Log:Post-Apocalyptic Dwarves, Scene 3

Post-Apocalyptic Dwarves 2020/02/21 Ascendant Artemis Charm Fauna Ghost Moonshadow Titan Thunder Firebeard The Mountain Stoutheart Stick-in-the-Mud

3

Princess Liandere and her escort, and a force sent out to find them, have disappeared on the way to Undermoon. The heroes have gone to find them, following their trail through a post-nuclear-and-biological-warfare wasteland. While investigating the scene of a battle on the trail, they discovered a hidden camera. Shortly afterwards, a hostile group of dwarves appeared, one shouting 'hit 'em hard and hit 'em fast' in their own language. Battle was joined.

The Opposition:

Firebeard: a dwarf with bright red long hair and longer beard, dressed all in black; the figure, and especially the hair and beard, is sheathed in flame.

The Mountain: a dwarf dressed in a tunic, carrying a warhammer, unremarkable in appearance but for being 15m tall.

Stoutheart: a dwarf dressed like the aerial soldiers, though his armour is dark red and gold. In addition to the railgun, axe and jetpack, he is carrying a huge backpack and enough equipment to rival any D&D character.

Stick-in-the-Mud: a dwarf who appears to be made, clothing included, entirely of clay or mud.

Aerial soldiers: (12, in two groups of 6 currently) dwarves in high-tech armour, carrying railguns and axes, with jet packs on their backs.

The Current Situation:

The battle is on one side of a broad, semidesert valley, and is concentrated in two areas, one around Charm, and the other between a rock outcropping and the large hidden door in the valleyside cliff-face from which the dwarves emerged. Near this door, and furthest from Charm in this second area, is the Mountain; she is 60m from Charm.

Of the second group, Thunder (22m, embedded in the outcropping!) and Titan (20m) are the furtherst from the Mountain. Between Thunder and the Mountain (within 10 metres on either side of the line) are the aerial soldiers and Stick-in-the-Mud.

Close by Charm are Ghost (with Ascendant, 10m Mountainwards). Away from the Mountain from Charm are Moonshadow (5m), the lesser earth elemental (14m) and Stoutheart (20m).

Artemis is almost exactly halfway between Charm and the Mountain (30m from each). Fauna is 16m away from Artemis, perpendicular to the Charm-Mountain axis. Firebeard is unconscious on the ground beside her. 

Stoutheart rights himself and flies back toward Charm, changing weapons as he goes to a mesh gun, which he fires at her.

A fine wiry mesh is fired at Charm - but she, being her father's daughter, is (just!) fast enough to dodge it!

Stoutheart mutters comments about the fae into his beard.

Ascendant grins gleefully as glorious combat falls upon them. He can't help but take to teh air and charge the nearest Aerial Soldier who shot at Charm. "Hahaha! You've come to the wrong place if you expected Aerial Superiority!" He says, summoning his Spirit Brand and charging his target.

Once in striking range he swings the blunt side of his weapon at his target.

Moonshadow loops around and follows Stoutheart, firing another Dark Blast at him.

Moonshadow loops around and follows Stoutheart, firing another Dark Blast down at him.

The Ascendant Nohrbor Nanuran Surryx strikes true with the backside of his soul forged spear.

The blunted tip comes down on his target's shoulder with incredible force and sends the dwarf hurtling towards the ground, leaving the Godflora laughing haughtily in the sky.

The Dwarf crashes, leaving a dust cloud that reveals the crater a moment later.

Stoutheart is pounded further into the ground, though his armour seems especially resistant to magic.

Ascendant is about to begin looking for a new combatant to engage but sees movement from his foe below, even after Moonshadow's strike on him. His laughter halts- though only to shift notes. "Oh! Thou thinks himself a tough one I see. Excellent! We shall test your mettle then!" He shouts, pointing his spear point at the Dwarf in the middle of his crater. "Bring'eth then, Mortal!" He seems particularly happy that this guy seems much tougher than one would expect.

Ghost closes the distance to Charm so she can better protect her. She maintains the 'trip' cantrip on the Mountain and waves a finger in Stoutheart's direction. As her finger passes across his position the Spetsdod on the back of her right hand spits a Sleeper needle at him.

<&lt;I'll be happy to crack your skull, laddie, as soon as I'm done with these damned fae....>> says Stoutheart, just as he gets shot.

Stoutheart feels the sting - and gives Ghost a look of disgust.

Artemis flies towards the group of aerial soldiers, an eager smile on her lips. She draws back her sword arm, and once she gauges herself to be close enough, she spins counter clockwise twice as her sword breaks apart into segments connected by a thin line of energy. Each spin, the whip grows longer, and on the last spin, her arm sweeps out. The whip flashes across a wide arc of the battle field.

Ghost assumes Stoutheart understands Fae. She tells him, "I had to try the non-lethal option first. We are not your enemies. We are only defending ourselves."

The aerial soldiers are thrown back by the blast, but seem unharmed.

MegaFauna heads for the Mountain to provide the giant dwarf with a larger playmate!

The roar from MegaFauna is loud, but the punch is also loud and rumbly on impact.

Artemis slows her spin and lets her whip wrap up around her waist after striking the aerial soldiers. "Hmm, made of sterner stuff than I expected! Good," she flashes a smile. "I won't have to hold back!"

The giant, still unable to get to her feet, is helpless before the punch. But seems to be able to take it.

Stick-in-the-Mud turns to face the two (larger) giants, and gestures at the ground beneath the Mountain's feet, which hardens to stone and sends the elemental spirit fleeing as the earth is wrested from its grasp.

Titan flies over closer to Stick-in-the-Mud. He's not even concerned that the punch might be less effective against something made of mud. He just swings away, trying to punch downward. "The cowardice of you dwarves is staggering."

Ghost chuckles on hearing Titan's comment. She commits it to permanent headware storage.

Bits of Stick-in-the-Mud splatter all over the cliff-face - but move rapidly to gather themselves again.

One of the soldiers shouts <> and half a dozen dwarves swarm at each of two targets - Artemis and Titan, changing weapons as they go.

Artemis readies her shield with her whip will wrapped around her. She studies the many. Her shield rises up with the first strike, then to her 6 for the next. She blocks most of the blows, but the numbers overwhelm her and one of the axes crashes into her flank and makes her grit her teeth. For all the kinetic energy of that axe, Artemis does not budge. She turns her head to the one who got through. "Well struck! We'll see how you fare against my blows!"

Titan gets buffeted about by the dwarves...all of whom actually managed to hurt him, at least a little bit. He gets knocked back a little but, but rights himself near the ground. "You didn't learn you lessons after trying to shoot me, did you?"

The Mountain grins as the ground hardens beneath her. She gets up - and then up a lot more, growing further till she towers even over Fauna. <> she says with a grin, as she swings her now-massive weapon toward Fauna's head.

The thundering blow seems quite effective! MegaFauna is knocked senseless and to the ground, shaking her massive head.

"Hah!" shouts the Mountain, shaking the very valley with her booming voice.

Next to and above the clifface door, two more apertures open - and out slides some sort of energy weapon at each. They take aim at heroes....

Titan gets struck. It burns through his shirt...but not his skin. That's much like hte effect the axes had. "Oh look...more cowardly attacks. What a surprise."

Artemis turns in time to see the attack and raises her shield. She braces against the blast, mostly unharmed, but she's starting to get worn down gradually.

Thunder, kipping up to his feet quickly, shakes his head after the onslaught. Then he sees lasers going by. Looking back, he can see Artemis has the aerial soldiers better than him at the moment. And... well, lasers are nasty. The teenager leaps, doing a twist in the air as he passes between MegaFauna and the Mountain to land by one of the turrets and grab it.

In a show of what has to be super human strength, the teenager rips the laser by the turret out of the mountain itself with a yell as a small haze of heat seems to surround him. The teenager turns as he looks towards the fight, obviously trying to judge perhaps distance or something.

Stoutheart rolls to his feet with surprising agility for a dwarf. He heads toward Charm - but shoots his tangle gun at Ghost as he goes. The set of his jaw suggests he knows he's exposing himself to attack but won't be stopped from him purpose.

"We Godflora can be impatient when our due is not given, Mortal. Nay- we see who's skull cracks fist NOW." The Ascendant Doj'on says forcefully as he hurls his spear of psionic energy at Stoutheart. This kind of special interest doesn't come easily!

Ascendant focuses his will into the spear as it flies- his plan is to make himself seem more 'Fae' than all the others, at least to Stoutheart. As the spear leaves Nohrbor Nanuran Surryx's divine reach it falls from the mortal plane and becomes a sphere of his will sent to corrupt the minds of the Dwarf.

Those gifted with the sight of the astral plane will know well that Stoutheart is struck true even if he doesn't yet. Nohrbor Nanuran Surryx begins to feed the insidious lie power so that it may creep at Stoutheart's sanity.

Ghost astral steps out of the wire netting. She turns first to Charm, "I am the Princess Guard commander, Charm. You will obey. Go hence from here." Then to Moonshadow, "Take Charm to safety at the Undermoon Embassy. Now!" Turning back to Stroutheart, "We were not your enemies. But today you have made us so." Then she fires a stinger needle at him.

The dwarf is knocked back by the force of the blow, landing prone - but still he's moving...

Charm looks about for nearby place to step between worlds - but finds none. But she does her best to obey Ghost's order, doubling back the way the heroes came....

Faced against many aerial soldiers, Artemis raises her shield as a secondary weapon as well as defense, preparing to smash any who assault her. Meanwhile, she bumps her hip to send her whip unraveling. Once it's free of her body, she shifts it up to spin over head, then switches directions in a downward horizontal slash at the dwarves who struck her.

MegaFauna recovers from the massive blow, really quite accustomed to taking hard hits from gravity and from walls, just never while in the giant size.

Artemis can give as good as she got. Ther's a loud whip crack as the aerial soldier is struck and sent flying from Artemis to become a speck against the massive Fauna. She looks to the rest fo the aerial soldiers, grinning with battlelust. "Who challenges me next!?" she demands eagerly.

The lesser earth elemental trudges after Charm, still trying to protect her, but is not as quick.

The Mountain, seeing that Fauna is staying down (at least so far), turns her attention (and warhammer) to the little Titan.

The gigantic warhammer smashes Titan and 4 of the dwarves engaging him into the ground. The dwarves stay there.

Titan gets slammed into the ground. He shakes his head, "Ow. Well...I was going to wait to fight you...but, I guess we can do it now."

Titan springs to his feet, "Apparently not much of a team player either, huh?" He launches himself at Mountain, charging at full speed using his flight, attempting to strike her midsection.

Titan strikes Mountain in the chest, knocking her back a few meters into the cliff, which crumbles a bit. He's starting to look a bit tired and bruised at this point, but his confidence doens't seem to be wavering.

Stick-in-the-Mud suddenly dives into the ground, and can only be seen barely, as a wave rippling through it, away from the fight.

Moonshadow flies after Charm. "Come with me if you want to leave," she says (almost with a straight face).

The soldiers switch back from fighting Artemis to fighting Thunder, since he took out one of the big lasers...

Stouheart hauls himself to his feat again, pulls out his railgun and fires on Ghost.

While looking for another opponent as the dwarves flee, another heavy laser salvo streaks towards Artemis. She brings up her shield, but the force of it knocks it aside and the laser shoots straight through the Godflora. "Unngghh!" Her pain is brief as she loses consciousness, sent flying away from the blast. Even in near death, she at least maintains an iron grip on her blade.

The railgun projectile impacts of her left forearm. Lusky really as the missile punches straight through her force armor and through her arm.

Ghost is further knocked about as the kinetic transfer hurls her backward across the field of battle

Moonshadow wraps herself and Charm up in her cloak, which keeps wrapping tighter until they vanish.

"Foolish Dwarf- come to me and see your truth. Find your Fae here, in me!" He commands from overhead though he nears a bit to make himself easier to see hoping to life his attention away from Ghost- who's now given blood for the cause. The Godflora are big on sacrifice so he won't see her blood spilled in vain.

"Face me, Cur! Lest your Honor be as paltry as your height!" He says trying to poke the Stoutheart into attacking him.

Ghost sighs with heartfelt relief as Moonshadow and Charm port away. Then she brings her arm up throws her Spedsdod at the earth elemental, "Break it." she commands.

Ghost smashes the back of her hand against a rock, breaking her weapon to deny its technology to the dwarves.

Titan shrinks...and flies toward the cannon port. He can't take another hit like the one he took from Mountain last time. Not yet, at least. So, he zips around and tries to smash the cannon with a forearm on the way past into the port proper.

Titan does bounce off of the cannon, and he gets behind it, but doesn't break it. Yet.

MegaFauna rises, one arm resting loosely on the ground as she gets upright, her two arms both raised for slamming into mountains.

The Mountain takes the massive blow - and still stands, unmoved.

Moonshadow guides Charm up to the roof, and flies her back to the Embassy.