The squish of the arrow sliding into and obliterating the eye of the wolf, highlighted by the sickening crack of the arrow splitting from the close impact, was terrible to hear and worse to watch. It reminded her in passing of the time she'd watched two bucks fight until their antlers locked. One had twisted to pry itself loose and manage to hook both their eyes on the points of the others. She wondered if someone out there in the woods back in Sabine's world if their skulls were skill locked together. No matter, and no time for it. It was hard enough to think between all the furious snarls, Rein's screaming, and what sounded like a rag dolling body thumping about in the cave. After the blast from Earley she figured she could take a guess as to what that was.

As the wolf reeled back and forward once more to attack in fury, the light of Rein's electric link casting odd shadows and flashes of color across them both, she drew to fire once more. It parted its jaws, spittle flying from where it laced between tooth, lip, and gum. The ranger let go of the taunt string held at her cheek and sent an arrow spiraling down into the back of the thing's throat. The wolf had been fool enough to lunge after giving her too much time and would choke on a arrow lodged in the back of its throat. Or it would be enough damage to the soft insides or even the spine just a little bit behind the flesh of its esophagus to kill it. Then it wouldn't have to worry about gagging and biting around the shaft of her sharp ammunition.

Out of the corner of the eye she caught sight of the two wolves lunging for Rein, but it was too late for her to reposition at the moment with her current brawl with the one-eyed wolf. Whether it went down or not though, the huntress would lift her sights and ready her next shot toward them... if the crackles of whatever spell Rein seemed ready to unleash didn't incinerate them in a blaze of glory. For the moment at least it seemed like the alpha wolf would get away with lacking a leash once more.

[ OOC: Gwyn shoots into the wolf's open mouth in an attempt to deal damage to the softer spot or paralyze it with a shot through to its spine. Vale prays to RNGesus and the DM they don't have to deal with a sad Theo and permadead Rein. You're on your own, at your own request, bud. ]​

 

BATTLE POST

Things began to take an unexpected turn for the better, at least for the mage thief, when the wolves opted to ignored him and instead focused on his compatriots fully. The single wolf that had attempted to lunge for his throat had met its end by the magic of his hands, and now lay smoldering upon the stone floor of the den not far from where he stood. The Alpha wolf appeared to still be occupied with the guarding of the puppies, and only an absolute fool would dismiss the fact that those monsters had teeth too. In fact, if the Alpha wasn’t the actual boss here, he could easily imagine those little nibbling bastards making up a swarm-boss where time and resilience were the only way to truly beat it. Such as in a game where their sheer numbers made actually combating it impossible, and a puzzle had to be solved to end things.

But the chances of that were, thankfully, astronomically low for a quest this debatably simple. That didn’t necessarily mean they weren’t going to get totally screwed however; a point that Rein demonstrated perfectly when he decided to do something… Wait, what was he actually doing? Dumbstruck for the moment, Earley watched as Gwyn began to shoot down the throat of the wolf that she was battling, with Rein nearby shouting (nothing new there) and chanting some sort of arcane nonsense. Or drunken lyrics to a Smash Mouth song. It was really up in the air. Regardless of whether it was magic or Mouth, the end result would have been the exact same. Rein totally lost it, and appeared to just keel over, done for the duration of their fight. Which was probably not a good thing considering there was no guarantee Gwyn and Earley could finish the fight alone; regardless, something had to be done, quick.

There was no time to stop and see if the wolves were entirely dead. Nor did he have a spell that would allow him to strike both of them at the same time, without… complications. His teleportation magic took too long to charge and even if it didn’t, it was such a strong drain on his mana that it would leave him unable to finish the fight effectively after trying to teleport Rein to the entrance. Could he even teleport Rein to the entrance? Best not to try. In the end there was only one real option: he raised his hands and began to fire a volley of magical bolts at the two wolves. And Rein. There was no hitting some without hitting the others, at his mastery level. With luck whatever damage Rein had done would be enough, combined with his volley, to kill both wolves. And with even more luck, Rein wouldn't die in the volley since he'd fallen to the ground and was less of a target.

 

Thrown die:

17

under 75 go go go

 

BATTLE POST [trig warning, pup abuse]

It was just staggeringly typical that as soon as the arcane bolts began to manifest at the end of his annoyingly detailed incantation, Rein’s entire super-saiyan episode had concluded and sent both wolves attacking him flying, quite comfortably, dead, across the space of the wolf den. Their bodies crunched and slumped into crackling piles that radiated arcs of electric discharge, but that was not the impressive sight that had Earley’s attention. No, he was much more focused on seeing all of the missiles he had just unleashed hurtling towards Rein as the man slumped on the ground, beaten and bitten and battered and bruised by the wolves that had just been put down. Luckily for him his body collapsed before the bolts of energy arrived and, those that scattered down upon the ground around him, miraculously missed. The man was a lucky fucking imbecile, and that was all there was to it.

Gwyn had less luck as the Alpha charged her immediately, seeing as she had just been down a wolf of her own. It lunged and she avoided any fatal blows it had intended to deliver, but she had already taken plenty of damage. The thing seemed locked on her, primal hunter against primal hunter, and only one thing came to Earley’s mind that might draw its attention away from the woman. Stepping across the den, he walked straight up to the now undefended puppies, and began to stomp on them with his Body Combat, to preserve his energy for the Alpha Wolf, and to draw its attention away from Gwyn and onto himself. After all, he was more or less at full HP. And he had the Rogue mastery which hopefully would make him more suited to dodging its jowls.

• OOC: Earley begins to curb-stomp puppies under his booted heel, to work towards completing the quest and draw aggro away from Gwyn.

 

Gwyn huffed out a sigh of relief as the arrow made its home with a gurgle and dull thud. The jaws didn't have time to close around it as the wolf toppled over, blood bubbling and foaming from its mouth before it went still. She immediately drew her next arrow, dropping to one knee to gain a steady aim despite the increasing drain on her health and energy.

She had slaughtered her own prey in time to see Rein's lightning storm of an attack go off and blast the wolves, limp in death, just as Earley had done with the light of his magic before. On a much grander scale of course. The hunter was surprised at the power of, but much less so when he toppled over as if dead. His health bar still read at a positive number, but it appeared he had decided his only course of action was to nuke all three of them. "Idiot." She huffed under her breath, the sharp exhale of the word doing nothing to ruffle the stiff feathers of the arrow. Immediately upon seeing the wolves down, the alpha wolf charged. She wouldn't need a volley shot to save Rein since he had taken care of his two and Earley was in no danger, though she saw him move from the corner of her eye.

The human used her already crouched position to roll herself away from the open jaws of her furious enemy and rolled back into position at its side. The Power Shot charged up to full draw, Gwyn was ready to sink some energy into the powerful strike. With her lowered stance she looked to fire it into the softer underbelly of the massive wolf. At the same time Earley had changed position and she heard a foul combination of thuds, crunches, and pained whines. "Don't torture them, you fuck, kill them quick!" She snarled, eyes still locked on her target though a spike of fury and queasiness shot through her at whatever the man thought he was doing.

[ OOC: Gwyn uses an empowered Power Shot, aiming for the underbelly of the Alpha. ]​

 

[KO'ed Post]

Charles due diligently pulled his ink brush across the paper, matching the icon on the board before him. They were rather simple runes for Charles, he had been copying them ever since he had been adopted here in the cloister and even that was so long ago he barely remembered it. Or at least when he tried to remember anything before, his head got heavy, and a white unicorn filled his vision.

"Listen here, Charles!" Snapped the head monk at the front of the classroom. Well, it would have been a classroom if there were more students, but since Charles had been the lone kid for awhile. The stuffy older monks seemed to love him at first, but as time passed, they grew more and more irritated with his presence. At least Charles had been born gifted with an air attunement. Since the cloister had discovered that, they had become at least somewhat more amiable with him again. Granted all that Charles could do with the blessing was zap some of the sheep the monks kept here, frizzing their wool till they looked like walking clouds. He couldn't say why he enjoyed it so much; he always called them his electrical sheep, he'd fall asleep at night dreaming about them jumping over a fence.

"Charles!" The voice called out, oh it was the head monk again, he looked angry. Charles sighed as stood up bending over the desk as he prepared himself for the lashing that would soon follow. Slowly he pulled his cotton robe upward revealing a series of crisscrossing scars on his back, some old, some still partially bleeding. A creak of old leather permeated the room as the older man pulled out his whip, but before he could speak a man pushed open the door. He was large and unusual looking; he wasn't like any denizen Charles had ever meet and admitted that he came from far far away. "Aaaahhhh Mr. Reiner how can I help?" The old monk said.....

------

Rein laid face down on the cave floor, every once in awhile his body would twitch spasdocily as he tried to escape the nightmare of a previous life.

OOC: Rein continues to be KO'ed

 

Thrown die:

45

 

[KO'ed Post]


The large behemoth of a man known as Reiner pushed his way into the small classroom. Charles gulped in fear, as he pulled his robe back covering his modesty. Reiner looked back and forth between the student and teach a small smile growing across his lips. "Well, well, Mr. Johnsey, I didn't think you had it in you." The man cackled softly as he moved into the room, sitting down at Charle's desk. "Well don't let me stop you," he said with a satisfied smile while he twirled his fingers in the air, "By all means"

The head monk snapped up, seemingly insulted for some reason, Charles meanwhile scooted shyly out the way. "Now see here sir-" The head monk started, but before he could say anymore Reiner fluidly moved forward, unsheathing and jabbing a blade into the man's throat. The head monk sputtered as blood down; he reached out grabbing Reiner with numb fingers before collapsing to the floor dead.

Charles was frozen in place staring at the crimson fluid seep into the woven mats on the floor, he couldn't comprehend what was happening. The big man turned towards the child, his mouth twisting into a cruel smile, "This - heavy static- is amazing ain't it? The -heavy static- really kicks in when you need it too. Hooo boy, talk about a wild ride. Kind of crazy to see some child abusing sap out here though, you'd think -heavy static- wouldn't have that." Every word the man said was like daggers in Charle's head pounding into his temples forcing him to collapse to the ground as his world began to spin. "What's wrong kid?" Reiner said before Charles let out a wordless scream. "The hell is this some kind of a -heavy static-"

Everything went black as Charles passed out due to the pain.

---------------

Still, face down on the cave floor, Rein began to moan softly as he still was unable to escape his nightmare.

 

BATTLE POST

Whatever it was that went on in that huntress’s naïve little mind, Earley did not wish to know, as her critical screaming met his back amidst his boot meeting the skulls of pups. Much as he wished to upturn his head from the visceral slaughter, the things still had teeth and he’d likely break a leg if he stomped poorly on a loose stone or some such, leaving him at their disposal. And so much as it upturned his stomach, he had to watch his own violent display against them, wishing that Rein were still conscious and able to take care of this part of the job. Two things were certain, after all of this. First and foremost, Rein was going to be mocked endlessly for fainting in front of a few wolves and, as much as he wasn’t actually enjoying doing this, Earley was going to brag that he had the guts to do what Rein lacked. Mostly it was to upset the psychopath who had the entire way here been giddy at the thought of killing baby wolves, only to clock out at the last moment.

Secondly, and more importantly, he was going to slap the stupid off of Gwyn’s face. Turning to her, annoyed into a choleric, he swept an arm over himself to indicate all the things he wore.

“Does it look like I’d be stomping on them if I had a fucking DAGGER, Artemis? It’s called BODY COMBAT and it’s limited in what it allows me to do. So I can either cave a head in very quickly, or pick them up and strangle them to death slowly, one by one. YOU CHOOSE!”

As if it had understood every word, the Alpha gave its snarl and lunged for Earley who tried to step backwards out of the way, feeling its fangs sink into his shoulder as it shook its head and, just barely, missed ripping his throat open. Screaming in the 15% of real pain that it caused him, he raised both hands up and under the thing’s throat, and began chanting. He could have attempted to fight it back, body to body, but he hadn’t taken the time to invest in that skill properly. And so, he unleashed another large bolt of magic straight into its throat while presenting its back to Gwyn for shooting. With luck she wouldn’t just shoot Earley in the face in anger, though with how upset she seemed, there were no promising indicators she wouldn’t.

• OOC: Firing magical bolt against the Alpha's throat.

 

The power of her shot had her grinning from the sight of the massive wolf nearly being knocked off its paws. Even if it had collected itself quickly at the sound of the whelps being harmed. "Strangle? Just twist and crack their necks! Have you honestly never had to kill an animal before?" She snapped over her shoulder to the far side of the cave when Earley said his peace about the whole thing. Meanwhile, her eyes stayed locked on the Alpha as its eyes turned to a new target. "Shit, incoming!" With the arrow still stuck in its side it changed its ire's direction firmly onto the man attacking the pups the wolves had all been more than prepared to die for. She didn't blame it its fury, but such was life.

Instead of firing from behind, she ran parallel as far as she could to keep to its side before she fired again. With an angle to the side rather than firing from behind the arrows shouldn't go turning her remaining party member into a pin cushion like all the wolves before him.

She skid to a stop so that her run didn't fudge her shot and fired toward the wolf. She'd tried to aim for the soft spots where skull met neck, but between the dark, Earley's proximity, and the rush of the fight she was aware it was more likely going to find a place to bite into the wolf in the neck somewhere. While the beast was furious, it didn't look like it was going on too strong. It had to know it was at the end. The ranger hoped the god of nature in this world, Qora perhaps, had some pride to show in the powerful forces of the wild here. There was nothing like this back home, after all. It deserved a little respect for its determination.

Also, at some point once they managed to put the Alpha they should probably check on Rein. Probably. Maybe. Meh.

[ OOC: Gwyn repositions and aims for the throat. ]​

 

Thrown die:

64

 

Thrown die:

67