James drew his longsword as he made his way down the stairs, the steel glistening in his hand. Leaning over the railings, he discovered that a giant hyena had not only broken open the front door, but led a goblin and an oversized rodent in to fight it.
“It’s breached the gates!” he shouted, gripping his sword in both hands. The knight vaulted over the railing, and flung himself at the overgrown hyena, landing on its back. The beast roared as an armoured knight began straddling its furred back, and with a roar it began to buck and kick; James grabbed a handful of coarse fur in one hand, and using the other to hack away with his sword, with satisfying effect.
Well, Diplomacy has failed. What would Pa do in a si- Elric thought to himself, before he realized a very important fact, a sociopathic disease ridden Gnoll was charging straight at him. “Die human,” he howled. “Your flesh will feed my pet quite well.” Every word spat through yellowed teeth with ale stenched breath. “Well that was awfully inconsiderate, and rather rude!” Elric cooly quipped as he threw the nearest thing to hand at the monstrosity, which happened to be his ceramic cup in his hand. The crockery shattered upon his forehead, but ony only succeeded in pissing the beast off. “Pissan ‘Ell…” Elric mumbled as he proceeded to run away from the Gnoll, which continued charging at him, thin red lines of blood leaking from the minor cuts he endured from his assailant. Being cornered, he quickly looked for something else he could use against the Gnoll as it snarled at him, almost forgetting everyone else in the room. Tirarian ran across the room and tried grabbing the grenade from the green-skinned bastard.
“Give it here!” she shouted as Elric ran across the room
The Goblin recoiled before she could grasp it, a grin played across his lips
“Ti’ical of a Gnome t’ miss their manners, what’s the magic wo-” his sentence trailed off as he evaded a punch from the gnome, who was a head shorter than him
Tirarian stared at him with a look of pure hate, “For all the gods sakes please give me that explosive device that is going to blow your hand off in seconds.” She savoured the look of shock on his face as he quickly handed it over, before childishly sticking out her tongue. “I lied.” she said, much to the dissatisfaction of Gkub, who crossed his arms and sneered. “I see you’ve got it all under control then, by all means. Go ahead. Save the day.”
Meanwhile, above the bickering of the two half-sized half-wits, the beast charged down upon Elric, a mighty hand wrapping itself around his slender torso, hanging him up in the air before slamming him to the floor, with a loud thud and the cracking of ribs.
“DAMNIT ELRIC, DO YOU HAVE SO MUCH AS A MESSER IN THIS HOUSEHOLD?” James despaired, as he began to bash the hyena between the shoulders with his sword’s pommel.
Elric gripped two rows of teeth and braced them, reflecting how awful it would be to survive this encounter only to die of some horrible disease. “I’ve got a knife back in the kitchen I use for filleting the fish I catch. And my saw for surgery! But I’m a tad busy at the moment. Oh you know, trying not to die horribly and all.” He said as the fiend shifted his grip and lifted Elric against the wall, ripping into his arm as he did so, and wrenching the broken and bloodied limb from his mouth. In response Elric shifted his own grip onto the creatures nose, as he continued trying to snap at the surgeon. Gritting his teeth against the pain in his limp appendage.“Pissan ‘ell…” Elric hissed as he moved up, as he continued to try to push the creature off of him.
“GET OUT OF THE WAY, THEN.” James yelled, and brought his sword up. With his left hand, he grabbed the blade halfway down the middle, and drove it into the hyena’s shoulder, sending it rolling down, taking James to the ground with it. The pair tumbled, and landed on the ground with a clatter of steel and dull slap of meat on wood. The knight picked himself up, and jumped on top of the prone hyena, mustering dexterity brought from years of training. With a grunt, he held his sword upside down, and swung it down onto the top of the beast’s head; and agonising whimper followed, almost drowning out the wet crunchy sound caused by James’ crossguard meeting its skull.
“So did you solve y-” Elric found himself interrupted, as the Gnoll slammed him back against the wall, more in a twitch of pain as oppose to a conscious effort. “... Oh ta ‘ell withis.” Elric swung his head to smack the Gnoll in his gargling mouth, catching him off guard, causing him to drop the wounded barber and bring his hands up to his bloodied face. Elric quickly squirmed out of the pin, just like he would do with his older brothers back in the day. He got up and swung a cross punch, smacking the Gnoll while it was getting up. The Gnoll glared at Elric. “I will kill you slowly skinny human rat-shit.” The Gnoll growled out as he got up and swung at Elric with both of his claws. Elric fled backwards, narrowly avoiding the flurry of claws, however the same could not be said for his tunic. And, wait, no he definitely felt a small new wound on his torso. Elric held onto his bleeding right forearm, as he headed back to the kitchen so he could grab something, anything, to use as a weapon against the foul monster as it lumbered behind him, knocking furniture left and right as he struggled against James. A thought then occurred to him, as he used his left hand to flick the blood from his forearm at the Gnoll’s eyes, a thought that could only occur to one who has seen plenty of the stuff. The Gnoll hissed out, and it’s claws returned to his eyes as they watered up “DIE SLOWLY… I will make you DIE SLOWLY!”, and he rubbed furiously at them. This gave Elric a few precious seconds to get into the kitchen, where he noticed an empty bottle of Ansem Blues, which he picked up with his left hand. He waited, taking deep breaths one, two, he swung pre-emptively and caught the beast without him having a chance to react. A loud chish rang out and the monster screamed, though Elric was sure he couldn’t look any worse, the bottle had done nothing for his looks. He might have laughed at himself if he wasn’t in blinding agony from his arm. It began snarling,again, and stumbled back into a more defensive position to try and shake the opponent on his back before dealing with Elric, but to no avail. This knights grip was like iron, and he would not be denied. Elric used this opportunity to spring onto the Gnoll, knocking it down onto the ground, his surgical hands wrapped themselves around the creature’s neck, in an attempt to choke the life out of it. For the community…I must finish this, and end this foul creature. Elric thought to himself.
Elric felt a pat on his shoulder, and looked up to see James standing there, his sword’s blade soaked in hyena blood.
“Please, allow me to deliver the coup de grace for you. It’s the least I can do.” he said.
Elric glanced up at James, he gave a nod, and the Gnoll limply bucked Elric off to the right side. “Y-yes that would be appreciated.” Elric glanced at the blood on the ground, and remembering, he had a pretty nasty gash in his right forearm, and that he had his rib snapped like a damn chicken bone. “Along with something to mend the wounds. Yes, I’d very much like that. I’ll tend to myself if needed.”
“I believe I have something for that,” Tirarian said, glaring at the goblin while she went to her cart for a poultice.
James brought a booted foot up, and slammed it down onto the gnoll’s neck, giving off a resounding snap. A soft gurgle left its throat as its body spasmed, before going limp.
The knight grabbed the gnoll’s body by the leg, and began to drag it towards the front door. “Strangling takes too long. Try to crush the throat, if you can manage.” he explained, rapping his knuckles against his own gorget.
“Well, I can say I will remember that next time I am under threat of dying.” Elric stated.
