May 16th

Great OOC:

Javan quickly stands up after being grabbed by Higaide, hardly having time to prepare his silver spear and stand behind his tower shield, and starts retreating to the alleyway with his guard up, ready to jump to Rory's defense if the need shows itself.

[Points made, majority reached.]

Rory is ready and eager to engage the 12 armored kidnappers but for a passing moment when he realizes that neither Higaide nor Javan are springing to action, and are in fact choosing to retreat.

Or use funnel tactics? Yes indeed, or so he hopes; against his wish to end his foes out here in the open where he can see them all, but the consensus has carried the motion to just book it, and so he beats a hasty retreat down their chosen alley to funnel their enemies and lay ambushes for them.

Assuming the window hasn't closed.

The trio funnel back into the alleyway, which is about 10' wide, and extends out to another street on the other side. Within a fairly short period of time they see some of the soldiers thundering over to the entrance, but they don't enter. Instead they hold their weapons out at the ready, as if prepared to prevent you from leaving. Right about at this point another group is visible at the other end of the alleyway, weapons also pointed. At a glance they seem to be melee, with shields, but Rory is almost positive he spotted a few mage-looking types in the back.

[A little RP while we wait to continue...]

"Order bastards. We're surrounded, with mages on the other side," Rory points.

He clenches his fists. "Didn't want to go down like this. Hope I'm feeling over-dramatic, but Higaide, Javan...it's been a privilege. Let's make them question later just how much we were worth to tangle with."

"Really, sometimes i just don't know what's going on anymore." - Higaide sighs - "Whatever, doesn't look like there's anything for it."

Javan is caught by surprise by Rory's 'death speech' and starts reacting strongly to it, going as far as summoning in a hurry his life facet without thinking, "Screw that sound! They want to deal with a airquote dangerous elemental? Fine! I'll give them a frelling dangerous elemental for them to hunt. At least this time they don't have any of my allies to use as living shields LIKE THE FRELLING COWARDS THEY ARE! ...leave the mages to me and do something about the guys blocking the entrance."

Maybe only the guards at the other side of the entrance could see Javan's tears, as he fought back the tendencies of the facet's optimism, now feeling like a monster for what he's attempting to do next.

"You got it."

[I think we have a consensus. Rolling initiative, if it's not too early.]

Rory carried out 1 launched of one D20 :

1

Higaide's eyes glance up and notice that there are windows on the second story of the buildings.

Current Initiative (since I just rolled for Higaide) looks like this:
Javan, Higaide, Mages, Archers, Soldiers, Rory.

I'll allow Rory to give up one of his turn actions in order to get Higaide up there.

Javan quickly glances behind him, noticing some of the soldiers wielding bows. Maybe it was his fighting brain getting into gear or his life fact attempting to balance his thoughts, but he was starting to calm down. The dragoon quickly takes his jumping stance, fixating his gaze upon the shielded soldier closest to him and letting himself soar the air for a split moment while his mind was on the ground right beside the mage-looking soldier, in which Haze was cast, engulfing a good 40 feet area.

While his mouth let out obscenities and garbled words making no sense, emulating what he's often hear Rory shout out while enraged, Javan's mind was getting clearer by the second now.

Actions and Rolls:

Edit: Forgot to take in account the +8 STR and -2 DEX from facet

[I give up one turn to get stepped on by Higaide.]

Drawn to the second story by Higaide's gaze, Rory shouts over to the monk, "Over here, buddy!" He puts his hands together, palms facing up, to form a foothold.

Mihai takes the boost and jumps to the second floor window. If it won't open, he'll bust through, and make his way to the right so he can get a clear shot at the enemies outside the alley. Mage would be preferable, but he'll settle for the Archers if need be.

Will use the Run action, if available.

Icy white energies bathe the street and alleyway, causing quite a stir for the locals. This is immediately over-written by the alarm at seeing an abomination elemental thing leap straight into the air and come down, hard, on one of the armored soldiers. The attack pierces, but does not fell the foe, though he looks bloodied.

Rory helps shove Higaide up far enough to reach the second story with relative ease, smashing through the glass and wood and tumbling into what looks like a commons room. Wasting no time on the bewildered stares of the locals, he charges down the hallway inside and finds himself at the windows facing the street, where he can spot the eastern archer and mage. Higaide actually has one more action left, thanks to Rory's help.

Higaide realizes that, lacking a ranged weapon, his only hope at this point is to try and charge through the window (breaking yet more glass) and try to tackle the archer, hoping to do some damage with the impact. Unless he has some kind of ranged weaponry that has been forgotten.

Having no ranged weaponry, Higaide charges through the window and tackles the Archer.

Higaide charges through the glass, shattering the second window in a few seconds, sending shards and flecks of glass and wood onto the street below as he tackles down into the completely unprepared archer, taking 6 damage in the process but doing plenty to the archer in the process, who is now pinned and confused.  Several shocked shouts and gasps emit from the people in the street.

The soldiers quickly move into a fairly classic 'capture' position, surrounding both Rory and Javan and attacking both with the blunt ends of their swords or axes.  Javan takes 20 subdual damage, and Rory takes 29 subdual damage.  (OOC Note: The GM isn't sure if either character has DR so this is not calculated in).  The far mage on the western end is currently trying to prevent eager onlookers from viewing the battle and as such isn't available to fight properly.

The archer directly under Higaide struggles to free himself to no avail.
The nearby archer and mage flip out and immediately attack Higaide.  The archer hits Higaide for 13, and the mage conjures explosive flames to hit Higaide for 12 Fire damage.

The crowd on both sides has begun oo'ing and aa'ing at what they perceive as a show.

It is Rory's turn.

After some consideration, the GM will allow Higaide to have one hand free, be aware of the attack, and not be flatfooted despite the situation (which he had previously decided was a factor). However this still only deflects one of the arrows. And since I have no idea which roll was which, we'll just divide the Archer's attack in two for 6 physical damage.