"Everyone try to spread out" called Meri to the others.
On her back, Timur disappeared into her backpack...

Glancing back at Farren, she tapped on one of the blue crystals on her staff, sending a wave of healing energy in his direction.
Then she began to run towards the southern edge of the circle of cushions, ducking nimbly around Gibb and Elias and circling around the dragon.

As she went, she dug into a pouch at her belt, pulling out a handful of rune-etched metal shards.
Skidding to a halt, she threw them into the air, raising her staff into a defensive stance again.
The shards rose into the air, the runes on them suddenly glowing brightly with a ghostly blue light, then as one, they darted like a rain of metallic hail at the dragon, some of the blue energy passing through the creature and moving towards Serricco.

At her backpack, Timur emerged once again, holding some kind of metallic object clutched tightly in his arms which Meri took from him, holding it clenched in one hand.
Timur quickly dropped down into the pack again as if going for something else...


OOC: Okies, lot going on here.
Guessing the dragon's lightning attacks are either area effects or bursts, so trying to tell everyone to spread out so it can't hit so many people in one attack.  Whether they listen to Meri or not is uncertain though :)

Minor Action: Burning an infusion to try to pull Farren out of Bloodied status (actually not sure if Revenants get some kind of special power when Bloodied, so maybe should have left him there.  I'm sure it won't be the first time he gets Bloodied anyway at this rate!)
Anyways, he gets his healing surge value + 4 HP back.

Move Action: Heading 3 squares south, and 3 more southwest, putting Meri 4 squares south of the dragon's position on the current map if I'm reading it right.

Standard Action: Firing off Life-Tapping Darts at the dragon and targeting Serricco with the Temp HP effect from that (Assuming Serricco is the 'Si' one which is 9 squares away from Meri's new position?)
Attack: 26 (17 + 9) vs. Reflex.
Damage: 15 (7 + 3 + 5) - On a hit, one ally with 10 squares of me gets 10 Temp HP.  On a miss, it does half damage and the ally gets 5 Temp HP.

Finally, a Free Action to use Fast Hands, with Timur's help to pull the symbol from my backpack to try to distract the dragon away from the remaining wounded folks.
Phase 1 of 'Operation Decoy' is GO!  (Though I had intended to use someone else as the 'decoy' part of that...)
This message was last edited by the player at 23:57, Wed 28 Mar 2018.

Just a quick note - despite reminding Meri that she forgot to add her +2 for CA against the dragon, I then went and forgot to add it myself for both my attacks (Slaad and Orb). Good job they both hit anyway :D.
And yes, I ignore five points of Lightning Resistance in any enemy I attack with an Arcane power (so, pretty much all of them :D) in addition to having Resist 5 Lightning myself since my Wild Soul is of that damage type for the remainder of this battle. Meri only gets the resistance, not the ability to ignore it in enemies.

Nym's odd reappearance seemed to affect the dragon, as if she had somehow moved through the dragon, with all the mental distress that feeling might cause. It certainly seemed to have provided the necessary distraction that the draogn's previous attacks had been far less devestaing - one brobably broken arm aside - than it could have been. The ball of swirling distraction and pain was just the latest insult from the mage who mad grounded the creature and mocked it with its own lighting, and skittered away from harm while the dragon was still unable to do so itself.

Fire exploded all around it as the chaotic magic settled on a form, and it clearly had less tolerance for such a thing, rolling around to get the flames out in a bestial panic.

Everyone else was transfixed, though it seemed rather than fear it was the anticipation of what Meri might do first. With chagrin, of course, Meri then pointed out the very necessary precaution of doing exactly the opposite.


Elias pushed young Gibb away, though the young man did not move far. Elias himself simply turned and rummaged around on his leg for a small crossbow rather than try to move himself. Gibb, seeing this, recalled his own small armament and fumbled with the weapon himself.

Sarah and Jessah moved back too, also noting their crossbows. It became clear that this was a very instinctive thing, now the guards had been shaken back to sense again, and perhaps Blackwood Village had seen the occaional predator in its time.


Meri's healing was not lost on Farren, though the source of it was. He looked to Samel at first, who did not understand the confusion. Then Geekaar's guard came over, trying to pull Darasee upright and shover her towards the forest. Samel almost started fighting with the guard, screaming at the man pulling Darasee away, but Farren realised the intent - if brutally handled - and stopped her. "Go!" he said, but while Darasee stumbled and rushed to the forest, with the guard stepping slowly backwards behind her, Samel shook her head and withdrew. She circled aroudn the cushions, and seemed to try and compose herself, as if trying to work out what she could do in the situation.

Desmine took Meri's position as the artificer moved away to confront the dragon, also loading a crowwbow at her side. She seemed very ill at ease, understandable given that the guard who had sliced off Elias's finger was now near her.

However, the tension was ended by Meri's attack on the serpentine form of the dragon - the hail peppering the dragon's hide. He lurched up in rage, and meanwhile over by the cushions Serricco lurched upwards too, eyes wide as he was oddly invigorated.

Farren noticed this, and seemed to put two and two together regarding the mysterious healing. Serricco needed no further instigation, and positively rushed across to the protection of the forest while his own guard slowly backed away. Geekaar's guard did not even acknowledge the black look Desmine gave him, and the town guard semingly decided to concentrate on one foe at a time.

Luckily Farren has no bloodied power you would care about right now, and the attacks hit. Good hustle here team!

The more experienced town guards weren't listening to Meri's advice. Seemingly their instinct was to band together. The two guards who had been looking to Maggrath seemed to be be confident that the woman was well enough to rush to the woods. With an encouraging word the guards rushed off to aid their fallen comrades, who were scrambling to their feet. Maggrath stumbled towards the woods, though stopped at the edge to look back and see the result of the charge.

The four guards attempt to spear the dragon's chest and wings, embolded by the distracted dragon. The dragon begins beating its wings, making it difficult for them to stay on their feet. One managed to spear the creature's wing, stopping it from taking off as it clearly wants to. However, in response it snaps the halberd with its jaw and then spits lighting in an explosive ball that blasts them all backwards.

The remaining guards fire their crossbows at the dragon, some bolts pinging off of its hide, but a few tearing off its membrane.

The creature thrashes around, turning its body away from the onslaught and directly looking towards Meri and Nym's position.

Now that he creature is on the ground, and in the temprary delay, to its hostility, it could be seen that its body and head were perhaps smaller than first impressions. It was certainly a young creature, its wings only for flight, it's tail barely flicking around. And it was very obvious that its scares were a pale and thin, clearly it had taken far more injury than the myths of dragons would have thought possible.

Still, this moment of vulnerability was only a fleeting thing. The creature's snout flared, its eyes narrowed in undisguised, intelligent hatred, its bloodied chest puffed up, and then with deliberate maliciousness it breathed a giant cloud of lighting in Elias's face, then moving the cloud over towards Meri and Nym.

Luckily for you both, low rolls... I mean its vicious intinct to offload at Elias first... and your resistance means that it only does a ridiculous 4hp damage to each of you. And in Nym's case, that actyally means she only has 6hp temp hit points left :p

The dragon spreads its wings, and finally lifts off from the ground where it had been humbled hurt. It rose up high, and then hovered in the air, bellowing at the foes far down below it.

The dragon turned its attention bck to Nym and Meri. It spread its wings wide in challenge again, and then let forth a roar.


So, good news, you barely took any damage. And Nym, you get to roll damage against the dragon damaging you. And good news, most of the civilians are now off safe on the edges, and most of the other guards have spread out. And really good news, the guards managed to start shooting bolts at it, took it below bloody. So yup, finally it is bloodied! Oh, and so triggered its breath attack (when it had one prepared anyway, so mechanically OOC speaking you avoided being blasted by a breath weapon twice). Oh, and the one good halberd roll against it knocked it prone, so it had to use up an AP to move rather than attack, and didn't get to run away earlier. So all this is good.

Bad news, umm, actually there isn't any. Had to use an AP and a standard action to get the three move actions for the dragon to get clear of all the pain, so no fun blowing up guards and killing them :( I mean, I guess the bad news is that its20 squares high, so harder to hit. Still, that can be what readied actions are for. Maybe organise a defense. Or, you know, you can just use the abatement of hostilities to get peopel out of the way. Whichever :)

Anyway, Nym's up again (Farren's delaying). Map here:
/games/63699/misc/gamemap.jpg?1522351303

Aaw, he gets APs? Booo. And if he's 20 squares away that puts him out of range of everything I can cast. Still, I get the 2d6 free damage for him attacking me and since he was Bloodied by that point, I get an extra +2 damage on top of that since my gauntlet effect will have now kicked in (+2 to all damage rolls versus Bloodied targets) :D.

As the lightning brushes past Nym, she barely seems to notice and instead continues laughing and giggling, the aura around her seeming to shimmer and send a jolt of chaotic energy back along the line of the lightning to strike the dragon.

Nym then continues giggling, dancing around and pointing up at the dragon.

"Ha, ha, you're up there! La-la-laaaa, isn't this fun! Come back down and play some more! Wheeee!"

She twirls her dagger around, sparks of chaotic energy rippling along the fang-like blade.

Okay, so, the damage roll for the retaliation is a rather nice 12 (6+4+2, with the +2 being the gauntlet bonus). Untyped, hence the "chaotic energy" description rather than a specific element.
Then I think I'll take a Knight's move northwest (two north, one west...or one west and then two north, whichever :D) to get a bit further away from Meri in case of more AE lightning.
Then I'll use my Standard to Ready an action - cast Chaos Bolt if Mr Dragon comes within range (10 squares). That's the only attack power I've got left now which isn't Close.
Also, I was just re-reading some of my power descriptions in the Char Builder and realised that had my Chromatic Orb missed, it still gets the effect, not just the damage type. So that's cool. It just does a couple of d10s less damage. It seems I've been too concise in some of my power descriptions on my sheet here on RPOL so I'm working on any other tweaks I need to make to any wording that's not quite right. Might as well see what other crazy extra bonuses and stuff I get on top of all the other stuff I have to remember, right? ;)
One more thing - since it says the 2d6 damage (from Chaotic Defence) applies to "each creature that attacks me", not "each creature that hits me/deals me damage", presumably that means I get to do that before any attack would actually hit. So I might end up killing Mr Dragon as he attacks me and thus potentially prevent some damage to myself. Just something to bear in mind >:).

OOC: Yep, 20 squares is out of range of everything I can fire at him too.  Also looking at those four bloodied guards, I'm thinking I really need an area-effect heal...


Meri had raised her staff again as if to launch something else at the dragon, when it flew back up into the sky.
Cursing quietly to herself, she lowered the staff again.
Reaching into her pocket she pulled out the small bronze-coloured metal object she had been tinkering with back at Celindara's forest.
Holding it on the palm of her hand she raised her staff again, channelling a crackling energy along it towards the tip which then arced through the air onto her hand and struck the metal device, wreathing it in sparks.  The faint whirring and ticking sounds of the clockwork mechanism Meri had been building inside it became audible, and the blue crystal at the front began to glow, in a way similar to Timur's eyes.
Six small extensions like tiny legs unfolded from its sides and it scuttled in an almost insect-like motion up Meri's arm to perch on her shoulder, peering out at the area in front of her, an occasional flicker of some blue energy similar to Meri's infusions visible around it.

Timur poked his head out of her backpack briefly, this time holding a scratched and dusty looking vial of some kind of greyish-green substance.  Meri took this from him, stuffing it into a pocket and handing him the metal symbol.  Taking this, he quickly scrambled down to the ground and began running off in the direction of the wagons.

Meanwhile, Meri herself moved a little further away in the same direction, pausing to eye the four Blackwood guards as if checking on their condition.
Looking back up at the dragon, she concentrated intently, causing a silvery spiralling arc of energy to gather around her staff.  It continued to crackle and swirl around the length of the weapon ominously, clearly held in check for now...


OOC: Mostly shuffling stuff around for now.
Weird clockwork gadget is just flavour text for an encounter power she's not using yet, but probably will soon.  As is the vial of sinister stuff she just stashed in her pocket (flavour text for Meri not having to awkwardly twist around to get it out of her backpack when she does decide to use it.  Always wondered how they did that!)  [Private to The Altweaver: (If you're curious, it's the Ungol Dust from the cavern under the Falls.  Not too sure what it looks like, but I had it in my head as greyish-green dusty stuff)]

First up, using a Minor to switch Timur to active mode and giving him the symbol (Arcane Porter feat means he should be able to carry it, since I'm guessing it's lighter than 5 pounds).
Also Active Familiar means I can double move actions between me and Timur, so he's moving 1 square southeast and then 5 east, while Meri moves 1 square southeast (hoping the dragon will go after either Meri or the symbol rather than the injured guards.  Operation Decoy - phase 2!)

Then readying an attack with Spike Wire as soon as the dragon moves close enough (Ranged 10).
Attack: 18 (9 + 9) vs. Fortitude - Ick, knew my luck couldn't last!  Have to hope that's enough.
Damage: 13 (8 + 5) - Force Damage, and if it hits, the dragon takes +4 damage from all other attacks until the end of Meri's next turn.  Hope it hits, this could hurt! :)

Oh, almost forgot, can a Heal check tell how much more damage those four guards can take, or would I need to roll for each of them?
Got: 29 (17 + 12) - Gah, wish I'd gotten that for the attack I just rolled for! (>.<)'
This message was last edited by the player at 16:52, Fri 30 Mar 2018.

Rather than being mean and automatically going with the action I tried to do last turn (then realised I'd run out of actions), Meri, roll me a Bluff roll to draw fire (one for Meri herself, but I'll also let you roll one for Timur if you like...) If you do roll twice, I will of course assume Timur's triggers first, and that if Timur is successful, Meri would be as much then trying to throw focus away from Timur as the solders.

Oh, Nym, the dragon doens't appear to understand what is being said to it, but if you want to roll Bluff too for taunting it with all the magical displays, I'd let that give Meri and Timur a +2 bonus to their rolls if you succeed. Or feel free to turn the taunt in to some other skill check if you have another idea for it.

[Private to Nym: A follow on from the previous Knowledge check. Nym should probably spot that at this height for the dragon, it can spit at leisure without needing to come down any lower. Stupud 4th edition and its square diagnoals. However, its breath weapon - that it doens't seem to be able to summon at will, but needs to build up - seems to be far larger but shorter of range.

So, you know, maybe you need to play out the time somehow and focus its spitting safely, until it wants to go breath lighting fully again - in which case, it will come at least as low as 10 squares and can be shotted by a readied action then :)]


[Private to Meri: One Heal check is good. Meri would know that although Gibb is about to panic over Elias being wounded (and that he was wounded before with his finger thing) he's still reasonably fighting fit at 27/47hp. Oh, and Sarah looks a little shaken from the inital attack, and is currently sitting at 16/47hp.

The main four currently unnamed experienced guards are at 18, 33, 19 and 19/47hp right now. So they are okish (and guard 2 is fine, surface abrasions aside) but also one good hit could kill (or at least knock to dying) three of them. I should know, I did roll the attacks and damage last round before realising they couldn't trigger... and maybe I almost had a far nastier thing for Meri to worry about this round... >:D

Note, narratively anyone hurt by the dragon will need medical attention at the end of the fight. It's just not life threatening and not impeding them while adreniline is lowing :D]
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:36, Fri 30 Mar 2018.

OOC: Rolls for attempted Bluffery:
Timur: 9 (7 + 2) and Meri: Critical 22 (20 + 2) - Oh dear.  Target painted looks like! (O.o)'

[Private to The Altweaver: 29 HP left.  Crossing fingers, toes and anything else physically capable of being crossed :)]
This message was last edited by the player at 23:48, Fri 30 Mar 2018.

Nym's not so much deliberately taunting as being in full-on "combat mode" whre suddenly everything is a game, wheee, look at all the pretty colours as all the bad guys get zapped/incinerated/melted, etc. I'm sort of out of ideas for now - I need to get more movement-restricting powers, it looks like ;). Stormy Emotions is the only one I've got left right now and it's Close Burst 2 so probably won't get a look in here. I think I'm just gonna have to wait till Mr Dragon comes back into range - I don't think Nym herself would have any particular ideas right now since in a fight she tends to be less focused on tactics (beyond "hit the bad things and try not to hit the good things or let them get hit by the bad things") and more on just downing all enemies as quickly as possible with her super-fun-time magic stuff. Despite the current situation, I sitll don't regret trading out Acid Orb (Ranged 20) since I know that Burning Spray is gonna save my arse one day when I get surrounded by Minions or something ;).

[Private to GM: So basically we have to wait till you successfully roll whatever you need on a d6 to recharge the close-range, high-damage lightning breath and in the mean time tank/avoid the long-range, lower-damage lightning breath. Eek...well, hopefully Meri has just drawn some agro and hopefully Mr Dragon will get a faceful of blasting before he can give her too much of a faceful of lightning. Hey, at least she has Resist 5, right? Maybe she'll only end up mostly dead ;).]

Nym the character is behaving in a way that could be construed as mocking even if she doens't really mean it, and Nym the character has a high Bluff skill in part, I believe, because she is very good at subconsciously conveying her intent or the intent of her form through her actions. Funnily I think her bad 'lying' makes her really good at using Bluff too :p So if you, Nym the player, want to roll Bluff to influence the story saying this is what happeens in this case - even if Nym the character doesn't mean to be tactically mocking - go ahead. :)
[Private to Meri:
Given the extent of the injuries Meri can both see from unprotected guards that took a lightining ball right to the face, and Meri's own experience of taking a lighning ball directly to the face while protected by Nym's magic, she could be confident of at least surviving one. Or hoping she could survive one more than not :)]

[Private to Nym: I was more just pointing out something you should be aware of - that thanks to 4th edition the dragon has the ability to attack really well with one power from where it is, while still reassuring you that it's preferred power would put it back in range of your readied actions. I'm not just pulling back to dirt you out and mock you for not having ranged effects, it's very much in character for the dragon that just got destroyed by the mages and the guards to use it's biggest advantage.
A
lso in the spirit of you not feeling helpless, I wanted to point out you still had some options to sway it. Another one is as simply as you've clearly scared it - if it thinks its not even safe where it is (if you can reach out and touch it where it is, even if the effect isn't actually damaging, powerful, or an attack at all) it might also decided to retreat and lick its wounds.

You actually do have a way to accomplish this too - it simply needs to attack you, not matter where it is apparaently -  and realise that the weird damaging effect last time it used its breath weapon is alwys going to happen if it attacks you, no matter how :)]

Hmm, fair enough. Although if Mr Dragon decides to swoop and and have at me with fang and claw I'm not too sure how many hits I can take - squishy mage, and all that. And if he's only just Bloodied then it's gonna take more than a couple of At-Wills to finish him off. Still, I suppose I have some extra bonus damage and stuff now. And I'm not dead till I reach -23hp. Okay. So, a Bluff roll then...hmm, a precisely average roll of 23 (10+13). But maybe the "taunting" will have the opposit effect, if Nym has been scary enough, and will make Mr Dragon decide to bugger off and just leave us alone. Then again, from an OOC point of view, if he doesn't seem to understand anything we're saying there's probably something wrong with him, messing with his head and stuff, otherwise he'd probably have said something by now.

[Private to GM: Yeah, don't worry about us not being able to reach him for now - I mean, if he wasn't trying to get away from the zappy-stabby-firebally things that keep attacking him, he's probably either completely stupid or otherwise mind controlled beyond his natural survival instincts or something - trying to get out of the mass of painful things and figure out a way to deal with them without experiencing even more painful things would be perfectly in-character for pretty much anyone that isn't a raging barbarian type ;).
Still, I suppose I can tell now that he's not influenced by the Other, since he's dealt Meri damage and I'm pretty sure I covered for that in my Wish. Can't remember the exact wording by now but it was along the lines that she be unable to be affected in any way by anything the Other may try to do. If the Other is controlling the dragon, then the dragon in theory shouldn't be able to touch Meri. I hope...]

Remember dragons are mythic, and also were attackign humans last time they were reported in those myths. It's not so much that it might be stupid and not understand you just, you know, dragons might have felt speaking 'common' is beneath them, the common language may have changed in all those years, or it's simply young and never interacted with other mortals before. So many reasons for it not to understand the words you are saying :p

Also, you and Meri are equally squishy in general terms, and she's taken more hits and has less temp hit points right now!

[Private to Nym: You might want to double check the wording on your wish (it should be in the chapter 4 separate threads. I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm just pointing out maybe you should know the limits of your wish. The fact there's still a chance you were speaking to The Other shouldn't even cross your mind :p ]

The dragon had been eying the town guards scrambling beneath it with evil intent, and it seemed to see something over its other shoulder, but then the movement of Timur and the mages caught its eye. Its nostrils flared as it saw the little homonculus running withthe symbol of its mistress, but then Nym and Meri's antics drew its eye back.

It spit a hateful gob of fire towards the mages, though biased more towards Meri whose world briefly turned in to painful white jagged light.

Well done! You drew aggro! And unless 25 is less than your reflexes, you will be taking 12hp damage (discounted down from 17 for your resistance). 23 was the hard DC, so yeah, Meri needed the help to and Nym just made it. The guards might still have been spared with a lesser roll, but then you wouldn't have gotten the reprieve of this next bit...

The dragon was already moving off, however. Given the deliberate and confident action of the two mages, it seemed to decide to use the previous attack to move away rather than press an advantage, clearly not trusting Meri nor Nym. It also seemed that something had drawn its attention to the horses. It flew high overhead beside them instead, and heedless of the camp began spitting lighting in to the horse ranks. Unstandably, the horses began to panic and scream, attempting to break free of their bindings.

The more experienced guards had not had the change to react to this, pulling each other upright and trying to recover from the previous assault. Young Gibb, too, had rushed back to Elias's side to help the injured man up to unsteady feet.

It was Sara hand Desmie who reacted, but both in opposite directions. Desmine rushed towards the horses, looking backwards as she scrambled to reload her crossbow. "The horses! The village! We can't get help! We can't warn them! We can't escape! We need to stop it!"

Only Farren moved with her, but he seemed focused on something else. "Geekaar's gone his guards don't seem to care!" he remarked, but was otherwise not pushing to rush in to the chaos.

Sarah, meanwhile, was petitioning to Jessah and Stark who were dithering, while rushing to the edge of the forest. "Who cares? Now! We need to get under cover now! It can't get us in here! Not without us being able to get it back! We...we can pin it down and kill it!" She then lost her desperate confidence and looked over to Meri and Nym. "Can't we?"


Dragon shooting at poor horses now to remove your tactical options (it probably spotted Geekaar escaping) and maybe draw you over to it. However, maybe being in the tree cover will remove its ability to fly well enough you can get all stabby and shooty at it - certainly the guards that used their halberds managed to pin it down well and do some damage.

Anyway, that's where we're at. The turn order for the guards isn't quite as stated, but really I can't be bothered to move it around right now, since it might shift with all of your actions. Anyway, your turn again!

Map: /games/63699/misc/gamemap.jpg?1522584010
Dragon is still 20 squares high, and juuuust off of the map beside the 'horses' words. If I unhide it, then you would still see the 'aura' intruding back in to the map.

"Oi! Oi, oi, oi!" yells Nym, running over toward the dragon while Ryn hisses at the creature from her shoulder. "No, no, no, don't do that. No burninating the horsies! Bad naughty monster! Come back here and play - it's more fun! Oi! Yoohoo!"

She is jumping up and down as she goes and waving her arms about,

Well, since Mr Dragon has gone so far I'll just head as far east as I can (the running is narrative, not mechanical, just in case he decides to go for me - I could do without him having a bonus to hit me :P). Can I make another Bluff roll to get him to focus on me again or something? Got 17 (4+13), meh. There's basically sod all I can do until he comes within range - readying Chaos Bolt again for if he does :P.

If you have the ability to break the bonds of the horses somehow, or use less violent methods of getting them to panic enough to pull free (and in a uniform direction rather than getting in each other's way), that might both save them and pull focus, as sadly that bluff roll is far too low to pull focus just yet.

Meri stumbled and almost fell as the attack struck, the silvery spiralling energy around her staff disintegrating into a shower of sparks as she lost her concentration on it.

One hand went to the ground to keep herself from falling to her knees, and she remained there for a few seconds, wreathed in smoke rising from charred patches on her clothing.
Quickly though she dragged herself back to a standing position, a hint of pain on her face but mostly clouded out by anger for now.

At Sarah's shout she looked over and gave a brief nod before starting to move towards the forest, slowly at first and limping slightly, but gathering speed as adrenaline took over.
"It's attacking the horses to try and lure us into gathering over there" she shouted towards Nym and the guards.  "Head for the forest, it'll have to come down again to find us in there."

Without any visible prompting, Timur quickly changed course away from the wagons, now angling sharply back towards Meri and the forest...


OOC: Okies, burning Second Wind to keep Meri alive, and then heading 6 squares north.  Doubling move action again to move Timur 3 squares northwest and 3 north :)
This message was last edited by the player at 11:48, Mon 02 Apr 2018.

Farren nodded and yelled Desmine. "We pinned it and hurt it so badly its trying to pull us out in to the open! We're not riding out of here!"

Farren then turned to Samel. "Psionic powers! Can we free those horses?"


Samel, for the moment, looked around not understanding.


I'll leave Nym to see if she wants to do anything to free to the horses before updating for people#s actual moves.

Meri, don't forget you have +2 to your defenses this round thanks to Second Wind.

Well, unless it involves shouting there's really not much I can do from this far away. Nym is going to completely ignore anyone who suggests leaving the horses to get incinerated and/or eaten as a possible course of action :P. But they're, what, at least 20 squares from me (after my movement), probably more than that. So there's not really a lot I can do from this distance if the Bluff failed.

Some of the guards looked like they wanted to argue with Meri, but there is enough inertia with Jessah and Stark moving to Sarah's side, and Elias ushering Gibb onwards, that the more experienced guards were forced to fall back too to cover them.

[Private to Meri: Feel free to order the guards how you want.]

Desmine seemed the only one unmoved, and rushed forwards with Nym.

Samel, meanwhile, seemed confused but moved at least slightly closer to Farren's side. "We...we can't do anything like that. It's not magic, it's not... it's all mental. And I can't do anything external, just... shield people. With my mind. I can't teach you to do anything else, even if you can do it."

Farren had drawn his blade, but nothing seemed obvious in terms of using it at distance. Instead, they all looked towards the dragon with impotent anger.

The dragon, for its part, did look to Nym. It gave the wild mage a too long look, as if trying to assess it. Seeming to understand that there was no trick there, it seemed happy to merely spit in Nym's direction - just missing Timur as the small homonculus rushed away frm the area, and distracted by the flash of the symbol seemed to undershoot the lighting ball, blasting the ground in front of Nym rather than directly striking the mage.

And then in howled.

So, Dragon spat at you Nym... and missed. So half damage, with along with the reduction, is 2hp. TWO!!!! I mean, you aren't even out of temp hp yet :( Yeah, failing the bluff check means you got shot at, but moving toeards it at all means I'll at least say you drew one of its attacks from the horses.

Anyway, now you get to roll your reciprocal damage back again - hence its howling :) And, because of the reciprocal damage...

The dragon seemed confused at being attacked somehow from its place of security. It drifted away from Nym, now knowing for certain she was the source of the strange effect it had now felt twice. It once more spat angrily around the horses, though not to injure it seemed. It aimed for the little mounting posts this time, blowing them apart and freeing the horses. Before the dragon had been trying to get the horses to panic, getting them to run away or be useless.

Now it needed them. It needed them to run. It needed them to run not away, but towards.

While most of the horses simply danced sideways them tore away to the road, some of the horses obliged. Four of them became a wall of terrified speed. A mass of brown and black hooves churning the earth, spit flicking form open mouths as they trampled through the area where Farren, Samel, and Desmine were.

Also, the departing horses revealed a prone figure huddling on the ground, and now revealed. He seemed surprised that he was both alive and now not hidden. It was Dott.


Yeah! You saved the horses! They're coming over to give you special hoof hugs! Well, hug your friends. Well, trample them in to the dirt. I will let you use a readied spell if you like Nym (unlike normally when you can't change the trigger), but I'm not sure you'd want to hurt them like that.

So it's a case of do you run the deer strategies back, maybe burn some rerolls and rush towards them, or maybe do you let the NPCs handle themsevles, and instead get in position to block them later in order to try and catch them so they won't run and leave you horse-less :)

Map: /games/63699/misc/gamemap.jpg?1522785190
[Private to Nym:
The dragon seems like it might want to leave now. And for the moment, it doens't seem to have noticed Dott due to looking across to you. Dott is right underneath it...]

Woo, 2d6 for Mr Dragon attacking me...meh, a rather pathetic 3 (2+1) :P. And you're right, Nym wouldn't attack the horses, since she doesn't class them as enemies. I had been wondering where Dott was. Now we know...

"Raar! Raar-raaarr-raaaaaaarrr!!!" bellows Nym, hurrying forward further and waving her arms around in the direction of the horses. There is a shimmer from her robes, which quickly expands into a blindingly-bright light which fades almost as quickly as it appeared.

Okay, I'll go four squares east and then two northeast and use the effect on my robes - it makes a bright light at Close Burst 2 which Dazes all it hits, but obviously that won't do anything since there's no-one in the range. But I figured I'm still making a bright light that can be seen, so maybe I can startle the horses (like I did the deer) into at least stopping or changing course or something. Also, I want to keep Mr Dragon's eyes on me and not on the cowering human right underneath him. Another Bluff roll if needed...hmm, 20 (7+13). Can't Ready an action this time since the robe's light-burst thingy was a Standard.

Meri continued heading towards the forest, although, noticing the horses approaching, she veered in that direction.  As she went, she tapped on a sequence of crystals on her staff, charging up a burst of electrical energy at one end which she unleashed in the direction of Farren and Desmine.

The crackling bolt arced high over them, striking the ground to the left of the horses and exploding in a cloud of sparking lightning in what Meri clearly hoped would mimic the dragon's attack on them and steer them away from that direction...


OOC: Oki doki, moving Meri 6 squares northeast, and Timur 6 squares north.
Lightning Sphere causes an area burst 1 within 10 squares, so will target it at the square just northwest of the 'W' in "Wagons" on the map.
Intention there is to cause them to veer sharply away from it, thinking the sudden lightning blast is the dragon attacking them again, and thus herd them roughly north into the forest where they might calm down if they can't see the dragon any more (or just keep on running north and not over any of our allies!)

Dunno if attack/damage rolls are needed for Lightning Sphere since I'm not actually attacking anything, in fact trying to avoid actually catching any of the horses within the area of effect, but putting one up if needed:
Attack: 13 (4 + 9) vs. Fortitude - Would probably have missed if I'd actually fired that at something anyway!
Damage: 8 (3 + 5) Lightning damage + Any accidentally hit horses and any small bugs or earthworms or anything on that patch of ground I aimed at will grant combat advantage until the end of Meri's next turn.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:35, Thu 05 Apr 2018.

An Area attack would only need to make attack rolls against any affected creatures in the square (some powers specifically target "Enemies" while others just target "Creatures" so could hit allies in the area too). The power actually targets the square, not any creatures within it, and then you would make an attack roll against each target within the affected area - multi-target powers always roll an attack against each target, but then only one damage roll for the whole thing, which obviously only affects those who were hit...well, unless it was one of those Dailies which deals half damage on a miss, in which case you'd still damage everything that wasn't a Minion (since Minions never take damage on a miss). But in this case, as there were no targets in the range, you wouldn't need to roll any attacks (same with me and my light-burst thingy from my robes just now) ;).

Unless you're trying to do something non attack with it, in which case the DM might explicitly ask you to make an attack roll, with the caveat that a 'miss' might have some unintended effect :p

Technically you might have needed to make an attack roll if you hadn't also rolled a Bluff roll, as I might have had the attaxck roll determine if horses stopped by you or went through you!


Obviously I weigh in to thiswhether a power is at-will, an encounter, or a daily as to what effect just using it has, and how big a non-attack effect you want to generate.

As you aimed off to one side rather than in front of the horses, then the 'miss' won't be anything happening to the horses. You've made sure they're ok by aiming away from them. Instead, I'll just say the angle of their turn isn't quite enough for everyone to get off scott free...

The horses stumbled and turned aside from the lightning sphere exploded and Nym's robes flared in to bright light. They turned aside from their initial charge, and were definitely not going to go towards the brilliant light - they charged towards the trees and Meri had hoped.

However, while the other two had been spared - and theguards behind - Farren was not so lucky. He apparently wasn't as spry as his rodent form, and had been caught wrong footed by the change in direction of the group of horses. He just about twisted aside of the first horse, but it knocked him down and the hooves of the second caught him painfully in the chest. He cried out in pain.

[Secret to Meri: And suddenly Meri felt everything slow down... or rather her mind sped up. It wasas if Farren's cry was unleashing something else. Desmine and Samel seemed to feel it too, Samel understanding it right away. Samel was already taking advantage of her sped up senses and moving her too slow body in a run towards the forest.

Yay, Farren does have a special power when he's bloodied! He can grant all allies within five squares - like you - either a shift 1, or a half normal movement as a free action. Pick a direction, I'll adjust the map after you've made your choice as the others might not want to get too close :p

It then seemed as if Farren's mental energies, unwittingly turned inwards. He somehow managed to shrug off the injury, or part of it, and was already starting to move again withoutunderstanding his close brush with death.

Farren used up a healing power (sub-consciously) as is not bloodied anymore. Don't worry about him!]

Farren scrambled to his feet, clutching his ribs but somehow able to stand. He looked around to ensure the others were ok, shaking his head as if dizzy for reasons other than concussion. He nodded and moved off towards the forest and the horses too, though ung back to check on Nym and Meri.

The remaining guards were making to the forest too - Geekaar's guards stiffening when the horses had come close, but had made no move when the horses had swerved and broken in to the canopy further away. Desmine avoided Geekaar's guards and made for theother guards, while Samel - with a small hesitation - simply rushed through the gap between Geekaar's guards in to the forst too.


The dragon bellowed again, hovering. It wasn't clear if it was gloating over Farren's brief assault, or more likely bellowing in frustration at Nym and Meri foiling it again. The dragon seemed fully focused on Nym's radiance for the moment. Dott panicked and got up. It should have been the end of him, but the young man lucked out that the dragon's focus was pulled such that it didn't see the small form dart out from under its dull shadow and in to the forest.

Unfortunately, in the dull evening, Nym's radiance had another effect. The shiny body of Timur, and more importantly the sparkling golden item he was carrying, pulled focus for a moment. It seemed enough, and the frustrated dragon screeched.

It spat lightning at Meri as if to keep her at bay while it flew towards her  familiar. It seemed that the hurt it received from Nym hadnot been enough to deter it from spitting a ball of lighting in Nym's direction too to keep her at bay as well.

It then descended menacingly, as if trying ot get free of the influence of the bear corpse to sniff the air. It sniffed nothing though, but it hovered directly above the little homonculus, either ready to dart down and free its Queen's symbol from the unbeliever, or simply to blast the poor familiar to pieces for its blasphemy.

Sorry Nym, 20 got you Dott safe, as well as helping with the horses. Not hitting the 23 though meant you both get shot at and Timur gets spotted :p Which, to be fair means it puts itself in range 10...

That's right. it's hovering 10 squares above the ground! It's in range of stuff again! Umm, and also in range to go be mean to Timur though :(

Anyway, on to the lighting blasts. Meri, you just take 3hp damage as it missed (reduced from 7hp).

Nym, I actually rolled a 20! Not a natural though, so I think maybe with the various bonuses floating around that might miss. If it does hit though, woohoo, I scored a really high roll, so you'll take, after adjustment, a whole... 4hp (reduced from 9hp). FOUR! So, you know, you'd lose your final temp hp if a 20 hits your reflexes. And if it does miss, then don't even worry about it, just ignore it like you've been able to shrug off all its attacks this game :p

Oh, except roll 2d6 again. I retconned your last poor damage as something it shrugged off. Roll high, and it might not be as happy shooting at you anymore. Also, pouring damage at it right now might also make it unhappy either. That goes for both of you!

And Meri, don't forget you have some bonus giving powers if you want to ensure you and Nym can make a hit this round. I forget if they require you to be near each other or not, I do not believe they do.

Map: Awaiting an (secret) move action from Meri, but here's the provisional one.
/games/63699/misc/gamemap.jpg?1522995367

Edit: Map updated for Meri's secret movement! Secret maybe Farren related movement! Not really a secret movement because you've seen her do it movement.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:18, Fri 06 Apr 2018.

OOC: 3 HP was nearly enough to knock Meri back into Bloodied status again there.  Been soaking up the damage for this battle.  'Operation Decoy' is probably not a tactic Meri will be in a hurry to employ again if she makes it through this one :)
Will use the half normal move action.  2 northwest and 1 west.

Again, I got Meri's next move figured out, but will stick to Initiative order to see if Nym dramatically alters the circumstances  ;)

Hmm, shouldn't Meri only take two points of damage? Seven minus five isn't three ;).
The dragon missed me - with the extra defences I have till the end of the Encounter, only my Fortitude is currently below 20 so ha-ha, Mr Lighting-Breath missed me :P.
My 2d6 in retaliation for him attacking me, however...let's see if I can roll better than last time. I mean, there's only one roll I can make that could be worse, so here's hoping...haha, that's better! Total of 11 damage (6+5) :D.
I'm guessing that Farren is "down" but having played a Revenant recently I know that they have a little more resilience than us living creatures when it comes to having a current hp total of lower than zero...still, Nym won't know that and he's still on his feet and she has no means of healing him anyway and yaaay dragon is in range now so let's do some pew-pew!

As the dragon swoops in closer Nym dances toward him, laughing happily as she practically skips around the latest lightning attack, a shimmer of magic rippling off her in retaliation which she barely seems to notice.

"Oooh! That's better!" she laughs. "Much better! Yay! We can play better now! Look - sparkly! Catch the sparkly things! Yaaaay!"

She sweeps the dagger through the air and a spark of colour shoots down her arm and out of the end of the blade, flying erratically yet somehow unerringly through the air toward the dragon.

I'll move three north and one west and then let loose a Chaos Bolt...hmm, only 17 vs Will, but 18 (9+9) Psychic damage if that hits. And that was an even result so I have another +1 AC till the start of my next turn. The bolt should also ping off and allow me to attack something else but as there are no other enemies around it can just go straight up and dissipate in the air or something.
On top of that, if I did hit with the attack then I can also use the Minor power on my headgear to see the total remaining hp of Mr Dragon as he is a Bloodied target that I have hit with an attack power this turn. And you must also know he's gonna fill one of my gems if I end up getting the killing blow on him >:).

Sorry, but it is 3hp. M brain couldn't decide between writing 17hp for the full damage or 8hp for the half damage and tried to write both :p

Funnily, Farren is surviving on the back of his ardent powers alone right now. Ihaven't even needed to take in to any revenant stuff yet :D

11hp is far better damage, and will make the dragon think twice about going for you again.

And feel free to shoot one of Geekaar's guards if you like, nothing bad could happen :p

Unfortunately 17 doesn't hit its Will, but if you or Meri can do anything retroactve to improve that then feel free.