"Just hinder the magic user...," said Water Hornet absent-mindedly. For a moment he was lost in thought, before he spoke again, this time more confidently: "I thought we needed to help the Agarashi, but it seems it can hold on its own, at least for some time. Let us hurry then."


"Yes, good thinking! Robbing us of a chance to deal with the beast in one psychic strike would cause serious problems."

"Let's not risk it, then."

Sun Fox nodded to the group, then started to run toward the extremity of the walkaway which led toward a tunnel in the wall; the passage itself was not particularly long before the group finally stumbled onto a stairway moving forward, at the top of which they could see a door which had been blasted off its hinges by something powerful.

Nevertheless, with no time to lose as the tremor in the wall grew more pronounced by the second, the group moved upward along the stairs at a run, quickly finding themselves atop the roof. And in the midst of chaos.

From outside, the shaking of the tower was far more noticeable, the entire building of the citadel shaking with long shockwaves that ran along its entire lenght. At the foot of it, they could see that half the ground around the fortress had been turned into a pit of fire, with lava emerging from the outher dungeons and sweeping the ground like a inesorable, growing tide. Giaks soldiers where running everywhere they could, trying and failing to find a way out of the inferno; the doomwolves looked like they'd been pushed into a frenzy and were indiscriminatingly attacking even each other, while the Drakkarims seemed to be fighiting with groups of Gourgaz-led undeads for some reasons. Those undeads who were unlead simply stood still as the flow of burning, molten rock swallowed them, turning their cursed remains to ashes in the blink of an eye.

Occasionally, an explosion would suddenly sprout out of the ground, sending chunks of burning rocks exploding in the air only to fall back to the ground like a rain of burning meteors, while some impacted the walls of the citadel, causing the magic trapped there to give out in devastating ways that were clearly contributing to the citadel's state of growing disrepair. The air was filled with ashes and sooth, and in the distance, they could see signs of activity from the nearby volcano, as if the eruption that was going on here would soon drag some form of activity out of it, too.

In the air, meanwhile, the kraans were involved into some sort of battle, their formation a spherical one, clearly aimed to screen somebody inside while a creature that was nearly impossible to see, its skin matching the exact hue of the grey sky around it, launched what looked like impossibly fast and nearly undetectable attacks into their midst, each one taking out a flyer or two. Whenever this happened, a hole opened in the formation so that something inside it could fire out translucent globes of air which exploded ia a conflagration of winds once outside, but the creature was quick enough to avoid these attacks. The flyers where not surprised by this, as they almost always converged on the creature when it revealed itself by dodging the attacks, but these charges resulted in an explosion the very moment the creature was approached, allowing it to sneak away to strike from hiding once again while it's enemies tried to recoup.

As soon as the group showed up, though, the dynamics changed, as several of the flyers turned into their direction, the kraans crying in alarm; nearly immediately, a small patrol turned toward the group to engage them, and they also heard a roar come from the ground floow, and when glancing down, they saw that a Xagash, who had emerged from admist the lava, was launching himself along the citadel's wall to climb them and reach the group, uncaring of the traps it triggered or of the fact that, due to its recent meeting with molten rock, most of its body was currently on fire.

I think that's mostly it for what the situation outside looks like. Actions, everyone? :)

Seeing the Xagash begin its climb towards them Fox closed his eyes for a moment and began to concentrate. Focusing on the inner flame of Kai burning within him he began to concentrate, and after a few seconds his eyes snapped open, a flame burning deep within them. At the same moment the flames on the Xagash began to burn with more intensity getting brighter by the second

"There" he said simply "The Xagash will not trouble us in our escape, but I will need a few minutes to keep focused on it to kill it. We can move safely without its interference at least"

It seemed Water Hornet was not surprised by the air battle. The moment they had emerged out onto the roof, he glanced towards the formation of Kraans fighting their unusual foe.

The sight of the approaching Xaghash made the young Magnakai freeze, but with Sabre Fox's reaction, he turned his focus away, again.

"We have very little time," Hornet said, forced to raise his voice so others could hear him, "the Kraans we left at the Skyrider - I will beckon them to come for us.  But we'll have to clear the skies for them, at least a little."

Hornet turned towards the east and his look became unfocused as he reached out with his Kai skills towards the minds of the flying beasts that were almost undetectable over the distance. Almost.

Sun Snake nodded, in regards to both the reduced threat of the Xagash and the increased threat of the Kraan.

He turned his mental attention to the skies around from where the Kraan would be coming, as well as the skies near them. Piggy backing on Water Hornet's awareness., Sun Snake tried to link as many of their minds as he felt he could manage together so he could attack them with one single mental strike.

Just some fluff for Sun Snake's ability to hit multiple minds at once with LotS.

As the group prepared themselves, Swift Fox whispered, looking at the sky:

"I've an idea which might work..."

She tugged slightly at the scarf she was wearing, then raised an hand toward the sky, and the decorative patterns on the red cloth seemed to shine for a moment, before she started to push around all the ash in the air, froming a massive cloud which she then lowered over the group of kraans with a single gesture, just as Sun Snake unleashed his powers and a clear majority of the animal seemed stunned for a moment, suddenly thereafter having to struggle to recover their balance and in so doing letting their beaks widely open for a near literal avalanche of hot ashes to rush inside of them, causing the monster to convulse and inhale even more ashes as their hot temperature burned them to death from inside.

Meanwhile, Silver Raven had focused on the enemies, and every few seconds a bit of water splashed over the wings and heads of one of the kraans or their riders, mixing with the hashes to form an hot mud that impeded their sight or made their flying slowest and more cumbersome.

Taking advantage of this confusion, the Agarashi had disappeared into the cloud of ashes, apparently unbothered by it in any way, and the group could see kraans being turned into mincemeat by some devastatingly fast blades every few seconds; even Dawn Sword was taking advantage of this, using her bow to take advantage of what few openings she could find.

Sun Fox, meanwhile, had moved to the border of the citadel, and watched to the constantly growing pool of lava on the ground with a considerating gaze for a moment before raising her eyes on the group, and then raising her arms in a single, sudden movement; immediately, streams of fire started to rise from the flowing mass of molten rock below, streaking toward the sky like burning arrows before smashing into the concentration of enemies above, exploding upon impact in terrifying deflagrations of smoke and fire.

The combination of the Magnakai's attacks left the enemies reeling, but soon enough a cry came from the middle of the aerial carnage, and what few of the opponents who had managed to survive the group's opening attack dashed for the citadel's roof, many kraans dying in the landing as they were literally crashed into the stone by their riders, who soon formed into a mixed falange of Vordak and Drakkarim - about two dozens in total, out of the hundred that had been in the sky before - lead by what looked like a figure wrapped in tattered black robe, with a reptilian skull as its head and a glowing crystal rod in its hand, which the group only saw for a moment before the enemies had assembled to cover it from attacks on both the air and the roof, and started to advance toward the group.

So, your first action took out about two thirds of the flying defenders, but the rest is now close enough that you need to use effects that won't cause you to die along with them. The agarashi is not in sight at this moment - either it's hiding in the cloud of ashes, or it died in the course of the attack.

Sun Snake stretched his mind to focus more on the Kraan just beside the commander, relying upon his comrades to deal with those who were engaging them closer.

While the enemies regrouped, Sun Fox moved next to Sun Snake, breathing heavily from her previous effort of setting a good number of them on fire, but then she grinned and asked:

"Any mind trick you think would help here, Snake, or shall I just go with what I feel best?"

Sun Fox is asking in your quality as a more experienced psychic than herself, Sun Snake; if you don't suggest anything, she'll likely go with some other Nexus- or Battle Magic-based offense, but she's asking in case you think psychic powers would be better for her to try out.

This message was last updated by the player at 18:04, Wed 29 June 2016.

Sun Snake did not open his eyes, but did address Sun Fox. "The enemy are getting closer, perhaps a psychic assault would have less collateral damage to ur surroundinds and ourselves. You taught me the ways of push forward the mind in Psi-surge and Nexus. Now you have the full lore circle. Remember how I managed to target the whole hive mind of the Cener, because they were linked? You and I now both know everyone is linked. You should find your psychic powers can target all the minds around, and if you have any tricks to augment your strike, you may be able to affectall those around. Just do not target the Agarashi. We need his mental defenses untested and dormant, and also it free to strike a tthe Kraan's commander when we can buy it a moment to strike."

No sure if Sun Fox realises the new benefit of the lorecircle she has, so just pointing it out. Plus she might have a way to combine psychic disiplines in an unexpected way.

Sun Fox nodded to Sun Snake's comment, while Dawn Sword re-oriented her bow toward the new targets.

Swift glanced once around her then back at the kraan group engulfed by ash clouds.
Her hair and the scarf were being whipped around by a current of wind that appeared to be whirling around her, although for some reason no-one near her could feel that wind.

Narrowing her eyes in concentration, she reached out with one hand and drew it quickly downwards, causing a small wind current to slice the ash clouds neatly in half.
Then with her other hand, she made a motion as if cupping her palm around something invisible in front of her, bringing her other hand around opposite it.
The winds around her seemed to become more calm and subdued for a moment before she spun to one side, bringing her hands around in an open-palm-strike movement.

A faint roar of wind echoed across the area as half of the ash cloud suddenly swirled away from the rest, forming into a spiralling pattern as it hurtled towards the roof and the warriors crowded around the creature with the skull head and the crystal staff.

A hint of a satisfied smirk flickered across her face, indicating she was probably enjoying showing off a little.

Glancing towards Sun Snake for a moment, she stepped back, raising the mirrored shield to position it between herself and the approaching warriors...
"Curious weapon that" she remarked in a low voice, nodding towards the skull-headed creature and the crystal staff it held.  "Contains a powerful energy source that can be manipulated into shapes such as projectiles, shields, almost anything really.  The shapes absorb magical energy, but channelling energy into the staff will overload it, cause it to explode.  Powerful, but risky..."


OOC: Ash clouds probably won't affect the Vordaks and the weird skull-head thing.  But might make the Drakkarim somewhat uncomfortable :)

Standing somewhat to the back of the group, Water Hornet was again clutching the High Priest's mask in his hand, his knuckles steadily growing white.
In a swift motion the young Magnakai pressed the mask against his face, only to put it away several seconds later. He looked high in the air...and nothing happened. At first. Then, the mud that Silver Raven had created by summoning water and mixing it with the ash started to dry and turn into the dust clouds again, while the collected water formed into a compact ball of water, growing bigger as more water drops added to its volume.

"Silver Raven, can you freeze the water as it passes by?" called Hornet to the fellow Kai Master, the water ball moving down in an arc bent away from the approaching enemy and gaining speed with every moment - the trajectory would be clearly taking it past the Magnakai and then onward to the mass of bodies in front of the group.

]

"Yes!"

Silver Raven didn't seemed to even watch Water Hornet as he answered, his eyes focuse on the enemy, but he extended his hand to the left, letting it open so that Hornet could guide a blob of mud to it, which exploded into a scattered collection of suddenly frozen darts after hitting Raven's hand, peppering the enemies' legs - but the shards where too small and not fast enough to be more than a distraction.

At that, however, they were effective, because they caused the enemies to move their focus toward Raven for a moment, just enough to miss the results of Swift Fox's showoff as a literal coat of ashes seemed to hug the enemies. The dark grey substance weighted them down, slowing their movements, but now all the living where holding their breaths, not wanting to be burned from within by inhaling the stuff... but said precaution turned out to be useless as, suddenly, the ahses reignited, the coats of volcanic dust suddenly turning into the pratical equivalent of fire clothes, immediately setting the enemies on fire.

The ones who'd been lucky enough to avoid the fire tried to push their burning enemies away, but before they could complete the motion, suddenly their kraans started to fall down over them, impeding their effort and causing the fire to spread.

Sun Fox, who had her left hand pointed at the enemies grinned, and shouted, her voice strong and unwavering:

"Sun Snake, Swift Fox, keep it up! I can restart the fire from the ashes, if we can keep them trapped under them, and they'll be unable to escape them!"

Meanwhile, the onslaught unleashed by the Magnakai had completely left the leader undefended, and that was the moment when the Agarashi suddenly emerged from the ashes, it's body only partially visible due to sporting a dark black and grey coat that nearly perfectly matched the cloud it had been hiding into. The creature seemed to catch fire as it moved, turning into a diving projectile of flames, and the dark robed leader with a reptilian skull for a head turned to face it, aiming its scepter at the enemy... but when it thrust the weapon forward, it shoot nothing, making the Agarashi's dive to be a pointless loss of all of its momentum... which also let it unable to dodge the moment later, as the leader of the aerial defenses smacked it with its rod just as the tip glowed.

For a moment, it seemed as if nothing had appened, but then the agarashi fell onto the roof, clearly unable to move, and the group could notice that its form not seemed to glow a very soft blue at the edges, as iof it had been trapped in some way, and left unable to move.

The enemy turned to face the Magnakai, it's rod aimed at them and held ready to defend it from any further attacks, even as Sabre Fox's enemy finished burning down, the charred corpse falling from the wall and down into the hell below.

Sun Snake, Swift Fox, if you two keep up for the next round the same offensive you used this round, you should be able to finish disposing of the Urgarho's minions.

Sabre Fox, you're now free to partecipate in the battle against the Urgarho as well.

Water Hornet scowled as his attempt to inflict some serious damage failed, but he was more concerned with the fate of the Agarashi - and the ease with which the enemy eliminated the beast from the fight.

"Raven, can you counter the binding spell from the distance?" shouted the Magnakai Primate, even as his eyes scanned the sky around the position of the group.

OOC: Are there any Kraans still capable of flight nearby? Hornet would then climb on one and attack (or distract or some such) Urgarho from the air, if there's nothing preventing him from doing this.

Swift's eyes narrowed as her left hand pointed towards the area around the skull-headed creature, and her right hand towards the battle in the air.
Clearly she was no longer showing off, now deploying her wind manipulation power in deadly earnest.
The wind whipped her hair around as another gust swirled off in both directions, causing the clouds of burning ashes to whirl around their targets with blinding speed, larger chunks of fiery material striking against the armour of the Drakkarim and the hides of the Kraan every few seconds.

"Not a binding spell" she said.  "The staff that creature holds creates...  'containers' made of pure energy.  It can be shaped into anything, with enough skill on the part of the wielder, but it has to contain something, even just highly-compressed air.  In this case, it's containing the Agarashi.  The staff is tricky to handle, simply channelling energy through it as you would with a normal magical artifact may cause it to overload and explode.  That or destroying the weapon or killing the wielder are probably the best ways to deal with this thing.  Magical energy aimed at the container will simply be absorbed, making it more powerful."

With that, she fell silent, her gaze flicking rapidly between her two target areas as she concentrated entirely on maintaining her control over the winds...


OOC: Will keep up the attack for now, until her targets are dead or she comes under attack or someone tells her to change tactic :)
This message was last edited by the player at 19:40, Mon 11 July 2016.

Sun Snake concentrated on keeping the Kraan stunned and inside the swirling death of Swift Fox's powers. "Can you overload the weapon with a glut of magic, then?"

Water Hornet nodded, the tension clearly written over his face. Moving to the side, and spreading the group this way, the young Magnakai reached into one of his pockets.

OOC: For the lack of better ideas, Hornet will use the round to put the Ruby Ring onto his finger.

EDIT:

The Ruby Ring appeared in Hornet's hand as he pulled it out of the pocket and he deftly put it onto his index finger without much trouble, despite him wearing the Laethian gloves.

All the time, Hornet kept his eyes on the foe, but it seemed he had chosen the right moment, for the short lull in the battle allowed him to act uninterrupted.

Conscious that they had to keep the enemy leader under pressure, Hornet pointed the closed fist in the direction of the skull-headed creature and willed the ring's powers to manifest.

OOC: OK, shooting three fireballs, but aiming just in front of Urgarho's feet.
-3WP (use of Ruby Ring)
Rolled a 4.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:10, Thu 14 July 2016.

Satisfied that the Xahash was ash, he looked towards thier next enemy and gave a grin before looking to Dawn Sword

"Dawn Sword, the silver bow and an arrow for a moment if I may. I have a delicious idea to light up his world"

Dawn Sword looked surprised, glancing briefly to Sun Snake - as if to have his assent - before handing out her weapons to Sabre Fox.

Unless Snake feels like stopping you, Sabre Fox, you're free to attack - keep in mind, I'll need a roll for your arrow, but you get a +1 on it due to this being a special arrow (it has a black tip and fletching, and feels just slightly magical).

If Sun Snake noticed the exchange, or noticed Dawn Sword's hesitation, he said nothing and concentrated on the Kraan still alive.

Giving Dawn Sword a smile, he took the bow from her as he drew the bow up and notched the arrow he began to concentrate......

...and after a brief moment, the arrow suddenly was ablaze, the magic replacing the metal in the tip with what looked like flames kept into shape only through magic.

Sabre Fox let go of his arrow at just the same time as Water Hornet unleashed his fire barrage from the ring, and the four projectiles flew forward, leaving strails of fire behind as they aimed for the enemy commander.

The robed creature, however, was ready for the attack, and even as if didn't move its mace, keeping it aimed at the Agarashi, it grabbed the nearbiest Vordak with its tail, surprising the creature enough that it was unable to oppose any resistance as it was thrown into the path of the attacks. The resulting impact was such that the vordak simply exploded, spreading burning bone shards across all of the other defenders which, being unable to move due to Sun Snake's mind powers and suffocating from Swift Fox's ashes, could do nothing to defend themselves - a problem that was compounded as Sun Fox used this new fire as added fuel for her own.

Soon enough, the enemy leader was the only one still standing; they could see small patch of burn cloth on the black robe it was wearing, but the visible portions of its body - the scaled hands and the reptilian skull - looked undamaged by the rain of fire that had to have at least scored some stray hit on the creature. It's empty eyes were fixed on the party with an unclear expression, even as it used its free hand to grab a spear from one of the fallen enemies and waited for the enemies to move.


Urgarho: CS 37, END 37/42, WP 15/30

Boosts:
Undead resilience (+1 END recover each turn due to darkland environement)
Fire retardant (reduces damage from fire by 8 END)
Tail grasp (can interpose items to halve one attack's damage per turn)

Specials:
Entrapment Rod: cage (pay 1 to 7 WP to create, -2 WP to unlatch from rod)
Entrapment Rod: overload (pay 2 WP for 25 END damage explosion)

I hope you'll have fun with this one! ^_^

This message was last edited by the GM at 19:29, Sun 17 July 2016.

Hornet cursed under his breath and reached for his sword and shield. "We have to hurry, soon Kraans will be here and the fiery chaos down there is getting only worse," called the young Magnakai just loud enough for the others to hear him above the din around.

OOC: Our ride arrives on the 4^th turn.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 20:54, Sat 23 July 2016.

Swift raised both hands and slowly lowered them to both sides of her.
As she did, the winds whipping around her faded, the smouldering ashes floating upwards a short way before falling to the ground, showering the Urgarho and the bodies of its followers with them one last time.

Reaching back, she took up the mirrored shield, the Jade Spike also dropping out of her tunic sleeve again.
Edging closer to the group, she lowered her voice as she spoke up again.
"The energy cage holding the Agarashi is still linked to the rod.  If it becomes detached, the cage will explode in a short time, possibly killing the Agarashi or at least seriously injuring it, and perhaps us too if we're too close to it.  It can use the same trick to launch exploding projectiles from the rod too, an impact against something can explode them as well."

She narrowed her eyes, peering intently at the rod.
"I may be able to disrupt the rod if I get close enough to grab it" she said thoughtfully.
"Of course, I might blow myself up in the process" she added quietly with a wry smirk.


OOC: Just adding Swift's IC thoughts to the tactical discussion, and getting ready to get stabby! :)
This message was last edited by the player at 17:19, Wed 27 July 2016.

"I'd much rather you didn't blow yourself up, Swift, if it's all the same to you."

There was a wry smile on Silver Raven's lips to match his tone, and a moment later he added:

"Is there no way I can be of help? If anybody can suggest any way my powers might be of use, I'd love to contribue."