Chapter 01 Happy Solstice!

"How's everyone holding up?" Adatahl called from the woods in crisp American. "I could do this all day but frankly..." he paused for a moment as one of the vast, man-sized axheads glanced off his shield disk, "...I'm not sure we want to stick around until reinforcements arrive. For either side."

The swirling melee was almost meditative, and the huge beasts swirling around him now were being driven by rage and frustration more than any tactical consideration. That gave him room to maneuver.

He flicked one arm, shucking mass from his huge pole-ax in a puff of white mist, leaving behind a long sword with a square crossguard. Two hands free as he fenced off the enormous gargoyles, circling them around the melee, he used his other two hands to gather a disk of cloudstuff, swirling and spinning rapidly until it roared, a thunderclap that refused to resolve, until he snapped it off. The cloud discus sailed through the air, shearing through the woods until it clanged against the fire-breathing gargoyle...

Cassiopeia feels the gargoyles fall around her, but the big one has eluded her best shots. She lines him up again and tries something knew.

Running to the side she jumps onto hiss back runs up and tries to cleave his head open before he can shake her off.

Lanval takes aim at the gargoyle he winged before hoping to turn his momentary unawareness into a permanent condition.

Adatahl's implements of war vanished suddenly, disintegrating into white mist, leaving him once again a shining, but unarmed, individual. He approached the others as the Gargoyles retreated, giving them a once-over, and finding them mostly unharmed. He nodded his satisfaction.

"We should fall back. Wait for the battle to settle. Hopefully we can sneak in for a glance at what the situation looks like once the shooting has stopped."

Sun Li brushes himself off, wincing as his hands go over his ribs for a moment. He looks towards the others, nodding in agreement.

"I can scout ahead when the battle comes to an end, keep in mental contact with you all. Perhaps we can scavenge some useful information and material to bring back to the Legion when the battle is done." He leans against a tree, frowning and shaking his head softly. "Been a bit since an actual combat encounter. My mind is still efficient but I will need to be careful physically."