I don't own D&D or Digimon.
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Kari
They arrived at the city market, they were here to rob the local, supposedly secure library. As Karren moves to her left, Ren walks along her right, taking a gander at the various items being sold. As she gets close to a tavern, she comes to a halt at a certain stall banner.
She does her best to weave about and watches as a pair of clients leave, one of which is a Genasi. The elf, Kero, if she recalls TK's character's name correctly, returns to standing behind the stall. She takes a few second to study the cursed elf and had to admit, he was dashingly beautiful and wonders what his Lizardfolk form looks like before turning her attention to Patamon err... Asa.
She sighs, it seems that the pair were a matching set of good looking males. Ren pulls her hood a bit more up to cover her features before approaching the stall to take a look at their wares. She doesn't know if she is surprised to find them selling adventuring gear or bemused. Well, I guess I can't scuff at their business. Not when Karren and myself have been going around robbing every rural settlement and army company we come across.
"Are you looking for anything particular?" She glances up from admiring a magic rod made out of bronze sporting amber beads about the handle while the tip is a citrine or yellow topaz triangle gemstone. Ren finds herself being addressed by Kero himself.
"I don't suppose you have any spell scrolls for sale?" She takes a moment to cast a spell to alter her voice before speaking. Then she mentally rolls her eyes at bothering to alter her voice as she sounds different then when she was just Kari.
"Yes we do. We also sell spells if you are looking to add something more permanent to your castings." Kero informs her and she frowns, wondering how he could tell that she's a practicer of magic.
"What kind of spells are we talking about?" She asks, deciding not to ask the obvious question of 'how did you know'. Ren notices a slight smile grace those beautiful features upon her current rival's face.
"We carry the usual, destructive, defensive, enchanting, and aid spells. A number of which come from some of the most infamous cities to the most glorious ones." Kero states in answer in a slightly cheerful tone. "Here's a price list."
She takes the offered scroll and unrolls it to find at a thousand spells, including not only their name and price tag but language written in, location of where it was purchased, and summary of effects. It gave her a better understanding of where team Hope have traveled in the three years as well. Ren bites her lower lip as she considers which of them she could afford at this particular moment.
"Just mark what you want with a pencil if you don't want to verbalize what you want out loud." Kero states calmly and she nods, rather relieved by that. She takes out a lead filled stick and marks the spells she feels will aid in their future en-devours.
She rolls it up and hands it to Kero. As she puts her 'pencil' back into her pocket, she pulls out her money purse and waits for Kero to return as he had vanished among the stacks before unrolling the sheet. This one purchase will lighten her purse a great deal but she is confident that they were worth it.
Kero returns with a linen bag crammed with tightly rolled spell scrolls. She counts out her coins, placing them on the counter and then taking the bag. "Pleasure doing business with you. We will be here throughout the festival if you wish to come back for more."
She nods and shouldering the strap, she walks on, rather eager to begin memorizing her new purchases and adding them into her spell note books.
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Tai
Cro can't help but pant while doing his level best to keep his blade held before him. His current foes are mounted upon dire hyenas and welding spears. Masks made from steel molded in the shape of skulls covered these gnomes' faces. He had vaguely wondered why the gnomes were trying to hide their identity but in the end, didn't care.
One of the muzzled hyena tossed their head and attempted to rush forward towards him but the rider pulls sharply upon the reigns using the one hand. He did wonder if these mounts were recently trained or just flat out didn't belong to this company of gnomes. He had time to ponder such as it seems that they were playing the waiting game, a game that involved seeing who's back up arrives first his or theirs'.
This is only the second level of this particular dungeon but also the first time they came upon resistance. They had found evidence that Gnolls and their slaves had been camping among the upper levels of this dungeon keep but they didn't encounter any Gnolls so they assumed that true to their nomadic nature, they had moved on. Now its a question of did they really leave or if these gnomes killed them.
Suddenly the hyenas began to buck, some rolling to get their riders off. With that, he charged forward and manages to at least slice at the neck of one of the riders before the others did their best to poke him with their spears. The riders get off their bucking mounts and the hyenas flee the cold room.
He does his best to hurry the nearest gnome while evading the counterattacks with those spears. As a group of gnome archers appear, the gnomes suddenly grip their midsection and he sighs as he has seen this happen before. He manages to land a beheading blow when the one he had been attack takes off the helmet to throw up.
With even the archers begin effected by this spell, he manages to kill another two when Donaar finally enters into the room. The reminder of the gnomes fall to their combined onslaught, with Donaar using a short sword to attack. Cro rubs his nose at the smell. "I hate it when you use that spell."
"If it works, it works." Is his partner's reply, to which he rolls his eyes. They do their best to avoid the pools of vomit to begin looting the bodies. As they just finish looting the archer's bodies, the next wave of gnomes arrive wearing plated armor and welding a mace in one hand and a long sword in the other.
"Oh joy, trained attack rats in armor." Cro can't help but remark in a very dry tone. Donaar snorts as the first line of five armored gnomes attempt to charge them as quickly as they could only for the plated armor to restrict their speed.
He manages to pull out a cookie from his pouch and eat it before any of the gnomes reach him. He feels the bruises he received from previous gnome encounters stop aching as much. Donaar seemed content to wait for them to come in close before doing anything, be it attacking viva divine spells to using those throwing knives he knows the Dragonborn has on his person.
The gnomes were, unsurprisingly, hard to kill but they also seem unfamiliar in fighting in that armor so their attacks weren't accurate and if they didn't fall short they hit them in their respective armor. His sword just continued to hit the plated armor, although a few blows to the head did seem to cause them to be dazed. He would have cast spells but he didn't have much in the way of energy to do so as he spent himself during the first three waves and this being the sixth wave that he has encountered.
As the last of the ten plated gnomes fall before their blades and magic, he scowls but digs around for a few potions. With each one he downs, he feels refreshed and rested. He would have preferred to sit down and eat the snacks that Donaar made for him but they took time, time they likely don't have.
As he was about to get up, somebody managed to stick a dagger into his back. Donaar bellows, it seems to cause daze among the wave of rogues. He manages to spear the one who got him in the back but that's all as all four rogues recover from the thunderous effect of his partner's voice.
Cro couldn't find it within himself to be surprised by the fact that he had been stabbed with a blade coated in poison and is plain glad when Donaar cures him and heals the wound. "That make seven."
"Yea, it does. Damn it, just how many of these guys are there in this dungeon if they can afford to lose this many just defending this level?" He wonders as he gets up off the floor.
"Perhaps we should hurry it up? We might be on the verge of ruining something for somebody and that's why they have been sending so many after us." Donaar suggests.
With a groan, he just nods. They didn't bother to loot the bodies, trusting that they will still be untouched when they come this way again, well, relatively untouched as it is likely that rodents will arrive to begin to consume the flesh of the dead gnomes. He hopes that they leave the metal and magical stuff alone given how much flesh there is for them to fight over.
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Cro finds it hard to see his opponent as he stands guard over Donaar's fallen form. No matter how many times he has swiped the blood from his eyes, the jagged cut continues to ooze blood. Parts of his armor seem to have melted, thus parts of him are unprotected and are easy targets for attacks.
The half-fiend, half-gnome snickers or giggles every so often before flat out laughing in perverted pleasure concerning his injuries or the state of Donaar. At least I have a general idea of when she'll attack and from what general direction. He mentally admits to himself while the stone sword in his hand continues to feel unresponsive. His dear great sword had been damaged beyond repair and Donaar had managed to summon this sword before falling to the ground.
This is one of the worst fights we've been in during these last few years! This would be over faster if this sword had an edge! He mentally rants to the universe at large. Heck, he didn't care if this fiend blooded female gnome hears his thoughts.
In the end, he only wanted to protect his partner, he wasn't going to allow this witch to harm Donaar, not unless its over his dead body and even then he'd do his best to distract her as a ghost. MacArron, please protect your invoker, Donaar Godspeaker. He prays to the god of his best friend, battle partner, and brother of his heart.
Suddenly the witch of a half gnome hisses and a warmth seems to come from the stone sword. It felt lighter and he hears a voice declare in thunderous tones, "Attack, Cro Runeskin! I command thee!"
"Can't argue with that." Cro states and charges forth, trusting that he'll slice her in two. As he swings the sword horizontally, he feels something match it. He summons as much power he can while straining against whatever last ditch defense the witch erected against this blow.
He closes his eyes, the light has gotten rather bright. The witch screams and curses in a fiendish tongue and finally the defense crumbles away, allowing his blade to hit. He hears something go splat to his far left while he drops down to his knees, his strength spent.
"Cro? CRO!" He hears Donaar shout as he blacks out. F'eh, guess my injuries were worst then I expected. He thinks as he is welcome into the blackness of unconsciousness.
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Mimi
She watches as the stars twinkle above their camp. Tomorrow they will be charging into battle with the half-fiend, half-gnome fiend pact warlock held up in this dungeon keep. With their horses exhausted, they couldn't push on and so tensions are running rather high at this particular moment.
Harsha had moved to sit where their mounts are resting. They all know that this warlock planned to do and know that her 'followers' were suffering for yet another night under the enscrollment that the fiend pact warlock placed upon them. Her sympathies go out to them along with her prays but for tonight, there was nothing to do beyond resting and preparing for the up coming battle.
As she begins to pick out star clusters, she feels something nudging her in the back. Turning her head, her expression softens at her gray dappled mare. She strokes the muzzle of her dear, sweet tempered mare whom name is Moondust.
Getting up, she moves and begins to scratch Moondust's neck, particularly around the black and white mane. She murmurs softly in Elvish and Moondust grunts as if in reply. With one hand, she finds an apple in her pouch and with a smile, holds it up for the mare.
Moondust sniffs at the apple before biting into it. In a few minutes, the mare is done with the apple. She pats Moondust upon the neck and then heads back to the campfire. The others seem to be playing some version of poker or some kind of card game, she is sure that the part of her that is Harsha knows the game but she doesn't particularly care.
Oakcalm had gone out to commune with the local spirits and will likely return come morning. By the gods of all that is good and just, please allow us to put an end to this witch. She prays before opening a book of poems and reading it until its time for them to turn in.
To Be Continued!