• PM To Join • A Casual Walk to Cahryst

[Lorogh]

Oh Look! A Rock!

Lorogh and Victor were on their way from Korlasir. Their latest trip had seen them exiting the Arcane Academy, having contributed to some of the research ongoing to limit deadly weapons and magic in confined spaces. They'd had their debates about what exactly the research was for, but by now they'd moved on to more pertinent matters, namely the training of Lorogh's magical abilities, Transmutation and such. Agilia had promised to offer Lorogh more magical teachings once he'd learned more from his first mentor. She explained that his having survived one initiation probably boded well for additional ones, and the Empire was always on the l ookout for individuals with magical potential.

So as he walked along with Victor, accompanying them were the Ragdila that was Lorogh's pack animal and usual travel companion. Also Sapper, the Qi'ora private in Lorogh's squad, accompanied them. Chelsea and Heft were visiting with family during the hiatus from military duty. Sapper having been originally a slave from Nashaki, who joined the Imperial army a while after liberation from it, had no family to visit. Not anywhere that was safe for him, anyway. Lorogh was a bit sad for him, but then now that he thought of it, the otter got homesick sometimes too.

It was good to have sapper along anyway, in case they needed to help each other don their armor. As it was, the travel was long and full armor was a generally bad idea to keep one's energy up. So he just wore his cuirass, and some of the fauld of his armor over his usual Imperial garb. A thick black doublet, a black wool kilt, and traveling boots and gloves. It still being Ashan he didn't get too hot for all the travel they were doing, and had indeed moved through some chilly regions on the long road to Cahryst.

At his hip, Lorogh wore his bronze-hilted artillery style sword. It was a comforting weight, although he was not really one for shedding blood, but could be pressed to when he needed.

"Oh, a rock!" Lorogh exclaimed, as he jolted off toward the side of the road. He wanted to examine its properties, as a way of practicing his identifying skills. He held it up, and marveled at its special glittery nature. "Oh, this is pyrite, yes?"

"Fools gold they call it..." Just then, as he said it, arrows began flying from over the hill. Several of them buried in the ground between Lorogh and Victor, however one of them glanced off of his breastplate, making Lorogh grateful that he'd worn it. "We're under attack! Positions Master!"

So saying, Lorogh pulled his shield off of the Ragdila pack animal, while Sapper took position in front of the large tortoise, wearing little more than padded cloth armor, but also a shield and similar blade to Lorogh's.

"We should take cover?"

[Illuvia]

Luvi had joined the imperial army not too long ago and had gone through some basic training before ultimately being sent off to… wherever it was they called this location. She could hardly keep up with all the military terminology let lone memorize the geography of this new place. And so, what was supposed to be a simple task ended up with her somewhat lost and alone.

She was dressed in her scale mail and had her two katana by her side. She was sweating, but she had enough water to last her the day. She wasn’t all that tired either, having bolstered her body with a series of chained strength and endurance runes. If she was still lost come morning though, then she would get worried. For the time being, she was more concerned with the punishment she was sure to receive for getting lost.

Eventually, she came across quite an odd scene. Something blurred through the air and though she couldn’t tell what they were at first, it was fairly easy to assume they were projectiles given how they were raining down on a some unsuspecting targets. Luvi was positioned in such a way that she would be ‘behind’ the pair and their turtle.

“What’s a girl to do,” she asked herself as she started running towards them. She’d no idea who she was supposed to side with in this scenario. On one hand, she could be running to the aid of friendlies. On the other, they might be the ‘enemy’, meaning assisting them could interfere with military operations. She would have to figure that out before she made a decision whether to help or hurt these folk.

Thankfully, the closer she got, the better she could make out their appearance. The black clothing was a giveaway… and once she could spot the chains that signified one’s rank, she knew for sure that she ought to help. She made an arc around the pair, instead making her way towards the hill. It didn’t take long for the arrows to start flying towards her instead, but she was an unconventional target. Her strength runes allowed her to move with great leaps and bounds which made it hard to aim at her.

Luvi quickly realized, however, that she couldn’t simply sprint right towards them. A lucky arrow that THWACKED against her armor told her that she needed to take cover for the time being. She dove behind a boulder to catch her breath.

[Victor Amielle]

“Your having survived one initiation is a good sign”, Victor remarked to Lorogh as they slowly made their way to Cahyrst. His tone of voice was casual, and his posture relaxed. He had to admit that he enjoyed such moments as well, when everything was quiet and peaceful, when nothing out of the ordinary seemed to happen, and you were just travelling with a couple of companions. “My first initiate was already a mage, a Rupturer, when I met him, and his Transmutation initiation was relatively unproblematic, even though the Transmutation initiation is said to be one of the more dangerous initiations.”

“Of course, there needs to be more research into what makes someone more likely to survive an initiation”, he admitted before he shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t want to bore his traveling companions with science that trial. Not everybody found it as fascinating as he did.

Just like his initiate, Victor wore some armor. Wearing full armor when travelling was a bad idea, but on the other hand, he hated being defenseless in case they encountered bandits on the road. He wore a studded leather cuirass of masterwork quality that provided decent protection against arrows as well as his Green Coat that protected him against physical blows just as well as chainmail, but was considerably lighter and more comfortable to wear. At his belt were two shortswords, one made of Adamantite and one made of Grave Gold.

“A rock?” he asked when Lorogh suddenly jolted off toward the side of the road and quickly followed.

“It could be pyrite”, he murmured – he wasn’t particularly familiar with such materials – before he asked, “Can you take it with you? I’d like to learn its qualities later on. They might be good for something …”

He abruptly stopped as arrows began flying in their direction, quickly jumped aside, away from the arrows, ducked and held his shield in front of him in order to hopefully stop any arrows that came his way.

Except that their attackers focused on someone else, a woman, soon.

He wanted to help her, but first, he couldn’t go directly to her, otherwise they’d likely shoot him.

When Lorogh suggested they take cover he thus inclined his head sharply and looked around to see where they could hide before he sent a mental command to his falcon familiar, Shaye.

He wanted to know where their attackers were and how many there were which would have an impact on his next course of action, on the kind of spells he would use – and how he would deal with the woman that seemed to be as much of a target as the two of them were.

“Do you know how to cast an Ether Missile?” he whispered to Lorogh once they had taken cover. “Perhaps, we can distract them for a moment so that she can run over to us and join us. Three are better than two, after all”, he suggested.

[Lorogh]

After taking covver behind the shield-laden Ragdila, Lorogh's eyes followed to where Victor indicated. A woman wearing full metal armor was indeed being attacked. They'd probably changed minds about attacking the two travellers in favor of a juicier target with better loot! "We should relieve her, and provide covering fire!"

Lorogh shook his head at the question, whether he'd learned Ether Bolt. "No, I haven't! I haven't had much time to practice lately, but wait. Do what you can, and I'll assemble something..."

This said, he slid the shield up in the ragdila's specially constructed saddle. A job that Lorogh had devised himself, which allowed him to shift the position of the shield to protect either the Ragdila or himself. It protected him for now, as he and Sapper got to work assembling one of Lorogh's most recent prototypes. A repeating stonebow, that used a top-loading magazine. He placed the wooden box that was the magazine on top of the receiver, and then nodded to Sapper, to lift the shield over their heads and take it off of the saddle.

He grinned eagerly at the bandits that sat comfortably at the top of the hill, plunking arrows down at those below. "Say hello to my little friend!Sorry not sorry" And so began unloading, lead bullet after lead bullet at the bandits up there, at a rate of about twelve pellets a minute, as Lorogh rotated the handle of the rotar reloading and spanning the bow again and again.

His bullets were mostly inaccurate, but half the point of cover fire wasn't to hit the offending parties, but to scatter and distract so that those under fire could make a move. He grinned and laughed as his stonebow caused many of the bandits to dive for cover behind the trees, uncertain of the weapon unleashed on them. "Come with us if you want to live!Okay now I'm sorry " He shouted at the woman under fire.

[Illuvia]

Type under here
Luvi didn’t know what she ought to do. She’d run over to help, but now she felt like she was the one who needed it. Now more than ever she wished she had some means of attacking at a distance. She glanced over to where her two allies were and saw one pulling out something that looked like a crossbow.

That. That’s what I need, she thought as she watched it shoot at the bandits. She peeked out from behind cover and saw that the arrows had stopped momentarily. In that moment, she saw an opening to sprint over to the ragdila. Seconds later, one of them called out to her if she wanted to live. Yes, I would very much like to live, she thought.

She paused, setting herself into a low stance then dove from behind cover. She rolled then threw herself into a full on sprint, wincing slightly when an arrow whizzed by her. That was motivation enough to pick up her pace, digging energy she didn’t know she had in her. Her legs pumped furiously until she finally dove one more time, crashing to the ground behind Lorogh & Victor with a pained grunt.

She panted tiredly as she lay there. “Private Luvi at your service. What’s the… what’s the plan?” She sat up and continued, “I can make myself stronger with magic and I can make very short lived barriers. I’m not much use back here, I’m afraid. If only I could get close to them, I’m sure I could finish them off with my sword.”

The woman wasn’t known for being a great battle tactician. She was at the stage in her career where she needed to be told what to do in these sorts of situations. She felt stuck and out of ideas, short of waiting for the enemy to run out of arrows.

[Victor Amielle]

“I’ll teach you when we are done here”, Victor offered when Lorogh admitted that he hadn’t learned to cast an Ether Missile yet. For the time being, he decided that a small demonstration of what you could do with an Ether Missile would be appropriate. Right now, their priority was to distract the bandits so that Illuvia had a chance to run over to them and join them, and thus an Ether Missile – or a series or Ether Missile – would be entirely adequate.

He raised his arms in front of him and conjured an orb of pure and crackling magic and filled it with purpose. He tasked it with Corrosion, cast a quick glance at where the bandits were hiding – he wanted to make sure that it actually hit them – and then he released it only in order to follow up with another Ether Missile. If it struck the bandits, it would hopefully not only make them pause, but also corrode a weapon or piece of armor, or two.

Thus, at least partially removing an enemy or two (Without proper weapons and armor, they would be much less of a concern.).

After he had made his attack, he quickly sought cover again.

Lorogh’s stonebow was a joy to watch, and he had to suppress a laughter as it caused many of the bandits to run for cover.

When Illuvia sprinted towards them and finally crashed to the ground behind them, a breathed a sigh of relief. He gave the woman a moment to recover before he saluted her (she was a member of the military, after all). “I’m Victor, and this is my initiate Lorogh. The plan is to stop these bandits”, he explained in a somewhat dry tone of voice.

“Apart from waiting for them to simply run out of arrows, I can see two options. First of all, I could cast more Ether Missiles in order to hopefully destroy their equipment. Lorogh, do you think temporarily blinding them with Brilliance is an option?” he asked his initiate. “If they are blind or at least temporarily visually impaired, they’ll be much less of a problem. Otherwise, you can just keep on attacking them with your stonebow. Alternatively, I could reshape the ground with a Pathway and hold them in place so that we can then simply pick them off one by one.”

“I’m not entirely sure if the ground is made of a single substance though”, he admitted and furrowed his brow.

That was necessary for a Pathway to work.

“Barriers would be greatly appreciated”, he decided when Illuvia told them what she could do with her magic before he had an idea. “Could you possibly make us or our weapons stronger? That would help a great deal. In any case”, he continued and made a face. “We need to decide on a plan soon. I don’t think these bandits will wait forever.”

Having said that, he made contact with his familiar again.

Hopefully, Shay would be able to show him what the bandits were up to so that Illuvia, Lorogh and he wouldn’t be caught by surprise.

[Lorogh]

Although the surprise of a pellet firing every 5 seconds from a mounted stone-bow was alarming to the bandits, the bandits themselves were not stupid. It took resourcefulness to survive in the wilds, afterall, especiallyl in Carhyst where the woods itself was alive and out to eat people. The bandits fell back to a defensive embankment, most of the ones that were set to take up their melee weapons, to guard their archers' positions or at least stay out of the line of fire until they themselves formulated a plan. Shay showed Victor all of this, as it went on.

Meanwhile, archers took positions around trees, in the perimeter of one side of the road, so the cover afforded by the shielded ragdila was sufficient for now but no telling when the bandits would circle them, and surround the group with the intent of cutting off their sheltered advantage.

Some of the archers were even making their iway toward the road, where it'd be simple to dash the other side and get a good vantage point to plunk arrows at the ferret and his companions.

"Good idea!" Lorogh complimented Private Luvi. "I'm Corporal Lorogh Lerake, of the Siege Corps! Well met!" He shouted over the clinking and ping of leaden bullets flying every five or so trills.

Lorogh saw the ruffians gathering over the embankment, and wished for once he'd finalized that design on a grenade that was throwable. as it was, he had nothing to deal with them. There were around five of the ruffians behind the embankment. "Are you a good fighter?" he asked Luvi. "If so, Private Sapper here can give us cover fire while I shield you as we make the approach!"

Lorogh was four feet tall and so the cover he could provide her was somewhat suspect, but maybe she could crouch behind him while he shielded them from any arrow fire.

If she agreed to this plan, he'd take up the shield, while handing the controls of the stonebow to his subordinate.

"On my signal, Sapper! Give them lead!" He took up his sorellian steel round shield, and with it held it high, so that Illuvia could benefit from its protection more.

He began marching forward deliberately.

As the pause in fire from the stonebow ensued, the archers took kthe opportunity to fire a few arrows. Lorogh blocked the first of these, which came in scattered sequences of firing, one at a time. Making it simple matter to block one after another.

He held his artillery sword in his main hand, but hoped he wouldn't need it.

He really hoped Private Luvi was up for taking up position behind him, but if not he'd defend with the shield as he moved forward, trusting at least Victor would give suppressing fire with some of those ether bolts and his magic.

"Sapper! Give em lead!" Lorogh shouted at his subordinate.

Thus ordered, Sapper fired on the general area of the archers, nearer to the road so their adjusted vantage wouldn't allow them to snipe at Luvi and Lorogh.

[Illuvia]

Type under here


Luvi nodded along eagerly to Victor’s plan, more than a little impressed at his ability to cause such destruction at a distance. She found herself wondering whether or not these two really needed saving – they seemed rather capable. She saluted in turn from a crouched position as she listened to their plan.

She felt her enthusiasm fade a little as she was prompted to make barriers and strengthen their weapons. The latter was beyond her capability as an umbral mage and the barriers she could make were extremely weak.

“Sir, I apologize, but I might have oversold myself. I don’t think the barriers I make will do much good. Maybe stop an arrow from doing lethal damage… that’s about it. And I’m an umbral runewright so I can only enhance myself. I can curse people too, but it’s hardly something I can employ when being actively fired upon.”

When Lorogh spoke her ears perked up. “I’d like to think I’m a decent swordsman. If I’m to help at all it’s going to be by swinging these,” she continued, tapping the hilts of her katana, “I can’t think of any better idea, so I’ll happily follow your lead.”

She would crouch as low as she could and hold up a forearm to cover the top of her head in case an arrow got lucky. Every once in a while she would hear the sound of an arrow ricochetting off the shield. She’d take chances peek to see how close they were getting to the archers’ position.

The Empire’s forces weren’t exactly stealthy or quick. The archers realized there was little they could do, especially once Luvi and Lorogh could use the trees for cover. The melee fighters took positions nearby, but weren’t as grouped up as they would like. They couldn’t risk all being in the same spot lest they get exploded by a bolt of ether or dropped by a high speed stone.

When Luvi thought she could leave Lorogh’s side without getting shot, she would say "I'm going behind that tree," before leaping out and doing just that. It was impossible for her to keep track of where all the enemies were, but she felt safe in that moment as no arrows immediately came her way.

A short sword wielding bandit made his presence known with a roar as he charged towards her. Luvi drew a single katana and held it in both hands. She flourished it confidently as he approached. She had enough experience with a weapon to know that only an idiot would approach a trained combatant so brazenly. He’d never get a chance to slash at her – her sword would find its way through him before he could make it that far.

His friend who had joined in on the assault took pause when he saw what had happened. He was quick enough to jump behind a tree as Luvi chucked the short sword at him.

“Do you know how many there are?” she shouted to Lorogh, who she guessed couldn’t have moved too far away.

[Victor Amielle]

Unfortunately, the bandits weren't idiots. They didn't just stand there so that Lorogh and he could shoot them, but seemed to move, with the intention of circling them. Shay showed Victor all that, and the Transmuter communicated it to his companions. "Some of them are moving towards the road. We need to prevent that. We need to prevent them from circling us, or reaching the other side!" he told them.

He didn't entirely agree that Illuvia and Lorogh moving towards the bandits was the best course of action. Lorogh was too short for Illuvia to really be able to hide behind him unless she stayed very close to the ground. And besides, splitting your group was a questionable option at best in his opinion. It seemed as if the decision had already been made though, and thus he decided to support them as best he could.

Which he did by quickly kneeling down on the ground and touching it. He channeled a transmutation through it, in order to reshape the ground where the archers trying to find a vantage point past Lorogh's shield were. Ether Missiles were too small and ineffective for what he had in mind now, and they could only hit one target at the same time. By turning the ground beneath their feet into spikes he would hopefully be able to disable several bandits at the same time.


Maybe even permanently, if he was lucky.

"Keep firing!" he called out to Sapper. Sapper was Lorogh's subordinate, but as Lorogh was currently rather busy, he would hopefully be willing to work together with him, at least on a temporary basis. In any case, he would regularly communicate with Shay to find out what the bandits were up to and share the information in order to hopefully keep the bandits - or what was left of them - from surprising them.

[Lorogh]

It was immediately obvious to Lorogh that Private Luvi had some experience that belied her rank. Had she been held back from advancement or was she new? And if she was new, where'd she learn to fight like that? Lorogh could wait to ask these questions however, as he led the charge forward, covered by hisi sorellian steel round shield, which took the arrows that came their way from the front, while others repositioned themselves at the flank that was growing more exposed as Luvi and Lorogh advanced toward the position of the archers up on the ridge.

Lorogh finally began charging, buoyed by the skill of Luvi, and also the luckily timed ground spikes conjured by his master, Victor. Several of the bandits were dispatched by those spikes, rendered disabled either by their wounds or else the pain of being impaled from below. Lorogh sped his pace along as Luvi followed behind, slaughtering the bandits and also throwing one of their shortswords at another of the brigands, dispatching him.

Lorogh's breathing intensified as he saw the blood spray from the wound. He gulped his anxiety down though, and continued charging toward those snipers in the treeline. The arrows found a way past the rim of his defenses, landing luckily on the plates of his reinforced kilt-armor. That would give them mere seconds to reload, as they shot one after another, another arrow hitting him in the side of his cuirass, glancing off of it. Then another whizzing by his neck, narrowly missing it.

Finally they were just about on top of the archers, and they couldn't very well shoot them at this range, not without wasting their time and effort.

"In the name of her Immortal Majesty! I demand that you surrender your arms, and submit to the rightful authorities! You will be given a fair trial and..."

But the brigands weren't willing to listen to his tremulous demands, and charged at him, their clubs and blades flashing, battering his shield as he went on the backfoot now, defending and backpedaling as best he could while Luvi and Victor saw to their own engagements.

"To me!" Lorogh screeched a little too high pitched.