Dara- Elf- Druid
Aramil- Eladrin - Warlord
Sonea- Human - Wizard
Shadow Dancer- Eladrin - Avenger
Torthen- Dwarf - Paladin
NPC- Torrent- Human- Cleric
Quickly reminding ourselves of where we stand- we know that originally a resistance member called Peppin was meant to be meeting the gnome Badger to receive a case. Peppin is now dead and Torrent has taken up the quest along with ourselves. We are making our way to the depository tower in the next district. Once we have the ‘case’ we are to escape out of Gate Pass and make our way to the Lyceum.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ Torrent calls to the figure on the roof ledge above.
He spreads his hands to point out that clearly he has been where he stands just now- on a roof.
Folding his arms he stares down at the group standing on the body strewn snow and cobbles.
‘Did it never occur to you that the location was compromised?’
Before Torrent can answer Dara speaks up, ‘Who exactly are you?’
Aramil feels he recognises something familiar about the stranger but can’t quite place it. ‘I can tell you one thing about him. He won’t be who he says he is.’
With a smile the stranger replies ‘You can call me Shadow Dancer.’
‘What is your reason for being here?’ continues Aramil.
Silence hangs in the air. Shadow Dancer walks away from the ledge to make his way down to the street level.
The sky to the west is still lit by burning buildings. Overhead and to the west can be heard the screeching of gryphons, cries and the clashing of arms.
Torrent suggests that we should get moving, although the bombing has stopped, the streets are now growing full. Crowds of the panic struck and the wounded begin to throng. We make our way quickly towards the district gate before the streets become too full for passage. The surrounding buildings are damaged from the bombardment but nowhere near the devastation that would have been if they were made from wood instead of Gate Pass’s stone construction.
Soundless, Shadow Dancer appears out of the gloomy street and begins to strip the fallen bodies.
Noting they all wear the same red armband, he discards some of the items with a sneer pertaining to their inferior quality.
Quickly, Dara scoops up a small hand axe sitting unwanted and secretes it under her cloak onto her belt. ‘Waste not want not.’ She thinks to herself.
With a motion to follow her, Torrent makes off into the crowd at a pace. As we follow we have to weave between the bystanders, trying to keep in sight the disappearing blonde pony-tail of Torrent as she tears ahead.
It would be questionable that able fighting bodies such as ourselves are heading away from the fighting instead of heeding what really should be a call to arms to protect our city. However Torrent has papers from the council as she’s on official business. These will allow us to accompany her to the district gates and pass through unquestioned. When she showed us the papers earlier in the Poison Apple it was Dara who noted to herself that the papers weren’t quite correct. The date had been scraped and amended, changed from last months’ to the current one.
Rounding a corner we find a family struggling out of a still burning house. The man collapses just outside the door with his wounded wife in his arms, the children wailing beside them. He looks up as we pass and pleads for assistance.
Shadow Dancer strides ahead unconcerned. Dara continues walking, intent on the figure of Torrent, too far ahead to have seen the family emerge. Sonea seems shocked by the actions, or rather lack of them from the others and protests as she carries on as well so as not to be left behind. Torthen however grunts, stopping to aid the family (ever the Paladin), while Aramil pauses but thinks better of it.
Carrying on Torrent keeps an eye behind her to see we are keeping up. Perhaps because of his short stature, she does not seem to notice that Torthen is missing.
Up ahead there appears to be a commotion. Bystanders are pointing up at a burning building. Screams echo off the nearby houses.
Quickly looking up we see that four floors up there is a young woman screaming. The building is on fire with flames licking from the room behind her as she clings to the balcony. With an explosion inside, blind fear grips her and she puts a foot onto the balcony frame in a bid to jump.
Shadow Dancer deftly ties rope from his pack to a bolt and fires it at the balcony, thudding home just short of the girls reach. Desperate, she looks as if she could jump at any second.
Dara sighs at the attempt. Within seconds she’s drawn her longbow attempting the same with her own rope. Striking the wooden frame beside the girl the arrow hits securely. In sheer panic she grabs the rope and jumps. Amazingly both she and the arrow keep their holds and the girl screams the whole way down to safety.
Both Dara and Shadow Dancer retrieve their ropes with a swift pull.
Torrent nods approvingly, and beckons for us to move on. The streets are thick with people, many of them wounded. Just around the next block is the district gate.
Impatiently Aramil shouts at the people in a bid to clear a path ‘Gangway! Council business!’
It has the opposite effect that those who hear him stop to ask what he said thus making it even harder to move.
The crowd seem to consist of two groups of people; men folk running to the gate’s armoury; with women and children heading for the gate itself to be waived through to relative safety.
Pushing on through the crowd a noise begins to rise above the din. Screams from the east. Far away, then louder, growing quickly nearer. Closer.
With a scream a soldier leaps from the battlements above. Crashing into the cobblestones nearby.
Everyone stops and looks up. Screams thicken the air, deafening the entire area.
We all scatter as a wave of fear hits home. In a moment it passes us and we gain control of ourselves in the mass of panic. Looking up again a huge, bulky, dark red shadow looms and swoops overhead trailing blood. Blasts of magical fire shoot towards it; gryphon riders are tailing it. Definitely a dragon. Heart beats and blood pound in our ears.
We are buffeted by the crowd in the turmoil. Managing not to get too damaged in the clamour we fight to regroup. Back together we find there is no sign of Sonea or Torthen, who failed to keep up after pausing to heal the wounded man and his wife.
As the guards tend to their dead comrade lying on the cobbles, we follow Torrent and slip past. On the way through Torrent grabs the guard who was in the armoury. She presents her papers and gives a description of Sonea and Torthen, telling him to let them through when they make it to the gate.
Beyond the gate they find the streets have emptied. Everyone has gone into hiding. We see the depositary tower- bright banners advertising many mercantile wears billow from it. To the left is a well dressed man shouting forlornly ‘Kiki? Kiki...Kiki!’
Broad and tall, he is well dressed, if garish. His garb marks him as one who is obviously affluent.
He notices our presence and pleads ‘Please, please, help me find my baby.’
‘Your baby?’ Dara looks at him.
Falling to his hands and knees he pleads his case. It seems that in all the commotion of the bombing his beloved Kiki the dire weasel was terrified into running away. He is concerned at the damage little Kiki could do to neighbours if they come across her.
Torrent looks at him in utter disgust. A grown man wailing over a dire weasel! She walks away to continue to the depository. Arguments ensue among the others.
Shadow Dancer walks away in the direction of Torrent. The rich man wails ‘Where are you going?’
‘Looking for Kiki.’ is the curt reply.
Their personal interests piqued in different ways, Dara and Aramil decide to find Kiki.
The long and the short of it is that Aramil quite quickly finds Kiki and corners her through a hole in a temple wall nearby. In doing so he is on the receiving end of Kiki’s fangs and claws. Kiki is finally coaxed into Dara’s own arms with some encouragement. For Aramil’s troubles he finds a stash in the temple gutter; a gold ring with an amethyst gem; a purple potion he judges to be for healing; and a small pouch of 30 gold pieces of mixed change.
Dara turns to the gentleman and asks his name.
‘Corrine.’ He gratefully informs.
Corrine begins to measure out handfuls of gold from his purse but is so overjoyed he thinks better of it and hands his whole purse to Dara in return for saving his beloved Kiki. Dara takes about a third of the gold and tosses the purse to Aramil as she walks away with gold and dire weasel in arms without so much as a by-your-leave to Corrine. She feels gaining a dire weasel is recompense enough for her time and effort wasted.
Angry at his unwanted injuries, Aramil strides past the gentleman shoving a hand in his face as he leaves.
At this the dire weasel leaps out of Dara’s arms to protect its master, lunging for Aramil. A grave mistake indeed on Aramil’s part- to strike a dire weasel’s owner!
Corrine scoops up the rather large furry body as Kiki muzzles him gleefully. Weasel and master quickly disappear behind a door with a slam and insults aplenty.
Dara swears foully to herself. Aramil swears also, throwing at her the bounty of the weasel hunting and warning- never again! They both trail off to find Shadow Dancer and Torrent.
Meanwhile, Shadow Dancer has been ghosting after Torrent who has been oblivious to her follower. Arriving at her destination she finds three orcs and a dwarf standing before the doors of the depository. Well dressed with clean and polished armour.
Torrent steps forward with a greeting, and hands over the ‘owners’ key’. The dwarf nods and whispers something in to the bronze speaking tube by the door. A latch lifts and it creaks open.
The guard gestures for her enter but Torrent holds up a hand and explains she needs to wait.
Suddenly a figure from behind places a hand on her shoulder, making her jump; and the guards crack into a defensive stance. Nonchalantly Shadow Dancer comments ‘They’ll be a while.’
Smoothing the fluster from her voice and features, as being unseemly, Torrent demands: ‘Where are the others?’
The guards relax as the visitors seem to know each other.
‘Looking for Kiki.’, Shadow rolls his eyes.
Torrent finds this very vexing. After all they are on a mission as part of the resistance to aid Gate Pass and her companions have decided to go chasing after some overweight merchants pet!
Upon this Torrent and Shadow decide to head into the depositary alone. She still pauses to give a description of Dara and Aramil as well as Sonea and Torthen. She instructs the guards to give them access once they arrive.
Stepping inside the thick wooden doors they find themselves enveloped in a beautiful garden. Not exactly what they were expecting. The air is warmer here than the winter of outside. The sheltering walls hide a magical vision of green trees and no snow on the earth. Between the foliage and branches they see openings filled with fountains and statues, including one of the four elemental creatures and another of the DictatorDrakus Coal-tongue.
As they pass through Shadow pauses for a moment to eye a statue of a dragon.
Walking on they find four guards patrolling the grounds; dwarves and orcs again. Continuing on they come to the large iron doors of the tower itself. Outside stands an armoured orc who takes a look at Torrent’s ‘owner’s key’ and lets them pass. Passing them a lantern he warns them there are guards inside. He grins a yellow crooked smile ‘Watch out for that Badger now. He be the ugliest gnome I ever did saw! So don’t be holding that lantern too close now. Wouldn’t want to be offending your sensibilities?’
Just as Shadow and Torrent enter the tower, Dara and Aramil get to the main gates. As instructed the guards let them pass and instruct them to make their way through the gardens.
In the gardens they too are surprised by what they see. A tall statue nearby holds a flaming torch high above its head. Coal-tongue and his infamous Torch of the Burning Sky. Aramil pauses to look closer, recognising the glowing torch on the statue to be the product of a cheap and nasty spell he sneers and walks on.
Inside the gloom of the tower it can just be made out by lantern light that lockers line the circular walls. Though the square lockers are small (about the size of a buckler), they are piled one on top of the other with ladders for access. The room itself is two stories high with a central spiral stone staircase and trap doors to access the next floor up. Every 5 ft along the wall is a gap in the lockers, and in the stonework is embedded a strange metal ball. It hums audibly and smells of ozone.
Torrent takes all this in as her vision adjusts to the low light. Thinking to herself she considers just how expensive it must be here to have such good security.
She places her foot on the first step of the circular staircase. Another lantern suddenly shines from above at the hatch to the next floor. Holding the lantern up to his face the ugliest gnome either ever did see looks down at them. ‘Ah Peppin! Follow me.’
At this point Dara and Aramil enter the tower and everyone makes their way up the staircase to the first floor.
They find it to be one huge room. These lockers circle clockwise and upwards, each one slightly larger than a coffin. Squat round columns support the walls and in the light we can see the gnome is in blue and red robes. His hair is long and black with braids, his beard not so long and black.
‘I hear the war outside. Good to be in here. Nice and safe.’ Badger talks away to himself more so than anybody else. He also seems to have a winter cold and is quite a bit clumsy. Gnomes.
He continues up the stairs to the second floor.
Torrent whispers to herself, slightly concerned, ‘I thought he was supposed to know Peppin.’
At this Shadow Dancer silently slots bolts into his crossbows, just in case.
On the second floor Badger stops, it seems we have reached our destination. He stops at a locker and opens it with the key. ‘Ok, here we are.’
Inside is a very ornate blue leather-and-brass covered box. It glows with a dangerous arcane aura. Unconcerned, Badger pats the top of it affectionately to show that merely touching it doesn’t cause any harm.
‘We’ll be needing the password now to be opening this.’ asks Badger.
Torrent looks at him ‘Password? You were supposed to ask me a coded question.’
Shadow Dancer pulls out one of his crossbows and Aramil draws and points his sword at the gnome. Dara draws her quarter staff and Torrent’s grip tightens on her hammer.
Something isn’t right here.
Aramil wades in without a second thought. Shouting encouragingly at Dara ‘He’s an ugly wee bastard. I’m sure you can hit him!’ he swings his sword at Badger who jumps back. The blow just catches the gnome cutting him slightly.
At this Badger straightens up a bit. He’s certainly a lot taller than they’d taken him for. His skin begins to slough off, and then his whole magical disguise sloughs off, revealing him to be a middling height human.
‘By Sehanine I will smite you down!’ Shadow shakes his head grimly at the unfolding actions and points his crossbow at the hatch at the top of the stairs in anticipation of further trouble arriving from above.
Dara strikes out with Flame Seed at what had been a gnome but misses, striking against the wall and sending small embers splattering amongst the lockers.
A very loud hum rises. The air takes on a charge and their hair begins to rise.
ZAP!
A bolt of lightning arcs between security balls behind the gnome.
At this Torrent steps in front of Dara to protect the magic user, her hammer ready.
‘Maybe want to lay off the spells a bit!’ shouts Aramil.
The human who was a gnome cries out ‘Help Aphistise!’ At this a flash of flame breaks nearby and a being of fire appears. Shadow recognises it as a solon; a divine servant of the solar pantheon, the patron divinities of Zama.
‘What is your business here?’ demands Dara of the human, but her question is lost with the voice of the solon.
‘Accept divine retribution for your actions!’ With that the flaming bird man attacks Torrent with a whip of fire. She manages to impose her war hammer between her and the attack.
The human tries to dodge past his assailants while making his way for the stairs but is clumsy to say the least. Aramil just misses the figure as he dashes past but Torrent sees him coming and lands a swift blow with her hammer. The momentum keeps him going upwards even when Shadow Dancer’s bolt hits him square in the back, though not very deeply, as his cloak is made of very thick wool indeed.
Just as he reaches the trap door Shadow shouts a challenge ‘Hold agent of Zama! We have no quarrel with you. Explain yourself.’
No reaction. The trap door opens and he disappears to the third floor.
Aramil takes a quick glance at the blue box sitting abandoned. Strange that it’s been left behind. Quickly he pursues the runaway to the third floor.
Up there he finds a dead orc with a flame wound across its chest and back. Against a wall is a pile of bound, unconscious dwarves and on top of them is what he hopes is the real Badger, also gagged and bound. Too busy to do anything he continues up the stairs. The human seems just in reach but on the staircase grappling is not so easy and Aramil just brushes the edge of the cloak as it just disappears out of reach again.
Downstairs Shadow Dancer throws the spent crossbow at Dara, shouting ‘Hold that.’ At the same time he takes his main crossbow and *boof* disappears in fire and flames. Teleporting himself upstairs he is engulfed by flames and flash burned. Teleporting more than a level he lands deftly on a flat part of the slanted roof, beside the trap door the runaway is just trying to exit. Smoke curls and clings to his garments.
He shoves the bolt firmly against the human’s temple. ‘Hold means stop’.
Intimidated the human raises his hands slightly, ready to move if and when the opportunity arises.
Downstairs Dara decides against catching the flying crossbow and swivels to let it shoot past her.
She isn’t carrying anyone else’s weaponry at a time like this! She also thinks the disappearing figure in flames are proof if any that this Shadow has some questions to answer.
‘Any ideas?!’ she turns to Torrent.
Torrent quickly holds her hands up with a clueless look as a bead of sweat rolls down her cheek.
If in doubt run like the wind! Dara bolts round the staircase so it’s between her and the solon. Just at that the air charges again with all the magic flying around and a lightning bolt strikes the solon jolting it.
Torrent decides she likes the idea too and moves behind the staircase.
Out of sight, the solon looks up and *whoosh* in a sound of rushing flames it disappears. It appears right before Shadow Dancer. Staring him straight in the eyes, radiant beams of bright sunlight shoots from its own eyes, blinding him.
Blinded and hurt from the heat he remains focused and pokes the bolt forward ever-so-slightly.
No good, in an instant the crossbow is thrown aside. The human dodges round the blinded figure, out of Aramil’s grasp again.
Not wanting to be face-to-face with the big flaming spell caster thing, Aramil helps the bound up gnome. Pulling off the gag and untying him he’s met with a blasting tirade.
‘Don’t let him get away you idiot! Get after him!’ Badger continues to shout at him.
Meanwhile a fiery voice inside Shadow’s head questions him silently. ‘Why should this one hold -off it’s attacks when it acts in self defence?’
‘Your first act was betrayal!’
‘Betrayal of whom?’ questions the solon. ‘We are not bound to you.’
‘But you deceived us!’, Shadow Dancer protests.
The mental response is a placid one. ‘Lord Yhellos has taught this one that such deceptions are an honourable and permissible ruse of war.’
In the room below Dara finds Aramil being shouted at by what she hopes is the real Badger. ‘So
I’m a guessing you are the real Badger. What is going on?’
He continues to shout at them. ‘That’s not the real box!’
Torrent yells up the stairs as she runs. ‘What’s going on up there? We have the box!’
Informed by Badger’s shouting, Aramil also shouts at her ‘No! Drop it; it’s not the real one.’
Just as she drops it a bolt of lightning zings past her too close for comfort.
‘Shit!!’ she flies up the remaining stairs as if the Goddess herself chased her.
Still blind Shadow hears a scurrying noise growing fainter. The solon speaks. ‘The one who serves this one’s master is gone. If you have anything to say, say it now.’
He opens his thoughts to show what actually happened. To show that they were actually acting in self defence too and meant no harm. ‘Is it not better to make allies than enemies?’
He hears the emotionless voice in his head reply, ‘This one will convey your intentions to the servant of its master.’
The heat fades and Shadow’s eyes clear. Blinking he can see no one on the roof top. He can hear the scurrying noise far below. Peering over the edge he sees a man running down the outside wall of the tower with his cloak flapping in the wind. How in the blazes? Is the best approximation of his thoughts at this strange sight.
‘HOLD!’ Booms Shadow as loud as he can manage.
The guards are roused and begin to run for the tower.
Downstairs Torrent comes up to the third level holding a suit of hide armour with runes embedded; and a bag of coins. ‘That lightening busted open one of... (Badger looks at her sharply, then to the now awake guards) ...our lockers.’
The guards look impatient; they are still tied up and too close to each other for their own comfort.
Badger looks at Torrent for a moment and focuses on the ring she’s wearing. ‘Where’s Peppin? Why are you wearing his ring?’
‘Peppin is dead, they sent us.’
During the exchange Dara and Aramil step forward to help those still bound, just as the guards from outside arrive. Badger tries to diffuse the situation with a thorough (but not too thorough) explanation of events and soon there are guards leaving the room on different orders. The room is soon empty except for the party and Badger the gnome. The air has also quietened and stilled- no more audible humming or the smell of ozone.
Coming back to himself, Badger explains as best he can what happened.
‘It’s a long story....’ he’s emotional at the recent news, ‘I was waiting on Peppin. *sniff* I’m sorry it’s just hard to take in. I felt something hit me and blacked out. When I awoke I found myself trussed up on top of a lumpy pile o’ guards.
This vision of fire were in front of me with two men and two women. One of the women had a box in her hands. I recognised it to be the box Peppin was coming to collect. It was very important you see! I used to work in the Palace back in the Imperium. I was enspelled by the Arcanis so I could never tell of what happened there, but what was in the box meant I could show it instead. I told those imposters that the box was trapped. That they needed a password to open it. Whether they believed me or not is uncertain for they made off with it.
I could hear them downstairs. They spoke of putting an illusion of the box in the locker, so at least one of ‘em were a magic user. They even spoke of a contact they have at Gabals’ school but I didn’t catch a name.
One thing though! Solons can’t keep secrets ye see. Comes of serving a decent God, like Yhellos.
It addressed one of them women by the name of Shealis. Ahhhhtchhooo!’
Badger wipes his tears and blows his nose on a handkerchief he’s produced from his robes. The party consider the information. They understand ‘Shealis’ not to be a common name but not to be obviously foreign either. Certainly not Zaman, for Zaman names tend to end with sounds such as –bar or –car or -il . They also consider that the solon must have been a minor angel of the Solar Pantheon, perhaps no more than a guardian or messenger.
‘Who knew you had this box and its contents?’ Shadow Dancer turns to the gnome.
‘Just me and Peppin.’
Turning to Torrent, Shadow continues. ‘How did Peppin die?’
She answers solemnly ‘Murdered in an alley somewhere. He was never very secretive about being in the resistance.’
Badger heaves a saddened sigh.
Shadow looks at Dara ‘Got my crossbow?’
‘No I missed it.’ She looks innocent but he can tell it’s bullshit. He gives her a wry look.
Torrent turns everyone’s attention to the problem at hand. She suggests that they should leave and make their way to a safe house as quickly as possible. At this the party begin to discuss what to do about the Zamans.
Badger leans forward ‘I hope you can all come with me to Gabals’ school to retrieve the box. It’s vital for the resistance of Gate Pass! We must get it to the Lyceum soon.’
Torrent helps the gnome to his feet and they all make their way down the stairs and out towards the temple safe house a few blocks away.
They find the streets are quiet and that the fires have thankfully petered out. Between the imposing buildings, freezing mist hangs and swirls around the figures nearby. They appear to be wounded citizens heading for the temple. Mostly women and children as the menfolk must be at the walls, fighting.
Still hours from dawn the air is still but harshly cold and the snow has been trudged into a muddy mess. They make their own way to the temple.
Suddenly high keening cries erupt from above. They see the shadowy form of a wyvern and its rider wheel about the sky, pursued by one of the guards’ gryphon riders. The wyvern tumbles from the sky, crashing into a street just ahead. Shortly thereafter a woman’s’ blood curdling scream is cut off, followed by a child’s crying.
Dara, Aramil and Shadow Dancer feel a surge of adrenalin and take off at a run to find the crash site. Torrent stays with Badger for the gnome's cough seems to be worsening in the chill night air and she is loathe to leave him alone in this state.
Seconds later they find the beast lying dead in the street. Looking inside the doorway of a nearby house they can make out a hulking figure- the rider. A huge hairy barbarian of a man armoured in dark armour glowing with eldritch runes; shining silver sword in one hand and an impossibly large battle axe in the other.
In front of him lays the body of a woman, head raggedly hacked off and a sword wound gutting her belly. Cowering before the rider is a small boy holding his hands up as though to ward off an expected blow.
Dara retrieves her longbow from her back and arms it with an arrow. Aramil has his long sword already at hand and brandishes alchemist’s fire in the other. Shadow too has loaded his crossbow and has his hand crossbow ready in his other hand.
Slipping through the doorway and into the corner immediately right Dara lets loose an arrow. It misses its target but her thorn whip doesn’t. It hauls the rider over the counter he stood behind, and onto his feet, burning him.
Aramil runs at him, striking him with such force he reels back into the counter.
Shadow lets fly a bolt, attempting to nail him to counter. He drops the crossbow as the bolt deflects off a pauldron into the roof. Pointing his sword at the rider he uses his oath of enmity- ‘DEATH.’ He calls, trying to intimidate the rider, but the huge hulking axeman merely grins.
‘Ah, we’ve been introduced already then!’ The rider rises quickly, scything his battle axe round in a great arc to strike Aramil who flies back to lie crumpled on the floor.
Continuing to swing he cleaves round throwing Dara against the corner wall where she slumps to the ground. She tosses her long bow out of the door not wanting her precious friend damaged by this monster. She gets up swinging her staff but parts only air, undeterred she hits out with faerie fire engulfing the rider in dancing flames.
He smirks. ‘Fire! Ha! Fire won’t... argghhh...’ the magical flames take effect, much to the rider’s obvious surprise.
Aramil has risen from the floor also and takes advantage of the situation, slamming into the rider with his long sword. He also shouts to Shadow using his warlords’ favour.
Shadow Dancer uses all his strength and strikes home with his sword using an avenging echo.
Recovering from the surprising pain from the fire and the blows of the company, the rider scythes round again sending Aramil bleeding into unconsciousness on the floor. Shadow Dancer ducks under the blow but it cleaves onwards to strike Dara too, knocking her down to the floor once more.
While Shadow’s avenging echo continues to deal its damage Dara stand ups again with adrenalin affording her a second wind.
Seeing Aramil fall, Shadow Dancer steps over to try and cover him. He lashes out at the rider again, this time using bonded pursuit.
The fall from the sky and wounds are starting to take their toll on the giant man. The rider is looking very unsteady on feet. It shows as he misses Shadow completely, again hitting Dara on the follow through. She now slumps into darkness on the floor.
His companions beaten, Shadow Dancer pulls out all the stops. Roaring at battle pitch ‘Torrent!!!’, he slips one hand inside his clothing to whip out the Royal Raven Seal of the Fae Wild’s EverQueen and brandishes it at the rider. Energy pours out as the rider ducks beneath. With his other hand Shadow upswings with his sword just missing, the armoured forearm of his foe.
With one hand the rider thrusts with his sword, missing, but with the other he swings the axe with force. Shadow feels his hair moving as the blade cuts the air just above his head.
Torrent arrives just as Shadow is ducking another sword cut. Putting everything into a final lunge at the rider’s throat, Shadow Dancer hits him in the Adam’s apple, nicking an artery. The figure clasps desperately at his throats, gurgles and reels against the counter for the final time before slumping down to die.
As the light fades from his eyes, Shadow Dancer leans over and whispers. ‘When you get to Hell tell them Shadow Dancer sent you.’
Torrent administers healing to Aramil and Dara to allow them enough strength to rise from the floor and help themselves.
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