WWW #38: Abassin

This is the sound of Worlds Beyond Number.

Hidden amongst the pine boughs and rocky outcroppings at the edge of Abyssin,

the last stand of Silver and his contingent of Imperial soldiers.

Suvi, Ahme, and Ursulan, with a small contingent of companions,

look

at the last hour of nighttime before sunrise here in the Shroud Mountains.

Speaking on whispers of wind, the Wizard Silver

reaches out to the Wizard Sky,

their conversation hidden magically.

With the sigh of relief and whispered words of love, Silver communicates to you now in this moment as you behold witch fire,

shadowed buildings of a conquered town and the beasts and shape changers that move throughout it, and at the base of the village by the lake, the tents of the Gauthmai encampment.

Sky,

I know that you would have come for me, but you have to understand what we've been fighting.

Is there something you can tell me that only you would know?

Consider saying something deeply embarrassing about sex.

You better not have lost my bracelet.

Thank God.

And

I will say,

congratulations on moving to the Tower of the Glove, but I will miss that red room at Alabaster Hall.

There's so many more rooms to break in.

If we get a chance to, it'll be a miracle.

Can you did you have you been able to see the town?

Do you see the situation that we're in?

I've got really good eyes on it, and you are fucked.

What's going on inside?

We have about 30 of us in here.

30?

Mostly Imperial Infantry and Azure Battalion.

There's four of the Citadel left in here with me.

We have the two constructs outside, some artificers that have been tending to them, but the artificers are running low on supplies.

We haven't eaten in two days.

We have water from the stream, so we'll be all right, but we're starving.

We're exhausted.

There's only two Tamori left that we have with us.

What level?

Well,

Adina, and who you recognize as she Tamori, Adina is here, as is,

I don't, one that you haven't, the

ones you met that night, they're gone.

Yeah, okay.

The other one here is one that you haven't met yet, Zero.

Yeah.

Counterspell.

I know that Adina is very specifically Sabre's shield spell, correct?

Uh, you actually realized that the ones that are named, so the lightning bolts and fireballs were not named.

Copy.

Um, the ones that are named appear to share a name like Mr.

Counter.

Okay, okay, cool, cool, cool.

That makes sense.

Okay, 30 30 inside.

Froy says, 10 are of the Azure Battalion.

Steeds are lost.

14 Imperial Infantry.

We have

the guns up in the window.

Only one of them works.

The others are illusory.

Okay.

What are you up against during the day?

They're just keeping us from sleeping.

During the day,

they're pushing up here.

I think they they would make an earnest effort to kill us if they could break the constructs.

But essentially, they come up.

We try to put suppressing fire to stop as many of them from coming.

Some of them will, the strongest, will make it up to the constructs.

Constructs will go toe-to-toe with them.

They'll break what they can and then fly off before we can finish them off.

Okay.

All right.

How many are still down by the lake?

Full company.

You've been winnowing down their numbers, but there's still so many of them.

And they're just waiting you out.

And not to add, you know, not a lot of good news.

We're eight deep here with eight horses.

But it's okay.

We're going to be great.

I won't lie, having another,

having eight more soldiers in here, especially if one of them is you, is definitely beneficial.

You know, we need all the help we can get and our guns and constructs keep breaking.

If these constructs go down, that's it.

That's it for us.

Unless there's some firepower you have that I don't understand, I don't think joining us will do anything.

We're closer to death from lack of food than we are from being overtaken at the moment, at least.

We can figure out a way to solve that problem first.

You all need rest and resources.

Everything else might take a little bit of time.

but hey,

I survived a bunch of very powerful witches that wanted to kill my friend and me and the whole citadel.

So what's this?

It's like eight guys and half of them are boars?

That's fine.

We'll figure it out.

I'm not worried.

He laughs back and smiles.

He says,

If there's a full company down there, then there's about 200 soldiers in that valley.

Yeah.

If they wanted us dead, we'd be dead.

But they have the soldiers to spare, and they're just gonna sit on us and let us starve to death.

I think there's more than ape shape changers in the village.

I think there's probably

closer to about a score of them, a little bit more than a dozen.

But they're still afraid of you.

Like,

fighting our way out is the worst possible thing we can do.

You guys are deep,

deep in here, and

I've got

two very clever, very special people with me,

and we can figure something out.

Amy, Ursulan.

And I'm just gonna loop them in on everything we've talked about, like numbers.

30 people inside, starving.

How do we sneak 30 people that 200 people are watching out of

a trap in the corner.

It's very difficult to imagine how I'm.

It feels like we are lucky that we have gotten to here.

My thought thus far

is to

go wide to give us a chance to get out.

And part of me wants to bring down as much of this mountain as possible.

Bring the mountain down after we have.

Yeah, get them out and try to throw enough rubble in their path to give us a chance to get

back the way we're going.

My thinking is, I think I've been having trouble because I've been thinking from a place where we will return

kind of to where we met you, but perhaps there is something to not aiming to return, but simply to escape and lose this force that may work well with your plan of

slowing them down enough for us to find space and

safety.

And we have a waterfall feeding in from the crag to the mill.

Yes.

Down.

Cool.

You guys want to dam and then explode a river a little bit?

So, the plan here is to dam the river up at the top above the waterfall.

You want to dam it up, and the idea is that when the water comes through, it can come crashing down with enough force to like tear through the town and create some chaos.

Yes.

Okay, copy that.

Sworn looks and says, All right, so we're gonna go dam the river, release it.

Let's head out and start doing that right now.

Yeah, okay.

As you guys move out, you hear sending from the whispering winds from Silver.

Sky, what's the plan?

We're going to dam the river above the waterfall that comes down to you, release it, destroy the mill, and have all of that shit run downstream to try to buy you time to get out and keep us from being followed by the like lion's share of the soldiers.

We can take care of 12

shape-changers.

There's 40 of us.

Okay.

Thoughts?

If we're trying to beat a hasty retreat from here,

we're abandoning this position.

Yeah,

we're abandoning it.

Okay.

And you hear something insane in Silver's voice.

Just a moment of he...

has never had to do this before and that he didn't want that he thinks thinks of himself as a war hero and thinks of the, you could hear the drums of his return home to the citadel, and that he is being asked to consider that he failed here.

Is there

Skye?

Were you aware of anyone else coming to aid you?

Perhaps if we had some more forces, we could retake the town.

If we were be able to maybe we could get resupplied from

there were supply lines in Halliker Forest, there were supply lines closer to Fort Kieran.

Fort Marlon is tapped for resources, so nothing's coming from there.

And the last I heard from the Citadel is that there was an opportunity made at a different part of the border, and our forces are being pushed through to there.

You didn't fail,

but we are moving in a different direction, so we need to get all of you out so we can put all of our energy in a new direction.

Give me persuasion.

21.

You have in the most loving way possible reminded Silver that he is needed and it's not about what is right for him.

It's about what's right for us.

And he recognizes that leaving here means that that strength goes somewhere else.

He goes, okay,

I don't know how we're going to trans.

We have one working gun left.

We have two constructs.

We have artificers.

We have...

Bring the gun.

Send the constructs to cover our movement.

We need to fly light, not

back the way we came.

Copy that.

You guys move up.

Red smudge on the eastern horizon as you arrive at the top of the crag.

Looking down at the beginning of the valley that Abyssin hides in, you are up tall, sort of a tall crag again that sort of stretches into high mountains behind you to the north of here where the river begins.

And

you see the waterfall.

You are sort of gotten up to the top 80 feet up and you see that the river comes here.

As it approaches, it gets fast like rapids and there's rocks and things like that up at the top of this high, high waterfall.

But a little bit back from here, you know,

as the rapids of the waterfall become churning and frothy, it's so quick past that that rivers become serene and tranquil, flowing with their steady and serene might.

And you see the river approaching the waterfall up on top of this crag.

What do you do as you approach here?

You are here with Sworn and the rest of you in terms of like damning this place.

Is there a way to try to dam this without it looking very obvious like we have to fell trees and block this off?

Is there any way to make this look like something could have happened

geologically or like naturalistically that could be like a damning factor?

Like,

is there anything that I see that can be sort of quakes

around

or

ground moved?

Give me a nature check.

11.

You don't see any easy geological feature up here that you could use to dam this.

You could try traveling a little bit deeper into the woods to find something.

I will go another hundred yards or so, but I'm afraid like any deeper than that, and you lose, like, the force of a bottleneck right at the waterfall.

Traveling a little bit forward from here, give me an investigation check, assuming.

21.

Moving up further here,

you are looking at a bend in the river.

You see

sort of a small

island in the middle of the river that has a small

stone carving on it in the center of the stream.

Can I make a perception check on the carving?

Yeah.

17.

You see the figure

of

a

long,

like ram's face.

And you see that in the carving, the ram's mouth is open and a forked tongue is coming out from the ram's mouth.

And behind it, the body of like a long trout.

You believe this is a shrine to a river spirit.

Do I recognize this spirit?

Give me a nature check.

Twelve.

You do not recognize the spirit.

I would like to approach the shrine.

You

approach, and you find in the banks here, there is a small coracle that can move you across to the island in the center.

Moving to the shrine, you approach.

Look at the shrine.

It's a little worn.

You can see, of course, since it's in near the water,

naturally algae and moss and lichen proliferate.

I think that that's that's natural and right, but I make sure to start brushing off a little bit and I press to digitate so that it um

it's not as dusty and worn.

And then I place

for my pack some

uh fish food that I have, little flakes in a jar.

I tap them next to it, and then I also put uh

Nicholas used to always like uh

carrots, so I put out a carrot and put it next to the shrine as well.

And I clap

and I bow my head

and I

ask,

River Spirit, I am Ame,

the witch of the world's heart, and I wish to speak with you.

Give me a persuasion check, and I think with Ursulan's presence here at your side, you may do so with advantage.

17

This little stream outside of Grandmother Wren's cottage has Dalma, Mr.

Soup,

that sort of appears with an offering.

This river is a river large enough to move mighty felled trees down towards the lake below.

So you make this offering and kind of expect that maybe like a translucent spirit will like come from the little statue of this like fish ram river god

as you put the little carrot in the bowl of Ursula and you are there waiting like ooh like it's like superimposed and it'll like ooh make a little projection instead what happens is you hear

as the river water rises.

The size of wagons as this river dragon ram fish god pulls its head out of the muck

river slime covering it.

All the wizards that are still on the shore see this thing that is this.

It's the size of a dragon.

I hold up a hand.

It's okay.

Suvi's got that.

Okay, don't worry.

You guys do that.

And I know how this works, and I'm not going to cuss this one out.

I'm just signing to the wizards: like, yep, hold.

And just gesturing at a witch and like a wild one and be like, yeah, that's what they do here.

You see, this ram dragon river god goes

with wild pupil, like sort of goat pupil eyes.

And this long forked tongue snakes down.

Its tongue is as wide as a table.

And it

and licks up the fish food and the carrot.

Hello, guardian of the river.

I'm Ame.

This is my protector and dear friend, Ursulan.

I'm made.

I am

school horsen.

I am

tired.

Long time since I received an offering such as this.

Thank you for your

respect.

of course thank you so much for keeping this town here uh

supplied with good clean fast flowing water

my water is good and fast and clean

good night oh wait

i i i'm sorry to wake you from your slumber but uh we have a friend

friends down in the village in a bit of a predicament.

We're trying to get them out and uh,

we would like your permission to

use the river as a means to help them escape.

You have my permission.

Good night.

Oh,

excuse me, sir.

I'm sorry, sir.

Uh, this thing turns to look at you.

Oh, this- Oh, you can uh, this is hi, my true friend, the wizard Skye.

You're not in the shrine, you're on the bank.

Sorry.

You want to talk to me?

Do you have carrots?

What do you have?

Suvi immediately like jams her hand into her bag and pulls out like

a day of rations

and like sticks it over her head.

A tongue the size of a table wraps around your arm spiraling

and licks up your whole arm and the rations are gone.

Well that was kind of fun.

Thank you.

Do you want to?

How do you feel about

doing stuff with your water water, sir?

And I clap twice and do like a little like, it's a weird mixture of like ame bows, but Suvi's like sign of deference is like a physical gesture from her shoulder across to her sternum and then like curtsying in polite company.

So, she does the most horrifying mix of all three.

The spirit turns to Yoami.

Something's wrong with your friend.

Oh, she is making an obeisance in the manner of her people.

Oh, good.

Yes.

Well,

you have my permission to use the river to escape.

You and your friends.

Good night.

Wait, wait, wait.

Can you ask him?

Ask him to do it.

Oh,

the wizard sky

is requesting your help in this endeavor.

Help to escape?

What help can I provide?

The river flows fast and strong.

Ride it to the lake and escape.

Well, if you could perhaps hold it for,

I don't know, do the math.

What's the math?

What's the math?

Brother, we need a flood.

Oh, a flood.

I can do a flood.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ursulan.

Water, water.

Call up more water from the mountains.

The mountains might get cross.

Do you need a flood right now, or wouldn't a moment suffice?

Oh, a moment would be...

would be nice.

Wait.

I haven't been awake in a while.

There's plenty of muck.

If I give you enough muck to shape it, could you make it into the shape of a dam?

Yes!

Good.

I'm going back to sleep.

Here comes the muck.

Good night.

And you begin to hear rumbling from deeper in the forest and just see

logs begin to pop up from the riverbed.

Mud, muck, vine, rotten vegetation.

And it just begins to become a sludge headed slowly for the waterfall.

Sworn looks at you and says, all right, shape it, stop it.

And you see, honestly, like mage hands, Dalakinesis' unseen servants begin to push.

He calls out to another Citadel wizard.

He goes, Salamander, get that edge.

The water's doing the work.

Just help it.

And they rush towards the edge, and you guys begin to dam the river about 50 yards from the beginning of the waterfall.

Again,

things can naturally dam on their own, so it's just the perfect amount of wizardry, a little bit of pushing nature in the direction that is the most advantageous and a log stops and another and another uh and you see it's beginning to swell and flood in all directions just immediately the grass you guys you guys need to get the fuck out of here this went too well the silver need to be alerted I mean it seems like it will start in moments

yeah yeah

come back across the thing come back across the thing

correctly back.

And in my mind, I say to the fox, all right, there's a flood coming.

Please make sure that you and the people are out.

Also, please let them know that Zorhorsen

up at the top has a shrine and could use a little bit of feeding now and then.

You got a boss.

Takes off.

Silver, you see contacting you.

He says,

all right, we're ready.

I can give the constructs a command.

For us to get to the ridge, we're going to have to cross the river.

I don't know how we're going to...

What?

What do you mean?

Okay, we can cross the river.

And you realize that because you've dammed it, the river has stopped enough for like the they were on the wrong side of the river with the lumber mill.

Yeah.

The river has

completely lessened.

I think we can ford it right now.

Right now, go.

Okay, he says, bring contracts can bring up the rear, or I can just send them down into the town right now.

One into the town, one to cover our escape.

You got it.

Sworn looks at you and says, How do we trigger the dam?

Shatter.

Can you?

He says, Yeah.

All right.

You see, he looks at the other city.

He looks at the Azure Battalion and Salamander and Score, and he says, Meet Silver and his forces and direct them back to where the horses are.

Make sure that they know exactly where they're going.

He turns and says, I'm going to follow you.

He says, when we trigger this

flood,

we're going to be well behind our friends meeting Silver and his forces.

Is there a way for us to just get down

from the crag

fearful

yeah i've gotten that too

you see um i love magic so much so your citadel with your the rest of your crew has to go the long way it took you a long time to climb up here so you're gonna have to meet silver on the way as he rallies his force to sort of get out and abandon the mill

you are in the coracle in this now like floodplain impromptu lake that is forming up here on the higher plateau.

And

who all is with you in this moment?

Suvi, will you need help?

If not, I will join your the Wizard's Gor and the Wizard's Appleman.

I'll see you soon.

Great.

I'm gonna go with them.

Okay, copy that.

I'll stay here and cover Suvi.

Ursulan, you take off with Suvi's companions, heading off as fast as you can.

Suvi, you hear from Silver.

Okay, we're filing out as fast as we can.

I'm going to need a luck check from.

I'm going to say Suvi here.

I'm going to need it from Abria.

It's got to be.

It's got to be.

You're looking for a 14 or higher.

Natural one.

Okay, I need everybody here to roll initiative.

21.

19.

9.

Sufi, you are first to act.

You see, silver is speaking to you.

You are at the edge of this like new lake floodplain.

You're even like where you are.

Like water is like lapping over grass as the river breaks its banks up ahead with this new dam that you've built.

And you can hear as dawn is coming, there's just enough visibility that the sky is illuminated, right?

There's still like long shadows and sort of like that early morning twilight on the ground, but the sky is beginning to be illuminated.

Silver is speaking to you and going, okay,

the river is small enough.

We're crossing the rocks below where the waterfall used to hit.

The Construct is having a hard time getting here.

We're spotted.

We're spotted.

You hear screeching of beasts moving up fast from the village towards the lumber mill even before pre-dawn.

Silver shouts, open fire, stop them!

We're still crossing the river!

Suvi, what do you do?

Oh god,

Suvi was ready to set off a big shatter, but they need a little more time.

Suvi is going to use two, both of her secrets right now within this like same

action.

The first one, the secret of warp and weft, that she's going to attach.

first she starts casting a like citadel standard shatter.

But because the secret of warp and weft allows me to

use spells that deal damage that can target objects as if they were creatures, she switches it to her very witchy inflict wounds.

It will be silent, but she's going to also drop the contingency on it.

They have one minute, and the triggering is when Suvi, like, hears that they are mostly across she will bring down the dam

incredible you set up this powerful magic hanging in the air over you

ursalon it is your turn moving as fast as i can down uh the hill

toward the sound

cool so you're just barreling down with them to meet these other people below on the hillside um as you do so you see silver uh takes a movement to sort of toward the river, and you see Cat throws up just a big evocation.

You hear like an ice storm down below.

You can feel cold wind and ice as he summons up a spell on the charging beasts.

Down below, you hear the noise of howling, screeching joy as beasts descend on a construct that has made it far ahead of them down the slope to just go engage the town.

And you can see in a single round, one of the two constructs is dismembered and destroyed.

Subi, you hear Silver say, open fire!

Open fire!

And as he does so, you hear them stop moving across the river as fast to turn and start to open fire on the beasts that are attacking one of the constructs.

Sworn looks at you, and

as he can sense that like the retreat is being compromised by protective fire, that they are like splitting their focus between crossing the river and like helping their construct with like suppressive fire,

Sworn looks to you as like, what should we do?

The fog, do you have the fog scroll or do I?

He's like, he whips out the fog the fog scroll.

Toss me the scroll.

Sworn tosses the scroll to you.

The moment it hits my hands, I cast Featherfall on both of us.

He's in my range to be caught with it too.

He has a minute to get down.

Featherfall's on him as well.

Ame's with you as well.

Oh, and Ahmed.

Gotcha, yes.

And I turn and jump off of the waterfall.

Swarn is right next to you.

So, Sky, you jump, and after you, boom, boom.

And suddenly, each of you are looking at the town of Abison below, the like strange, wet, rocky channel where once a river flowed that has been stopped by the dam.

You see soldiers using the riverbank as like a trench for cover, but scattered within this riverbank under a damned waterfall.

So they're all like in the place that they're supposed to be crossing.

As they open fire on one construct, you see

horrors.

There is a massive like legged serpent

that is biting into the stone with glee.

As the other construct turns, a massive woolly rhinoceros turns to look at it and just begins charging forward towards this other thing.

There are like eight of these massive beasts that have just destroyed one of the constructs that are going to begin charging towards the second construct that's covering the trail and may soon join its friend in immediate destruction.

All of you feel a

as strands of runic light begin to peel off of whatever the top surface of you is facing the sky as you

slow in descent, gliding towards the ground below.

Amy.

The moment that I see the frenzied soldiers in the trench, I extend my hand and I whisper to them.

I use calm emotions, and it manifests as the smell of the bakery on Candle Street.

It's the purple sparks from the roving boat of a bar.

It's the sounds of wizards arguing

in the courts.

And I attempt to calm them, to make them not hostile towards the things that are frightening them and that they are spending their energy on when they should be running.

You reach out and ask, you just, you hear

every breath of wind on every needle of every pine tree joins Ame in a soothing.

And it affects no one more than Silver, who suddenly remembers what they are supposed to do.

Confusion is the brother of death.

When stakes are this high, he hears you say sh.

Retreat, retreat, retreat, and uses that word specifically.

All of you begin to glide down.

You have leapt to the other side of the riverbank, the correct side, the one that they are supposed to be coming.

So you are literally a symbol of like, come towards us.

You see Silver look out at you, seeing you for the first time, so badly injured.

Enzo pops on his shoulder, and Silver yells, fall out, fall out!

Ursulan, as they do so, you see circling overhead, two eagles spot you and your.

There are like 30 plus people down there.

You are here with three other people, and two eagles are wheeling their way towards you.

I yelled to the two wizards with me, bring them down!

Now, bring them down!

Would you allow me to know the name of the horse that I cast heroism on?

Oh, I told everybody all the horses' names.

Rahoan, Rahoan.

Rahon?

Rahoan.

I wrote down Rahoan.

Rahoan, yes.

I yell to the wizards pointing at the eagles in the sky, bring them down.

And then I call toward wherever we left the horses, Rahoan to me.

I'm going to pull out Wave Breaker and my shield and start to charge along the ridge to kind of meet Silver.

Or start moving towards Silver.

Now that we're not doing anything stealthy, it's this way, here!

Banging my sword against my shield Clang!

Clang!

You move across the ridge.

Yes, stealth has been dispelled and now the plan either works or it doesn't.

You see that as you charge forward Ursulan,

any spells you're casting on yourself as you have heroism on Rajoan, you can hear the snap of a bridle snapping a tree branch that it was tied around as Rahoan takes off along the ridge towards you.

As you surge forward along the ridge, you see the wizards behind you get their staves up for ranged attacks.

But if you are closing for melee, the eagles are happy to meet you.

Great, I will.

Sworn,

he looks down at the charging beasts and says,

For the citadel!

And casts the first fireball you have seen.

Beasts snarl, badly burnt, injured, screaming as Citadel fire touches them.

The bright flame of the Erian Tower.

Beasts badly charred by Sworn's fireball close

on the construct.

As they do, Adina leaps forward and in a moment you see tears streaking down her face in an act of pure love and devotion and vanishes as she casts herself.

This badly mismatched patchwork construct with a saw arm and a log leg suddenly is surrounded by the most beautiful calligraphy the Citadel can muster.

Shining, gleaming armor.

We're gonna roll these attacks.

With this spell for this round, these shape changers need a 19 or higher on the die to hit

Swarmed by beasts, the magic of the citadel holds strong.

A rhinoceros, some ancient Saurian reptile, a massive cave bear,

descend on this construct.

The magic holds it aloft as it bats with its massive arms back and forth.

Adina has bought one more round for the construct defending your retreat.

As she does, you see there is a strange he looks like a man

made of crumpled cellophane wearing uh wearing robes of the citadel

sort of clicking clattering noise yes

worthwhile and streaks forward as a spell from the town comes forward Thorns and vines erupt from the trees to constrict the river and bend forward And this crackling man, this Tamori,

who you only ever learned his name was Zero, reaches up, hits the tree line, and

the vines fall,

only moved by the natural order of the wind and shifting patterns of nature itself.

Two eagles close on Ursulan.

As they get close, they spread their wings

and leave their form are humans for a second before

an enormous panther and next to it a snarling, raging serpent.

Rear up and both charge for you.

You can use your reaction first.

Only an 11.

An 11 does not hit.

You

reach out in reaction.

Your friends, however, will have been saving their fire.

And the Azure Battalion,

Corporal Lahoun, with a Nat 20.

Yes!

No!

Wow!

Lights up the Panther next to you!

With bright white desert fire.

It reaches into it.

They are going to take their attacks on you.

No.

Serpent rolls a natural one.

On a critical hit, the Panther sinks its fangs into you for 17 points of damage.

Ame, your soothing has returned the senses to these people.

The troops pull quickly, using all of their action.

No more suppressive fire, just everyone beating feet, getting the fuck out of the river as fast as they can, crawling up to the other side.

As they get there, Zugi, that is your turn.

As I like

open up the scroll and begin to read it, and this isn't my magic, this was a thing given to me, but I just watched Adina and I watched Zero, and there's something inside of like them calling on what they are and the way it bolstered their magic.

And Suvi looks up at the sky.

And she tries to push the understanding of herself and the name that she chose.

And as she casts this, she thinks of...

There was a day in Port Talon where we woke up and the fog had rolled in so thick and heavy you couldn't see an inch in front of your face.

And that's what I push out through this: a fog that will obscure the sky, that will obscure anyone that would chase down my people as I stand in the middle of the river

and release whatever this is.

You

call up the fog surrounding you.

It is

not subtle.

Roaring gouts of mist burst from the riverbed.

The shatter waiting in idealized space overhead.

Do you release it?

I do.

Oh, it's not a shatter.

Oh, sorry.

It's actually an inflict wounds.

That's correct.

That's correct.

So everything I poured in in that touch as it goes away, there is something that's so emotional with the one time I've cast this and what she put into it in that moment of touching and casting was the fear for Silver hearing him shout, hearing the confusion, feeling death on the air and she feels a burst of it as she releases the inflict wounds.

You have your movement left to bring the fog from the riverbed with you as swift as you can because the noise you hear overhead is a noise unlike any you had ever heard before.

Surging forward with the fog, the cool mist envelops Ahmed, Sworn,

Silver, all of these troops here.

You can hear the final glorious stand of this construct as the shield spell fades from it, as it falls, as the beasts surround it.

They turn to look, and instead of seeing their hated enemy, they see logs falling from the sky.

Angry river held by the spirit above comes down in a torrent.

Stone, wood, muck,

rot, and above all else raging river water hits beneath.

Your retreat would have been masked by fog and vapor alone, just from the torrent that now pours from high overhead.

But magic indeed surrounds you in this moment as you begin to flee.

There is now a raging flood whipping through the town as fast as it possibly can.

Further below in the town, a tiny little fox gets on the right side of the river

as he whips off as fast as he can.

Suvi, you are surrounded by the contingent of soldiers you have just rescued from certain death.

The river rages.

You are surrounded by debris and fog.

Your retreat obscured.

As this happens, Ursulan, it is your turn on this ridge fighting these shape changers.

I think

with the pain raging in his side, Ursulan staggers back and begins to dematerialize as he uses Hidden Step to turn invisible.

And then, grasping his sword, moves around the Panther to attack again.

Vanishing with the magic of the spirit world, you

are unseen, move and strike again.

24 to hit.

24 hits.

Will smite,

so 3d8 total.

19 points of damage.

You deal 19 points of damage, bring Wavebreaker down,

cut through the shape, leaves, branches,

and see a smiling, bloody-mouthed human in front of you.

Same fanged tattoos around his mouth.

You fight alongside them.

Ursulon stares at him silently and raises his shield.

Looking at the soldiers behind you, you can see already that this man unharmed is about to assume another form.

I don't want to kill something eternal on this mountaintop.

Lay down your shield.

It is not I who will be dying, brother.

You feel the conviction of that in this moment, but you are far away.

You hear Rahoman charging, but it took you a long time to get here.

He is a speck of white moving through the trees towards you.

You do not know if you have the time to survive, but you can stand here and give a fighting chance to the wizards behind you.

Below in the fog,

Suvi

silver

touches you in the fog.

You can only see an outline of his face.

He goes,

Your companions, are they all here?

I hear something on the ridge.

Ursula.

He turns around, and you see he goes, goes, you saved us.

And he flies.

Lifts up from the ground, weightless under the power of his own will and understanding of the secrets of this universe.

Ursulan, you are looking death in the face.

You see from the fog below in the early dawn light, streaking from the mist, a wizard of the citadel, a staff in hand, flies towards you, and Silver looks to you and says,

Be laid low, enemies of the tower!

And a lightning bolt erupts from his staff.

He's going to cast a lightning bolt on both of the shape changers next to you.

The lightning bolt lashes across and the python shape,

the massive constrictor snake,

is

dropped as that person dropped to the ground stunned, partially like electrocuted through their form.

The figure that was just taunting you is suddenly from unharmed at death's door.

The two injured humans in front of you both go immediately after this.

They assume new forms.

You see the one standing in front of you takes the form of a massive bear.

The other

changes into an eagle and is going to close with silver.

The one flies at silver and he tucks and

barrel rolls out of the way, flying through the air.

The other one is going to come for you.

22 hits.

22 hits.

Eight points of damage as a massive paw smashes into the side of your shield.

Erulean bolts streak past you from the Citadel Wizards.

These bolts streak, hit the bear in front of you.

It looks now badly injured.

Below, Sworn calls it and says, Retreat, retreat!

Follow the sound of Ursulon's voice to the ridge!

Ame, you feel Sworn's sure hand knowing your importance to Suvi, he actually puts a hand on your shoulder and begins to lead you quickly through the fog as well.

Ursulan, that it's your turn.

How close are we to the edge of the ridge?

Oh, you're on it.

Uh, I'd like to shield up, run straight into the bear, and attempt to push him off the ridge.

Go ahead and roll me an athletics check.

16.

With a plus eight to athletics.

This bear gets a 14.

He

falls.

And you see that falls enough that the bear form takes sufficient damage to stop and the human underneath catches a tree branch, but he is some like 80 feet down the ridge.

But is Score and Salamander they come after me in initiative?

Yes, they do.

I point down

now, right now.

Spell energy alights down the ridge and blasts this person into oblivion.

Silver behind you literally sees you and says, good idea, and starts to go high, high, high, high, high.

And as he does so, you see that he

hits another lightning bolt.

You see, he's so tired.

And as he blasts, the eagle comes after him and he blasts it with lightning.

It drops the form, and it's suddenly a man hanging in air.

He took him high enough for him to fall, and before he can take a new form,

hits his back on the ridge and is gone.

Silver looks down at you

into the woods, into the woods.

You see

soldiers fall in behind you.

Right as Rahoan,

a bright white horse pulls up in front of you

for you to lead up as exhausted, wounded people emerge from the fog, seeing your way to deep woods.

I saddle up, but bang, like physically bang on the shield.

This way.

You take off, take off into the woods, leaping into your arms.

The fox

leaps in.

Ame Sufi, you emerge from the fog and see Ursulan at the front of the retreat.

As the fox touches him, cure wounds goes off.

Cure wounds, you feel the fox lick at your wound.

Ursulan, you lead.

Salamander, Score,

Salamander, Score, Lahound are right behind you, along with Silver, who gets low, flying like under.

Like, he's barely even flying.

He's basically just using the speed of flight to stay under the tree cover, right next to you.

He claps a hand on your back and says,

Bear?

Yes.

I'll bet.

He takes up with you at the front.

Suvi, Sworn, Ahme, you come up.

You see, Sworn looks out at the sort of staggering, like the artificers at the back.

Everyone's sort of, see the artificers like weeping, looking at the construct that's just fallen.

They've spent so long.

And you see, Sworn says,

This guy, I have the rear.

Move, move!

And he takes up the rear as you streak before red dawn into the forest and to hiding.

You flee and vanish,

leaving this place

for once and all.

That was Lou Wilson as Ursulan, Erika Ishi-e as Ahme, Abria Iyengar as Suvi, and Brennan Lee Mulligan as Everyone and Everything Else.

Worlds Beyond Numbered is edited, designed, and scored by Taylor Moore at Fortunate Horse with additional sound design from Michael Gelfie Studios.

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