Chapter 26

The combat was really only meant to be difficult due to the fact that Jade, Renee and Olivia had already been drained of some of their hit points and abilities in the bar fight. Of course, the dice didn’t always want to agree with the best-laid plans, and over the course of the first two turns of combat, things got sticky for the three heroines.

“Fuuu-uuuck,” Tori groaned. “That’s ... a flat ten.” She winced as she said it, already knowing that her kick hadn’t landed.

“No luck,” I said, shaking my head. “He manages to reel backwards in time, waving his hatchet in front of him to keep you away.”

“Shit,” Tori swore, grimacing at her die. She grabbed the d20 and shoved it back in the bag she kept her dice in, fishing around and pulling out a different one. “That die is getting retired for the night.”

Renee was up next, and she was already crackling with dark energy - the problem was that two of the three bandits that she was supposed to ward off were armed with crossbows and she’d already barely managed to avoid a bolt getting planted in her skull.

“Fuck it,” Renee muttered, summoning up a spell. She said some arcane words and then released the shadowy magic missiles that spun out from her out-thrust hand and radiated in to strike the bandit that had stumbled down the rise and was getting ready to bash her over the head with a heavy club. The bolts pierced into his chest, bursting out the back in shadowy gouts, and he went down to one knee and then collapsed face first in the dirt.

“Yes!” Elyse crowed, clenching a fist at her success as she grinned down at the damage die she’d rolled.

“Finally,” Rhia sighed. “One down, just another five to go.”

The fight continued and the enemy bandits managed to only land one more strike on Olivia, Renee using her Shield spell to bounce another crossbow bolt into the ground instead of her guts. That meant she was running low on spells, though.

And then Jade kicked a man’s head clean off.

To be fair, it wasn’t a natural 20 but she did max her damage die, and Tori had definitely had a bit of a rough time with the dice for the whole session. So when I asked how she put the guy down, and she said she wanted to ‘kick his face off,’ I extrapolated to separating a man’s head from his body.

“Steel-tooooe!” Rhia cheered, making Tori laugh.

With Jade now able to rush up the hill and start pressuring the crossbowmen, and Olivia finally starting to roll better than a six in the combat, things wrapped up relatively quickly. The thing the three adventurers had to worry about was the fact that, while they hadn’t jumped in to help, there were probably a dozen bandits from other groups that had been watching the fight and even laying down bets on who would win.

And now Renee was out of spells, Jade was looking bloodied and Olivia was only slightly better.