Hello, Everyone!
This is my attempt at writing another fight scene. I’m getting more and more confident in those but I’m sure there’s much more to work on. So, I’d appreciate a few words in the comments telling me how I did this time :)
But here’s what we’ve witnessed last time: Mary, Bruno, Aurum, Paulina and poor, tortured Fennec followed a cart through the tunnel leading towards Menzoberranzan--the underground city of the dark dwarves--to save some prisoners from being sent as ‘a gift’ to the drow. They found out some stuff, then made some invisible reconnaissance, until finally, they were ready to attack.
The tunnel was straight and dark, and the only moving things in it were the prison cart and the adventuring party, still unseen, sneaking up behind it. Mary’s spider familiar Peter was scuttling on the ceiling, preparing to jump down if needed.
On Aurum’s signal, several things happened all at once.
He grabbed the elven woman and her child and ran towards his friends, away from the fight. Mary sent out an Eldritch Blast at the underside of the cart where the drow were lying in ambush, and shattered the wheel, sending out shrapnels which, judging by the hiss of pain, hit someone there. Paulina turned into her bear form and charged towards the cart. Bruno ran that way as well, raising his hammer and calling upon Ord’s power.
The drow didn’t waste time to talk or show surprise. With a quick flowing motion they grabbed the side of the cart and somersaulted to their feet. Then they turned to their attackers and one of them breathed out a phrase.
“Kyone Veldrin.”
Suddenly, to Mary, everything around the cart lost its color. She blinked a couple of times and saw the panic in her friends’ eyes. Bruno and Paulina, already a few feet away from the drow, didn’t attack them but started slashing randomly in the air as if they didn’t see their targets.
“I can’t do anything about this!” Saami yelled from the other side of the cart and Mary saw him run away from the fight.
The other dwarves were still attached to the cart but although they were distraught, seemed ok for the time being. Mary could concentrate on what was happening with her friends.
The drow sneered. One of them ran to bear-Paulina and brought his scimitars down on her. Two slices appeared on her side, she roared in pain and shrunk back to a dwarf. Mary gasped. Only great harm could transform a druid back to their original form! Her hands went cold with fear. She’d learned to count on Paulina to be like a wall between them and danger, big and strong and almost undefeatable. And now, she had just lost her biggest and strongest animal form!
These foes were not to be trifled with.
Fennec had lost all his will to fight. He was standing near Mary, frozen in fear. Paulina and Bruno managed to scramble back out of the colorlessness.
“A goddamn Darkness spell?! Ord screw yer asses, you cowards!” the dwarf girl swore, shaken up.
Of course, Mary thought. Shades of grey meant that her eyes had switched to darkvision. The one she’d received from her Patron must have given her the ability to see through magical darkness as well as normal one.
“What do we do now?!” Paulina turned to Bruno.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got it” he said. “Let there be light!”
The cleric stepped forward, raising his new holy symbol. Pure celestial light streamed from it. It filled the tunnel from one end to the other and made everyone cover their eyes. To Mary, all the color came back.
Sacred fire swirled around the dark elves and burned around them. They yelled in pain and covered their blindfolded eyes. They were sensitive to light!
That was like a trigger for Mary’s friends to charge.
Paulina turned back into a bear and lunged at the drow who had cut her before. She bit off a big chunk of his torso and slashed her claws right after, leaving deep marks which started gushing blood. The elf stumbled.
Bruno jumped forward and tried to take off the other elf’s blindfold, but it seemed that they were well trained against such attacks. The drow deftly escaped his reach and stepped right under where Mary’s spider familiar was waiting.
Peter dropped down from the ceiling and crawled in the drow’s armor, where he sank its teeth with pure malice. The elf jumped and tried to find what’d bitten him, but the paper spider was too small to locate under the leather.
Aurum stepped forward and made a few complex hand gestures which weaved his Bane spell. He shot it forward like a silver thread and it stuck to one of the drow.
This gave Mary a chance to try out her Toll the Dead spell for the first time. She pointed at that drow and the sound of a dismal bell filled the air around him. He cringed in pain and although there were no obvious wounds, Mary knew she’d hurt him good.
The drow turned to each other and, instead of continuing the fight, stepped back and around the cart.
“Stop where you are!” one of them said. “How about we… talk.”
He was holding a blade at the throat of one of the dwarven prisoners.
Oh, no! What are our heroes going to do now?!
Also, how good is the Devil’s Sight invocation, eh? You D&D people will know what I mean :)
See you next time when we… talk.
Take care and be well!
(Also, here's a link to the Chapter Guide and the Glossary for the series. You're welcome!)