The Unrestricted Zone

[Shrike7]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

((Ugh, kinda peters out halfway, but I've had a headache for like three hours, so yeah...))

Alberik sighed with relief when the floating monstrosity she had targeted slumped to the ground. moving her attention to the second one, who seemed to be returning the favour. She started gathering her strength again, answering Nerzalil's question as she watched the aftermath from the insect's globe of darkness. "Yes, we just have t-" She started, just before the alien's own power clamped down all around her, holding her immobile. She groaned a little as she tried to fight it, but the force pressing into her was stronger than anything she could muster herself.

Her mind flashed back to her first time in this encounter, how the thing had simply reached past and grabbed her, picked her up and pulled her back to it. They had lost that fight, and she was determined not to do so again, but the thing had her helpless once more...

She watched as Nerzalil came to the rescue yet again, shooting shard after shard of her own carapace into the creature before the strain caused her to stop. It survived though, it's grip on the outsider intact. Her struggles renewed when the elves came out of the darkness. She knew the thing was more than a match for them, the mass of broken bodies in her memories was testament to that. She stood helpless as the lord batted and swept them away, two or three at a time knocked back and down, but one finally made it through, dealing an impressive blow that actually felled the creature.

She stumbled a bit as the pressure holding her disappeared, gathering herself quickly. She backed up a bit further behind the other three, starting to call forth the fire but before, in a different form. She balled it up and sent it outwards, the white flames expanding outwards once they had traveled to the middle of the juggernauts, catching as many of them as she could manage...

Spoiler

Holy Fire, blast variant. Full ceiling of 25 EP for (2d4+1)*25 damage, hopefully catching all the juggernauts, but we'll see.

Allies:

Spoiler

Nerzalil
Alberik
Erik
Sera
6 male elves (2 wounded)
15 female elves (3 recovering)

assume the nameless elves are 20/10/10, with skill in one handed swords and duelist. skip armour, too much effort.

Invaders:

Spoiler

5 juggernauts
14 grabber spawn

 

[Host]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

Alberik sent a wave of holy fire over the juggernauts, almost certain to incinerate them all. The ball burst forth with enough energy to cover the four defenders as well as the enemies, the bright light almost certainly incinerating the oncoming group. Their hides burnt away louder than the sound of the fire itself, the juggernauts presumably melting from the feet up, nothing more than piles of rapidly evaporating sludge – Sera moved backwards so quickly that it took several moments to determine what had happened, the juggernaut that had kicked her still largely obscured by the light of the fire.

She and the juggernaut hadn’t gone far before finding a wall; she looked rather startled by rather shapeless limb that had struck her, the juggernaut’s slime and skin both melted clean off. Unfortunately, what it had left was more than enough to crush the elven woman. Between a rocky wall and a juggernaut’s leg, the majority of the girl’s large and small intestines had evicted through the sides of her gut, along with what seemed to be a few litres of her blood. The rest of her body had simply been crushed, the ichor of last night’s dinner spilling from her ruptured stomach and out torn holes in her lower body. Sera’s form was entirely bent out of shape, her lower body a bloodied flat patch, a wide halo of red, both blood and ejected flesh, on the wall behind it.

“SER-” Any attempt by Erik to be appropriately dramatic was interrupted by a second juggernaut, sending him falling backwards to get away from it. Sitting on the floor made the elf an easier target for the next one to pick up, its misshapen hand curling around his head and hoisting him into the air. When it began to crush him he screamed, in fury and pain, but not in fear. It didn’t take long for a crunching sound to signal the unseen death, his body no longer fighting its capturer. What the creature dropped had nothing resembling a face, and only the barest resemblance to a skull. The damage done to the juggernaut’s normally omnipresent slime coating meant that the slugs of grey matter and chips of skull and hair were quite clear in its bloodied hand.

Neri had no time to even call out a warning before a juggernaut came barrelling at her; the creature’s weren’t known for their speed, but they weren’t known for being on fire and having their skin melted off, either. The angry giant of pale flesh didn’t attack Nerzalil, so much as collapse onto her – unfortunately, the creature’s fall was as deadly as any strike it could have brought to bear. Neri simply disappeared under it, her attempt to run too little too late. Cracking, quite similar to the shattering of bones, and squelching of fluids were the only sound Neri’s body made, her carapace splintering and her less armoured organs bursting fluids over the ground… sounding like nothing more than a squashed bug.

Returning to the element of stealth, the elves all retreated into the darkness Nerzalil had provided, the Juggernaut on their side of the room giving chase. One way or another, little could be expected of the group of survivors; Alberik was the only person left standing against four of the alien behemoths, three if the one on Neri had died; each clearly wounded, and clearly pissed enough to kill women rather than capture them. They seemed inordinately strong, far more powerful than her experience would have her believe – if she hadn’t been caught up in the illusion, she might have thought the exaggeration of the creature’s strength to be an aspect of the level of threat she held them in. If she somehow got through the four (three?) beasts, there were more than a dozen of the lesser creatures only a few seconds behind them. There was nothing she could do to stop them all before they got to her.

She was done.

Spoiler

Nerzalil:
HP: 40()/97
PP: 0/44
EP: 19/47
Dark armour 3 + wings: 2 upkeep

Alberik:
HP: 58
PP: 68
EP: 47/123 ...I -think- that's right...

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

The outsider had more than enough dramatic tension to satisfy the moment. The last power had been stressed to her safe limit, and she was still recovering as she watched the group spiral down.

Sera was closest, and got hit first, her body contorting out of shape as she painted the wall and lay still. Erik lasted only seconds longer, the juggernaut there crushing his head to bits and letting the body slump to the ground, letting the bits and pieces drip from it's hand. Nerzalil was crushed under one as it seemingly collapsed, the crunching sound and splatter from underneath seeming dire enough to leave Alberik the only one standing...

They were gone, she had miscalculated something, and in one fell swoop, they had all been picked off and wiped out. She didn't know whether to sob or scream or try to empty her bowels, but something inside her prevented all three. Wasting time would neither get them back, or keep herself alive to avenge them. Calling up a smaller burst of power, she repeated the same process, sending a ball of white flame to burst in between them while they were still close enough, even trying her best to catch the seemingly dead one as well. Though she doubted it would buy her any more time, she started backing up as well, not making it very far...

 

[Host]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

Like a nightmare, the even more grotesque than usual juggernauts had arrived from a white light, and like a nightmare, the juggernauts were gone in the same brilliance. Well, half of one, in the case of the juggernaut that collapsed on Neri, the attack having been slightly too far away to catch it all. The human might have allowed herself a moment to get her hopes up, however, when the lower half of the juggernaut suddenly sprouted a chitinous sword – and then a second. The more-than-slightly crushed bug carved her way out from under the pound of flesh Alberik had left; although clearly pained, the insect stood without wavering, looking to the oncoming assailants. Her dark armour was shattered and splintered almost everywhere that it could be seen, but as the warped human observed, it simply shaped itself back into the proper form.

Alberik backed up, but the action would clearly not get her clear of the creature’s groping tentacles long enough to cast again; Nerzalil, on the other hand, had no intention of getting clear. Walking off of the juggernaut’s remains, she silently took the few steps to place herself between the oncoming rapists and Alberik. The action was far from suicidal devotion, as the human might have expected of… of… who, again? Someone… it wasn’t important. Nerzalil, despite the nature of her odds, looked to be quite content – not in the certainty of her loss, but instead assured of her victory. Her stance was strong, feet apart and blades crossed to protect herself from the oncoming attackers; the armour hid her face, but the steely determination of the insect was visible in every little aspect of the Shadow Demon at that moment.

The first of the baby grabbers to reach Neri got its tentacles under her guard in an instant. It seemed almost anti-climatic – but then, Neri had never been trying to block it. As it drew physically close, while its tentacles still had her only barely held, Neri impaled it on her sword. In one movement, she turned, taking the whole grabber with her, her other weapon slicing halfway through the creature’s mass and effectively wiping its corpse off her blade. Immediately a second of the creatures had its tentacles around exceptionally suggestive places, but before it could capatalise on its success, the Shadow Demon swiped a sword around behind herself, cutting herself clean of most of its tentacles… before her second sword took more than a little off her assailants’ top. Like the first, it lay dead. One of the creatures each got its slimy tentacles around Neri’s sides and her arms… and the insect used her superior strength to pull both to her with a tug of her arms, then carved each twice in a spin. Before she could recover, a fifth creature not only grappled her, but yanked her onto itself – and was stabbed twice simultaneously for the trouble, the blades sinking into the creature’s midsection and then being removed through the top of its mass. Neri continued entirely without pause and without fault, the lesser creatures each dying in turn as they tried to assault her. She made no attempt to go to them, letting them expose their weakest parts to her, the alien woman carving into her opposite alien counterparts.

Alberik could provide testament; fourteen grabber spawn had attacked Nerzalil, and fourteen grabber spawn had died, the Shadow Demon covered in their blood and occasional chunks, each one’s dead body lying in a halo around her. She was still panting heavily from the exertion… or so it seemed at first, until Neri collapsed onto her hands and knees. “You forgot to tell me…” she groaned out, “…about the god-damn slime!” she announces; furious, furiously horny, and at least slightly embarrassed. The anger in her voice is difficult to take seriously, given that it turns into a moan part way through. Nerzalil was not, at least, driven to the point of jumping the human’s bones like one of the invaders, which allowed Alberik to focus on the still remaining threat. The last juggernaut, eighty feet away and with almost uncountable cuts on it, stumbled out of the darkness at the other side of the room, two elves still clinging to and attacking it. The creature was swiping back at them, but wasn’t having managing to – at the moment. It could potentially get lucky at any second.

Spoiler

...I still can't believe Neri managed to tank that. 0_0

Nerzalil:
HP: 40/97
PP: 0/44
EP: 17/47
Dark armour 3 + wings: 2 upkeep

Alberik:
HP: 58/58
PP: 0/68
EP: 22/123

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

Alberik fell to a knee as Nerzalil took a place in front of her, getting far too close to her breaking point for comfort, the channels she funneled her energy through starting to feel raw from overuse. She watched in amazement as the wounded bug tore apart every single grabber that came after her, over a dozen in the time it took the Outsider to catch her breath, one after the other unceasingly.

The comment startled her, and she twitched a bit before replying. "Ah, yes, sorry." She said in a clipped tone as she watched the final juggernaut come into view once more, covered in cuts and with two elves still attacking it. She had no idea how many of the elves still survived, but she wasn't hopeful, given the state of the two others she had already sworn to protect better, and had wound up failing worse. Gathering up some of her flagging energy, she reached out to the juggernaut's smaller mind, clamping around it and wiping it as she had done to the lord earlier...

Spoiler

Sorry for the wait. Mind wipe again, EP=10, so resistance check against 50 or be effectively dead, as before.

 

[Host]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

The mind of the oversized humanoid proved far simpler to wipe than that of the lord, the creature’s simplistic mentality being erased without hope of resistance before the beast could bring down its fist on another elf. It keeled over, the two who had been attacking it getting out of the way, and then immediately dealing somewhat cautious death-blows to the still living body. From the darkness, the rest of the surviving elves appeared… to Alberik’s presumable surprise, somewhere around 20 of them in total. The elves she knew specifically might have died, but there was no denying that she had saved a large number of people who would have otherwise been killed.

Nerzalil gave no response to Alberik’s apology, though she did have something to say. Or, well, tried to say, but a particularly powerful wave of lust made her arch her back, biting her lip to hold back a moan. “Y…you may want to heal the girl. She’s still alive.” For all her current predicament, Neri still managed to say it darkly, motioning to the wall Sera had fallen against, the insect pushing herself up from the floor more than legitimately standing. Her breathing was as heavy as one in the throes of strong arousal could be expected to be, but the insect was hardly in the most critical of states. Sera had been near death the moment she hit the wall, and that was nearly a minute ago. Her eyes were unfocused, her head failed to turn to Alberik, and most of her blood was on the floor; by almost all accounts, she had died. The only hint she even had a spark of life left in her was her mouth, moving slightly in a failing attempt to speak, or perhaps simply to breathe. Her wounds were quite clearly septic, well beyond the ability of minor cantrips to repair, and presumably paralysing her below the waist. It would take work to bring her back to a stable condition, perhaps more than the warped human could manage… though her efforts could at least buy the elf enough time for another healer to reach her.

Spoiler

Nerzalil:
HP: 40/97
PP: 0/44
EP: 15/47
Dark armour 3 + wings: 2 upkeep

Alberik:
HP: 58/58
PP: 0/68
EP: 12/123

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

Alberik looked sideways at the bug for a moment. "What? The girl?" She asked, then gasped before Nerzalil had time to respond. "Sera!" She shouted, moving as fast as she could to the broken woman's side. "I'm sorry Sera, I'm not strong enough yet, there were more of them than before, I'm so sorry.." She ranted, casting the strongest healing spell she knew, managing two of them before she felt that a third would push her past her limit. It wasn't enough, however, and she knew it.

Turning to the group of elves, she called out to them. "Please, I need help! Someone, send for a healer, and I need anyone that didn't get caught by the invaders over here as well!" She told them urgently, already reduced to casting the slightest healing spells to keep Sera from blacking out and dying entirely. If they followed her direction, she would indicate one of the men that had come over with a facial tendril, her hands busy with casting the spells. "I need to take some of your energy, any of you that are willing, to give me enough to keep her going until a better healer gets here, is that okay?" She asked the man, then indicated the group as well.

If he (or one of the others) accepted, the Outsider would motion them closer one at a time, drawing each into her best attempt at a passionate kiss, which most likely felt more like some sort of slimy trap to the other party, unfortunately, with her facial tendrils wrapping around the person's head and the layer of slime on Alberik getting everywhere. They felt a tentative tendril at their soul as well, latching on and gently draining some of their energy. Alberik immediately started casting her stronger spells again letting the kiss go when she felt she had taken too much from a singular person, and asking the next to step up, if anyone was still willing after the first was released from her slimy embrace.

Spoiler

First off, Whee, face glomping! XD The second part was something Tass mentioned to me, that talented, experienced, or powerful spirit weilders are capable of. Never had to test it yet, but I'm certain she falls into at least one of those categories, heh.

Healing Touch, lvl 3. [2d6+8]x3 healing, succeeds casting on a 1, barring any modifiers. casting that twice immediately, bringing Al to 4 EP.

Least Healing Touch to stall until she can get more energy, 2d6+8 healing every round until the second bit happens (She'll take about half EP from anyone willing) and she can return to stronger spells, or it doesn't happen and a proper healer arrives.

 

[Host]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

The first spell healed Sera’s body visibly and disgustingly, collecting pulverised flesh and smoothing it into the sheets it was supposed to be, reshaping her stomach somewhat – but stopping well before it could finish. Worryingly, the elf didn’t even show a flicker of recognition that the change was happening; healing her body needed to happen, but if her mind died and her soul left, it wasn’t going to do her much good to have a healthy bowel. The magic was, of course, sending life into all the rest of her organs and body – just, hopefully, the most vital ones could be kept from failing.

When she announced the need for a healer, one of the elven women sprang into action – and Neri immediately moved to follow her. “You’re going to get eaten alive out there by yourself. I’ll help you.” That said, the pair left with as much haste as they could manage.

Even from the first moment it was quite clear that Alberik couldn’t heal Sera, not by herself. She could keep the girl alive, with repeated casts of her more powerful healing spells, but a more powerful healer would be needed to actually fix the dying woman. The second cast of Alberik’s spell was more promising… in that it was far more horrific, and Sera definitely responded to it. At first it was a little twitch of the mouth, then a scrunch of the face – and quickly a scream of gutwrenching agony as the woman’s mangled nerves were resurrected, allowing her to experience the full extent of her body’s damage once again. Now, very alert, terrified eyes darted around, but failed to actually take in anything. “AAAHHHHHHHHGGODSZ!!” she screeched, as if Alberik was shooting lighting into her – and she might as well be for all the good it was doing. She managed to get some more of the humanoid’s organs where they were supposed to be, and even into shapes close to what they were supposed to be… but most were dying and several were already gone, no longer able to work. Her next spell could bring them back past their death, but the burst of pain had forced Sera’s heart out of rhythm, something almost totally beyond Alberik’s ability to fix with magic.

“You want – Yes. Anything you need to help her-” the man she had indicated replied, before ending up on the wrong end of perhaps more than he had bargained for. Alberik wasn’t exactly used to kissing with her current, tentacled mouth, and hadn’t had reason to practice before, lending an entirely new level of awkwardness to an act that was already in deeply uncomfortable territory.

Alberik’s tentacles had a stranglehold on the man, leaving the embrace entirely slimy and rather threatening to the poor elf, who was having enough trouble working up the courage to return the kiss, let alone open his soul to the warped woman. A succubi would have enough trouble getting usable energy out of a kiss… but then, Alberik wasn’t draining in a Succubi’s manner. The man was far from as willing as she would have liked, but that didn’t stop the mage’s energies from trying as frantically as her mouth… and eventually, she managed to disturb and absorb a small piece of the man. It was too slow, and too tricky, and too dangerous; she couldn't properly control how much she was taking, and had to break off after getting only enough for one spell. He stumbled away as she released him, looking more than a little disconcerted, an expression the rest of the elves shared (- with the exception of one girl who looked a little too happy, and put her hand up to volunteer to be next).

Another cast of the spell and more dead organs came back alive… and more dead nerves with them. The elven woman hadn’t stopped hyperventilating, her every exhale a cry of agony, and when Alberik tried to heal her further her throat was raw and her tears streaming. The renewed pain tore through her chest, and Sera shrieked out as much as her broken body could before blubbering into terrified sobs. Her arms shook in an asynchronous pattern, the spell keeping her heart from failing but not fixing it either; her lower body still failed to move, her spine shattered.

The elf girl was still eager, though less so after Neri had ‘healed’ Sera again. She beat Alberik to the punch on the embrace, pulling the outsider into her kiss – and certainly brining the passion the event required. Alberik found a probing tongue on the inside of her mouth in moments, and orally was far from the only place the elf was taking initiative. Alberik’s own slime got into the girl’s clothes, pressed up against her as they were, her back and head held by a more than slightly willing partner. In fact, the hand at Alberik’s back quickly became the hand at her backside, grabbing tight in what was well beyond the elven woman doing her duty. The outsider might have broken off the too-passionate embrace, had it not been working wonderfully; she had enough energy to cast the spell several times more… and as soon as she took it, found the woman collapse into unconsciousness against her.

Suddenly, the remaining elves somehow managed to look even more apprehensive.


The fourth cast would be the worst the elven woman had to endure. The magic worked her whole body at once, keeping her alive despite her blood loss and keeping her heart on track, but it was also beyond control. It tried to shape her spine back together, and all the nerves that went with it. “LET ME DIE LET ME DIE LET ME DIE!!” the elf begged her healer, her face gaunt and pale from prolonged torture. Regardless of Alberik’s say, she seemed close to getting her wish; the restructure of her spine became obvious when her lower body started shuddering in time with the top. The agony had been too much for her heart, gripping her body with gasping seizures beyond the human’s ability to control.

Altogether too roughly Alberik was shoved to the side by an angry elf shouting something derogatory about the human’s caretaking skills, in a style of dress the human hadn’t chronologically seen yet, but still recognised – a priest. He lay his hands on Sera, and in moments her tremors stopped and eyes closed; her breathing was slight, but it was the difference between life and death.

A hard hand was on Alberik’s back, and helped her up. Neri was still panting, probably having run to fetch him and back, although the elf seemed in better shape. “It worked? Did we get here in… ah, good.” Smiling slightly, Neri left her armour down – and immediately lost a few litres of what passed for her blood, most of her externally visible glowing organs having ruptured when the juggernaut crushed her. “…oh right” she said, stumbling and immediately falling backwards, hearing the healer say something annoyed before the world went black.

(Whether or not draining like this is possible in normal DG, Alberik believes it would be, and that’s good enough for it to work within the Unrestricted Zone.)

 

[Tassadar]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

Spoiler

Draining like that is possible in normal DG, but only from a willing subject in the case of Spirit Wielders. Succubi can just take energy like that, but if forced they don't get much without much better stimulation, and even from a willing person it's only possible to take a little bit at a time.

Another matter that is slightly more important: the best healing spell that Alberik has only costs 4 EP. A person with 20-10-10 stats like I think you have the basic elves at would have 25 EP, that means that half of their EP would be at least 3 castings of her best healing spell. I understand ignoring mechanics things for the sake of drama sometimes, but still, in a situation like this you've gotta keep that math operating properly. It would have made the scene so much more desperate!

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

Alberik did her best to console the woman as she was slowly being knitted back together, which didn't amount to much more than a pained look and her hands trying to steady her when they weren't casting. The elven woman that volunteered to help her was... Disturbing, but she wouldn't refuse the help she was given.

The woman collapsed from her own attentions, giving Alberik the energy for more spells. "Just a little longer Sera, a little more..." She said softly, tears streaming down her own face at the pain she was causing trying to keep the woman alive.

She felt a hand on her shoulder as she was casting yet again, pulling her aside and causing her to lose balance, landing on the floor and staying there, watching as the healer tended to Sera, the elven woman calming immediately, much to Alberik's relief.

Nerzalil helped the Outsider to her feet, and was just about to get a small flood of questions when Alberik was partially drenched in the bug-woman's guts, and she began to topple. The smaller woman tried to catch and steady her, but just wound up falling on top of the injured woman. The healer muttered something, so Alberik didn't bother calling their attention to the wounded woman, and instead summoned up the last of her own reserves, trying to patch up what she could until the healer could spare the time herself...

Spoiler

start healing on the bug-lady as well XD Not sure how much EP i have remaining, but I think it's enough for two, maybe three good ones before passing out.

 

[Host]

Re: The Unrestricted Zone

(Sorry this took so long, I had to spend more than a little time plotting the nature of the invasion and counterattack for this game, not to mention figuring out where everything was supposed to be in-game, given that I habitually confuse Crolia and the Amazon… and also generally suffering under a cough and sore throat.)

“Does it have to do that?” The elven commander asked. Neri opened her eyes from where she sat, cross legged. “You did say ‘make yourself at home’, didn’t you?”
“Well, yes, but I didn’t think that…” the haggard elven woman eyed up the large insect laying a coating of sliver fluid over the house’s floor and walls, the substance quickly turning hard and black. “You did say the owner was dead, right? Then there’s no harm.”

Telya grimaced at that, being far more respectful towards the dead than the insect – which wasn’t hard.She, the commander of the guard for godsreach, was a haggard woman who had clearly seen her fair share of battles to defend the pass of ghosts, and each had made its mark on her. She was visibly aged, which on the elf meant far more than it would on a human, though she still maintained some of the grace and beauty her kind was known for. She didn’t command the entire northern military – that honour went to a human man, who was unfortunately on the other side of the region for diplomatic reasons – but Telya was very nearly as honoured, and perhaps even more practically capable. Unfortunately, battle capability didn’t make her particularly good at dealing with unexpected diplomatic situations, as the Shadow Demons were now presenting her.

Alberik and Tariel, entered together, returning after discovering as much as they could on the invaders from the remains of the battle. Unfortunately, the divine creature had summoned her kin, and they had destroyed the vessel in the sky utterly, leaving no room for prisoners; the foes that had managed to land were all already dead, most by Alberik’s own hand. Despite that, the outsider still had some inkling as to why the creatures had come…

Tariel had recovered from her earlier confusion, again retaining the supernatural impartiality that Alberik expected of her. Why she expected anything of the newly met angel, on the other hand, was an unimportant question.

The beetle, for its part, didn’t seem to mind the presence of anybody, at least until it found them in its way. The creature had an abdomen several times as large as its head and body, the segment’s lower half glowing like a lamp and excreting the insect’s fluids fairly copiously. Alberik had never seen the beetle-like creatures communicate with their more humanoid brethren, and they didn’t appear to have the ability to speak – or to speak her language, at the very least. It wasn’t exactly easy to read such inhuman features, but this one seemed happy and dumb in equal parts; it had softer eyes than Neri’s permanently affixed glare. Given a half hour to an hour, the bug would probably mindlessly put a coat of resin over the whole room.

“Honoured one, did you find anything of use?” asked the elf, bowing her head at Tariel’s entrance. The angel shook her head as she sat, explaining what she could. “I only know what I already knew. As I said before, this attack is not limited to God’s Reach, or even to Crolia. The invaders are present through each and every nation on this world, and most have fared far worse than this city.” God’s Reach wasn’t in the best of states – a horrific alien monstrosity had just dropped on it, after all – but it still maintained most of its infrastructure, and most of its inhabitants. Civilian casualties were about as high as military ones, though the city would clearly survive; a day would be needed to clean out and properly dispose of the dead, both native and outsider. “Most of the cities of the Badarian empire fell, and its dead king has not been seen since the attack.”

“I can’t help but be glad knowing that Badaria will not be able to take advantage of our weakness, even under circumstances like these.” Tariel let the elf’s statment pass without comment.

“The cities of the Amazonians have been similarly crushed, the invaders claiming total victory in the jungles. Nor could the Su-Ku-Ta defend the desert even with their guns, losing utterly. In both cases, the refugees were largely claimed by the hostile lands they fled into.”

Telya didn’t take that news quite as happily. Her head had been falling while the angel continued speaking, and at the moment the elf was looking at the floor. “…Then, we are facing a force strong enough to topple three kingdoms, and the only power able to fight back, is… Crolia?” At this, at least, Tariel shook her head.
“The fey courts of Badaria and the Amazon were not directly attacked by the invaders, and managed to repel them with middling losses. The orcs further north also held their own, and their cities are largely intact… though my kind have been less than successful in securing their help. The fight will take much to win… but we believe that victory is still possible. The tactics of our next actions will be important, but before we plan, you should know all that we have learned about the specifics of the enemy we fight. Alberik, if you would?”

Spoiler

Nerzalil:
HP: 97/97
PP: 0/44
EP: 47/47


Alberik:
HP: 58/58
PP: 0/68
EP: 123/123