For an instant, all is frozen in time, and then time reasserts its tyrannical grip on the world...
Erista is fast, almost seeming to vanish into thin air as she moves quickly away from the fire and under one of the wagons, where she readies her sling and watches, warily, in the general direction that the arrow seemed to come from.
Above her, and reacting almost as quickly, Ozzy shakes himself fully awake and sits up in the back of the wagon, scanning the darkening woods for any sign of enemies that he could, potentially, greet with a sling bullet.
Colwyn skids to a halt and bangs into the side of the same wagon, snatches up his sword, and yanks it clear of the scabbard.
"Orcs!" he repeats, just in case anybody has missed his earlier warning. The caravan leader, Honil, meanwhile draws his own blade and instructs his men,
"Easy chaps! Drivers find cover! Guards stand ready to fight!"
Bilfro, deciding that
hidingdiscretion is the better part of valour runs to clamber into another wagon, where he takes cover among the bales of cloth, whence he intends to perform a detailed strategic analysis of the battlefield. As he pulls his blanket over himself, Odysseus Warfield Leonidas, meanwhile, observes the activity from a nearby tree with thinly disguised owlish contempt.
Disappointed at the orcs' display of disgraceful manners in interrupting her dinner, Eilieen also, in between berating the orcs' lack of etiquette, takes a few moments to grab her weapons from where they lay. It seems that nothing spurs her to swift action quite like rudeness.
The first orc charges out into the open, just as Aarnr bellows an enraged challenge and springs towards the forest. The result is, perhaps, wholly predictable - lots of blood and death, and none of it Aarnr's.
Within moments, the burly savage finds himself facing several more orks as they step out of the gloaming...
Fergus reaches the cart to retrieve his axe, then thinks again, and picks up
Valkyria instead. As he draws the weapon, the edges of the blade burn with a bluish light, and the nearest orcs howl. One of them, bolder than the others, rushes forward and thrusts a spear at him, opening a deep gash across his left arm, Valkyria responds, but the orc, leering, parries the blow...
Many of the caravan guards hurry to collect their weapons, while the few who still carry them move to join the battle...
OOC: Plenty of orcs left to go around. :)
Combatant Init
Erista 24
Oswald Osbourne 23
Colwyn Akbar 21
Bilfro Gabbins 21
Honil 21
Orcs 16 (AC=14)
Eilieen 13
Aarnr Foultongue 9
Fergus Andarson 5
Caravan Guards 4
Characters' Apparent Health
Aarnr Foultongue: Good
Bilfro Gabbins: Good
Colwyn Akbar: Good
Eilieen: Good
Erista: Good
Fergus Andarson: Hurt
Oswald Osbourne: Good