Even as physically powerful as he is, Karikhan knows he can not hope to overpower the orc with pure muscle. If there is a rock or a dropped goblin weapon anywhere close enough to reach, Karikhan will use Willpower to bash or stab the side of the orc’s head with it. Otherwise, he will use Willpower in an attempt to gouge out the orcs eyes with his thumbs.
Now that the raging Shelic have entered the battle the burden on Dur’dan has lifted, but is not gone. The path is clearer now to get to his little friend being surounded by monsters. The hin doesn’t stand a chance alone but even Dur’dan is on his last leg. He surges forward to drive away the Greenskins from his friend.
“Must… Save… Hin… BASTARDS CAN’T HAVE 'EM!” Dur’dan bellows again, charging the group surrounding Hob.
Again Dur’dan will use willpower.
His smoke break already a distant memory, Hob finds himself surrounded by greenskins. Encircled, there seems to be no way out. He draws out a loud gulp from his adam apple, as tendrils of hopelessness begin to grip his small frame.
Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he sees Karikhan rush through on his mighty camel. Just gotta hold on, he thinks.
“Hey now, fellows, don’t suppose we could talk this over. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is just one big misunderstanding,” he says nervously. The only reply he receives is a jagged sword slashed near his mid-section. “Woah, you almost hit my wallet!” Hin blurts out, for he would rather die than lose his precious monies.
Which is what makes his last-ditch idea a very agonizing decision. He deliberately reaches into his wallet and pulls out some money, preferably gold coins if he is carrying any. “Perhaps this can convince you not to kill me,” Hob says. If the goblins seem interested in the money, he will throw it at their feet and run off in the resulting confusion (in the direction of Dur’dan if possible).
nudge nudge
Bloodjaw is roaring down at the struggling human trapped beneath him and the suffering of his ears rivals that of his throat and lungs. Khan is a giant among his own people but compared to the Voice’s greatest enemy he seems like little more than a child. He casts his clouded sight to his side, his arm disappearing into the horizon of his fading vision. His fingers thrash about in the sand, until finally feeling something… something cold and smooth. He tries dragging it closer but it falls from his grip when the warlord lifts his upper body from the ground before pounding it back, fingers digging into the flesh of his throat.
As Khan’s brain is deprived of oxygen it takes him to strange places. He remembers his first spirit walk, a trek alone into the desert. He was a young boy then, but already the elders were aware of his magical talent. He was sent into the wilds to commune with the Voice, a journey that lasted him nearly two weeks. His memory of that time expands out, filling a few moments with what feels like an eternity of pain and self-discovery.
As with waking from a sleep, Khan can’t be sure of how much time has passed. But Bloodjaw is still atop him and his vision is gone. And he can feel the steel beneath his hand. With the last of his consciousness he runs his hand along the ground, feeling for a handle. When he finds the supple leather grip he digs it free from the dirt and wrenches the weapon skyward. The battleaxe buries itself into Bloodjaw’s side, nearly toppling the massive warrior over. Khan is freed from the monster’s grip while the warlord howls in fury, arms launched over his head in a show of overwhelming rage. The battleaxe looks like little more than a toy handaxe embedded in Bloodjaw’s torso, but Khan sees it clearly with his returning vision, and he instantly recognizes it: Dur’dan’s battleaxe. Dur’dan is… dead?
Khan doesn’t have long to contemplate this- a moment later the impossibly-sized boar has collided with its former rider, both spilling into the sand. Karikhan covers his face with his arms and rolls free from the thrashing fingers and tusks and hooves just as his camel joins the fray, vainly adding what awkward stomps it can to the tumbling pair. On his hands and knees now and looking away from Bloodjaw for the first time Khan finds that he and the brawling creatures a few feet away are all surrounded by a tight ring of onlooking greenskins, most of them agape with wonder.
Hey, don’t forget to tell us about the real hero of this story!
Hob is holding out a handful of coins, most of them battered copper and silver bits, with only a couple of heavier gold pieces mixed in. “Perhaps this can convince you not to kill me.” The goblins immediately pour in in response, shrieking and chirping, swords and spears and sticks and stones all waving. Hob swipes at a goblin with his short sword but the attack is deflected and his weapon sent tumbling to the ground. A spear into the back of his right leg pulls the halfling to his knees, bringing his face right into the line of a swinging short sword. A ribbon of blood slashes across the air as the hin falls back, his legs bent at the knees beneath him.
Little greenskins are crowding all about him, some going for his coins, others for his weapon, others for the kill, when a wheezing, gore-soaked dwarf spills through them, insane with rage. “BASTARDS CAN’T HAVE 'EM!” The goblins all evade the dwarf’s maddened swipes and are sent scattering like a flock of vultures, forming a wider ring around Dur’dan and the fallen halfling. “Hin!” It’s Dur’dan’s turn to pull Hob over, finding a wicked cut that winds from one of his ears, under his chin, and clear across to the other side of his face. Dur’dan cannot tell if the halfling is alive or dead. He stands over his fallen friend, growling at the goblins as they slowly approach.
Hob has taken five points of lethal damage and three points of bashing damage. This puts him at having one health box filled with aggravated damage and five filled with lethal damage. He’s failed the check to stay conscious, but even if roused, with every health box filled with lethal damage or higher the checks to remain awake occur every round, regardless of further damage taken. Furthermore, he will have to make a check every minute to avoid upgrading a further point of lethal damage to aggravated until he has been stabilized with successful first aid. If all his health boxes become filled with aggravated damage he dies.
There are frighteningly few Hadburgs and Yellow Suns fighting alongside the dwarves on the northern side of the battle now. John Fredrickson is shoulder-to-shoulder with Yesh, a short and particularly hairy dark-skinned peasant dressed in burlap and armed with a short sword, likely a family heirloom. Arrow, Kittix, Tusk and Trimere, an overweight and ginger-haired man of 40 covered in boiled leather bands armed with a trident, are all that survive of their company. The fighting has thinned but there is still danger.
“We better get paid lots for this, Arrow.” Kittix is panting, for once too exhausted to quake in fear.
“Gold is the furthest thing from my mind at the moment Kitz. I just want to kill the bastards that slayed Goro!” Arrow shouts to Kittix
“For Goro!” Arrow screamed as he releases arrow after arrow into the flesh of the enemy.
“For Goro!” Kittix joins. A few moments later, “I spend his share well. It what he would have wanted.”
So many gone.
Karikhan turns his back on the encircling goblins, and stalks toward the literal ton of flesh, bone, and gore tumbling in the dirt. If his spear is handy, Khan will pick it up. If not, he’ll draw a javelin, but not throw it.
So much sacrificed.
Khan speaks with the Voice, calling to Auren-hal, the Proud Huntress. “End this monster.” His voice croaks with effort, little more than a whisper. He can’t be sure the Proud Huntress even heard him. Karikhan’s own life seems insignificant next to the destruction and misery around him. What a monstrous tragedy if it were all to have been wasted.
I’ll make sure it was not in vain.
Bloodjaw is the horde. Without him, the greenskins are nothing worse than a rat infestation; swarming and vile, but not a threat. As he marches to his likely death, Karikhan has no regrets. Silent now, he charges into the fray, using any remaining willpower to stab the orc warlord to death.
Khan stumbles along the ground towards where he thinks his spear might be. There’s a high-pitched YELP as Bloodjaw butchers the boar with one of the huge cleavers now returned to his hand. Khan finds the spear in the dirt near the brawl, a line of blood in the sand connecting it and the orc’s positions. The warlord is facing down the camel now, which rushes in to fulfill the shaman’s order and is decapitated cleanly a moment later.
Karikhan stands before Bloodjaw, both of them slick with blood, sweat and the grimy sand of the Burning Sea.
“End… this… monster.” Khan’s voice is pained, words replaced with a screeched imitation of a hawk’s call.
[FONT=“Arial Black”]“You think you can kill me?” Bloodjaw’s words are now spoken and not roared, but the volume of his voice remains immense. “I’m a demigod! I’ve got the blood of Pragor!” He steps forward and Khan is forced to step back. The orc is risen to his full height now and Khan finds that he might as well be fighting a literal giant. “I’M GONNA SHOUT YER EARS BLOODY!” He takes another step forward. “AND I’M GONNA STOMP YER LANDS FLAT!” Karikhan lunges, thrusting his spear up at Bloodjaw’s head. His weapon impacts along a plate on the warlord’s chest and the huge greenskin lifts an arm to retaliate. There is a screeeeeech as Auren-hal appears at the orc’s side, talons raking across his face. He roars and redirects his attention to the bird, snatching it from the air with his bare hand and effortlessly crushing the life out of it.
There is a pause, pregnant with tension, as Karikhan looks between Bloodjaw’s face and his fist, closed tight around the bird he knows to rest dead within. Little spheres of transparent light are raining down from the orc’s hand like snowflakes. Bloodjaw opens his fist and shakes his hand in confusion, sending a flood of brilliant white sparks waterfalling to the ground below, all that remains of the spirit animal.
The shaman surges forward, driving the spear into the greenskin’s belly once again, inches from the previous wound, shouting as loud as his lungs can bear in the language of his people. Bloodjaw roars and swipes at the air with his cleaver. Khan feels himself knocked back by a blow, his weapon ripped free in his hands. He looks down at himself as a line of red forms along the pelts at his chest as if being painted by a massive brush at that very moment. He nearly falls to a knee beneath the pain of his injury but keeps on his feet. Bloodjaw is rising to his full height once again feet away from him, his face twisted into a look of purest fury, as if outraged at the human’s audacity.
Karikhan has taken three points of bashing damage. He now has two health boxes filled with lethal damage and eight health boxes filled with bashing damage. He has succeeded the check to remain conscious but will have to make another check whenever he takes more damage of any kind. He will take a -3 penalty to all dice rolls until he’s healed. He’s spent four points of Willpower so far (his initial attack, another attack when pinned, two more attacks).[/font]
Dur’dan feels himself slipping into a rage,
“YOU HEATHENS GET AWAY NOW!” and he brandishes his hatchet at them,
“RUN NOW OR I WILL KILL YOU ALL!” He screams at the top of his lungs trying to intimidate and scare the Goblins away. He will stand directly over Hob to protect him. He will attack anything that gets too close and will use Willpower if he has any remaining ONLY on first aid for Hob once the Goblins have ran away.
Karikhan has already resigned himself to his fate. His only goal is to steal the orc’s attention long enough for the Shelic to arrive and finish the evil creature. He looks down at his empty hands, and realizes the utter futility of striking the humongous orc without a weapon. His spear is firmly embedded in the orc’s belly; a wound which could have brought any man to his knees in agony, but has only enraged this monster.
Using the last of his willpower, Karikhan will hurl a javelin at the orc. If it’s still not enough to stop him, Khan will try to retrieve his spear from the orc’s belly.
Sorry for the confusion, but by “ripped free in his hands” (as opposed to ripped free from his hands) I meant to say that the spear was pulled from the orc as it backed away. Khan still has his spear in hand!
John finally runs out of great rewards that he will get after the battle. “And… And lasses, did I mention lasses?” he says as he slashes at another goblin. He’s too tired to try and keep moral up now; the battle is nothing more than an endless series of traded blows.
Alright, amend my action to stabbing the stupid thug instead of throwing a javelin at him. Thanks!
Hob’s reaction to recent events: X＿X
Karikhan is exhausted. Bloodjaw is a hulking silhouette before him, the sun shining out from around his heaving shoulders. Khan looks down at his hands, both worn raw by the wooden spear resting across his palms. His lungs burn and the hot stinging air does nothing to soothe them.
[font=“Arial Black”]“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!” Bloodjaw drags his cleaver from the ground and swings it in a semicircle around his body sending a wave of warm sand through the air. Khan searches for any ounce of energy left and finds himself wanting. He sees the shadow of a bird flit by and doesn’t know if it is real or imagined. He’ll be joining Auren-hal soon.
Bloodjaw’s weapon is moving towards him at a snail’s pace, grains of sand still rolling back across the face of its blade and tumbling behind it in its wake. Khan feels something inside of him, something he hasn’t felt since that first walk into the desert. The Voice?
Karikhan’s reaction is immediate: He tosses himself to the ground, somersaulting beneath Bloodjaw’s attack before rolling to his feet behind the monster. He drives his spear up into the orc’s side with a scream, pushing and pushing, every cell of his body screaming with him, burning all that remains in the tank to see his duty done. When he finally collapses onto his back half of his spear has disappeared into Bloodjaw’s body.
The orc sways before his legs crumple beneath him and he falls prone beside the human. The orcs and goblins gathered around the pair are watching in silence.
Bloodjaw rolls to his side, facing Karikhan. His eyes are painted with shock, tears of blood dripping from a tusk. He’s speaking to his adversary in his own language, too pained to translate. The two stare at each other, one completely used up, the other slowly slipping across the veil. The orc is saying something, but the roar of the nearing Shelic overwhelms his words. His eyes are locked on Khan’s. He’ll be gone soon.[/font]