The Branchalites go East

Chapter 24: Purchases in Purstal: The Hurk hustle.

Gilleana had them backtrack into the main city before working their way around to an easterly approach. She didn't want to engage multiple militia teams at the same time, and she was concerned circling the town hall building might provoke that scenario. There were five skeletal warriors at the base of the steps again, and this time as they approached the undead, the figure that shimmered and appeared was not one with chains. Instead of the chains, the humanoid figure carried a massive glaive, a pole arm with an axe-like head, and the curved blade was serrated and gleaming wickedly. The creature had pointed ears and moist scaly skin, a long tail, clawed hands and feet and a snaky disgusting beard. It wasn't one of the bakali lizard people, which meant that it was likely an outsider and given the weapon it carried, a different kind of infernal. Unlike the militia, who held their positions as part of their bound instructions, the infernal started sprinting toward them as soon as it appeared.

Stura knew that Gilleana wanted everyone to at least wait for one set of tricks and so she held her ground, drew her sword and activated her adrenaline abilities, veins standing out against her skin, her body literally trembling with repressed fury as she prepared to carve up this monster. To Fandy's eye, Stura appeared to have an extreme of rage that she'd never seen her exhibit before. Gilleana, running low on mystical energies, used the gentle blessing from Paladine to give them all a burst of courage, and drew her sword. Fandy spied Sedgwick drinking from a bottle and then drawing his sword, right as she was using her trick to make everyone go faster. All of the skeletal warriors switched to their bows and fired arrows at the group, aiming for Stura and Mark as they were on point – none of the arrows penetrated. Mark used his lightning trick, directing the bolt at the figure with the polearm. It managed to dodge some of the bolt, but the electricity still injured the creature as it sprinted toward the group.

As the beast charged at Stura, she struck it in full fury. The glaive opened a cut on Stura's abdomen that continued to bleed after the weapon had scythed through, and she struck back taking full advantage of the go faster and courage tricks laid upon her. Spittle flew from Stura's mouth as she unleashed a sequence of devastating blows on the creature in front of her, her blade passing completely through the monster's body twice before it dissipated and returned to it's home plane. She righted herself and prepared to advance on the skeletal warriors. Gilleana used a trick that Fandy had never seen her use before and wreathed herself in thin and wispy blue flames and then moved toward the skeletal warriors, calling out, "Advance," as she went. Heeding Gilleana's instruction, Sedgwick took off, sprinting at full pelt toward the militia, passing Gilleana (because he didn't pause to cast a spell), and closing to melee with one of the skeletal warriors. Fandy used a personal protection trick, putting up an arcane invisible shield and then moved up closer to the enemy, hoping to get close enough to use her blue flame jets. Four of the skeletal warriors fired arrows, two of them directing their projectiles toward Gilleana and two of them firing upon Fandy. Their arrows failed to cause any injuries. The one that Sedgwick ran up to switched out to his halberd and then tripped Sedgwick with it, following up immediately with a slash of the weapon to Sedgwick's chest, injuring him. Fandy saw Mark moving in her periphery, moving into range and unleashing one of his lightning bolts on one of the archers, not risking hitting Sedgwick who was in melee. That skeleton sizzled, popped and looked about ready to drop.

Stura took off sprinting and made it all the way to the left most skeletal warrior, who was still using his bow. He switched out to his halberd when she arrived and tried the same trick of tripping her that the other one had with Sedgwick, but Stura's training and fury were too much for the undead to achieve success against the aghar barbarian. Gilleana moved closer to the undead and invoked a blessing that caused a green glowing sword to appear above the skeletal warrior fighting with Sedgwick. Sedgwick didn't attempt to get up, he slashed at the creature from the ground, smacking it three times as it slashed at him once. Sedgwick's arm was injured, but the undead was destroyed and the equipment fell to the ground with a clatter. Fandy moved closer still and used her trick to guide her aim with arcane intuition, ensuring an magical accuracy to her next attack. The three still using their bows, shot at Fandy, but their arrows were deflected by the invisible, arcane shield she had in place. Mark moved up and threw a lightning bolt at one of the uninjured skeletal warriors, but it had no effect on the creature, some kind of natural resistance to spells helping it to avoid the discharge.