Return of the Emblem Chapter Nine: Consolidating Forces

[Eail]

The finally enemy was panicking, that much was easy. He knew there was no way he was getting out of this fight alive. Probably hoping to take at least one more of these people with him, he rushed the traitor Zachary. Barely managing to get his tome ready before the attack Zach had his enemy's blade dig down into his left shoulder. Before the Swordmaster could even pull his blade out to attack again Zach had already released his spell right into the gut of the man in front of him.

http://invisiblecast...r/view/3593968/ +5 points for Zach/Raquel to end the battle

Zach attacks Swordmaster B !VANTAGE activates Swordmaster B rolls 5, 5, 1

Insta hit dealing 15-1=14 damage to Zach

Zach rolls 6, 5, 1

Hit!

Insta-kill on Swordmaster B

As the blade was ripped from his shoulder Zach stumbled back and landed against the wall behind him, sliding down into a sitting position. Clutching his shoulder he could barely move due to exhaustion and pain

Edited July 4, 2012 by Eail

[-Cynthia-]

BATTLE FINISH!

Average points: 52

New point total average: 551

Veronika slowly managed to make her way over to Raquel who had been hit by an arrow. She removed the arrow and then applied a vulnerary to the merchant's wound on her chest and waited. Come on Raquel, this can't end here... she thought to herself, waiting for Raquel to wake up.

Nadya occupied herself with healing the rest of the fallen dagger group, trying to ignore the pain in her back and side for the moment. Hopefully we won over there- but at least I'm good enough to run now if they didn't, she thought to herself.

Edited July 5, 2012 by -Cynthia-

[Acacia Sgt]

Seems the swordsman gave up trying to get past him and quickly hurried to switch targets. Fortunately Zach was able to strike him down despite the injury he got.

<Finally...> John thought. <We made it through this alive.> But looking over, it was certainly one mess of a battlefield.

Well, time to assess the damage. <Too bad I didn't brought vulneraries with me.> He took a quick glance at the corpses. <I didn't see any of them trying to treat their own wounds outside of staffs. Well, I suppose someone else will most likely search them out, for now I better check on the others, hopefully Sophia got to Chelsea by now or something.> He figured, before walking away from where he was.

[Mercakete]

Gytha groaned. The first thing to reach her consciousness was pain. Her head hurt. Then she felt the hard floor beneath her. And that was when she remembered her last waking moments. Ah, right, I was hit by that mage... Well, she couldn't hear any fighting going on anymore. The mariner turned over and pushed herself up into a sitting position and opened her eyes, blinking a couple times. Guess I hit me head when I landed. Looking around, she saw her sword a little ways away. She got up, walked over and picked the weapon up before taking out her cleaning cloth and wiping the blade down a bit until she was satisfied with its cleanliness. Then, she sheathed it, put her cloth away and approached the healers who were wandering around healing people.

"Hoy, are ye a'right?" she asked with concern. They seemed to be incredibly tired, at the very least. "Any way I can help?" She didn't have any way of healing anyone, but she was fairly strong, so she could help with carrying people around or supporting one of the healers.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For a while his consciousness was lost in a haze of pain, partially due to his fruitless struggle to find some way to get up and keep fighting. However, now, he'd long since lost consciousness. The enemy's sword had cut near Norbert's spine but hadn't actually touched it, instead impaling him deeply, going so far as to pierce his liver. The slash having followed the stab was more successful in knocking him down and bruising him than actually cutting him further, not that it really needed to. He'd been down and untreated for a long while now, to the point of the lower half of his tunic being soaked under his armor and his blood beginning to pool. He was pale, but not dead. Not yet.

[Script]

A Man Called Gar

It was over. Zachary took it upon himself to finish off the final enemy after lance-woman had softened him up a bit. The Thunder Sage got a sword to the shoulder for his trouble, but it was still a hell of a lot less dangerous than what most of the others had gone through. Gar threw out his cleaning cloth unto the body of the last man he killed. The blood-stained fabric draping itself over the knife still embedded into the eye. Gar didn't have a lot of out-of-battle-utility, so he made himself as useful as he could.

"As I'm sure all of you have presumed, Dagger got itself licked quite badly too, all the healers went down," Gar said as he walked over to the corpse of the archer that had the blunderbuss. Gar checked the body for any vulneraries before he rolled aside the body and took the firearm for himself. A quick inspection revealed it hadn't been fired. "We left the guy who made the combat teams behind to guard everyone else just in case." Gar placed the blunderbuss down and investigated the bodies of the other archers. Neither had vulneraries either, the second one he looked at had a bow, but the third had a rifle. One that had been fired. Dammit. "Who got shot?" Gar asked. He dropped the currently-useless weapon and checked the final archer, finding no gun or vulneraries again. "We're gonna have to move Dagger over here," Gar stated. The one healer left standing for the group looked quite frail from taking that earlier arrow. "Oi, Zachary, you know if they kept any alcohol or medical supplies here?"

[Phoenix]

Cloak and Dagger

Zachary finished off the swordmaster, and the bodycount was complete. Gabbie wasted no time in making for the main entrance. She wanted to get outside as soon as possible to let the shadow team know that they had won, and that they needed as much medical attention as they could get.

Raquel was still unconscious, and had become noticeably pale over the last few minutes, but she was still breathing, at least.

Elsewhere in the building, Shadrak stumbled around toward Robin, and fell into a kneeling stance over her once he arrived. "Dammit ... who didn't get beaten down during this fight? Wait, I don't see those new guys anywhere. Those bastards just up and left without us?" He sighed, figuring it was probably for cloak's sake and not just leaving them there to die. They did have a good share of the healers, after all. "I just hope they got there in time to help Raquel and the others." By the time he finished saying things, he had finished healing Robin's wounds, though he was very humble about his healing work. He was much better at using his power for violence than healing. He then placed his hand on Robin's shoulder saying "You're going to be alright, but try not to push yourself. Those guys were ruthless."

Shadow

When Gabbie made it outside, she had Reign's full attention. "What's going on?!"

"We won ... but they fought to the last man." she answered a bit gloomily. Reign knew what that meant. No retreat or surrender meant they more likely than not wore the party down considerably, but even he was currently underestimating the extent of the damage right now. "It's gonna take us a whoile to be everyone up and about, and Raquel got hit too."

"Raquel ...?" Reign paused and glanced over at the artificial girl Faatina had brought out with her. He then cursed himself for not knowing better, of course Raquel had gotten hurt. If things were so bad that the rescue target had to be evacuated so early on, then of course Raquel would be among the injured. The enemy had been desperate by that point, why spare a capture target when they faced complete and utter annihilation? "Dammit, I can't believe I thought this would play out any differently ..." he muttered as he made for the entrance. "Faatina needs some help, but be careful with that arrow ... and Talitha's posted up in a tree somewhere. Mandy's over in the bushes. Give them the all clear."

"And wheeere are you going? You don't look loike a healer."

"I'm not a healer, but I'm going in. I made a mistake letting her go through with this." Reign shot back just before he made it to the entrance.

That was curious, thought Gabbie as she knelt down next to Faatina. She could already tell the arrow was in a bad spot. "Oh greeeat."

Mandy came out of hiding and ran over, seeing Reign's move as a sign that the battle was over. Talitha leaped from the tree and glided over. "Hey, what happened in there?"

"We won, but they made us earn it for a change. Lotta people got hurt, but no one's dead as far as I know." Gabbie answered.

"Glad I was out here, then ... sorta."

"So why is Reign going inside? Are you short on medics?" Talitha asked.

"I think he's upset about Raquel. She got shot, so that's probably what's bothering him. Nothin' to fret over; let's just get our wounded up and walkin' again and get the hell outta here."

[Acacia Sgt]

As John made his way across, a thought came to him. <Oh that's right,> he stopped. <Chelsea got shot with a bullet during the fight. It's going take longer treating the wound in accounts of having to remove it. I guess it's better to just treat the arrow wound first. Looks like a quick search on the enemies is in order.> Seems Gar had the same idea, and was checking up on the dead archers.

''They shot the troubadour. It didn't look that grave, but it is still gonna need to be removed in order to heal the wound.'' He answered before going on to check up on the other corpses. Weapons, protective gear, staffs... and no vulneraries? <For planning to set up an ambush, they sure didn't brought healing items. Were they that confident or dumb?> He wondered. Finally he reached the fallen form of Kerrigan. Aha, success, a bottle of elixir. <Seems this will do.>

It didn't took long for him to catch up to Sophia. Really, you could only move so fast with an arrow tucked in, unless it was in an arm or something.

''Hold on,'' he called out to make her stop. ''I managed to find this. I figured we can deal with the arrow faster with it.'' He said handing over the elixir.

''An elixir? A-alright.'' She knew taking the arrow out was gonna be painful, and that wasn't changing no matter which way the wounded was healed, then better to deal with it now. Besides, the elixir was bound to work faster than their staffs at this point anyway.

It didn't took long, but finally things were fine now. Though now my clothes are blood-stained and with a hole. Sophia sadly thought. Alright, maybe not, but the worst had passed now. She handed the elixir back.

''Thanks.'' She said. ''It would be best to use it to speed things up.''

''It was nothing,'' John replied. ''And you're right. Though by the way, she was hit with a bullet. It may be best to find something to remove it.''

''You didn't found anything?''

''Afraid not. Maybe someone else has.''

''I suppose it can't be helped, I should start healing the rest first then.''

And with that, both went over to where the others were scattered throughout.

[Snowy_One]

Fire. One of the most primal forces of nature that was known to man. Ever since she could walk it had always been there, illuminating her way, cooking her food, staving off predators, but she had never actually stuck her hand in fire to this day, let alone her entire body. She had always 'known' why, but now she knew for certain, FIRE FREAKING HURTS!

One blast from that bard had been enough to floor Robin during the main fighting. Parts of her flesh had turned reddish as if being cooked alive as flame licked over her body. That her cloths had not been burned to cinders was likely because they had not been made of cloth, but rather hide, and even then she could see bits of her leg through the pants as her vision returned. She half expected all her hair to have been burned away as she slowly sat upright, the parts of her mind not crying out like she had just been caught in a concussive blast trying to piece together what was going on around her. She looked up at Shadrak, dazed and confused.

"<What happened Shadrak? Did we... Win?>" she asked, dazed, before repeating in common. "What happened Shade drake? Did we... Win? Where are... Why were we..." She took a moment to take a deep breath, the air feeling like a hot summers day inside of her lungs. "Right... I got hit. Did we win Shade drake?"

[Eail]

Still clutching his shoulder Zach nodded to Gar's question, managing to softly respond "Yeah, go down that hallway. Then take the third door on the left, that'll be the kitchen. There was a lot of alcohol stored in there last I knew." Seeing the world starting to spin again like after the attack from Kerrigan, Zach figured he was about to pass out in a few minutes or so from using up way too much energy in his attacks.

[Acacia Sgt]

The first thing that Sophia came across was her fallen Barrier Staff. She picked it back up. I suppose it will be next time. She thought. But nevermind that, she had people to heal up.

The first who she found was the female pegasus rider. Raising her other staff, she proceeded to treat her wounds.

John meanwhile came across Zach, slumped and leaning on the wall. He seemed to still be conscious, but he knew that the swordsman had slashed him a good one. So he went over.

''Here, take this.'' He said, bringing the elixir to his lips.

Edited July 5, 2012 by Acacia Sgt

[Eail]

Zach began to drink the fluid in the bottle before him, figuring it was an elixir. Turned out his guess was right as he felt the gash on his shoulder starting to close up

"Thanks man, I owe you one. I'm just gonna sit here for a while and get some of my strength back though."

[Script]

A Man Called Gar

Armor guy answered the all-important question of who got shot. The troubadour. Now that would be helpful if Gar actually knew who that was and didn't have to guess that it was probably-light-magic-girl from the ship. Though the armor guy had more luck in scavenging stuff, managing to pry an elixir out of what looked like one of Zach's many kills. He offered it up to the arrowed healer first, and during that time Zach answered Gar's question. He'd grab some on his way to Dagger then. Armor-guy offered up a chug of the elixir to Zach, who accepted, while the healer worked on the lance-chick.

"I'm gonna go grab some stuff from the kitchen before checking in on Dagger," Gar said out-loud before doing just that. He followed Zach's directions over to the kitchen, keeping himself aware in case there were any stragglers around. There didn't seem to be any in the kitchen, but that was no excuse to get sloppy.

It took a while for the Ascendant to locate the liquor, he grabbed a bottle and stuffed in one of his empty pouches. He also gabbed what looked like the best of the available knives before heading back to the main hall then over to Dagger. The team Gar was on looked to be in a state of recovery already, the healers were already struggling about. "Oh good, you're not all unconscious," Gar annoyingly said. "Cloak didn't go much better than us here unsurprisingly enough."

[Acacia Sgt]

''Well, so long you're out of danger.'' John rose back up and went on to find someone else.

He came across Bert, who was in a more serious condition than Zach. Using the remaining of the elixir, he tried to force it into the rider's mouth. <It may be the elixir won't be enough.> He thought. <Well, if it comes to that, any of the healers can treat him further.>

[-Cynthia-]

Veronika

Veronika managed to stand herself up against the wall, near Raquel, moving her hand to cover the injury on her side. She saw Reign come in from outside. I wonder if that's good or bad news... she thought to herself, before speaking to him.

"Raquel is going to live," she said, figuring he would be concerned about his friend.

Nadya

"Well Mercy be praised or somethin'," Nadya said at Gar's arrival, relieved they wouldn't be facing any more cultists at least. "Now if y'all will excuse me, I've gotta take compensation for this Wrathdamn cultist mission crap," she said, limping over to a nearby table and stuffing a silver candelabra into her pack.

[Ether]

"Oh, heya... sounds like things went pretty bad in there. I'll help you ou-" Faatina began, stumbling on her wounded leg, and once again collapsing to the ground.

"Damnit all... stupid thing is broken... I can't walk on it." She muttered with a pained scowl, before looking over in the direction of the target.

"Is the girl okay?"

[Script]

A Man Called Gar

"While I certainly respect swiping stuff so quickly, you should probably hold off until everyone's up and about. We'll get more loot that way," Gar explained. "But yeah, we need to get moving over there. Are all of you capable of walking or do I need to start carrying people?" Gar finished by grabbing his discarded cloak off the floor.

Edited July 5, 2012 by Script

[ReformBlade]

Wounds closing, Aneda gasped. The world still looked faded and blurry, simply being awake was a monstrous task for her. So she decided to rest up, hoping someone else would help her. After all, she wasn't gonna be able to move for a while.

Davod, meanwhile, was sweating profusely and panting like crazy, a little shaken by the whole ordeal. "Oh my god... how did we WIN that?!" he shouted to no one in particular. Win? You have the weirdest definition of 'Win', Davod...

Nanahm, healed and hearty once more (for the most part), got himself up and dusted himself off.

[GoD]

After Battle:

Once the battle was over Chelsea finally woke up from her unconscious state. When she did, she noticed two things, one that the battle against the cultists was finally over, although it was pretty obvious that they didn't go without a fight, as she saw most of her comrades lying on the floor or rushing to heal the wounded. The second thing she noted, as she was crawling to where Nanahm was, that she had sustained an injury of some sort on her right shoulder. The last she remembered there was a loud gunshot... oh no. Mercy please, tell this girl that she had NOT taken a bullet to her shoulder. Regardless of whether she was hit by a bullet or not, she healed up Nanahm as best she could with her healing magic. At least he would be able to walk and regain consciousness soon.....It was strange though, why was it that she and Nanahm alone were a combat team? She'd ask later.. there was healing to be done.

Standing up was a little bit difficult for the troubadour, due to her shoulder searing with pain, she nevertheless managed to get on her own two feet with Mend Staff in her hand. Seeing Veronika stand up though she looked too injured to even attempt that, Chelsea walked over to where the swordswoman was, healing her wounds as best as she could. "This might not heal them completely, but it'll make walking and generally moving around a lot easier."- the troubadour told the woman, and kneeled so she was closer to Raquel. It seemed as though Nika had managed too keep Raquel stable, so Chelsea aimed to fully heal Raquel and wake her up. As she applied her strongest healing magic to Raquel she told her employer: "Raquel wake up, you're boyfriend calls for you." Chelsea told this to pink-haired with a smile on her face.

Edited July 5, 2012 by GoD

[Mercakete]

And then Gar came back. No one had answered her question but Gar seemed to be asking something similar. She just waited to see if either would be answered.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Norbert remained unconscious as his head was moved and the healing liquid was poured into his mouth. Most of it got down his throat and began to heal his deeper wounds, significantly lessening the amount of blood escaping his body. The pegasus rider remained unresponsive, however, and there was little to no visual sign of the healing. Still, his life wasn't in as much danger as it had been prior to John's assistance.

[Phoenix]

Cloak and Dagger

Raquel was still unresponsive, and seeing her laid out on the floor wasn't what Reign wanted to walk in on, but it was exactly what he was expecting. He walked over to her and the other two and knelt down looking incredibly depressed. "I don't know which is worse, the fact that I didn't take the matter into my own hands or that I didn't stop her from doing this when I had the chance. Did she really get shot ...?" The question almost sounded rhetorical, as he sounded like he was about to follow up with something else, but never did.

Meanwhile Shadrak had his hands full answering a question that kept coming up over and over again. It seemed every time he thought to answer an interruption came. He waited until Robin gave him time and then nodded first, sort of hoping that would slow down any response that came, and then he reinforced it by saying "Yeah, we won. Even if some cultists are still roaming around here, they're no longer organized. We've beaten them, I'm sure."

And then Gar showed up and confirmed what he had only been guessing at ... that or he'd come back and left the others to fend for themselves for some reason ... nahhhh. And Nadya was already up to looting. He was surprised he expected anything less, but she would certainly have her hands full without that horse of hers. He kind of wish she did have the horse though ... since some people would need carrying out and having a few more of those would have helped out considerably.

Shadow

Gabbie glanced over at the artificial girl, and Talitha actually went over to check on her. She seemed fine aside from being unconscious. Mandy was the first to comment, though. "Whoa, girl, you've done enough already. Time to focus on yourself for a minute, here. That arrow's not going to remove itself and with a broken leg, we've got to be that much more careful. Honestly, it would be more convenient if we could take you inside, but moving you around like this is ... inadvisable."

Gabbie stood up and sighed. "I'll be roight back. I'm gonna go snatch one of the healers and see if they can get your leg set, Faatina."

[Acacia Sgt]

It seems Aneda was content to just keep lying there. Well, it was understandable. But what was important was that she was gonna be alright. Now to see who else was in need of healing.

It was then she saw Chelsea not only moving about but also tending to Veronika and Raquel.

Wait, she is... but then what about the bullet? She was about to head over there...

''Sophia!''

She suddenly stopped, and turned. It was John, next to the still unconscious Bert, still in a bad condition. She made a quick glance at Chelsea.

Was it already removed or...? Well, she didn't looked to be in that need for medical attention. So she went over instead to Bert and John, using her staff to finish healing the former where the elixir wasn't enough it seems.

[Eail]

Deciding he'd best use the time he had while the group was fixing up everyone that was injured, Zach got himself up off the floor and made his way to what used to be his room at the manse.

Getting rid of his bloody, torn, and burned robes, Zach switched into some of the clothes he had stored in his closet. Grabbing one of his spare bags he began to load up on some of his books and spare clothes, grabbing his rather hefty bag of gold (for the moment at least) he walked back to the main area where the group still was.

Edited July 5, 2012 by Eail

[Snowy_One]

Robin sighed happily as she tried to smile, only for the burning pain her body was still in to remind her that that wasn't a good idea. "Thank you Shade drake." she said as she tried to stand up, touching his shoulder in thanks, before heading to the main area as best she could (following the flow of people, bodies, and basic logic) despite her singed clothes and items to see how well the others were doing.

[Mercakete]

With the healing staff's magic mending his flesh, Norbert's wound continued to heal from the inside out. At first, there was little to indicate the healing was taking effect. Then, his small, previously deep wound finally closed completely. Even the bruise and small burns from before vanished. In the end, the back of his armor was scratched and punctured and he had a hole in his tunic yet again and -- more so than before -- his armor and tunic were in need of washing. Aside form his still being pale and unconscious from blood loss, those were his only remaining problems.

[-Cynthia-]

Veronika

"Thanks," Veronika said to Chelsea before turning to Reign. "This probably isn't what you want to hear, but this isn't the first time she's been shot...or kidnapped. We have to come up with a better plan for protecting her than this, but now probably isn't the time," she admitted, looking down at Raquel.

Nadya

He thinks the looting is about 'we'? I've been lucky so far, most of the group doesn't have the gumption to take free stuff lyin' around. Hope he ain't competition.. Nadya thought to herself, looking at Gar skeptically. "Fine, fine let's get everyone outta here," she conceded. She couldn't carry a whole lot of loot without Luca around anyway.