The sun set over over the forest. At the campsite by the road, the brilliant reds reflecting off the lightening cloud cover cast their warm glow on the party of adventurers as they sat around their fire.
"What did you do all that for?" Talna demanded, slapping Cassian across the face with a Cure Wounds spell. [Author's note: Why did they make touch range spells? Did they not foresee the amount of literal slapstick this would entail?]
"That thing was dangerous! I didn't want Fei or Pip to have to face it in the lake! So I got it out." Cassian said this last with no small amount of smugness in his voice.
"You endangered yourself and almost got killed!" Talna said.
"Yeah, but I got it out of the lake, that has to count for something, right?" Cassian said, still sounding smug.
Across the fire from the bickering pair, Pip Squeak sat up, suddenly regaining consciousness. "I know what to do now!" he exclaimed, pulling a few remaining scraps from the lake from the recesses of his cloak and retrieving some of the unfinished daggers Elle had leant him. He scuttled away from the group and began tinkering with the metal. Curious, Arnick followed the ratfolk, attempting to draw the tinkering process in his notebook.
Talna, fed up with attempting to scold the beaming half-orc, walked over to where Biscuit the horse lay, and leaned against him to fall asleep. Cassian, for his part, grinned triumphantly at the rest of the group before stripping out of his clothing and falling asleep by the fire. Balazar, seeing the entertainment was over, leaned against a tree and began drinking wine from one of his many wineskins.
As the group wound down for the evening, Arnick returned to the fire where Fei and Sadun were sorting through the rusted weapons Fei had retrieved from the lake. Pip had grown frustrated when his attempts to make his idea come to life kept failing and dug a hole to sleep in, and Arnick wanted to see all the interesting things before sleeping. The weapons were sorted into piles, a pair of shorts words sat next to a longsword and a large two handed sword, a pair of kite shields were placed next to each other. A warhammer, a cracked spear, and an odd metal unstrung bow rounded out the treasure. Despite the rust, the items occasionally sparked with electricity.
Arnick picked up the bow, and pulled a spare bowstring from his pouch. Stringing the bow, he had barely began to test its pull when the string caught fire. The gnome yelped in alarm.
"Don't worry, I've got it," Balazar said, and took a swig of wine. Walking to the gnome, the dragonborn spewed the wine from his mouth all over the bowstring. The fire burned slightly brighter from the alcohol. With a curse, Arnick threw the bow on the ground and stomped out the flames.
"Maybe that is enough experimenting for the night," Sadun suggested. "Let's get some rest. I'll take the first watch."
The rest of the party went to sleep, worn out from the day's events, while Sadun sat facing away from the fire, her eyes on the surroundings.
"I'm not tired," Arnick said, coming to sit next to the dragonborn. "Could you tell me what Elle was like when she traveled with you?"
"Oh yes, absolutely. Elle was impetuous," Sadun began. Arnick nodded knowingly. "She was prone to antagonizing foes, perhaps especially when they were beyond her capability to handle alone. Why, in this very spot she goaded a griffin into attacking her and carrying her off, and then after we had killed the griffin she goaded an owlbear into attacking. But for all that she was a caring individual. She may not have been great at learning from her mistakes, but she could at least recognize a mistake and work to correct it. And it quickly became comforting when she would ride on my shoulder."
"That sounds like my little sister alright. She is... was, the eldest of three girls, but had three older brothers. I'm the oldest of them. So she had a lot of pressure on her growing up. She took that out on bigger people, and had a reckless streak. But she cared a lot for us, her family, and if she came to think of you as family I'm sure she extended that care to you."
After their conversation, Arnick retired to sleep by the fire, admiring Cass's pecs on the way. Sadun remained in her place, watching for threats. Halfway through her shift, she noticed a dark shape in the sky, circling the campsite. Cautious of another griffin attack, Sadun grabbed her javelins put them in the ground, pointing outwards in a defensive manner, particularly around the relatively vulnerable form of Arnick.
After another hour, Pip crawled from his hole and walked over to Sadun. "I think it's my turn on watch?" he offered.
"Very well. Be wary, I saw a shape watching us from the skies," Sadun replied, before heading to sleep herself.
"Well, I'm sure it won't be anything terrible," Pip muttered, sticking his sword in the ground nearby before losing himself in his attempts to create the metal statue he had been working on earlier. After an hour, the ratfolk had little to show for his efforts, the limbs continuing to give him trouble. As Talna walked over after emerging from her meditation, the ratfolk threw up his hands. "I give up, I'll try again in the sunlight," he said, walking sullenly back to his hole.
With a shrug, Talna set up her own watch. She observed the circling shape in the air and listened to the crashing of a large predator nearby, but neither bothered the camp.
The sun rose, spreading its golden light across the forest. The adventurers awoke refreshed, and set about getting ready for the day. While Talna fed Biscuit and the others looked to their own breakfasts, Cassian picked up the rusty warhammer. "If nobody else wants this, I'll take it," he said, to general shrugs from the group. "It will be nice to have a proper hammer again," he said, giving the weapon a few practice swings. On the third stroke, the warhammer crackled with electricity and lifted Cassian bodily off the ground, to fall in a heap five feet away from where he had been standing. The half-orc let out a grunt of surprise. "What was that?" he wondered.
"Cass, we don't actually know what these things do yet," Talna said, picking up one of the shields and beginning to polish it with a cloth from her pack. After a few strokes, the rag began crackling with electricity, though the shield seems to remain unaffected. Talna paused in her efforts, and calls out "Hey Balazar, come touch this rag!"
"No thanks!" Balazar said from his spot by the trees. "I'm having my morning wine."
"Oh, I'll take a rag!" Pip said, running over. "Ouch!" the ratfolk exclaimed, as Talna dropped the rag in his outstretched paws.
"Maybe magic will work better," Talna mused, working a Mending Spell upon the shield. Some minor cracking along the edge of the shield stitched itself together, but the rust remained.
"Well, it's definitely magical," Pip said, brushing his hands on his cloak. "Something to do with electricity."
"Want to look at my hammer?" Cassian asked. The ratfolk walked over to the half-orc and picked up the proffered weapon. He examined it closely, licked the side of the hammer, and bit down gently on the metal. "It's a good metal," Pip said after his examination. "Something about it seems like it might change size, and the rust tastes terrible. You should do something about that."
"I'm taking these short swords," Balazar declared, removing the two swords from the pile and retreating to his tree. The dragonborn took out a whetstone from his pouch and began sharpening and cleaning the rust from the blades. Sparks of electricity jumped from the blades at each stroke, but Balazar ignored it and focused on his work. Pip, living dangerously, pulled out a jar and attempted to catch the sparks inside, but only got some minor shocks for his efforts.
Growing bored of attempting to catch sparks, Pip returned to the rest of the group, where Fei had just tossed the second shield on the ground. Acting impulsively, Pip withdrew the metal statue he had been working on and placed it on the shield. Electrical energy surged from the shield into the statue, and the statue was hurled high into the sky, breaking apart into pieces on its descent. "Well, I wasn't happy with that version anyway," Pip said, picking up the longsword from the pile and wandering off. Cassian picked up the shield as the ratfolk left.
"I suppose I shall take the two-handed sword. Too bad it didn't come with a scabbard," Sadun said, picking up the final blade and wrapping her bedroll around the blade. As she did, a small cloud formed over her head.
"Sadun, you have... a cloud?" Talna said, pointing up at it.
Sadun looked up, and pulled the sword out of the bedroll. The cloud dissipated. Wrapping the bedroll around the blade again caused the cloud to reappear. Puzzled, Sadun once more pulled the blade free. Considering the properties of the Briarblade, Sadun slowly pushed the rusted blade into the earth. The cloud formed, and grew darker with each inch the blade went into the dirt. With a sudden thrust Sadun buried the blade up to the hilt, and immediately jumped back as a jolt of lightning burst from the cloud over her head and struck the sword's hilt. Sadun received a minor shock of electricity, but escaped the brunt of the charge. The cloud dissipated again.
While Sadun experimented, Pip walked to the trees, and gripped his own new sword with bothpaws. It was larger than the swords he was used to, and he found it unwieldy in just one paw. With a yell, the ratfolk brought the blade crashing into a tree trunk. The blade bit a shallow groove, and began to vibrate with the impact. The vibration, rather than ebbing away, built until it was audible, and with a "boom" Pip was blown away from the blade. As the sword fell to the ground, a small crater in the tree showed that Pip was not the only victim.
Picking up the sword again, Pip gave a toothy grin. Turning, he ran up to Cassian and swung the sword at Cassian's new shield. A loud crack sounded throughout the clearing and Pip was hurled twenty feet away from Cassian, landing heavily on his back. Cassian, for his part, had adopted a defensive stance, and was still pushed five feet in the opposite direction, small grooves of earth marking where his feet had dragged through the dirt.
Balazar looked up from his tree here he had finally cleaned mot of the rust from the blades, scowled at the antics of the others, and began polishing the sword handles.
"I think we might need to attune to these before we can channel their energies properly," Talna called out. Suiting action to advice, the drow sat down with her shield on her lap and began meditating, attempting to reach the shield's core essence. Following her example, Arnick sat and cradles his new bow, while Sadun put her hand on the great sword and closed her eyes. Fei, picking up the spear with a cracked handle, also began to attune to the weapon.
"Ok Pip, we should probably be serious about this," Cassian said, sitting on the ground and holding his new shield in front of him.
"You can be serious about it, I've got plans," Pip said, gathering the parts of his statue and walking to his hole again.
For the next hour, the group worked to attune their items while Pip hammered away at his creation. At last, Talna sat straight up with a gasp. She saw before her a blurred image, a humanoid person holding the shield she held in front of them. The shield was held in a defensive posture, held between the wielder and the very dragon they had faced the previous day, although the lake was nowhere in evidence in her vision. As the vision faded, the drow found herself with a full knowledge of how to utilize the shield. As she had discovered, rubbing an object across the shield's face would cause the object to become charged with electricity, which would discharge when it struck another object. Talna came away with an idea of the limitations of the shield, that it would need to recharge after three uses in a day.
Sadun was the next to look up in wonder, as a vision appeared before her as well. A person stood at the same lake they knew from their recent excursions, holding the great sword at their side. The person seemed relaxed, and stood next to the dragon of the lake, gazing calmly at their surroundings. The vision faded, and Sadun understood that sheathing her new blade would call forth a bolt of lightning, striking whatever target she was looking at in the moment.
Arnick experienced a vision of a person holding the metal bow, standing a long distance from the lake he had seen for the first time yesterday. A large river ran to the lake, which Arnick did not remember from the day before, and a small boat floated toward the lake. The dragon rose in the middle of the lake, and the bow's owner gazed at the dragon in awe and wonder. As he emerged from the vision, Arnick pulled an arrow and went to nock it to the nonexistent string, and found a string of magical lightning formed as he did so. Pleased, the gnome released the arrow, and it flew into the air and away from the campsite, sizzling with electrical energy.
Fei saw the dragon at sea from the perspective of a person holding her new spear. The spear in her vision was actually a trident, its three tips pointing out towards the dragon. The spear's haft had an intricate design on it, and Fei could see that the crack present on the spear now had been a part of the design (although in the present moment, the crack split into two lines running further than originally intended.) As the vision faded, the wielder hurled the trident at the dragon, and with a wave of the hand recalled it to their grasp on a line of lightning. Waking fully, Fei looked sadly at the spear haft, bereft of all of the original design save the extended crack.
Balazar, who had finished polishing the handles and begun to meditate on his shorts words shortly after Talna had suggested it, found himself with the clearest vision of the group thanks to his tireless cleaning of the blades. He saw a person riding atop the dragon he had stood atop the previous day, holding both swords aloft as the dragon charged a mutual foe. With a clang, the warrior smashed the two swords together, and with a boom of sound the dragon's foes were hurled away. The dragonborn opened his eyes with a mischievous grin.
Cassian had a brief vision of his new shield raised in defense and knocking the dragon's ball of lightning back towards the dragon itself. Satisfied that he understood the shield, he set it down and began to focus on the warhammer. On the other side of the campsite, Pip set down his tinkering tools, finally satisfied with his creation, and picked up his new longsword and began to attune to it.
While Cassian and Pip attuned their weapons, the rest of the group stood, stretched out, and began to clean up the campsite. Sadun set a few snares in the underbrush, hoping to catch some small game for their meals.
"Where should we go next?" Talna asked.
"With these weapons, we may be able to take on the beholder," Fei said cautiously.
"It would be nice to get the rust cleared off them first," Sadun said. "But I have no whetstones to clean them here. Perhaps there would be some in that hidden armory in Kobold Town?"
"Where is Kobold Town?" Arnick asked. Sadun gestured towards the city they had visited recently.
"That's the same direction as the beholder's lair," Talna pointed out.
"And the wizard's tower," Fei added. "Perhaps we could go there as well, and see if he has any last things we might exchange for."
"I still don't want him to know about Elle's stone," Talna said. "I'm worried what he might do to obtain such a potentially powerful item."
"We don't all have to go see the wizard," Fei said. "Perhaps some few of us could venture there while the others cleaned their weapons with any whetstones and grindstones they can find in the town."
"That seems reasonable," Sadun said.
As they talked, Pip had a vision. Two people, a human man and a human woman, ran together. Both were dressed for combat. The woman held the longsword in one hand, and grasped the man's hand with her other, while the man held an odd looking buckler shield. The dragon loomed before them, with what seemed a disapproving, cautious look on its face. Coming away from the vision, Pip felt he understood that the sword could be charged to cause more severe injuries than would otherwise be possible.
With a satisfied grunt, Pip stood up and gathered his belongings. He walked up to Sadun and tugged on the dragonborn's shirt. "Here Sadun, I made this for you." He handed her the statue he had finally perfected.
"Why, it looks like a miniature version of Elle wrought of metal," Sadun said, touched.
"Yes, and if you work this lever, it shoots tiny sticks out of its bow," Pip said, proud of his mechanical genius.
"Thank you Pip, this is a very touching monument to our friend," Sadun said.
"I just wanted to do something to memorialize her, though I didn't know her very long I could tell you all liked her," Pip said, turning to go. As he walked away, he said, pointedly, "Of course, I could have made a life-sized version if I had better materials."
Sadun frowned a moment at that, but was soon distracted as Balazar rushed past her towards Pip. Seeing the dragonborn coming, Pip let out a yelp and began running away, but Balazar clapped his two swords together. The resulting sonic boom lifted the poor ratfolk from the ground and hurled him headlong into the trees.
"Sorry Pip!" Balazar called out, clearly not sorry in the least. "I just wanted to see how it worked!"
Muffled cursing could be heard as the ratfolk picked his way back to the clearing.
Ignoring the shenanigans of her comrades, Talna thought to look around for the prints of the large animal she had heard the night before. A little way away from the campsite, the cleric discovered the tracks of an owl bear, recognizable by the bear paw prints surrounded by owl feathers. The tracks circled the campsite, before turning and heading away from them. She returned to the camp, thoughtful.
Cassian fell into a second vision, this time centered on his new hammer. In his vision he saw a ship at sea, and a person standing on that ship hurling the hammer across the waves to strike a second ship. The leviathan dragon swam between the two ships, watching the hammer fly over its head. As the hammer flew, it grew in size, until it was twice as large as it had been, smashing into the opposing ship with terrifying force, and then crashing down through the ship's decks through its new weight.
Cassian opened his eyes. "I shall call it Mjollnir!" he said, happily. "After the hammer of the god one of my old... comrades used to tell me about." As he finished his thought, a single tear rolled down his cheek.
"Well, I'm naming mine Bang and Boom," Balazar said. "That sounds appropriate."
"I like the name Artemis for the bow," Arnick said. "Did that lake have a river running to it? I wasn't paying the closest attention what with the whole dragon and running for our lives yesterday."
"There is a stream that feeds the lake," Sadun said, "but nothing like a river."
"I just wanted to know, because I saw a vision of the dragon and there was a big river. I thought maybe if we could get a river that big again the dragon could go free of the lake."
"I don't care much about helping the beast," Fei said, coldly. "Although it is interesting that you had a vision. I too saw someone wielding my spear against the dragon."
"I had a vision, but in it the owner of the sword seemed to be friendly to the dragon," Sadun said. "I didn't see much beyond that. Did we all have visions involving the dragon?"
The others nodded.
"Well, we should hit the road," Talna said, after a few moments of quiet. "We should head to the Kobold Town first, and decide what exactly to do once we get there."
The group gathered and began walking down the road. After a short time they came upon a small wagon with a donkey harnessed to it. Footprints surrounded the wagon, and headed in the direction they had come.
"Did you see anybody back there?" Arnick asked, confused.
"These are kobold tracks," Sadun said.
"Oh, it probably belonged to our guest," Cassian said. "The one Pip killed."
"Why did you kill a kobold guest?" Arnick asked, aghast.
"They were arguing about what to do with him," Pip said. "I ended the argument. Kobold tastes good anyway." The ratfolk jumped into the wagon. "I suppose this is our wagon now. Hey, there are load of warm blankets in here! And look, an egg!" Pip popped over the side of the cart again, holding a large egg aloft in both paws.
"That," Sadun said, "is a dragon egg."
"Pip, if you hurt that egg I will kill you," Balazar growled. "Slowly."
"Look, I'll care for the egg," Cassian said, gently removing the red spotted egg from Pip's grasp. The half-orc fashioned a sling for the egg from the blankets in the cart, and suspended it across his chest. "These pecs will keep it warm. Oh, it's already very warm."
"Well, I get the wagon then," Pip said. "Go horse, go!" The donkey remained in place.
"I think it's waiting for a command word. Let me try some," Arnick said, and began calling out words to the donkey in all the languages the gnome could think of.
"Let me try," Balazar said. Switching to draconic, he shouted "Move or I'll eat you!"
The donkey immediately began to run away from Balazar.
"Yay! Cart!" Pip shouted. "I can fit lots of scraps in here! Teach me what you said later Balazar!"
The party moved out along the road.
------------------
After a few hours travel, the group reached the outskirts of what they had begun to refer to as Kobold Town.
"Hold here everyone," Cassian said, turning serious. "Something is wrong."
"What do your orcish eyes see?" Sadun asked.
"There are a large number of statues in the town that were not there before," Cassian said, squinting and moving cautiously forward. "They look to be kobold sized."
The group walked cautiously to the town entrance. Dozens of kobold statues dotted the plaza in front of them.
"I'll go ahead and scout," Pip said, confidently.
"Or, I could cast Pass without Trace," Fei said, but Pip was already on his way. With a sigh, Fei chanted her spell. The party seemed to merge with the shadows, and they left no tracks as they entered the town proper.
The kobold statues were in various poses. Some seemed on the verge of fleeing, others had drawn weapons grasped in their stone claws.
"It looks like there was a fight here," Fei said, pointing to the tracks on the ground. "These statues may be the actual kobolds."
"Here, there are some few piles of ash. Who could they have been fighting?" Sadun asked.
"Has the beholder already made its move?" Talna wondered. "We aren't prepared for it to be here after us already."
"The signs of battle are old," Fei said. "Probably from last night. "And there is no damage on the surrounding buildings."
"Pip, touch this ash!" Balazar said. Pip obliged, but the disappointed dragonborn observed no effect like the beholder ash previously had on Maximiliano.
Suddenly, a series of beams shot out from the corner of a building. Arnick and Sadun managed to dive out of the way, but the remaining beams struck the party. With cries of pain, Balazar and Talna stumbled, suddenly bleeding from the ears as large bruises appeared where the beams struck them. Cassian was caught mid-dodge. As the beam passed over him, his motions slowed down suddenly. Pip and Fei were caught full on by the beams aimed at them, and both began to back away, looking around the plaza in fear.
From behind the building emerged seven hooded and robed figures. A large skull design was displayed prominently across their masks. Each figure held a longsword in one hand. The other arm was entirely missing, replaced by a tentacled stalk that ended in a single staring eye.
"They. Are. Beholder. Cultists." Cassian managed. "Saw. Them. With. Old. Group." As he spoke, a single tear rolled slowly down his cheek.
Fei fell to the ground and began scrambling backwards away from the cultists. "Get away!" She shouted, raising her arms in a defensive gesture. As she did so, a wall of fire erupted in front of the cultists, burning each of them severely. The flames blocked the cultists from our line of sight, giving Fei and Pip a chance to calm down from their sudden magically induced panic. As an afterthought, Fei hurled a magic stone through the fires, but only the sound of stone hitting wooden building came through the flames.
One cultist walked around the edge of the flame wall and fired another beam at Fei. The druid took the beam full on, her skin blackening and peeling away where it hit. The injury caused the druid to cry out in pain, and the wall of flames disappeared as she lost concentration on the spell.
Unfazed by the cultists' display of power, Balazar rushed towards their line, skidding to a stop and taking a defensive stance as they turned their hoods toward him. Behind Balazar, Pip Squeak overcame his fear with sheer barbarian determination, and charged the cultists as well. As he ran, the ratfolk hurled a shiny globe into the cultists' midst. The ball exploded into a bright flash, and several of the cultists turned away, blinded. Having seized the advantage, Pip pushed his gas mask over his mouth and took a deep breath. Green gas spilled out around the edges, and as the ratfolk lowered the mask, he let out a bestial roar. His red eyes lit with green fire in the veins, and his muscles bulged beneath his robes from the effect of the gas. Magically, he grew three inches taller as well, just edging out Arnick in height by a single inch. Pip held his claws out and screamed defiance at the cultists.
Sadun dashed forward, joining Pip and Balazar. Lining up the three blinded cultists in front of her, she let loose her icy breath weapon. At least, she meant to, but having gone too long since last letting it loose, she instead let out an icy cough of frustration. The cultists' fingers froze up, but they suffered no serious ill effects.
Talna, keeping her distance and clutching her bruised ribs, summoned her spiritual dove, which began pecking viciously at one of the cultists. The drow cleric attempted to follow this up with her Chill Touch, but the skeletal hand appeared mere feet away from her target, and the cultist was able to step away before it could grasp him.
Cassian, desperate to help his new friends, shook off the magical stiffness in his limbs. Returning to his normal speed, he ran towards the cultist line and hurled Mjollnir. The hammer sailed through the air, enlarging to twice its normal size, flew directly over the shoulder of one cultist and smashed instead into the statue of a kobold, shattering the statue. "Oh hells, sorry!" Cassian called to the statue. "I should protect this egg too," he muttered, realizing he still had the dragon egg strapped to his chest. Gingerly, the half-orc placed the egg in its nest of blankets and stepped protectively in front of it.
One cultist in purple robes turned and fired its beam at Pip, but the beam flew over the frothing ratfolk's head. Slightly worried about the green glow emitting from Pip, the cultists backed away, allowing Sadun an opening which the dragonborn duly took, slicing Briarblade deeply into the cultist's side. A cultist in red robes took advantage of Sadun's distraction, swinging their sword at the dragonborn and scoring a shallow cut across her forearm.
Arnick moved forward, looking for opportunities to support his new friends from a safer distance than the majority of them seemed to want. The gnome fired his longbow twice, one arrow flitting over a cultist's head, while the other slammed into the cultist's gut.
A cultists in green robes turned towards Sadun and fired another beam. Sadun, on guard for such an attack, stepped out of the way, and the beam instead hit the back of the purple robed cultist, causing them to freeze up as their limbs lost all sensation. The remaining cultists fire beams at the frothing Pip. Both beams missed the ratfolk, but one beam flew past him and slammed into Talna, knocking the cleric unconscious.
Fei, taking stop of the situation as she threw off her own magical fear, shouted a quick word of healing at Talna, returning the cleric to consciousness. The druid then ran to the corner of a nearby building, seeking cover from the cultist's tentacle eye-beams, and threw her new spear at one. The spear landed perfectly, impaling a cultist, though the robed figure merely looked irritated.
The first cultists turned and hit Sadun with a beam for the first time, causing the dragonborn barbarian to stagger a step back as she was overcome with irrational fear of the robed figure. Balazar, ignoring this development, let loose his own much more potent fire breath, setting two of the blinded cultists alight. Behind him, Pip saw an easy victim in the paralyzed cultist with purple robes, and scuttled over. Seizing his victim in his claws, the ratfolk tore a huge chunk of flesh from the cultist's throat, killing them outright, and then swallowed the flesh whole. The cultists who had not been blinded by the flash grenade took a step back in horror at the sight.
Sadun, shaking off her fear, turned and lopped the tentacle arm from the red-robed cultist's body, following with a powerful backswing of Briarblade the removed the cultist's head entirely. Talna, climbing unsteadily to her feet, cast a healing spell on herself to knit her ribcage back together, and stumbled towards the melee. Cassian rushed the cultist that had hit Sadun the previous turn, swinging his chain-hammer in a wide circle. The cultist ducked beneath one blow but the followup hit them in the head, dazing them. Arnick continued his barrage of arrows, and one lucky shot slammed into one of the blinded cultists.
The blinded cultists, attempting to be useful, began firing their beams haphazardly in random directions. One beam flew out and struck a nearby house, while another smashed a kobold statue to pieces. The third blinded cultist managed to hit Sadun with their beam, but the dragonborn stood steadfast against its debilitating effects.
The cultist facing off against Cassian raised its tentacle arm and fired another beam. The half-orc dodged out of the way, and the beam traveled on towards Sadun. The barbarian, utilizing her preternatural danger senses, dived out of the way of the beam as well, and it continued in a direct line towards Balazar, who had paused to take a swig of wine. The dragonborn's eyes grew wide as he saw the danger approaching too late, and the beam slammed into his side, knocking him unconscious to the ground. As he fell, Balazar instinctively stretched out his arm to keep his beer upright. He lay on his back, one hand up to hold onto the beer in spite of losing consciousness.
Fei moved closer and raised her hands. A wall of water appeared from nowhere and crashed over the melee, slamming into three of the cultists as well as Cassian. One of the cultists was able to jump away, taking minimal impact from the wave, but the other two took the full force and collapsed to the ground, dead. Cassian took the full impact as well, but the half-orc brute just shrugged it off as acceptable injury. Fei then changed her form to a large white bear, and charged the combatants, barreling over a kobold statue on her way.
The cultist that dodged Fei's tidal wave soon found themself in an unfortunate situation as Pip charged it, slashing and biting the green robed figure and chewing off large pieces of flesh. The cultists kept its feet, but was utterly stunned by the onslaught.
Sadun, turning to the cultist that had attempted to cause her fear, swung Briarblade and landed two telling blows, and the cultists crumpled into a dead heap.
Talna walked reluctantly to Balazar's prone form, casually knocked his beer mug from his hands, and then cast a restoration spell to bring him back to consciousness. "What happened to my beer?!" the dragonborn cried as soon as his eyes opened.
"Oh, it got knocked over in the scuffle," Talna said mildly.
"Damn it, I don't think I'd let that happen," Balazar said angrily. Talna just shrugged, and walked away, sending a Chill Touch at the only remaining cultist as she did so. Distracted by the ratfolk barbarian, the cultist took the skeletal hand in the side and staggered.
Cassian, taking advantage of the cultist's distraction, stepped in and smashed the cultist's head in with his hammer. He hit the body a second time as it fell to the floor, and then began stomping on it viciously. "This is for Ralph," the half-orc shouted. "And this is for Farmer Joe!" Another stomp "And Foxfire!"
As Cassian calmed down, the group began looting the robes for anything of use. Around them, the kobold statues began to unfreeze, returning to their natural state as living, breathing kobolds.
TO BE CONTINUED
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