Combat #4

Hi everyone.. sorry I'm late in posting this message (I had originally planned
to 6 hours ago) but the board was busy ALL NIGHT!! OK, here's the situation:

OK, here is our now-traditional combat map:

                L
         +-->S      s<-A
         |  *  I S
         |   *           S
         |      +------>S H
        *| *    |  S
        B+ *   C R 
                   M         H HH

Now with nice little arrows specifying where characters are moving! :)

The horse starts off the next round of combat by furiously slamming its 
hooves into a slaver's chest. The man is thrown back by the force of the 
blow but recovers quickly, sword in hand and proceeds to advance towards 
the horse. The horse makes two more attacks at the slaver, but he's 
nimble enough to dodge the attacks, despite his recent injury.

Aardvarkin moves next, silently sauntering over to the sleeping slaver, 
whom he calmly dispatches with his sword. A faint gurgle is the last 
sound to escape the man's lips as his blood freely flows from his 
freshly-slit throat.

Carideth and Borack begin moving to their new destinations on the field 
of combat.

Ruinad swings his staff at a slaver but misses completely. Cursing, the 
small mage utters a loud swear to the god of weather for such misfortune 
tonight.

The leader can presently be heard re-assuming command of his troops, 
eliminating Aardvarkin's opportunity to attempt to impersonate him. His 
location appears unchanged, but he is still invisible to any of you 
through the rain.

Meanwhile, the slaver that had just retrieved his longsword attempts to 
sneak up on Ivan from behind. He attempts to impale Ivan with his blade, 
but, noting his thick armor, instead slashes him across the back. Seven 
feet of pure muscle falls over forward, face first into the mud, and 
lies there, bleeding and motionless.

Farther south, Malcolm, as Ruinad, attempts a quarterstaff attack on the 
nearest slaver. Unfortunately, the man has once again deftly stepped out 
of the way and out of sight, so Malcolm's swing meets no resistance in 
completing an arc around the priest.

The slaver that was thrown back by No Quirks renews his furious attacks 
against the stalwart horse, slashing again and again at the beast with 
his longsword, until several gaping rips in its flesh can be faintly seen.

Carideth finally makes it to where the two slavers are mutilating his 
horse, and, with a berserker-like rage, immediately begins attacking the 
man that hurt his faithful animal. Though the majority of Carideth's 
angry attacks are easy for his opponent to parry, he does manage to get 
in quite a few good blows, causing his opponent serious damage.

At the same time, Borack, too, arrives to find Ivan lying motionless on 
the ground, and two vicious slavers ready to slice up any further 
opposition. Undaunted, the mage brandishes his staff and attempts to thrust it
at one of the men. Unfortunately, the slaver steps back and 
away from the attack, unharmed, laughing diabolically as he contemplates 
how easy it will be to dismember this mage with his sword.

The other slaver near Borack does not laugh, but instead makes a futile 
attempt to decapitate him. Seeing the swinging sword, Borack nimbly 
ducks the blow and then positions himself for his next action.

Back at the other end of the battle field, yet another slaver attacks 
Carideth's horse, seeing as the horse, Carideth, and his fellow slaver 
are caught up in an attack of their own. He tries to impale the horse 
through the side with his sword, but the horse rears and he is only able 
to graze its front leg.

That should sum up this round.. what is it, four? Here's an updated map 
for the benefit of your characters:


                L
             S      *A  
            *B I S
             *         C S
                   S    S H
        *  *        
           *      R 
                   M         H HH

Note that Aardvarkin seems to have a rather critical injury to his arm 
that continues to ooze blood, while Ivan lies face-down in the mud, not 
moving at all, and blood gushing out of a wound in his back. Other than 
that, nobody else is hurt.

For the next round, Ruinad and Malcolm resolve to pursue their attacker 
northward, and, if there is time, run to the aid of Ivan.

|\       |\/|
|/ungeon |  |aster

Sage's Desk AD&D