“Fiend, while you may hide, the devout will triumph yet! You merely prolong the inevitable for your crimes. Step forth and challenge me, foul one, and I shall issue you a swift and painless death!" --Rayvon Krayvitch, Page 1.
West Watch Tower
Draza's consumption of sugary sweets did get Meryl's attention as she stared in delight, though the moment Draza moved forward, her look of delight turned into a bit of a maniacal grin. "AHA! Game's on!" She immediately takes a couple steps back, though continued staring at the sugary treats.
Naream's attempt to take control of the skeletal archers proved fairly fruitless after summoning three pawns of his own and ordering them about. He only managed to successfully force the one on the left to hesitate, while the one on the right ducked and covered its bow as Maevan's bullets spread through the air, bringing a trail of fire with them. The archer that hesitated watched its bowstring disintegrate, much to its apparent annoyance as it tosses it down and summons a short sword into its hand. Everything seemed to be going to plan thus far.
That is, until the assassin appeared.
Behind Fafnir, who was busy protecting Maevan, the man in a black cloak and leather appeared. Wielding a particularly sharp dagger in one hand, he jams it into Fafnir's back right leg, twisting it once and completely ruining the gears and gyros that made the leg functional, causing it to go limp and the spirit within to flinch in pain. The dagger was not ordinary, it was magical. "GUSTAVO!" Meryl yells as she manages to get behind the large, ten foot tall, hooved demon. "GO GET ME A SNAAAACK!" She says with impatience in her voice. Gustavo grumbles as he vanishes back into the air, unable to attempt to finish the job against Fafnir. Why he would obey orders like that was a mystery, though one the magically inclined would feel a connection between the two of them.
As Naream's two skeletal attackers move for the succubi, the hooved demon makes one mighty cleave with his warhammer and obliterates them both in one swing. His immense strength was readily apparent, though he wasn't particularly fast.
The two succubi then decide to attack. Both uncoil their whips and giggle mischievously as the one on the left goes after Naream. With one solid strike it attempts to hit him, though his defending skeleton steps in the way and takes the blow around its wrist. It then holds the whip with both hands, attempting to prevent the succubi from getting her weapon back so easily. Just as it seemed as though it would win, a loud whistle can be heard through the air before Aëyr's stone finds its mark, striking the succubi square between the eyes. She drops her whip and grabs her face in immense pain, blood clearly running through her fingers and down her arms. For all tense and purposes, she was at least temporarily out of the fight.
The one on the right, meanwhile, goes after Fafnir, seeing as how he had charged forth and stopped both archers from firing, he was the most pressing target. She snaps her whip at him, and it cleanly rips a large gash through his left wing, bits and pieces of metal shredded, oil rolling down it. He was still functional, but heavily slowed.
Esyllt's golem continued to try and get behind the little girl, and amusingly, the demons either didn't care about it at the moment, or somehow missed it. Though it wasn't quite in range this round, it would be by the next round. Draza on the other hand would notice sharply that the grass was being moved wherever the feet of the assassin, Gustavo, were. She could clearly track his progress straight towards her, from her right side. Esyllt was in front of her, and equipped to handle a threat like that. It was up to her to tell Esyllt.
Abida Qisaf would find that her approaching the girl was quickly countered by the girl hiding behind the ten foot tall demon. Whether it was her approach that caused her to do that or not was irrelevant to the fact now: It would take more than just herself to kill that thing.
East Watch Tower
Zayn would deftly find several mechanisms inside the bomb. It was clear that most of this was outside of his area of expertise, but one particularly shiny piece of glass filled with black powder caught his eye. Pulling it out, he realized that this was the ignition for the bomb. Without it, the bomb could not go off. He receives an answer from the orc juggernaut as he pulls it out. "He was once an old friend, whom I swore an oath to. I have no choice but to follow." He then turns and violently charges for Child, as the scarab had not been able to fully recover from the wounding blow, that left only Child as a real threat. Child, of course, noticed, and attempted to roll out of the way before he could be hit. However, with a single, mighty swing of surprising speed and grace, Dirge intercepted where Child would be and slammed his warhammer into Child's side. Sending him sprawling a couple feet away with half a dozen broken ribs, Dirge glanced upon the brutally wounded figure for a moment. Then, with pity in his eyes, and a single overhead swing, he completely crushes Child's ribcage, killing him nearly instantly from shock alone.
Dragging the bloody smear of his opponent across the grass and then hefting it back up into his two hands, he glares at Zayn and Dread Fang. "Run, while you can." He says, this time more threateningly as he realized that something had happened to one of his compatriots. He seemed fully aware that Zayn had successfully disabled the bomb in a way that he could not repair. He did not appear to care.
Alicia, in the meantime, manages to barely evade the attack from the half-orc as his axe comes cleaving downward. He stops short of impaling the ground with it and attempts to turn to face her, only to see a rapier moving for him. He stumbles in his attempt to move backward and his cheek is subsequently sliced open, a very deep cut showing the reddish-yellowish glint of his teeth behind the cheek. Darek howls in pain as he gives her enough space to get back on her feet, raising his shield high enough to defend his neck once again and smacking his shield with his weapon. "COME ONNNN!" He yells at her. "BRING IT ON!"
Kasim on the other hand was wise to wait for the blood to continue to seep down the half-orc's forehead. His attempted slash attack fails, but his quick feet keep him always slightly too far for Oran to get a solid strike in with his axe. In rage and frustration, he suddenly swings in the opposing direction, a wide open swing that belied his lack of control. With a single quick witted duck Kasim avoids the axe, the blood finally blinding the half-orc as he tries to wipe it clear with his shield arm. Thus, with a single nimble step forward and an arrogant grin to match the reputation he likely thought he would gain with this, his blade sinks into Oran's neck, through his wind pipe, utterly destroying his vocal chords before he could scream. A final gasp leaves him as he slips off of Kasim's blade, slumping to the ground a dead heap. So much for glory.
Town Square
Andrea would find her vision getting blurry already as she charged her spell and threw it at Jeremy. The knife wounds were likely beyond her capacity to simply muscle through: After all, there was a knife in her abdomen. This proved fairly true as her spell missed its mark by some distance, instead slamming into a nearby house and lighting its roof on fire. Luckily thanks to the modernization going on in this part of town, the fire would be slow to spread, if it would at all. On the other hand, she still had a spider mesmerized and ready to obey her commands, if she was willing to risk its life.
Laenaia's nondescript attempt to distract the protector using illusion magic proved not to work due to the lack of any specific focus in her mind. If it had any practical effect beyond mildly confusing the protector, there was nothing really to be said of it.
Rayvon charges in to support Wayne, bringing her blade to bare against the protector she watched as the protector pulled out of her daggers away from holding off Wayne to holding off Rayvon. Impressively, she was barely managing to hold them both back, though judging by the way her feet started to slide against the dirt, leaving deep trails of desperation behind them, she would not last long against the both of them. "Almost... There... Love..." Jeremy grunts out as his hands become wreathed in a dark, swirling, nebulous energy that wreaked to Rayvon of corruption. Just as it seemed as though all hope might have been lost, a pair of arrows come whistling towards them. The first one strikes Rayvon's shoulder, just underneath her shoulder piece, rending through flesh but otherwise not being a deadly wound, nor disabling her arm. The second arrow finds its mark, weaving its way through both of them to strike the woman in the throat. She hesitates a moment as the light of hope and loyalty in her eyes dims. She then falls backwards, a lifeless husk by the time she hits the ground.
"NOOOOO!" Jeremy screams at the top of his lungs as he swings out and bludgeons Wayne, sending him several feet through the air and landing beside Andrea. "YOU WILL PAY FOR THAT!" He glares at Rayvon. "But first... YOU!" With that said, the shadows start to climb up from his hands to his arms, quickly moving to attempt to encompass the rest of his body. They had only a few seconds left before whatever spell he cast would be complete.
Wayne glances at Andrea and manages a small grin, displaying his fangs. He then tears the knife out of his throat, blood seeping everywhere as he simply lays back against the ground. He had nothing left to fight with at this point.
Meanwhile, at the same time as this was happening, Mars' alcohol fire worked according to plan as the spider hissed at it. As commanded to by Zin, Eldrick backed off. The illusory flames also rose up from Zin, and as it found itself increasingly cornered. Thailen's whip finds its mark, snaking around the spider's leg. With a quick yank, the spider stumbles back into the real fire. The fire began to race up its leg, it screeched in horror as the fire continued to climb about its form. Being entirely wreathed in flames within a few seconds, it stumbled about before collapsing over the fountain, breaking the top of it off to reveal the bomb. It had a comical looking timer on it, showing only two minutes left before it would explode. Worse still, this meant that it was armed, and thus just bashing it would likely only set it off. As if that wasn't enough, this bomb was configured in such a way as to have three crystals juxtaposing out from each side, likely to vastly amplify its otherwise mundane explosive power. Without those crystals, it likely only had enough explosive power to destroy the fountain and do minor damage to the buildings immediately around it.
A small ghost of James appears over-top of the bomb, leaning on his cane and looking around, seemingly unaware of the environment, almost like it was a prerecorded message. "Oh! Hello there Queenies Blades! So here's the trick. Remove the crystals in the right order, and everyone lives. Don't, and the bomb will immediately explode, killing whoever is attempting to diffuse it, but sparing the local civilians. Don't try to defuse it at all and you might have a chance to run... But the civilians will die." He then points down at the bomb. "Figure out the beginning, middle, and ending, the purist sight to its hybrid with another, and everything will be made clear!" That was likely the only clue they were going to get.
A closer look would reveal the crystals to each have a colour: Pink, purple, and red, each respectively. The pink crystal had the symbol of water on it, the purple crystal had the symbol of a plant on it, and the red crystal had the symbol of the sun on it.
Raven's Inn
Aslo, Gryff, and Murderok would find themselves accompanied by Mikan. The schizophrenic dwarf took up "rear guard", as he likely put it, while Mikan pulled out both of her daggers and twirled them in her hands. She hoped that whatever they were talking about would work, she had no idea what kind of tonic it was, as potions and the like were more a certain blood mage's field of expertise, or even the crescent sisters... Her own experience with such things was "don't touch it". Muderok moved ahead of the others, immediately attracting the attention of the sabre cat, who growled lowly at his approach. Mikan raises her daggers and remains close to Gryff and Aslo. "... I hope this works." She whispers as the sabre cat, moments later, bounds into action. It jumps up and starts moving towards Murderok. When Gryff fires his crossbow, it manages to evade the attack by jumping to the side. "Huh. Smart cat." Mikan says with slight annoyance in her voice as it immediately bull rushes for Murderok, though its dodge gave him enough time to turn and retreat if he wanted. "Uhhh... Aslo, I think it's up to you!" Mikan says with slight panic in her voice.
This would turn out poorly for them if they weren't careful.
