Aeon In The Sands

[Jason_Firewalker]

As your group rises in the morning from their previous night's slumber you notice that the path that you were taking to get to the capital city of this province is sanded over. As you are all getting armored and ready, Doras looks around and sniffs the air. "I smell Setteshie scum." He says in a low tone, raising his bow just above hip height nocking and arrow.

With a yell ten little goblinoids, typical of followers of Set, erupt from the sand. Several are weilding light Khopesh but the one that appears to be their leader, a large Settishem is weilding an absolutely foul looking great flail.

[Jason_Firewalker]

Tsot began to cast a spell and brought her staff up in a defensive position. At the same moment a Shetteshie swung for Tsot. Connecting with the blow the Shetteshie dug his light khopesh into Tsot's flesh.

[The Necrontyr Messenger]

Irisi frowned as she heard the alarm call. It hadn’t been what she’d expected at all, this morning. Fortunately, she’d been up early enough to get most of the necessary business of morning preparation done, and so was able to focus in on herself, uttering an incantation and tracing her fingers through the air in a pattern that described a protecting arc. As she did so, she focussed on the cured leather bracer she wore, one of two thick pieces of leather on her, the other on her shoulders. Falcon talons just weren’t comfortable, after all.

As she completed the brief ritual a field of force surrounded her, and she looked around, holding her staff close, for something to do or strike.

[rhoenix]

Momentarily surprised by the sudden visit, Ash quickly grabbed his crossbow and made sure it was loaded.

"My friends!" he called out to the "visitors" even as they approached, and even as his crossbow was ready, "certainly we can deal?"

[Jason_Firewalker]

With ease the small Setteshie move up to the adventering party ignoring the Artificer's call for conversation. The Setteshie scum tried to sink their Khopesh into the Anubite but they missed wildly. Ut Ali dove into a summersault towards his enemies and quickly caught a hapless Setteshie with his defenses down, sinking his finger blade up to the hilt into it killing the hapless creature. Doras took a double shot at the Settishem nailing both arrows into its chest.

With a quick motion the Setteshie warriors moved in towards Muhammad and Djoser hacking at them with their Khopesh but missing. The Settishem moved in towards the Anubite, Doras and swung his flail, hitting with a sickening blow.

[Haizu]

Although surprised at how quickly the little runts moved into their camp, Djoser still parried their attacks with apparent ease. Closing his eyes for a moment, the shadows seemed to coalesce and flicker around him, making him hard to see, his movements unpredictable. The same happened to Muhammad, who was standing nearby. Darting out with his light Khopesh, the lucky little goblin danced out of the way just in time to prevent getting skewered. The other little goblin however, was not so lucky. Striking out, Djoser took it in the throat, slicing it's head clean off.

[Jason_Firewalker]

The final three Setteshie moved in to engage the Crucian weilding dual khopesh. Striking out with their light khopesh the first two widely missed but the second landed a telling blow to the Crucian's left side.

[Jason_Firewalker]

Tsot released her spell into herself, curing her of her wounds and then began to cast agian. A shimmer of light surrounded the small goblinoid as she spoke aloud the word "Surrender".

The Setteshie dropped to his knees and tossed his light khopesh aside as an aparent failure to deflect the mystical energies that had enveloped his mind.

[The Necrontyr Messenger]

Knowing a good idea when she sees it, Irisi looks around for the nearest of the Settesshim and attempted to repeat Tsot’s feat, focussing a thought upon the goddess’ majesty into a mystical command for the nearest of the small creatures, again crying out in the most imperious tone she could manage for it to flee.

[rhoenix]

Ashrad's idea of a magical suggestion was to aim at one of the invading creatures, though he didn't shoot yet. Since two of his more directly-magically-oriented companions appeared to have things mostly under control, he decided to embellish a bit, using his force of personality well.

He spoke in a a voice used to swaying crowds with his words. "You see? Two of your people have already seen the error of their ways, and decided to join us! Who are you to scorn their good sense and wishes for peace and prosperity? Join with us instead, and be blessed with riches and prestige across the lands!"

[Jason_Firewalker]

The Setteshie swing at their targets and miss Tsot and nail the Artificer. Ut Ali danced around the Setteshie but was not fast enough to get around the telling blow of the Setteshem's two handed flail. The blow quickly knocked the small gnome back half a step and preventing the gnome from landing a blow on the much larger humanoid.

Doras, seeing danger actually getting a bit high for him and his small friend he took a quick step back and double taps at the Setteshem, planting an arrow right into the brainpan of the large goblinoid.

The Setteshie remaining gathered their wills together with gusto and swung at Muhammed and Djoser with their light khopesh. Muhammed was easily able to dodge out of the way but the Crucian, Djoser felt as the light khopesh dug into his left shoulder.

[Haizu]

Feeling the bite of the goblins' blade, Djoser roared and swung at the creature with his blade, only succeeding in making it scurry back. Blocking out the pain, he focused on the other goblin that had tried to hit him, quickly analyzing it's movements and finding a weak point in it's defenses. Lunging out in an underhanded strike, his blade bit deep into the creatures armpit, it's collarbone the only thing keeping the khopesh from tearing him in half. Somehow still alive, it stumbled back, clutching it's mortal wound.

[Jason_Firewalker]

The three Setteshie began to retreat from the battle towards the south and deeper into bandit lands. Tsot cast another spell and reached over to Muhammed and instantly some of his wounds disappeared. The charmed Setteshie looked around quickly for his khopesh and companions. Finding his side on the loosing side of the battle and his khopesh not within easy reach the scum dashed off to the south after his other fleeing companions.

[The Necrontyr Messenger]

Alert for danger, Irisi started toward Djoser who seemed to be the most injured of the party within easy reach, watching the setteshim. They seemed to be on the retreat but it often paid to be cautious, or at least, the payment for being incautious was too heavy for most to willingly pay. “Do you need that attended to?â€

[Haizu]

Still focused on the retreating bandits, Djoser just shrugged and said "It's just a scratch. Tend to the others first." Walking to the very edge of their camp, he posted there, keeping on eye out for any other attacks.

[rhoenix]

Ashrad dusted himself off, and addressed the others with a grin. "Well! I can think of better ways to rise to greet the world, but here we are. Shall we be on our way?"

[Jason_Firewalker]

Tsot looked around the area in silent contemplation as Doras began removing heads from the Setteshie. "At least we survived." Ut Ali started to look through the bodies of the fallen enemies. "A'ight guys looks like we got a bunch of raiders. Lets strip these bodies and get what we can from them. We have to get to the Shah as soon as possiable. They were not supposed to be this far north."

[Haizu]

"Agreed." Walking back into the camp from where he had been posted. "They're gone. We killed their leader so I don't think they'll be coming back anytime soon." Walking over to the bodies of the two he had downed, he noticed that one of them was still alive, only just though. "Looks like we've got a live one here."

[The Necrontyr Messenger]

There are certain habits that die hard; Isiri would like to do something for the raiders souls (miserable as they no doubt were) but the lack of an opportunity to record anything about them left little more than removing them from the road. She had no compunctions about handling corpses, although hers was not a funerary cult per se, she’d participated in enough rural embalming to easily overcome natural distaste for such things. As such, she prepared to pull them from the road, folding limp arms across their chests, and leave them with any weapons that didn’t seem to obviously belong to someone else – dying ambushing travelers without any care being given to the spirit (unless some of their kind came by later) would probably result in just the kind of afterlife where they’d need weapons after all.

Then Djoser called out that he’d a live one, and such thoughts were neatly put aside, as she strode over hastily, examining the felled raider.

[Haizu]

"He got lucky when I hit 'em. His collarbone is the only thing that saved him from losing his head and neck." Djoser said as he rested his swordtip on the dying bandit's throat.

[Jason_Firewalker]

Doras moved over to the unconcious Settteshie and raised his sword. About to bring it down on the skull of the smaller humanoid Tsot's hand reached out and grabbed his wrist.

"Now is not the time for that. We can use information from him. Ut Ali, bind him and we shall bring him with us to the Shah." Tsot stated simply. Ut Ali approached with a coil of fifty feet of silken rope and began to bind the small goblinoid.