Aloysius and Echo both attacked the dog with their daggers, with only Echo managing to harm the creature. Arachne stayed out of the way. Etienne continued to fend off the half-eared man's attacks. Blacky charged in and attempted to fell the man fighting Etienne like he had done several others this night, but he failed to make contact with his axe.
Kaileer tossed his spear at the dog on Jana, hitting it in the back. The man fighting Jana tried to draw another weapon, but she took him down with her mace before he had the chance. She turned on the dog then, bashing it once as well, but the stubborn beast seemed determined not to die. It snapped at Jana again, only to get a mouthful of her shield.
Two more arrows, soon joined by a crossbow bolt, sailed gracefully into the mud well in front of Jana and Kaileer.
"Kaileer, help Echo!" Jana said while smashing the dog. "I can finish up here." She swung again at the dog, still trying to get back in the door.
"Time...to...finish...this." Blacky puffed out between swings at one ear, clearly having problems with the blood pouring out of his neck.
"Blacky help Echo, I need get spear." Kaileer said with a frown.
"You bring spear, I help Echo..." he said, turning to run back into the room. With a frown he looked at Blacky and Etienne, both severely wounded and then at Echo and Aloysius, trying to fight off a dog with a dagger. Making his decision, the ranger moved quickly beside the wizard and chopped at the hound with his sword.
Arachne readied a stone in her sling and edged over toward the doorway to the courtyard. She tried to peer outside -- without getting in the way of anyone's serious fighting -- to see if more locals might be coming from without.
Aloysius emitted an odd snarl as his frustration grew. "Die foul cur!" he growled at the dog as he took another hack at it with his dagger.
"Oh, thank the gods," Echo muttered now that someone with some fighting ability was finally able to help out with the dog. "Hey, mutt, over here," she yelled as she stabbed at it again, trying to distract its attention away from Kaileer's approach.
The blood pouring from Blacky's neck seemed to have little effect on his ability to fight as he unceremoniously chopped the half-eared man into smaller pieces. The damage the muscular man could do with the great axe he wielded was truly impressive, but if one had stopped to notice the gore, it would also probably be truly nauseating. Blood from several different people now coated the floor of the room in a slick crimson film.
Kaileer went after the dog on Echo and Aloysius, nearly knocking Arachne down as she slunk towards the door. Kaileer's sword found its mark against the beast, although it seemed to do only minimal harm. The dog, however, sniffed the air rather than snapping at anyone and turned to run. No one was able to stop it as it ran for the door, the second creature to nearly cause Arachne to lose her footing in the last few moments.
Jana and her dog continued to circle one another ominously. She missed the dog with her mace, and like the dog in the room, this one also decided not to bite. It whimpered almost pitifully and joined the other dog as it ran. Jana took another swing at it, missing again. Two more arrows and one more crossbow bolt materialized in the mud in front of her, all coming much closer to actually hitting this time.
Both dogs ran to the southwest corner of the courtyard and disappeared into the darkness.
Six men, a woman, and a dog lay bleeding, broken, and dismembered in the room and the courtyard that it opened into. Light still poured from the room, and the sudden cease of fighting made the rainy night seem momentarily silent.
"Now what?" Arachne whispered. She peered, from as much concealment as she could muster, out into the darkness.
Blacky fell to his knees after cutting the last man down. "Well, that's five for me and a dog, some one else will have to kill those archers. I could use a little help with these arrows." He said, clearly drained as he laid his axe beside him. "Kaileer, you want to see if you can do some sharp shooting from the cover of the doorway. I knew I should have taken one of those crossbows" Blacky finished quietly, trying to figure out what to do about the arrows sticking out of him.
Etienne was also on his knees at this moment. He looked at Blacky, "I'll be with you in a minute. I can't heal you if I'm unconcious." He pulled a wineskin from his back and doused the wound in his side with water, cleaning out the dirt and blood. He then laid his hands on the wound and murmered a quiet prayer.
Kaileer nodded grimly, returning his sword to it's scabbard and handing the shield to Aloysius. "Hold this..." he said to the wizard as he took an arrow from his quiver and moved to the door to discern where the archers were based on the angle of the arrows and bolts in the ground.
Jana frowned as the dogs fled. "Dammit. Now they'll just crawl off and die in pain," she muttered, as she looked for Kaileer's spear. (If she was able to get it, she gave it to him.) She moved back inside the room and took a look around. She had a couple of injuries, sword cuts, but they weren't especially bad.
Jana winced in sympathy at the injury to Echo's hand. "You've gotta stop sticking your hand out to strange dogs," she said with a slight grin. "I think they know you're not a 'dog person.'" The grin did not hide the look of worry in Jana's eyes.
"I think I hate dogs," Echo remarked. "I know I'm developing a great deal of fear of them."
"That foolish little gypsy girl," Jana said to everyone in general, was cut down and carried off. Jana seemed oblivious to the fact that the 'little girl' was probably older than she was. "So, do we haul our asses out of here and to the hells with her, or do we try to get her out?"
Jana's gaze shifted to Arachne. She walked over to the gnome and said, looking way, way down, "Can you do that little doorway trick to get everyone away from this place, then get one or two of us over to where the girl is and out again?" Jana inclined her head toward Kaileer, Blacky and Etienne. "They're in no shape to do anything right now, but I'm okay. If you could get me to her, I might be able to grab her and run." She grimaced. "I have a pretty good idea why they wanted her."
"One up on me," Arachne replied quietly. "Too many different possibilities present themselves -- all ugly." She shuddered. "No use thinking about that. Getting us out of here? Yes, I can do that, but not right away. I'd need to rest a -- a while first." She sighed. "An hour, actually. No-one told me you were going to want to leave as soon as you'd arrived. And I could work the door trick to get you to where she was -- if I had another hour and knew where she was and she wasn't very far away." She shook her head. "Sorry."
"We can't just leave her here," Echo inserted. As she listened to the rest of the conversation, she added, "That would have sounded a lot more heroic if we actually had the option of leaving." She didn't glare at the gnome like several of the others, but she did look extremely unhappy about the current predicament. "I don't have any spells, and I'm hurt. Should we try to get out, by the gates, I guess, and find Oleanne before we try to get Rumer, or just go ahead and get it over with?" She swallowed hard, "I mean, try to get rescuing her over with."
Aloysius looked up from his searchings behind the furniture with a very concerned expression. "Oh dear! 'Twould appear that our course be set then, for at least another hour or so. Methinks that tending to the wounded as best we can should be our first concern. Perhaps we should shut the door and see if we can barricade it somehow? Arachne, hast thou the strength to help Etienne with the wounded? If we have to fight our way out, Eric, Etienne, and Kaileer must be more sturdy than now they be."
Arachne shook her head. "No door, no healing," she said.
He paused to think for a moment. He looked up at the gnome again. "Oh dear," he murmured quietly before recommencing with hiss earch of the floor.
Aloysius took the shield and then moved over to the piece of furniture that he had hid behind earlier. "Quickly must we decide what we are going to do," he implored. "If we are to flee, then let us flee. If we are to stay and fight, then let us shut yon door and allow Arachne and Etienne a meaningful chance to attend our injured." He seemed to be looking for something on the floor as he spoke.
The ranger looked back at the gnome angrily. "Maybe next time we go try fight evil in evil place you warn us before if we not can escape..." he growled before turning back to the door.
"Brave one," Aloysius said, "perhaps we should shut the door and try to secure it? Yon archers shall wait for us, I'm sure, and we need not for thee to take a stray arrow right now."
He looked about at the furniture and other things scattered about the room. "I wonder if we could fashion some type of barrier from this debris?" he mused.
"An hour?!" Jana squeaked, when Arachne explained she couldn't form another door for an hour. Her eyes narrowed and a close observer might note that her hands were clenched into white-knuckled fists. She took a few deep breaths, nodding her agreement when Kaileer expressed his opinion on the issue.
Arachne was close -- a little too close -- to the warrior. Arachne observed...and said nothing.
"If we stay here," Jana predicted, "door barricaded or not, in an hour, we will be dead."
Arachne... made no reply to that either.
"We not can stay here, but gate still be closed so we not can leave before it be open. There be two or more archer out and Ranchefus have zombie... he have more zombie if we give him time," Kaileer said, nudging the half-eared corpse with the toe of his boot.
"If we leave now, we need make sure he not can use bodies," he added with a grim look at Blacky's axe.
"But I not like leave with not Rumer..." he stated before going back to trying to get rid of the archers.
Aloysius inserted, "It seems there be some consensus, then, that we can neither leave the gypsy behind, nor stay in this room. Let us act quickly then. Once Eric and Etienne are healed to the extent they can be, we must address the problem of the archers, get the girl, and then find a way out as soon as possible. I have yet some magics left, and I be yet unharmed."
As he rummaged through some of the debris, he added, "Somewhere here is a rock that be the source of this light. Mayhap we could dim it and use the darkness to our advantage. Then, when the light be released anew, we could use that to blind our enemies as they did to us afore. Whatever we do, let us act quickly afore the black priest arrives."
"Kaileer......Etienne, let Stargazer know if thou dost wish for me to darken the light as best I can so you can deal with the archers outside."
Jana finished cleaning the nastiness off of her mace with the clothing of one of the dead. "I think," she said, "those who are injured or otherwise not much good in a sword fight should get the hell out of here and find Oleanne. She and Lasiar can meet the rest of us back in the woods, where we were set up before." Jana returned the mace to her belt and slung her shield on her back. "Etienne and Kaileer and provide cover fire as we run to the gate. Once we get the gate opened, run for it. Hide in the woods until Arachne can do her door trick, back to where we were hiding before."
Jana looked down at the chain chick. "I'm going to see if I can't put on some of her stuff. Maybe I can make myself look like her from a distance." Jana pulled the body in so she could mess with the body without worrying about stray arrows. "If one of you guys," she said, looking at Blacky, Kaileer and Etienne, wants to try to disguise yourself with stuff from some of those dead guys, that'd be great. We'll grab the girl, then haul ass out of here and meet you in the woods." Jana looked around at the others, appearing very confident and not the least bit worried. "Oh, uhm, Echo...Watch out for my horse, would you?"
