Endil fired his arrow and nocked another with hands that moved faster than sight. As he brought back the bow he saw that one of the solders was down. Dead or wounded, he could not tell. “Hurtons are afraid of fire. Wolem, the Hurton on the right is rather hollow- a well placed grenade could do it in”.

__________________

"There is only one thing better than killing a foe. Having that foe cause Chaos!" Wolem said as he disappeared into the trees. (Is it any surpise that Wolem was favored by Lolth, Goddess of Chaos?) Launching himself from tree to tree Wolem headed to the enemy Hurtons. Wolem got in range of the Hurton Endil had pointed out. Wolem quickly threw his smallest inferno at the Hurton.

"The Hurton had the oily substance on it for one moment and then erupted into flame." Wolem would later recall. More accurately a small steady fire began at the base of the Hurton. The tree-like creature let out a terrible scream and began beating itself wildly. Standing behind the elite soldiers of the Kingdom Wolem stood out visibly and cried out "Gotcha! Termite Fodder."

The Hurton had managed to put out the fire but was still enraged. It charged at Wolem swinging and knocking aside everything in its path, seriously hurting about five unlucky soldiers of the empire. Then Wolem was running for his deep into the forest, the Hurton only five yards behind.

Oops

The Balam are notable for their ablity to hide in forests. However Hurtons are the Masters of the forest.

__________________
Happy Easter! Christ is Risen!

"We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love."~Jonathan Swift

Lamont yelled, "No you do not!" and barreled through a group of downed shoulders while seathing his blades. He dared not risk his swords for his plan as he grabbed two axes from the wounded soldiers knocked over by the Hurton and hunched over so their weight only added to his speed as he chased nimbly after Wolem. Luckily, Lamont's home had been around a forest, so he had little trouble following the Hurton's trail and gaining on it by the step. Whatever adrenaline was pouring though Lamont to allow him to ignore the pain in his legs, he hoped it remained as the distance came to a polearm's reach.

With one mighty spring off an exposed root, Lamont catapulted through the air and raised both axes at once. He roared like an animal as he brought them down on the ankle of the Hurton that rose, where the achiles tendon in a human would be. With all his strength, Lamont flipped foward to allow both axes to pierce and sent a shower of splinters and wood chips from where on the Hurton's 'ankle' he slahed into. Lamont deftly rolled over the beast's leg and withdrew the axes, though after that he slammed into the ground and started rolling until he could straighten up. The Hurton was forced to hobble from there, since the mighty slash pierced half the creature's right ankle.

Lamont backed up as the Hurton advanced slowly, revealing charred bark where Wolem's incendiary had burnt it. Out of sheer instinct, Lamont through the two axes in hand at that spot. One was beat away, but the other managed to pierce enough to create a fist-sized hole. Now out of useable weapons against a tree, however, Lamont was forced to dash away in an attempt at hide-and-seek he knew would be futile. He shouted, "Wolem, it is open to be blown up, anytime you're perpared!"

__________________

Goten is dead!

Gualbert emerged from his position by knocking a surprised kingdom soldier to the ground with his mace. In his mind Gualbert assessed the situation. He gazed on the fallen soldier. He recognized the gray tunic, the uniform of a veteran warrior. Their armor is hard, and their blades keen, Gualbert thought. King Bleazon Pendare trains these men himself. I was lucky to catch this one unawares. This is not good -- why have they come out so far from Benezel? We cannot handle this foe!

Gualbert yelled "we must retreat, we will surly lose this battle!"

======================
Kingdom Veteran
Number strong: 33
Number fallen: 7
==============
======================
Hurton
Number strong: 3
Number fallen: 0
==============

"They are trained well correct, Gaulbert, I see here. You are to form the team to leave. Diversion and cover for the retreat, this I can provide as the waters in the swamp can better conceal me. Let us go quickly and lure them in... I shall deal with as many as I can until you are all safe, then rejoin you at a later time," Ouur'mm says to Gaulbert and points into the mists of the swamp. "The enemy will seek vengance and be over confident. Their fervor shall cloud their vision more than the fog hmm hmmm hmmm." He runs toward the waters and walks in waiting just below the surface.

__________________
"The good warrior knows when to fight, and when to withdraw."
- Sun Tzu

I'll smith anything up to 93 smithing if you have the material for me to make it with
My Story, Horrors of Myron County
RV's Drawing archive topic, post yours or comment on others

Wolem returned merrily through the trees after leaving the Hurton a burning pile of charcoal.

"Are you sure you want to retreat Gaulbert? With the backbone of the company, my explosives and any inspirational abilities you and the others have we can draw out this fight. This would make it very bloody for the enemy and we might even win. Our allies make excellent disposable tools."

"At any rate I'll keep my focus on the Hurtons. They are rather excitable. I'll meet back later."

Wolem then slunk away into the high grass of the meadow. Wolem crawled on the out skirts of the battle until he came upon an Ent who was busy rending an enemy Hurton to pieces.

"Hello Maple Lord." (It is a little known fact that Ents are formally addressed as the Lord of their specie of tree) "Would you like to destroy a hundreds times as many Hurtons? I so let ride upon you. Then charge into the midst of the enemy and I promise at least that you will remembered by the saplings."

Not saying a word the Maple Ent picked up Wolem and charged a group of five Hurtons, Ents are easily inspired in the heat of battle. Throwing infernos left and right Wolem caught the Hurtons on fire. Shielded in the Maple Ent Wolem also avoided any arrows of the enemy troops. The Ent charged up and down the battle field, got Wolem close to a target and then moved on. By the end of that day Wolem and Maple Ent were forever remember in Hurton lore, as demons from the abyss.

__________________
Happy Easter! Christ is Risen!

"We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love."~Jonathan Swift

Gualbert yelled back to Ouur'mm, "looks like there's our distraction!" Turning back to the battlefield, Gualbert called out, "Wolem, you don't understand, the archers haven't even fired their-" Before Gualbert could finish his sentence another volley of fiery arrows rained down upon the Ent, quickly setting it on fire, and striking Wolem in the arm*. A moment later the kingdom soldiers had already put out the fires consuming the other two Hurtons. "They still haven't attacked us- they hardly consider us a threat" uttered Gualbert in astonishment. What are they attacking?

Gualbert thought he could hear the sounds of battle a little ways in the distance. He ran over to Lamont. "I believe they're too strong for us" said Gualbert, "the enemy of our enemy is our friend, perhaps we should make for those sounds." He pointed over where he heard the battle.

======================
Kingdom Veteran
Number strong: 33
Number fallen: 7
==============
======================
Hurton
Number strong: 2
Number fallen: 1
==============
======================
Kingdom Elite Archers
Number strong: 10
Number fallen: -
==============
________________________
*The severity of the hit is up to you Aquinas

Occ: Sorry about that guys. To better explain myself, we are caught in a clearing between a contingent of kingdom soldiers and something else, presumably another army. As the ent Wolem summoned helped distract some of our foe, I was thinking we (the party) could sneak away, with Ouur'mm's help, to see what the kingdom soldiers were attacking in the first place. Ouur'mm can still distract whoever else might follow us, but that's up to him. I'll try to be more specific next time- don't be afraid to ask me to clarify something if you don't understand. I'm still kinda new at this whole "Dungeon Mastering" thing

Lamont looked at Gaulbert with an almost sadistic gleam in his eye. "Back into the fray...? Good. I'll be able to dispatch a few pests while I'm at it! Follow near, I can cut a path."

Without waiting for a response, Lamont draw his blades and dashed past Gaulbert to where the battle was. A line of well-armored kingdom knights was advancing to the fray, ready to pass over the fallen enemies slain by their archers. From where they were, Lamont and Gaulbert would go through the path being clear in the archers' sights but behind the foot soldiers. Lamont turned to Gaulbert, who was behind him, and said, "You will know when you can run and work out whatever scheme is in your head. I'll worry about what I can here... Cutting you a path and giving you clearance to move without fear of being slain. Ready?"

Before waiting for an answer, Lamont crossed his arms and placed his hands at shoulder-width from each other. His blades pointed out, almost like wings, with the actual edges of them horizontal for him to cut during movement. The kingdom soldiers were stupid enough to travel in a nearly straight line. So he knew his job would be easy. Holding back a battle cry, Lamont burst from the clearing and held his blades in place as he pumped all strength into his legs. Tearing up the path, he held them high enough that they would hopefully cut or at least scrape through all the soldiers' armor where the helmet met the platebody... He tried to keep a count of how many times his blade found skin instead of platemail as he rushed through the ranks. "Two, three, five, six, sev--whoa!"

An arrow nearly caught Lamont's right hand, and he heard many thuds and whizzes as they flew by his body. Knowing his job had been done, he turned to his side and dashed through the trees. Luckily his turn put him in the direction of the swamp Ouur'mm was hiding in, because he needed to rest after all of the intense running he had forced on himself. Finding heavy tree cover, he seathed his blades and hid the best he could from any possible followers... If they came through, hopefully Ouur'mm would be on guard to do his job of helping out. Through the pounding of his heart, though, he couldn't tell if the oncoming clanks of armor were Gaulbert's or any soldier's. It almost sounded heavy enough to be the latter. Lamont tried to make his breathing as silent as possible so the oncomer wouldn't know where he was.

__________________

Goten is dead!

"Those archers may become a problem in the future" Jargg thrust his spear into the ground, then dropped onto his belly and started army crawling around the forest, headed towards where he best guessed the arrows were coming from. An arrow whizzed by his head, and Jargg flattened himself. After a few seconds of laying still he started crawling again, making it to the cover of a nearby bush and crawling under it.

He spotted the gleam of a archer's armor and noticed that it was one of the kingdom's elite. He crawled out from under the bush and got up in a crouch. He drew one of his short swords and took careful aim, then lobbed it toward the archer. The short sword took the archer through the head, killing him instantly. Jargg got on his belly again and crawled over to the dead archer, he pulled his short sword from the archer's head, cleaned it on the grass and then sheathed it. He then grabbed the archers quiver that had 10 arrows left and the bow. He slung the quiver over his shoulder, strapping it in place, and then grabbed the bow in his hand and crawled across the ground to find different cover and another archer.

The archers were a good distance apart from each other but after a few seconds of crawling Jargg was able to spot another one. He crawled over to the base of a tree and leaned up against it. He notched an arrow to the bow and fired taking the archer through the throat. Jargg then crawled away into the night towards the next archer.

__________________

Wolem snarled in pain when the arrow fire hit his arm. Ignoring the pain Wolem set about with the most pressing danger; the possibility that the Ent would start rolling on the ground.

"Run to water. I'll start putting out the flames."

Although little can be said for Wolem's moral principals he was a very prudent creature. Wolem was very knowledgeable on the art of putting out fires. Taking his blanket from his pack he quickly drenched it with his water canteen and then used it to start putting out the fires. As the Ent ran at top speed wolem stayed on the side hidden from the archers until they were out of range. In a few short minutes Wolem was soaking wet in a large poot as the Ent extinguished itself.

Wolem pucked the arrow from his arm with his teeth and began licking his wound. It was pretty serious and had broken his broken his fore paw. Wolem snarled to himself.

!!#&$*&$*#&#$&#!!archers!@$#$*$#!!#$$!

When the Maple Lord was all cleaned up he motioned Wolem to climb up. Wolem gingerly obliged, and they set off through the forest together.

__________________
Happy Easter! Christ is Risen!

"We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love."~Jonathan Swift

Endil fired an arrow and another warrior of the empire went down. Two of them saw him and rushed at him. He nocked two arrows and fired them, a difficult stunt even for an expert like him. Nether of the arrows flew straight, but Endil had held his fire till they were too close to be missed. One was hit in the throat, but the second arrow simply grazed the first warrior. The warrior raised a strange sword of elvish make. Endil pulled his own sword. There was a flurry of blows and Endil heard a distinct cracking sound, then his sword found its mark. Looking down at his sword he found the long hilt had been irreparably broken. Grabbing his opponent’s blade he shoved it in his sheath, then retreated into the forest.

OOC: this is a picture of the new sword he picked up.
http://www.odinblades.com/Pages/Predator.html

__________________

As Lamont hid the kingdom soldier followed his tracks all too easily. Turning 'round a clump of trees he took Lamont's backside, and raised his weapon to strike. That is, before succumbing from a hard hit to his iron helm, and falling unconscious to the ground. Behind him emerged Gualbert, mace in hand. He beamed a smile at Lamont, "We're routing them!" As he swung himself back into the fray, Gualbert found he was being charged by a huge kingdom soldier clad in chain mail and bearing an ax in each hand. Gualbert sidestepped quickly as he could, and attempted to trip the soldier, but missed. In another split second an ax whirled around toward Gualbert's head, but again he dodged it. "How quickly shoes can be changed" murmured Gualbert grimly. "Lamont- help!"

======================
Kingdom Veteran
Number strong: 24
Number fallen: 16
==============
======================
Hurton
Number strong: 2
Number fallen: 1
==============
======================
Kingdom Elite Archers
Number strong: 7
Number fallen: 3
==============

Ouur'mm had seen that very few had entered the swamp and yet the terrain even in the clearing was not as solid as it appeared. He moved below the ground through the softer waterways toward Gaulbert. Switching to a heat vision with his eye glowing red, he could more easily tell who was above him. Pushing up from the canal floor, he explosively leaps through the ground and grabs on to the legs of Gaulbert's attacker and pulls him under leaving only a watery hole behind. Below the ground he searches for pathways leading to the enemy's larger concentrations. During a charge of soldiers, he leaps up again through the ground and pulls down, into the water filled tunnel, the first in the wave to demoralize and throw off their charge.

Ouur'mm moves to an area nearest the hutons and starts weakening the terrain in the stronger places enough to where it would break if one should step there. "The tree men may know where is best to step normaly, but altered... the terrain is more dangerous even to them. To lure one here though..." When he finished he rises from the ground slowly and tosses a rock swiftly at the nearest hurton's head. When it charges, it makes deliberate steps that would normaly be the best spots until falling into Ouur'mm's mucky trap.

__________________
"The good warrior knows when to fight, and when to withdraw."
- Sun Tzu

I'll smith anything up to 93 smithing if you have the material for me to make it with
My Story, Horrors of Myron County
RV's Drawing archive topic, post yours or comment on others

=================
Occ: Pretty crazy Znath, but I love it
=================

Gualbert watched as Ouur'mm drew his attacker down into the muddy depths beneath the hallow ground. He wiped his forehead, not wishing to contemplate the man's fate. It was then Gualbert saw something lying beside where the man had fallen, "a map," he whispered, and tucked it into his armor. He then looked up just in time to see one of the Hurton trip on a hazardous spot in the ground and fall atop several kingdom soldiers. "The battle looks as if we have the upper hand now- but I wonder, where did Wolem and Jargg go?" Gualbert looked back to where the ent had retreated. Turning to Endil he shouted "good shot!" and threw himself back into the battle.

After firing all of the arrows, Jargg tossed his bow and quiver aside, then got down on his belly and circled back to where he had driven his spear in the ground. He pulled his spear from the earth and brushed some dirt off of the spearhead. His friends were no longer where he had left them, but after a few seconds of searching he quickly found their footprints and followed them doggedly until he could make out shapes that resembled his comrades in the mist. "Don't worry about me, I'm back and unscratched".

__________________

The Maple Lord came to a stop in what was known as the Saplings Grove. In some places of very old forests time works differently. Forests always have feeling of being ancient. But some groves, tended by Ents, remain as young and new as they have since the beginning of that world. In those places a day may be a thousand years and a thousand years may be a day. Perhaps Rip Van Winkle wandered into one of these woods.

In that grove Wolem was tended by the Maple Lord. His Wounds were healed and Wolem learned far more of Forest Lore. The Maple Lord also gave Wolem some of the famed Ent juice. Ent juice, water blessed by the Ents, is known for many things but mostly for making things grow. And Wolem grew, from a small jaguar to a moderately sized Tiger, 300 pounds.

In the twilight, it was always twilight in the Sapling Grove, the Maple Lord came to Wolem. In the twilight the Maple Lord took Wolem to a new place in the wood. The ground was burnt and ashen... It would never heal. The Maple Lord simply sat as Wolem inspected the scar in the wood. For an age Wolem studied the forests scar and what it meant. Wolem then dug a hole in the ground and silently buried his pyrotechnic equipment. He would never use it again.

The Maple Lord gave Wolem a gift as he finishing his task. It was a blow dart and a pouch of darts. Wolem and the Maple lord walked again silently through the trees. Wolem heard the sounds of battle ahead. For the first time in what seemed a very long time Wolem remembered his friends and their quest. He started to go help his friends. Then the Maple Lord gave him one last gift, it was a pouch filled with seeds. Wolem took it, bowed, and left to join his friends. The Maple Lord wondered when Wolem would realize that he was now entrusted with spreading the Ents throughout the earth.

__________________
Happy Easter! Christ is Risen!

"We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love."~Jonathan Swift

Gualbert motioned toward Wolem. "Wolem, there you are!" he shouted. "Some of the kingdom archers that escaped Jargg are regrouping on that large rock over there-" he pointed to a huge ancient rock formation around twenty yards from where he was standing. "knock 'em down - I'll cover you!"

Endil too saw the regrouping archers. Turin sang thrice in four seconds* and then Endil returned to his own fight- a veteran that was easily as good with a bow as him. Another arrow whistled over his head as he ducked, and pulled two arrows from his quiver. he fired the first one and his enemy dodged it. He pointed the second high in the air and fired. It was an arrow of the type known as a Flu-Flu, which flies in a high parabolic arc. Endil fired another plain arrow and again his foe dodged, only to be struck down by the dropping Flu-Flu. “That worked good” Endil thought “I wish I had more of those in my quiver”

*their effects are up to you, Aquinas.
OOC:the Flu-Flu is an actual type of arrow. it's used for hunting birds.

__________________

Wolem was excited by the prospect of blood and battle, he is a Balam after all.

But what if my blood flows?

But Wolem's time with the Maple Lord, and the fact that he had gained 220 pounds of muscle, had instilled Wolem with a new resolve to fight.

Wolem hurled himself with a roar into the group of soldiers. Wolem was surprised by the power of his voice. Three of soldiers fled into the brush, whether to avoid Wolem or the the arrows of Endil and Gaulbert it is hard to say. Two more fell to the Elf's bow. Wolem was left with four opponents. Snatching up a shield Wolem slammed himself into the grimmest of the party. The soldier had the bad luck to have his sword arm pinned down under the shield. Wolem dealt with him in typical feline fashion.

But the remaining opponents were not idle. One fled and the other two stuck at wolem with their spears. Thankfully they were only glancing blows. A shot from Gaulbert hit one in them in the back. Elite soldiers of the empire wear no backplate because they should be always facing the foe.

Wolem ducked under the spear of the final opponent and leapt at his throat. They grappled for a moment and the soldier stopped thrashing.

Life is so much easier now that I am big.

Wolem waved cheerfully in thanks to his companions as blood dripped down his jar.

__________________
Happy Easter! Christ is Risen!

"We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love."~Jonathan Swift