Return of the Emblem Chapter Ten: Converging Destinies

[Eail]

They were in a bad situation, Zach could tell. He'd been trying to shoot down what fliers he could with lightning, having some success due to the incredibly accurate bolts, but it wasn't enough. Some of the others were still outside, they needed to get here as fast as possible, and maybe Zach could get them moving. Aiming straight into the air the sage was sacrificing nearly all of his mobility to pour power into this flare type thing.

Electricity crackling around him as he concentrated on gathering power. "There!" *crack* *BOOM* sending off a huge bolt of lightning into the sky as a distress signal.

[Balcerzak]

"Seems ta me your doin' a fine job o' guarding. Still here ain't it? Anyway, we're a pretty fair spell away from the gate here, and ya certainly seem ta be right on the things not having gone so well." A paricularly vibrant clap of lightning seemed to rise up from the ground inside the courtyard, about a quarter mile from their current position, punctuating his summary of the situation. "But yer dealing with kidnappers after all, so I guess it shouldn't be too unexpected."

Giving the contraption that passed for transportation a bit of a more critical look, he added "How d'ya even get this thing to go? I'm surprised the horses haven't been worked ta death already, and have more'n half a mind to give Raquel a good talking to 'bout how she treats her animals. Gotta treat them right, or they certainly won't be treating you. But s'pose that can wait, we should get it over a bit closer, better position to provide cover when the folks manage to break out."

Realizing he was maybe taking too many liberties with how he was handling the situation, Sinbad shrugged sheepishly and backed off a little, "...Though, that just be one man's opinion, I s'pose. Either way, I definitely will have weapons at the ready," he acknowledged, checking that his sword was loose in its scabbard, able to be drawn at a moment's notice, and that he could reach his hip hostler with no impediments.

After that, he also waved a greeting to the two others nearby, the one still inside and using the window, and the other outside. "Don't think I caught either of your names yet, but I suppose there be time enough for that when things setlle down."

Edited April 18, 2013 by Balcerzak

[-Cynthia-]

Connor

"Flipping a coin is a little...random," Connor said to Tia, before the bolt of lightning coming from the fortress, indicating that perhaps they really should do something.

"The Dauntless isn't as heavy as it looks, it has magic that helps keep the effective weight down so Riley and Sandrock can pull it more easily," Connor tried to explain to the horseman in layman's terms. "Someone just needs to drive the wagon- I could try it but someone else might be a better choice," he said from out the window, trying to remain calm.

[Parrhesia]

Speed wasn't what mattered here.

One smooth, decisive movement to draw the arrow, then release. Accuracy mattered more. Strength mattered more. Rider after enemy rider was downed by Rook's marksmanship, but... it wasn't enough.

Wasn't bloody enough.

Rook just hoped Marella was safe.

[Snowy_One]

"Erm... I don't know how to drive. Or ride for that matter. Unless she can, you're probably the best choice Con."

[Mercakete]

Gytha frowned at the situation. The girl's earlier comment was seeming to be their best option, though she was reluctant to follow through on it. If we take th' land ship with us, then I won't be abandonin' me post, but...I know that's not what Veronika meant when she told me t' guard it... Still, the others certainly seemed to be in trouble. I just have t' make a choice n' do it. Th' others seem t' think goin' in is th' best option. I'm inclined t' agree.

"Th' Dauntless doesn't look like its d'flect'rs 're on," Gytha noted to those present as she holstered her pistol and sheathed her sword. She continued as she headed for and sat down in the driver's seat, "I'll steer th' land ship. Connor 'r... Uh, ne'er caught yer name, lass. But if one o' ye could turn on th' d'flect'rs under th' wagon, we could get movin'. Those doors look like they're still a problem, though. Sinbad, could ye ride ahead n' see what ye can do about those?"

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

The next thing the duo attacked was a wyvern and its rider. While Rizen gored the wyvern's side below its wing, Norbert took a swing at the rider with his maces. Though the Ursian was fairly certain he'd dizzied the rider and he knew the wyvern was injured, he could also tell that probably hadn't been enough to down them. It would have to be enough for the time being, however, as the pair had to beat a hasty retreat as one of the wyvern rider's allies came swooping in on them. They managed to avoid the second wyvern rider's strike, but a pegasus rider converged on them shortly after they'd gotten out of the way.

Rizen performed a quick free fall before righting herself, but that pegasus rider's lance had been far too close for comfort. Rizen had escaped the attack unscathed, but the lance's tip managed to cut into Norbert's arm under his shoulder guard. It wasn't a crippling wound, but it was bleeding. The male pegasus rider didn't notice it, though. He was focused on other things. It's getting fierce up here... I'm going to have to really start paying better attention to my surroundings.

[-Cynthia-]

Connor

"The Dauntless is pretty packed with explosives- I'm pretty sure I can come up with something to take out a door," Connor said, retreating back inside and beginning to pull out boxes of grenades. "Tia, can you turn on the deflectors? I can give you directions if you need help figuring out how to work it."

[Snowy_One]

"I'm gonna need the directions, but I'm positive I can do it!" said Tia with a smile. "They're under the Dauntless, right?"

[Balcerzak]

"Even if there's magic helping it along, I saw the state of the horses last night, and at least one o' 'em seemed plumb exhausted. I guess mayhap it's not so bad as I thought it was, but I'll still be raisin' the issue," Sinbad replied to the man inside the wagon.

After Gytha seemed to have decided on a set of roles that were actually pretty suitable, the cowboy conceded "I'd be more than willing to ride up and give it a try, but neither pistol nor sword's gonna get that thing down."

Then Connor piped up about the existence of some explosives they could leverage for the situation, and that got his attention. "What kind of things you got in there? Something ready-made an' portable, or are you gonna have ta jury rig something large on the spot? If it's something I can carry over there on horseback, I'd be more 'n glad to do so when I go head off ta make my first pass, which should be about any time now." He squinted at the towers surrounding the gate, trying to assess just how to lead Hatsune dodging and weaving to best avoid any hostile fire from sentries.

Edited April 18, 2013 by Balcerzak

[-Cynthia-]

Connor

"Yes they're under the Dauntless, try to activate them from the innermost rings before doing the outermost rings. You probably only want to turn on two rings per deflector- otherwise we'll be in a lot of trouble," he said to Tia, before fetching several grenades out of the crate.

He walked out of the Dauntless towards Sinbad. "A few of these should have a pretty big effect on the door. Don't drop them!" he warned the horseman.

[Snowy_One]

"Got it!" said Tia before she jumped down and slid under the Dauntless. As soon as she was under she looked up and saw the deflectors and the rings.

"This seems simple enough." she said, moving quickly over and activating two rings on one of the back deflector, then starting to turn on the deflectors on the right side before the left before moving back to the second set in the rear.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Snowy_One

[Balcerzak]

Sinbad accepted three of the grenades from Connor, placing one each on the top of a saddlebag on either side of his mare, positioned for easy access, and holding onto the third. "Reckon I just gotta prime 'em, place 'em, and get the hell outta there," he confirmed, before gathering the reins in his free hand and wheeling about to face the gate.

「I really hope this isn't a damn fool idea,」 he muttered in Kigen before shaking his head. Connor had confidence in the devices, and Gytha had confidence in Connor. That was the best he could really ask for here. He rode off ahead then, though he could hear a roar that he could only imagine was whatever magical propulsion system that monster required coming online. He didn't turn around to check, he simple stayed the course, keeping a wary eye out for archers aiming his way. The cowboy was steering mostly with his knees, as handling the reins with one hand was always tricky business, but it seemed most of the archers' attention was directed inward for the moment, so no really fancy arrow dodging was required.

Sinbad swung around a bit so he could come in at an angle. He slowed Hatsune to a trot, while he activated the grenades, and one after the other tossed them at what he deemed to be the most suitable locations. One at the base of the right door, rolling up to the gap where it met the wall, quickly retrieving the second from a saddlebag he then lobbed it at the joint in the center, where the double-doors met each other, and then as they were riding away he threw the last of them at the gap on the base of the left door. Then he snapped the reins and dug in his heels, sending signals Hatsune clearly understood to gallop the fuck out of there.

Not entirely sure how much time he had, or just what magnitude an explosion those things would have, once he'd felt comfortable that they were riding back to meet the others, who would be driving toward them, he brought a hand to his head, holding it tight against his hat, in case any gusts of wind caused by the explosion would come and try to dislodge it. It seemed like it was taking awhile, so he turned his head over his shoulder to confirm, and that's when it happened.

That's when the grenades went off.

[spoiler=accuracy rolls for the grenades]

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4020158/

11 + 4 = 15 HIT, 11 + 1 = 12 HIT, 11 + 6 = 17 HIT

Edited April 19, 2013 by Balcerzak

[Mercakete]

As soon as Connor had handed off some grenades to Sinbad, the horseman rode off and Tia had successfully turned on the deflector pads, Gytha called to the two younger members of the group, "A'right, good work! Now get in th' Dauntless 'nless ye fanca bein' left b'hind!" The mariner wasn't about to waste time, but she would give Tia and Connor a bit of time to board the land ship. She had the reins in her hands and was ready to shove off as soon as they were aboard.

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

Unfortunately for Norbert and Rizen, it seemed they'd irritated enough enemies that even more began to try to converge on them. The fact that both Rizen and Norbert were easier targets than Katrina and Volga or the ground forces weren't helping their situation either. Rizen was forced to retreat towards the ground, closer to their allies. Norbert just hoped the others in the group would see the opportunity to take down the three wyvern riders and two pegasus knights that were tailing him before they broke off or caught up.

[-Cynthia-]

Connor

"All right, let's go!" Connor said as he went back inside the Dauntless, beginning to gather the explosives inside. I wonder if using fire magic on the grenades would be more effective...possibly too effective.

[Parrhesia]

Rook sighted Norbert under pressure and refocused his efforts on attempting to give him fire support.

[Snowy_One]

Tia quickly scrambled out from under the Dauntless and up inside of it. "Okay. I'm out! Now let's get going!"

[roymbrog]

Valter’s prediction turned out to be accurate, and soon Bert had joined the fight against the aerial units. The opportunity his descent had offered was not wasted, as the horseman managed to hit the nearest flier square in the chest before having to grab more arrows.

---

Whereas before it had been difficult to confront a rider head on, once their backs were turned Volga dove like a really big, fat hawk. With her wings tucked in they picked up enough speed to close in to one of the slower wyvern riders. As they passed directly overhead, Katrina bashed the rider in the shoulder with her axe while her own wyvern clawed tears in the other’s wings, slowing the targets down even more. The enemy rider managed to slice the passing wyvern in the belly before getting knocked off his own mount by her tail, but there was a lot of fat and scale to go through before hitting anything vital. Katrina and Volga continued plunging on towards their next target.

[Mercakete]

As he heard the sound of a couple large things hitting the ground behind him, Norbert smiled some and chanced a look back. Though he was still being chased, the two pegasus riders were falling back and two of the wyvern riders had been downed. That made things a lot easier. Norbert quickly turned Rizen around as sharply as he could and sped past the wyvern rider with his mace extended. The wyvern and Rizen were both flying at high speeds so the wyvern rider hadn't had enough time to react to the pegasus rider's sudden offense. The result was a little gruesome as Norbert's mace collided with his enemy's head. Though said head had been protected by a helmet, by the end of the encounter her head was hanging behind her unnaturally.

Still, the air was a bit too dangerous at the moment, especially with Rizen beginning to get tired. So, his pursuers gone, Norbert and Rizen landed, choosing to stay relatively close to the rest of the group members. I'll just deal with anyone who attacks us from here. It sounded like people were making progress on the gate, too. Some explosions sounded from over there, after all.

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

"A'right, let's go, then!" Gytha called once she'd heard her passengers were aboard. Then, she flicked the reins to signal to Sandrock and Riley to start pulling the Dauntless along, as she'd seen done before. Though, her prompt was a bit more exaggerated than was typical unless someone was in a hurry.

[Click This]

Mao hadn't expected the turn of events to go quite this badly. Whatever had gone on inside must have not been pretty. Nonetheless, the notion of waltzing into the area was, to her, a grave error, but she had gone with flow. Despite having little obligations to the group, she would not stand idly by as a battle drummed up.

As enemy fliers began to fill the air, Mao frowned, before pulling out her trusted hunting bow from her quiver. Being new to the group, she had a difficult time distinguishing between friend or foe in the area. Mao didn't doubt her ability to down thirty-five fliers with her thirty-five arrows, but she didn't have a grasp on everybody's looks yet. She certainly didn't want to accidentally hit somebody that was on their side, so she engaged in point defense instead of actively seeking out enemy fliers to down.

[Phoenix]

Prepare

"Come on, Colin, hurry up," Silvia urged the man while practically bouncing in place impatiently.

"No thunder blades, no thunder blades, no thunder-damn!" Colin settled for a different brand of imbued weapon and picked it up. "Pascal, huh? Not clever," Colin said at the inscription on the wind blade's sheath. "Let's go. Maybe we can find Sardis before this gets really bad."

"Shouldn't we help the others?" Silvia asked. Colin could tell what she was getting at and why. Finding Sardis was important, but people were dying in the meantime, but for that same reason, Colin thought it more important to track down their leader. All he and Silvia could do was delay a few untimely deaths. Sardis could end all of this violence with a single order.

"We'll be helping them by finding Sardis. He's the only one that can stop this before it gets out of hand. Come on, Silvia," Colin shot back, rushing out of the armory. Silvia followed them and they ran through the main building's halls trying to track down their leader. They found him in just under a minute. "Sardis!"

The man himself was examining his unsheathed blade while the sheath sat on a chair he was standing beside. Hayato stood by with his own blade unsheathed, inspecting it before the battle. "Colin." That was about all the acknowledgement the mercenary was going to get for the moment.

"Sardis, what happened?" Silvia asked, her memories of seeing Owen dead beginning to change her expression slightly as she stepped closer.

"A strange entity appeared, threatened me, then forced Owen to take his own life. We have one chance to end this now and so I must defeat them. The other times I was preoccupied, but now they will face me, and I will cut them all down if that is what it will take."

"Nonononono--call off the attack," Colin pleaded. "I spent the last day with these people; they were expecting us to draw first blood and I had no fucking idea that dragon was a raging psychopath! He's the only enemy here. You can still convince them to join us!"

"If they really wanted to hear us out ... if they really wanted this to end peacefully, they wouldn't be demolishing our gate and attacking our people. They want death and violence so I'll give it to them. Besides, So long as Raquel is captured or killed, and the emblem piece secured, the situation will be resolved. Perhaps they'll want revenge for this, but with no common purpose, I'm sure Samael will finish them off in short order." Sardis sheathed his blade before looking up at the two sword masters. "Will the two of you help me?"

"Not this time, unless I can do it my way."

"Your way?"

"They didn't ask for this and neither did we; it's that dragon's fault everything went to hell. I say if we have to fight them, we don't kill anyone. You wanted them on our side bad enough to forget about getting your revenge. Is that going to change now because of some psychotic phantom head? They didn't kill Owen, he did."

"We'll see then, but keep in mind that in all likelihood, Raquel sided willingly with this creature and we can't afford to let them escape. If they do, Samael will take over, and then they're all dead, as well as Jethro. Come. We don't want to leave the others to fend for themselves, and we must prevent them from-" Sardis paused when he heard several explosions in rapid succession. "Really now ..."

"Ugh ..." Colin's head and shoulders dropped.

"We need to hurry."

Meanwhile, the fighting and breaching at the gate was well underway. Shadrak didn't know how much more they had to do to get these gates down, but he was worried he would be fatigued before long. Just when he was about to relent on the current hinge, several explosions went off and rocked the gate at ground level. The gates looked slightly dislodged, especially the one they'd been working on.

The place was livening up around the magician, the pressure trying to break her. Not gonna give up, not so soon, not this way! she kept telling herself in a makeshift mantra, focusing only on that door. She thought, after tearing down another hinge, that she'd try to simply overpower that side of the door but that thought was interrupted with a flash and a loud explosion just beyond the door. She let out a shriek, impulsively trying to push the door away, for what it was worth. Mushirah hit the door with her magic and a loud scrapping sound rang out. With all of its hinges gone and having lost the support of the other door, it slowly began to topple over until it slammed into the ground with a loud thud. "Yes! Nice job, Mushirah," Shadrak cheered.

Normally it'd be a good time to make a break for it, but the archers are still all over the place. They'll just shoot us all in the back if we run right now. We may have to clear some of them out first, Reign mused while scanning their surroundings.

Outside of the fortress, Sandrock and Riley had gotten the signal to go and so they did, tugging the Dauntless along with them. They weren't sure where they were going, but whoever was driving this time sure seemed to be in a hurry, so they tried to make haste despite the incredibly lousy terrain they were pulling the Dauntless over.

Not far away, the four sword masters made their way to the exit of the main building followed by well over a dozen men. They arrived to find the party all gathered at the gate, and wrecking it with magic and high explosives while fending off their attackers. "Don't let them escape! Surround them. Spare any who surrender; kill anyone who resists!"

"How about I just kill anyone who's still got a weapon out when I get around to them," Hayato snarled. He had his own plans here and despite being overly hostile, Sardis had mixed feelings about all of this and wasn't decided on the issue one way or another yet. This was a battle no one but the dragon wanted. Sardis hated having his hand forced in such a way.

"If there's anyone I'd like to kill, it's that wrathdamn dragon," Colin cursed.

"Hey is that Cassandra and ... Sam?" Silvia piped up, pointing toward the fortress' wall. Two figures were running down the wall's walkway and blowing past the archers stationed there. They were taking a much longer route toward the fighting at the gate, but at their incredible running speeds, they would be there before long.

"Isn't it a bit early for him to be getting involved?"

Sardis shook his head. "We can't worry about that right now. Rally the men and prepare for battle.

OoC Note: Merc, you can go'head and CC the Dauntless(Sandy&Riley) from here. This is my last post for this chapter.

Edited April 20, 2013 by Phoenix

[Ether]

The airborne opponents seemed to be held away well enough, and the men who Faatina had been warding in the courtyard seemed not to be making a move, all the better for her, she supposed.

'Why did this happen? I thought... was it all a lie after all?'

That was when the quartet of sword wielders arrived, and began giving their orders. Among them were Colin, and that Silvia woman, along with two she didn't recognize off the top of her head... though the manner in which the lead man spoke and carried himself gave the paladin enough to at the very least guess at a name...

"Colin." Faatina called out to the man, bringing Sharif to a stop a decent ways away, though close enough for their words to carry clearly. She noticed that he carried a new sword on him... that alone spoke volumes, didn't it?

"You said that you were out for peace, Colin... what's happening... why is it that Raquel and Luka seemed forced to eject themselves from that room, on baited breath and pale as spirits? I... I felt that I could trust you, Colin... was it all a lie? Perhaps I really am as foolish as they all say..." The Rexian paladin began, her voice partly breaking from it's usual tone as she spoke. Turning her head towards the lead man... it had to be him, didn't it?

"You must be Sardis... I wanted to hear the truth from you, before Raquel went ahead... I don't know the extent of the grudges that are held here but I felt it important that someone heard your piece with unbiased ears... but tell me. What happened, that lead to this? It would seem negotiations are over, so there lies no need to hide anything, anymore... was this a machination of yours, Raquel's? Was your voucher for peace a mere ruse, did talks break down to prejudice... Colin told me that you had no want for blood to be shed today... so what is it that happened here, for that seems no longer the case?"