Octagon - Another Purpose - Game Thread.

Lucas hesitates for mere moments as he sights down the arrow toward the hounds, his eyes keen on their movements. On the very muscles on the hounds that contract and expand in a rhythym unfamiliar to water farmer noble. He has never seen one of these broken hounds before. Actually,when Zinobia listed off the creatures of the wasteland, Lucas could do nothing but smile and nod falsy knowingly, glancing at the others to see if his adept question had queued them in on what dangers lied ahead. Now, facing down one of these hounds, watching the slather drool from their mouths onto the sands as the jumped and tore at Jax, he was amazed by the sheer ferocity of the beasts. He wondered what the rest would look like. The Cragworm he knew but the others . . . what lie on this path he was sure to wonder at. But even so he grew fearful.

He couldn't help it. Seeing the inscrutable resiliency of the warrior reminded him of the unforgiving nature of his father. In his head, he knew he was still a boy, wet behind the ears. The wastes had made these other travellers tough. Lucas was born lucky, or unforetunate depending on how you looked at it. The boy in him saw the hounds running at him, tearing at the glaive, biting at his hamstrings, and wanted to run. Not only to flee but to cry as he did.

But the crystal wouldn't let him. His sinews flexed effortlessly. The bow and arrow both drawn effortlessly. Sliding into position at the extreme of his range sighting the the hounds bearing down on his companion. Effortlessly. He let his fingers slowly release and watched the arrow sail with easy grace towards the novel creatures, more bite than bark, as a single tear ran down his face.

Edit: missed a sentence after tore at Jax

Maybe the rush of bravado was a bit over jax's head. The pain from the hounds ambush is relatively significant and jax stumbles a bit trying to keep ground.

The broken hounds however are not strong enough to overwhelm jax and his training from when he served in iscobal. With a planted foot and with a great deal of rage from the pain he cleaves his hammer around to smash a hound

Mandoric gulps. He throws the seskii feed sausage with all his might at the approaching broken hound, hoping the tasty food will distract the beast from the attack, at least long enough to give his seskii an advantage. Simultaneously he urges his seskii towards the beaked monster with the command 'kill'. As his faithful seskii lunges forward, the merchant follows her, reaching for his whip.

Does the seskii deal 3 extra damage for the 19? I dearly hope so :-)

Ronna spins another dart from her launcher into the barrel and takes a shot at Hound #3. However, her inexperience in combat shows in her posture and she moves with far too much hurry. She is not timid, but clearly nervous and too eager to prove herself.

Zinobia, after long aiming, releases air from his lungs, and his blowgun sings "Whisss!", and the dart coated with liquid from Zinobia's bottle flies towards one of the hounds.

Dart shot (-1 diff light W, -1 diff long aim vs diff 2 creature on optimal range (edge of short range)) = trivial task, no roll needed. Targeted - Hound N4.

The hounds definitely put up a good fight, jax would give them credit for that. It has been awhile since he has seen the likes of battle but this has been a good refresher. The remaining hounds are pretty vicious though and jax begins to slow things down in his head as to avoid taking another bite from these beasts. remember your training he mutters in his head the entire time.



The hounds attacks were vicious but not coordinated. With a couple swift feet movements and shield blocks jax gains the advantage again on a hound and proceeds to slam his hammer justly towards it's head.

Lucas takes aim again, the fear subsiding. His body responds differently. The tearful fearful boy inside does not have a say any more. Here in the wastes, Lucas can easily understand the laws of kill or be killed. He notches another arrow and lets it fly.

Nyom arrives into the fray just in time to be attacked. Looking to her left she catches one of he hounds leaping towards her. She quickly shifts her weight to the right and pushes off to the left hoping to confuse her attacker.

I award the XP to Ronna

Jax surveys the damage from the hounds attacks. The wounds are a little bloodied but he's been far worse. After all, the hounds suffered a much worse fate.

"Your speed is just as great of an asset as it is hamper Zenobia. We must not get split up or we will have far worse encounters than this one"

Jax points his hammer down towards to the incapacitated hounds. He does not feel the need to strike at them, labeling them as no longer a threat in his mind.

Lucas sees Jax lower his guard but the hounds around him, broken as they are, are still lethal. Lucas notches another arrow and sends it toward the pack. Kill or be killed.

One of the arrows were broken, will I be able to retrieve the unbroken ones from my kill?
Well . . . that worked out well.

Mandoric will also not be satisfied until these twisted beasts are put down, or at least put to flight. His seskii takes advantage of the prone broken hound, and so does Mandoric, lashing out with his whip.

Seskii and master close in on the beaked dog, the seskii's teeth hamstringing the beast just before the merchant's whip slashes viciously across its neck. The creature's beak snaps open one last time, and it lies still on the stony ground.

I take it the broken hounds have 6 health, and we've given this one 7 damage in total.

Mandoric looks around to see how his comrades are faring, and if there are any more broken hounds he and his animal companion can deal with.

"Nicely performed, you two…" – said Zinobia with his eyes moving from Jax to Ronna and back… - "I already started…. Well, you are right. My excuses. I always been solitary hunter, and even with my son we hunted like that. I learned him to be like me. Told him that speed is necessary to survive. But, I realize that there other means to win the fight, and I should consider that in future. My apologies, kind lady.. " – he turns towards Ronna, bows a little and smiles warmly .
"A.." – he starts, but suddenly shuts his mouth and his eyes widen as he sees arrow of Lucas flying towards another hound, misses it and punctures something, that does loud "Pufffffff", the sound of air which been released when balloon have been punctured by something sharp.
"Damn Rotten Fernowalker Guts!" – he curses.

"Cursed Orosomia…. Did not noticed it here because of this bloody hound mess…. We should move. Out. Fast. I will explain on the run.
Jax, could you please be on guard and cover the back of our group and to be one who ensures that we do not leave anyone behind? Seems that you are appropriate person for such task."

"Nice shot, bud" - he throws quickly to Lucas. There is unmasked irony in his voice.

There are Nyom and Ronna turns needed to be done before we advance with turn

Ronna stops shooting her darts as soon as it is clear that the hounds have been driven away. She wanders to where the rest of the group is standing and kneels down to examine the dead hounds. Almost absent-mindedly, she brushes the side of the closest one while looking around to see if she could retrieve any of her darts.

When Zinobia starts to whip everyone back on the track, Ronna stands up and walks over to Jax, smiling meekly

"Thank you for rushing to my aid, Jax", she says. She raises her hand and touches Jax's shoulder. Light tingling and warmth spreads through his body from her touch, and his wounds hurt and muscles ache little less than they did just before.

"Don't mention it Ronna" says Jax as he feels the warmness coarse from his shoulder to the rest of his body. He looks over at Lucas and chuckles softly. "You need patience boy the hound is but motionless there is no rush" and smiles towards him before slinging his hammer on his shoulder. This was nice practice for Jax and hes glad that he didn't have to practice on something much more lethal.

"I shall make sure no one straggles, nothing gets by me" he replies to Zinobia while shaking his shield.

Nyom simply cleans the blade of her spear as she waits for the party to get moving again.