noticeably. Its attention does track away from Felix and toward Jakk'ari, however...

Meanwhile, Tablesmasher takes the bait of Brokenhorn's goading and bulls through the display, smashing a fiery stone fist through the improvised wooden shield and square into the ogre's jaw and chest, sending him reeling, singed, and staggering despite a best effort to deflect the blow.

[Plaids]

Startled by the infernal weathering the barrage of magical blasts Jakk'ari pleads to Felix. While shouting over the weather.
You've done all you can. We need to regroup! (1d20)[18]

Seeking to offer Felix a way out Jakk'ari focuses on the ground. Compelling two amiable elements to separate a thin line of bone-dry ground emerges guiding Felix to the palisades. All while the rain continues saturate the ground and form deepening mud.

Spoiler: Mechanics

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Jakk'ari is aiding Isaera in her attempt to convince Felix to fall back. He also makes the ground into ground impeding movement by two degrees excluding land surrounding allies and a small strip of land leading Felix back to the palisades. I don't know how big infernal feet are but the strip is meant to be thinner than the width of its hips so it can't move unimpeded on the path.

[BananaPhone]

Marion Mordis


Marion pursed her lips and shook her head as she watched both magic and blade batter off the rocky body of the towering infernal.

Of course they attacked the infernal despite my warnings, the Alteraci thought sourly to herself, what would I know, I'm only a warlock...


Drawing her hands up, Marion begun to chant and conjure forth her own minion. She doubted she would be able to flee from these things without some sort of meat-shield between herself and the others. Though she didn't fancy her chances of surviving in the swamp for days...

ooc:

Full Round Action: Casting Summon Demon: Expertise (Magic) - (1D20+10)[19] vs DC 16.


Second To Hit against the Infernal: (1D20+4)[23]

If that beats the To Hit by 1 degree then the DC is 21, if it beats the To Hit by 3 degrees the DC is 24. So she's already got 1 degree by rolling a successful hit (so DC 21), then if the Infernals Dodge is 14 or less she gets +5 for DC 24.

[MrAbdiel]

The violet lights glimmering off Marion's casting fingertips begin quickly to change form; from light, to smoke; from smoke, to empty fog; from empty fog, to fog with a pair of bright eyes and heavy, jeweled bracers suspended in its rippling depths. The Voidwalker was being slowly hauled into reality with a minumum of reluctance, and radiating a palpable pall of something that tasted, to the soul's instinctive palate, like a sort of bitter, detached homesickness. But while this took place, the combat carried on; and the shadowy blast released by the warlock moments ago completes its orbit and slams into the back of the injured infernal. The impact seems to have the desired effect; its fist, raised to hammer Felix into the ground like a railspike, suddenly drops to support it as it heaves forward with the rocking power of the shadowy detonation. Faint cracks spider out from the point of impact, even curling around to feature with fellish internal luminescence on the right side of its central 'torso' stone. In that moment, as another of Felix's blows clangs ineffectually the infernal's stony back, the dual voices of reason, elf and troll together, penetrate the cadet's fugue of heroism. He takes the moment of the monstrosity's distraction to fall back, straining as he exerts, through the palisade's gappy flank and just out the other side, halfway to where he started. Headshot pushes up and stumbles after him, but only makes it as far as Jakk'ari; the construct's attention transferring swiftly to the shaman with evident malice.

Dropping to one knee as he finishes reloading, Zachary breaths out slowly and takes careful aim at the damaged 'skull' he has hit once before; banking on accumulating a second success when the moment is right.

The second infernal, Curbstomp, sees the young human fleeing across its path and lurches forward in pursuit. As the slim youth slides through the gap in the palisade, the infernal drops a shoulder to plow right through it; and for a moment the observers feel their preserving instincts warning them about the hail of burning, tainted splinters they are about to need to reel from. But the impact against the palisade is a bare thump - the mudslick ground has given way somewhat under the demonic construct's foot, compromising the gravity of its charge into a blow that neither obliterates the wooden wall, nor seriously damages it. Felix has escaped, and the wall has held; and in the distraction of the immediately threatening enemies, the ogre children scrabble away from their trapped corner - though it is their village that is under attack, and at best they can run to a part of it that is less immediately under attack.

Dazed, Brokenhorn attempts to land a punch on the towering engine of fire and stone; but Tablesmasher leans deftly away from the force of the blow, raises both stony arms above its head with a clasping of burning fists, and prepares to bring both down upon the ogre's head.

Spoiler: Mor'Lag's Insights

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Your hearts are thumping in their chest. There is something about this encounter - the demons, the ogres, the magic, the physical contest - that rings in your senses with a majesty that belongs in ritual - as if fate had orchestrated a kind of rite-of-passage for them in the absence of a lasting affiliation to tribe. Perhaps that ancestral idol on the bluff really has some mojo to it; perhaps, as some have suggested, the eyes of the ancestors peer out through that stone facade in mute witness to all that transpires beyond. Are your fathers there, watching? Do they watch from Ogri'la, in rest? Or some darker, more anguished place - the price of that rash vow, and the heady pride that caused such an ignoble fall?

You remember that day on the deck of the ship, watching your father dismantle a Felguard with his hands - his hands! - and even as you moving up for a flanking strike on Tablesmasher, these towering stone fiends seem... smaller, now. Held in true perspective. They are mighty, yes; but they are also weak; slave constructs of a race of slaves. They are demons; but you have seen stronger demons crumble beneath the fists of the mighty. Have your fathers given you only a burden of shame to carry for your whole life? Have they not, at the least, given you also your hands, your arms, your dunam, which the small races translate so listlessly as brute power? You will find out, today, if the blood in your veins is all curse - or something more than that. The answers lie, you are certain, inside the breakable husks of these fel-golems.

Spoiler: OOC Mor'Lag Stuff:

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Mor'Lag, perhaps for reasons she does not understand, understands instinctively the weaknesses of these constructs. Using the smash action will permit you to break the stone trunk of the torso, exposing the infernal core to direct damage; removing 2 points of their toughness with a base success, and 4 of their 7 points of toughness, if the smash completely breaks their 'armor'. Presently, Brokenhorn has paid a price to distract Tablesmasher for you - it's vulnerable, making its parry defence a mere 4 instead of 7 for your coming attack.

[Plaids]

Seeing Felix out harms way and the pursuing elemental failing to find traction in the mud Jakk'ari feels a small but sustaining sense of relief. He's also glad no one was attempting to squeeze through the palisades only to become jellied meat between the wall and the construct.

Unfortunately, it appears the two infernals wouldn't relent in their goal of crushing the most accessible fleshy being.
Attempting to suprise "headshot" Jakk'ari provides him with its namesake. A bolt of lightning arcs through the air before wrapping around Jakk'ari's outstretched arm and being launched through the air like a snake being chucked by its handler at "headshots" face. (1d20+8)[13]

Taking his chances Jakk'ari dives between headshot's feet and running forwards as fast he can.
Whilst running for his life Jakk'ari compels the earth to churn and grind. The roiling earth unearths a series of boulders no bigger than Jakk'ari's feet evenly spaced in hispath. Bounding on the stones Jakk'ari moves unimpeded above the increasingly deeping mud. Each stone trodded upon sinks back into the earth.

Spoiler: Mechanics

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Jakk'ari attacks "headshot" with a blast in the face before running through its legs and behind it to run away from it. This should put distance between him and "headshot" plus the one hitting the palisade. Then with a spent victory point he impedes the movement of all enemies around him in range while trying to not obstruct his own movement or that of his allies.

I'm really enjoying the "selective" part of environment control. If the party somehow ends up in a gnome city that ran out of coal for their steam engine generator Jakk'ari is going to heat the piston chambers of the engine and then cool them repeatedly to generate electricity and possibly worshipped as a "machine speaker".

[MrAbdiel]

Mor'Lag comes charging into the combat with wrecking-ball force, using the momentum of the dash to reel back one mighty fist, and bring it forth into the stony back of the distracted demon-construct. But at the moment of impact, it's not entirely clear what happens. The blow does not translate into physical damage - surely that would leave a cracking of the stone - but instead some other, more mystical collusion of forces. A rush of wind scythes out from the point of the strike in a ring lined up against the plane of the ogress's impacting knuckles. A boom like a thunderclap echoes from the strike, and behind it, mingling with Mor and Lag's own cries of ferocity, is a sound like other ogre voices - this pair masculine and distant but loud and resonant - making some unintelligible declaration in the space of a half second.

Tablesmasher stumbles forward from the strike, huge igneous legs nearly slamming over Brokenhorn as he scrambles out of the way. The infernal rounds on Mor'lag now with a demonic shriek, the felflame in its eyes, its neck socket, and issuring from between all its joints stuttering and guttering like a torch in hurricane wind.

Spoiler: OOC Action Resolution!

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Mor'Lag has gone with an alternate effect for that crit, making it a Banishing Blow and manifesting for the first time a hinted at but undisclosed magical potential. The Infernal won the opposed Nullify roll (despite rolling at a -2 disadvantage!), but Banishing Blow as I've speculatively written it has the Secondary Effect modifier, so Tablesmasher will have to make that roll again at the end of Mor'Lag's next turn, too. Failure means being unsummoned!

Jakk'ari's lightning flashes up into Headshot's stony skull, and it shakes its head with a screaming, sneeze like dismissal as the troll slips between its legs and begins his withdrawal. Regathering its senses, the infernal turns to pursue... just as a black-violet rift appears nearby it, projecting unsettling un-light in a complex geometric pattern on the earth around it. Similarly, in Marion's midst, a matching geometric pattern spiders out from the basic traces her powers have made in the ground and fill in the rest of the magical circle as if the spell desires so much to be cast that it's willing to split the labor. Both circles release a howl of cold, sterile air before Varghast manifests in a sucking truncation of sound, and lets out a mournful, howling groan that seems to agitate and draw the attention of the infernals. Curbstomp seems particularly enraged, backing off the palisade and turning its focus on the Voidwalker.

Tablesmasher, his animating magics warring against the corrosive effect of Mor'Lag's attack, pushes through the disruption to lash out at the bifold ogress; but the attack is clumsy and overweighed, balanced badly against the stagger recovery from the Banishing Blow.

Spoiler: OOC Turns!

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Marion and Isaera are up again! Marion, Varghast can act on your initiative for simplicity's sake. I had him manifest in the midst of the the fight and taunt (it only succeeded on Curbstomp right away, but he can just do it every turn!), but obviously you can do whatever you want with him.

[WindStruck]

Since it seemed the first infernal they were fighting was about to start chasing Jakk'ari, and the other.. seemed to give up its attempts at reaching them for now, Isaera once again conjures up frost in her hands and flings it at Headshot to further hinder its pursuit.

Spoiler: ooc

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frost bolt
attack: (1d20+1)[20]
DC 17 fortitude for same afflictions as before

[MrAbdiel]

The frostbolt spirals out to the left as if it's likely to miss by a considerable margin; but the elven fingers know they arcane work. It arcs out to the side and rips back in with greater momentum than the first casting, translating the torquing force of its longer path into a harsher impact that causes the infernal to emit another piercing bellow. A great crystalline growth now exists nested in the nook between shoulder and skull of the thing, growing out and back three full feet in a physical map of the frostbolt's arcane over-penetration. The felflames throughout its body begin dying down as they compete with the arcane fire, and each slogging step of the infernal is an achingly slow plod as frost reaches out to snap-freeze the sloshing mud into grabbing permafrost that needs to be forcefully broken to advance!

Spoiler: Isaera Notices...

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First, the magic Marion has just used, you are quiet certain, is a demon summoning ritual. If you had any doubts about how much of a warlock she is, she's a full-blown warlock; but at least she's your warlock right now.

Unrelated but additional, your investigation of the area pays a longterm dividend you weren't expecting. You remember looking over the area to your far right when you were snooping around the broken barrel and ogre expectoration before you climbed up the bluff. But you see a disturbance in the earth that wasn't there before - as if a bucket full of sod had been heaved up and off of the the spot from a projecting force beneath. And inside that depression all the way over there - a detail you wouldn't have noticed, you think, if your senses weren't so fine and charged by the inhalation of ancient Thalassian mana earlier - is the top of another of those bloody stones, like that which you found in the offering pit, like those which you're sure birthed the Lesser Infernals in the ogre village.

The deduction seems inevitable, now: like the other inert stone, the drip-feed of activating mana that was meant to 'fill them' never quite reached critical mass. It can't be a proximity thing, or the one you plucked from the offering pit should have activated first; but something has made the feeding of these infernal seeds uneven enough that when you drained the last reservoir of their activating energy, something or someone has triggered an activation ritual that was meant to happen later. This was supposed to be a summoning large enough to complete the massacre of this settlement without contest, instead of one that will go down as a calamity but one they have the ogre-power (and helpful outside intervention) to overcome. Ironically, your outrage at the ogrish desecration of your people's sacred menhir has probably resulted in the saving of many of their lives. You wonder what kind of enemy, with access to such a wealth of demonic relics and arcane subtlety to set such a trap, you might have made your enemy.

Spoiler: OOC Infernal Status!

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Headshot: -3 Toughness, Dazed (until the end of its next turn), Dazed again (until it passes a DC17 Fort at the end of its turn), and Hindered (until it passes a DC17 Fort at the end of its turn). So its toughness against damage is effectively +4, and atleast for next turn it has only one action or move; and if it's a move, it's at -1 move speed. And because Felix and Jakk'ari withdrew from it, it's gonna be a move!

Tablesmasher: Uninjured, but needing to beat an opposed check (at a net -2 balance) or be unsummoned at the end of Mor'Lag's next turn.

Curbstomb: Taunted (Attack Impaired -4 until it spends a turn attacking the Voidwalker), Movement Impaired -2. And not adjacent to anyone, so it'll have to move.

Go eclectic party, go! The only allied character who's been hurt yet is Brokenhorn who has taken one for the team; but you're winning on points!

[MrAbdiel]

As Jakk'ari clears the infernal's reach, Felix looks back and, with the dough-headed instinct of a man trying to pull a friend from quicksand by diving in and giving him a boost, doubles back to fake another charge. "HEY!" He roars, and flashes his short sword in the air. "HEY!" Before turning again and running alongside the troll, hopping through the gaps in the palisade in time with one another. It's not clear that Headshot took the bait; but with dazed, frost-rimmed steps, it manages to stagger with a complaining bellow up to the palisade, close enough to lay a hand on it, but no further. Atleast from there, the ranged attackers have clear shots - and it doesn't look to be capable of rapid pursuit for a moment or two!