12 Chirreb 4385 (5 Chirreb): The Final Battle

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

The Final Battle

I bounced back to life a second after dying and Trust patched me together while Mirhandrax, Purrzhon, Nightbloom and Outcast were wreaking havoc on the bandits.

We were outnumbered so you might not be expecting this to go well for us. I know I was sort of dubious about it even before I got killed by it. I had a pretty good idea of everyone's capabilities except for Outcast and yes Purrzhon is good and Mirhandrax is surprisingly dangerous even as a pocker but against eight?

Fortunately Outcast was exceeding my admittedly low expectations. He'd bowled past two mewellicaps to charge their healer, killed him, then killed him again when he bounced, all the while with mewellicaps stinging and biting at Outcast. Outcast also yelled, "Branner, Faefen's safe! We've got her!" to her dad. Who was a Cani and therefore too loyal to outright turn on the other bandits, but he wasn't fighting us at least. Mirhandrax was jumping around pecking at eyes and joints and other weak spots to cripple our enemies. Nightbloom and Purrzhon were mostly keeping the bad guys away from me and Trust. Their sorceress hadn't managed to pocker anyone new yet.

I'd gotten woozily back to two feet and had just cast Nowhere Prison on a new target when their sorceress-leader Sharone cried out, "Call off your hunters, Purrzhon, or the scawn dies!"

We all stared at her. She had a scawn clutched to her chest with a sword to its neck, just like the last bandit had held a Rassimel boy hostage.

Except this was a scawn and not a Prime.

I giggled. I mean, really? 'Or the scawn dies'? We so had this fight won. Mirhandrax jumped for Sharone while Nightbloom hefted sword and spear to advance. Outcast stood with great axe frozen in midstrike.

And Purrzhon said, "Stop."

"Whaaaaat?" I said.

"That's better." Sharone said, as Mirhandrax fluttered to the floor and Nightbloom halted, staring in disbelief at Purrzhon. "Now, back out of the room."

Purrzhon backed slowly towards the door. "But there's -- " Mirhandrax started to say. The Sleeth shook his head, staring hard at me.

I rolled my eyes. It's one thing to risk getting beheaded for an innocent prime child but for a scawn? And I'd shifted back to biped so I wouldn't just fall out of her arms like I had the Cani.
Also, for a scawn?

"Do it now!" the bandit captain screeched. Just before my last cast of Nowhere Prison FINALLY finished building. On the sorceress. She must have been taking magic resistance lessons from Mirhandrax because poof. The scawn dropped to the floor and darted towards Purrzhon. It had a big sack tied to its back with ropes that wrapped around its chest and held its arms to its side, but it was still doing its best to dodge bandits as they tried to reclaim their hostage. One of them almost got it but Outcast nearly chopped off two of his tentacles and the scawn got away.

After that it was pretty much mop-up work. The sorceress managed to open a hole in nowhere to come back earlier than she would've otherwise but even so most of the bandits had died and/or surrendered by then. Sharone refused to surrender so we had to kill her.

Although not before she turned Nightbloom into a pocker. Sigh. At least Nightbloom had the excuse of having run out of cley by then.

And that's how we beat the evil extortionist hostage-taking bandits! That's sort of the end of the story although of course lots more stuff still needed sorting out.

Like getting back out of the strongroom past the water-Khtsoyis of drowning.

Comments

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

And, of course, finding out just what Purrzhon was up to with that scawn. That is peculiar -- eccentric!

No, I shouldn't talk.

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

It was one of those things where you're curious but not sure you reeeeeally wan to know you know? Like there could not possibly be a good reason and the bad ones are eeeeeeeee. O.o

[zeeth_kyrah]

Great. Now my head is full of imagery that wouldn't have been there.

And Destroc Illusidor doesn't work on the mind.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

That's why you use Destroc Mentador or Mutoc Mentador!

[zeeth_kyrah]

Actually, I decided to enjoy the imagery. It's not like I'll be punished for it where I live.

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

D:

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Hahaha. Siege is a weird one. Thinking about this philosophically though, deciding to enjoy some disturbing imagery rather than being disturbed by it IS a viable and reasonable method of dealing with it, provided you can actually pull it off.

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

I am not going to try to imagine what he's imagining that he could imagine not being disturbed by. LALALALA I'm not thinking about this any more!

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Eeeeee what are you crazy?

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

No, I WAS joking, though!

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Ohhhhhhhh it's hard to tell with extradimensional nonprimes sometimes!

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

It's okay. It was my fault for not putting a 'smilie' sarcasm indicator. You know a text-based winking grin? ;) ;)

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

See that's why I didn't want to know!

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

It's a pocker party!

So was this the pocker spell that wears off eventually or the pocker spell that lasts until you pay someone to break it?

Oh, and it was kind of 'risk getting beheaded' vs 'certainly drown', wasn't it? Although 'probably get killed for the second time in a row' might not make 'but probably get healed in time to not stay dead' a priority I guess. v.v

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Well Trust doesn't have Rejoin the Severed Head so while Heal the Awful Wound would bring me back I'd just die again right away because I can't live without my head attached to my body. He does know Spirit Reunion and that preserve-meat spell so maaaaaybe he could get me to a healer in Ulmarn with Rejoin the Severed Head before he ran out of time/cley but it's a lot chancier than I like you know?

Sharone wasn't using Sustenoc so the pocker spell wore off after several hours which was a good thing.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

When I turn people into pockers, I use Sustenoc!

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

I know I'm glad you're not an evil wizard!

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I ... wonder if I actually am.

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Oh that's so silly of course you're not an evil wizard! You only have a pet nendrai to keep Vheshrame safe from her and it's not like she's ever destroyed any cities well except for that one kinda but Dossimar deserved it anyway. And the extradimensional nonprimes you imported are practically harmless and it wasn't your *plan* to loot the temple of Mircannis of Her glories and I'm sure whatever plans Accanax has for that anti-Vae enchantment are perfectly godly! Anyway you fight evil sorceresses like Narngi you aren't one!

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

... Yes. Exactly.

I think I'm still on better moral footing than at least half our gods. For whatever that's worth.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

So you think she could have *actually* cut off your head before someone jumped on her? I mean, killing someone you're holding hostage is one thing but heads have all these tendons and bones and muscles that you have to cut through, so removing it entirely is a pain in the --

Er, not that I'd know.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Right, there are very specialized executioner's swords and executioner's axes that are built very very differently than normal fighting swords or fighting axes for that task!

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

How do you even know these things? O.o

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

They're part of my world's history of capital punishment. So my interest is that of a historian who has looked the topic up sometime in the past.

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

... maybe? I'm sure she could've beheaded the scawn there's not much to them. Maybe she couldn't have beheaded me but she did have a big metal sword to threaten with.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

But... You just came back from the dead! Couldn't Purrzhon have just gone about with the killing of the bandits and then resurrected the scawn later? Or are non-Primes generally non-resurrectable?

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Prooooobably not if she beheaded it -- I explained that to Terrycloth somewhere higher up.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

So there's a time limit on how long you can hold onto a dead body and then revive it?

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Uh huh you only have a few seconds to revive it with Heal the Awful Wound and HtAW won't reattach a head. There's a spell to keep the spirit near a dead body longer but that has to be cast really fast too I think. I'm not sure I'll have to ask Trust.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Okay, that explains that then! Yay for not accidentally dead-inating the scawn hostage then, Purrzhon might have been displeased.