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Deirdre wakes in the middle of the night, about 4 a.m., and hears Dale snoring loudly. She tosses and turns, but is unable to get back to sleep. She looks over her character sheet, and is surprised to notice that she has about three dozen MP for some reason.
A few minutes later, she hears rattling at the window. She opens her eyes and looks as best she can without moving her body, and can just make out two silhouettes outside in the dark. Gently, slowly, she pulls the covers over her head, and whispers, “Hide.”
She finds herself suddenly in the rafters, looking down on the room. There is a big lump about her size in the bed where she used to be. She draws her sword from its scabbard and waits.
There’s a little click!, and the window opens out. Two figures in grey cloaks enter silently. The first draws a spear, turns it point down, then crouches before making a small leap on top of Deirdre’s bed. There’s a muted thunk! as the spear lodges into the lump, and the cloaked figure is now directly beneath Deirdre. She takes a deep breath, grips the sword upside-down with both hands, and falls directly onto the unknown assailant. She rolls a 20, and a critical on a sneak attack is quadruple damage with no resistance: the attacker is killed instantly, run straight through the heart, and she rolls for turn order with the remaining assassin.
The assassin rolls 18. Deirdre rolls a 1, so it takes her two rounds to dislodge her sword from what is presumably a log while the dead assassin’s blood pours out from the wiggling back and forth. By then, the other assassin is out the window and running away.
Deirdre makes a Nimbleness roll to dive through the window, and takes off after him.
The fleeing assassin turns this way and that through the starlit streets, Deirdre just behind and gaining. He turns down an alley and climbs a pile of stacked crates against the wall - Deirdre follows, and resumes the chase on the rooftops. He reaches behind with one hand and shouts, “Hold!” A sparkling yellow orb flies at Deirdre, but she makes a Nimbleness roll to slide under it and resumes chasing. He tries casting Hold on her twice more, missing both times but forcing her to dodge and lose some ground. She pulls a shuriken from her bag of tricks and throws it at him, hitting him in the leg for 2 damage. The assassin takes a knee to pull it out, then says, “Heal,” and resumes running, now barely ahead.
Deirdre says, “Hush,” and hits him with it: the assassin is now silenced and can no longer cast spells. As he leaps to an adjacent rooftop, Deirdre throws another shuriken, but rolls a 2 and misses completely.
A couple leaps later, the assassin is out of rooftop, and disappears from Deirdre’s sight as he jumps down to street level, making a good Nimbleness roll to land and a decent Stealth roll to hide. Deirdre follows, but fails the landing roll and takes 10 damage from the fall. She gets up and dusts herself off, looking around. No sign of the assassin. There’s a dumpster, a hay wagon, a few large open barrels, and some dark corners - plenty of places to hide.
She quiets herself with a moment’s focus, then turns slowly around and says, “Great, now where did he go?” She rolls high on Performance, so he takes the bait and rises from a large barrel to cast a spell. But Deirdre rolls high on Observation and hears where he is, so now it’s her surprise round, not his. She turns and does a powerful side kick into the barrel, rolling decently on Melee and knocking it over, sending him tumbling to the ground. They roll for turn order as combat resumes, and Deirdre is first this time.
She brandishes her sword in both hands and approaches cautiously, holding her action and saying, “Game’s up - now tell me who you are and who sent you!”
As the assassin gets to his feet, he says, “I could do that - or I could Summon Soulreaper and kill you where you stand!” A large scythe appears in his hand with a sparkly yellow flourish. Deirdre uses her held action to prepare for a parry and counterattack.
The assassin swings his scythe down at her, but her prepared parry knocks it off course and she redirects her blade to cut him: she hits for 39 damage, but he has surprisingly strong armor beneath the cloak and only takes 12.
Deirdre holds her action to counterattack again, and the assassin swings his scythe in a wide horizontal arc. She dodges and cuts into his exposed arm - apparently the armor only covers his torso - and does 35 damage this time.
Deirdre hops back to a safe distance and says, “Wet thy pants before me, puny worm!” She rolls well on Performance, and the assassin is stunned.
“What did you just say,” he asks in confusion.
“I am Pannych, lesser goddess of fear and anxiety! You cannot hope to best me in combat!”
“Whoah,” the assassin says, backing off. “I’m here to kill destined heroes, not to dance with demigods. This is not what I signed up for! So...” he trails off, winks, and makes finger-guns at Deirdre before turning on his heel and fleeing down the street.
Deirdre stares after him for a moment, then shrugs when he is out of earshot and says, “Huh. Good thing he didn’t know I was back down to no mana.” She cleans off her sword and puts it back in the scabbard, then heads back to the Last Inn.
As Deirdre walks through the silent streets, she can see the pre-dawn light rising over the horizon. She can just see the first rays when she enters, and the innkeeper is just finishing setting up the tea service.
“Good morning, milady,” the innkeeper says, bowing slightly and motioning to the tea he has just put out. “I’m sorry if our unfamiliar accommodations proved difficult to walk around in the dark.”
Deirdre says, “Excuse me?” and tilts her head.
“I heard you bumping around earlier, so I went to check on you,” the innkeeper says. “But by the time I poked my head in the door, you seemed to be sleeping soundly.”
“Huh,” Deirdre says. “And you didn’t notice anything strange?”
“Well, I didn’t look long, and it was dark. But you and Lord Phyr were fast asleep in your beds, so I figured it was best to leave well enough alone.”
“Good man,” Deirdre says, and she gets a cup of tea before heading back up to the room.
To RETURN TO CHAPTER 3, click here.
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