Clearing The Road

    The call went over the Hunter's Guild that the undead were on the move. While some of the caravans have been told to hold, one was already on the road and was under assault!

The undead had the people lined against the knocked over wagons, they were forced to sit on the ground, with their hands tied. Skeleton warriors walking around looking for any that may have escaped or are hiding under the wreckage.

    One warrior, with dark armor and green gems on its bracers seem to be studying the people closely, before he pointed to one. Two of the undead reached over, picked the man off the ground, and the warrior with his dark armor said, "Be at peace," As the man struggled. "You will be set free."

Then that gauntlet hand reached out, taking hold of the man's face as dark embers of purple rushing over the man's face. He screamed in agony, before being dropped to the ground. There slowly then rose a skeleton warrior, as flesh vanished from the man.

The dark armored skeleton goes to point to another, the process was going to repeat, unless it was interrupted...

Skeletons attacking caravans? That's bad news!

Skeletons doing horrible things to the members of the caravan? That's even worse!

Fortunately, help is on its way! There are many members of the Hunters Guild who are willing to help out, and one of them is none other than BlackRose herself. She's small but wields a big sword. She's got an angry look on her face as she approaches, not liking what's happening to these poor caravan members, and so she intends to do something about this.

Going after one of the bandits with her large sword, she swings it at the nearest one after calling out, "Sorry, but I'm afraid I have a bone to pick with all of you!"

The gnoll were fang rushed to the location as soon as the call came out from the Hunter's Guild. He had been at these battles several times over the last few weeks, and each time had come close, but not close enough, to taking down one of the leadership members of the Undead army.

This time he wouldn't fight the adds.

Kaydon comes out of nowhere, or so it seems, landing directly in fromt of the black armored knight. He doesn't have any witty puns or fancy speaches. He does stand there for one brief moment, sizing up the knight, before he draws the blade off of his back, the Damascus glinting in the light before he slashes upwards at the armored knight, finally speaking, "Take me to your queen, or your unlife will end on this battlefield!"

The situation in the Ninetails Dominion had kept Rylen away from home for the past weeks. Which meant more than a few nights in far flung villages, or sleeping in rough conditions. All of this, after only having recently built the ranch in Carmina Gadelica as a home for himself. Of course, there were other things he'd been missing as of late, as well...

Still, when duty calls, the Pooka rises up to answer. As the others rush forward into the fray, Rylen hangs back, dropping into a fighter's stance and then drawing his fingers down along the ground. A crack forms where his fingers have touched, jutting forward and extending out towards the skeleton army.

After a moment, vines shoot up, latching around the legs of the skeletons, trying to bind them in place and keep them form their patrols. It also means that it may just clear some of the way for the others to get to the armored warrior. "I'll slow them down. Try to get the civilians free!" The Landers seem to be his priority, given that any time wasted means more are lost to the Undead army.

Schneider is riding along with the others as we go out to relieve the caravan, and it seems, as we get closer, that they're in a bad way, with the boss monster converting captured caravan people into undead. He's got to stop it before it gets worse, and to do so, well, he's got one real trick. "Fires of Gehenna," he enchants, "Burn EVERYTHING!" He holds a hand out dramatically as he casts Firebolt, the flames striking the SKELETON KNIGHT square on.

    Uta, as usual, has approached the area from the shadows. Protected by elemental Dark magic and her race's natural sneakiness, she observes the scene from inside a bush. Also as usual, she is keeping her inspection on, medical-grade if possible, to try and gather as much information as possible about the people involved. Names, if available; creature type (especially the ones that are being turned), icons, health, status effect... anything that might be useful. While she does so, she hums a tune, quietly, and her staff begins glowing, its head almost becoming like a small sun, ready to discharge a beam of light at her targets as soon as she's done...

    Setsuna had heard the call to arms and had came here in hopes of facing the undead. However the necromancers intent may be not so altruistic as others. It is only when the others begin to attack does he move though. Having seen the knight perform his new magic trick , a giant grin appears as he shouts, " Two bags of gold to whoever helps capture the dark one. "
     Turning his attention to the knight , a magic circle appearing over his staff he begins to run towards the dark armored one. " Hey you! I have a question to asp. " He moves his staff like he is passing a la cross ball and at the flick a snake made of stone erupts from the staff flying towards the knight, fangs bared.

The call had gone out and a very smole Smith and Samurai replied. She did not like the undead hell after what she saw at that villiage? She will exterimante the source one day of it. She does not intend to show whatever force behind this or Merek's sword any mercy. For today she's going to be falling upon the undead. She's yelling out a battel cry as she spring from cover intending to interrup the coversion process.

"I WILL BE SENDING YOU RIGHT TO HELL!"

With that she strikes out with her Katana.

\     Blackrose comes charging in with her large sword, and with a clean swing she chops one of the bandits in half. The skeleton bandit explodes into wisp, as another charges in to strike at her with its own sword.

Rylen comes in, calling upon the vines that shoot out of the ground. A few skeletons try to avoid the vines, while a few others get hit and explode into light. One such bandit that escapes, leaps up and tries to bring two blades down upon the elf-like man.

Miho comes in, with her Katana striking true, but needing to avoid a sword swing from a bandit that attempts to come up from behind her to do a roguish backstab.

    Meanwhile as others deal with the undead bandits, there are those who decide to use the distractions created by their fellow team-mates to quickly close in on the skeleton knight.

Kaydon for one attempts to threaten the warrior, as he swings his blade, the undead knight brings up his shield. The blade catches the steel and slashes a gash into the metal work, as sparks fly. The Skeleton Knight does a quick foot work, and swings his own blade for Kaydon.

Then quickly moves after the swing to avoid the attack from Uta, as the beam of light torches just where he was, though it sets him up to be hit by the flames of Schneider. The Undead knight shifts his blade in the fires, twirling the around his sword and with a swing, fires off two bolts of dark flame for Schneider and Uta both.

Then Setsuna flings a rock snake directly for the Undead Knight, who attempts to cut it in half, only to be caught by the rock. It breaks it eventually in half before points his blade to Setsuna, "Is that the best you can do /boy/?" Before the Skeleton knight ducks into the ground, before suddenly appearing out of the ground behind Setsuna and goes to slash the blade downward on him.

==============================================================================

        [ Blackrose, Rylen, Miho vs 8 ]
        [ Kaydon, Setsuna vs 9 ]
        [ Schneider, Uta vs 8 ]

    Uta's eyes pop open and she leaps sideways, barely in time: she rolls on the ground, and pushes herself up, panting, wings retracted and pressed against her back, as she watches the flame burn away her previous hiding spot. "...Welp!" She stands up again, legs shaking a little, but managing. "You have made a big mistake." She assumes a fighting stance, staff pointed at the attacker. "Because right now I'm going to-"

    Aaaaaand she's gone. Typical diversion, set up expectations and break them at the worst moment. Using merely her sneaking ability at first, and supporting herself with a quickly hummed chant which surrounded her in an aura of darkness, she approaches the area where the landers are through a circuitous path, to minimize the chance to attract attention to herself. Once there, she will begin untying them.

    Setsuna's body glows with an aura of darkness as he leaps out of the way of the surprise attack, tucking and rolling before pivoting on his foot to face the knight. "Hitting you and not getting hit? I am quite happy with my performance thank you." Standing up straight, the human points to the knight with his staff, " So mister talky undead person, question one do you have a name or did your queen never teach you how to do the honorable fighting thing?" If there is one thing Setsuna was good at, it was those verbal jabs. Spinning the staff in his hand he brings the heavy knotted top down upon the earth, sending a compression wave through the ground trying to collapse the dirt under neath the knight.

She may not wield an actual shield, but that doesn't mean BlackRose can't wield her sword like one. Her sword deflects back the attack while setting her up for a counterattack at the same time. She spins around after deflecting the blow and goes back in with a swing of her sword. "You guys need to learn not to pick on the wrong people!" She says angrily.

It is no surprise that he isn't able to slow down all of the skeleton bandits, but even a few is enough to give their allies time in order to join in the fighting. Even in the thick of battle, that grin seems to remain on his features, the movements of his feet are light as he steps back.

Then, in what seems to be a flash, the dual-bladed skeleton is above him. Luckily, the Beastmaster is faster, and he moves just barely out of the way, a few strands of silver hair ending up cut as the sharp blades zip past where his head usd to be.

"Fast, but not fast enough my bone-brained friend." His gray eyes flick towards the prisoners, just barely spotting the quick movements of Uta. Good, someone was able to get to them.

Turning his attention back to the skeletons, he shifts, raising his hands defensively in front of him as his feet move, making sure he can keep them in his sights. "How about this, then."

Rylen stomps one foot forward, causing the ground to tremble momentarily before a large pillar of stone shoots up underneath the skeleton that he'd been fighting, threatening to launch the undead fighter up into the air.

The knight manages to partially deflect Kaydon's blow, and then strike at the were fang with his own blade, "Not feeling talkative, huh? Fine."

He shifts his weight back, and changes his stance, holding his blade with both hands for a moment, before he pushes forward, "I'll pull the info out of you if I have to!"

He can't actually do that, but what he can do is slash upwards this time, the blade bursting into flames as he slices through the air, leaving a wake of fire behind it as he tries to deal direct damage to the skeleton knight.

Miho is now in the thick of things as she hacks and slashjes into the banits, she'll end up parrying one of the blows before she counter attacks again with an earth charged sword strike. 5R
"Not done yet!"

She seems to be very intent on dealing with these things maybe the undead? Have made an great anemy by their previous actions, okay the answer is yes.

Schneider sneers at the Undead Knight, contemptuously flicking his wrist so that a shield of flames springs up around him. "You'll have to do better than that," he says with a sneer. Then the target's vanished, but he quickly reappears. Not so good for Setsuna, but that means he's not killing the caravan people, so that's good. He checks the progress of the battle, to see where he's most needed, and then turns back to the boss. He chants under his breath, this next spell coming faster, his goal to blunt the UNDEAD KNIGHT's attack. One hand extended dramatically, he utters the trigger phrase, "Electrical Light Surge!" and an electrical arc springs from his hand to strike the Undead Knight square on.

    Uta works on moving from attacking the Skeleton knight to freeing the people. Their HPs are low, and they are struggling to get up on their feet. Almost fearful to even go running, knowing that death is nearly at their doorstep.

    Setsuna however attempts to goad the Knight, which works in one way, as it turns the knight's attention on him; It however also works against him as well. For as the mage collapses the ground, the dust and rubble makes it seem like the Knight goes down.

Instead Setsuna will soon find the knight coming out of the dust and bring the blade to bare on him with a quick, single slash, but is interrupted as it is slammed in the back by the flames. His attention only looks over, before he lets out a roar.

From the ground several more bandits jump out and one of them goes directly for Kaydon, as the Knight seems to turn his focus back on Setsuna. Though that may have been a mistake as Schneider blasts the knight with an electrical debuff.

The electricity dances across the dark armor, and can be seen moving around the skeleton mouth, as the undead creature looks in his direction. "... Kill him." He says /lowly/, as two of the bandits go to dive right at Schneider. This allows Setsuna to escape with no attack aimed in his direction as the electrical current seems to have thrown off the Skeleton Knight's ability to hit anything!

BlackRose cuts down another Bandit, but with the call for more, another charges directly at her and tries to match her blade for blade, with two in each hand. Rylen meanwhile summons an earth pillar that smacks not only a single undead bandit into the sky, but another as well. One which explodes into a wisp of light-- and the other flies off in some random direction.

However, coming from behind an Undead bandit attempt to skewer Rylen directly in the back. While that is happening, Miho is dealing with her own assault and cuts down another undead. Though another comes charging at her!

repeat(=,78)]

        [ Kaydon, Blackrose, Rylen, Miho, Schneider vs 7 ]

Rylen lifts a hand, lightly shading his eyes as he looks to see one of the skeletons spiral off into the distance like some sort of character from an old animated cartoon. "See you in outer space, good sir." He shifts that posture into a sort of playful salute.

That's when he hears a footfall behind him. Turning, the Pooka manages to spot the bandit just before the blade skewers him, and instead... it puts a nice hole into his jacket. It's no surprise why the thing has so many patches.

"Aww, you want to dance, too?" He asks, "I'd be more than happy to oblige." Still in that firm combat stance, he turns begins to pull up rocks around him, sending them at the skeleton's arms and legs, trying to disable it with the smaller strikes without burning down his mana too quickly.

Once again, BlackRose is attacked, and once again her sword proves a good defensive method as well as an offensive method. "This is getting old rather fast," BlackRose says impatiently. "You just don't know when to quit, so I'm gonna have to teach you a lesson!" She spins around sideways while swinging her sword a little at the same time. "No bones about it!" She adds.

Kaydon manages to turn and block the blade of the bandit that comes for him, quickly taking it down with a single powerful slash, as he doesn't have time for adds. He has to focus on bringing the boss down.

"Ignore me at your own peril!" He calls out to the Knight, quickly crossing the distance between himself and the other armored warrior, that Damascus blade once again brought to bear as he moves in.

This time he quickly delivers several less powerful slashes, but all aimed to get around his defenses and push him back, away from the aid of his adds, as Kaydon figures if he can put some distance between the Knight and the bandits, he can take the big guy alone.

Miho sees the undead charging at her, she'll shift block the attack, lash out with her tail as cover then attempt to pounce upon this latest undead to hack it to bits. Her body moves she does not think she acts. Blade meets blade for a moment, before she channels something else into her blade which causes it to glow red with heat.

"I could use your bones in my forge for kindling!"

Miho seems to be pretty worked up right now as she will dive at this latest undead to cut it down like the previous one.

    Setsuna grins at success before the knight erupts out of the ground about to strike him. He braces himself preparing for a heavy hit and it is only because of his compatriots that he doesn't ever face that attack. Looking over at Kaydon , "Thanks for assist."
     Swiveling his head back to the knight he shakes his head, "Hey, you didn't answer my question. Unless you don't have a name. Did mommy not give you one? " A magic circle appears under his feet, as he continues to talk. "Don't worry I will give you a name. Snowball. Now then snowball catch." Gathering dark magic at the tip of the staff and forming it into an orb he launches it at the knight.

Schneider brings up his sword to fend off the bandits that are diving at him, and he blocks both attacks with a clang of steel-on-steel. "Oh, you poor bastards," he says with a smirk. With a contemptuous gesture, he fires small, flaming darts at the debuffed boss as he avoids the monsters attacking him without much concern. That may show his newbie-ness, or his cavalier attitude, but in either case ... well, that's a lot of flaming darts.

    The people are freed, and Uta gives a thumbs-up in Rylen's general direction. Mission accomplished. "We'll get you set up with Lady Pendragon, the royal Mistress of Uniforms, Sir Corvus," she jokes in a posh accent. "Such an attire is not copacetic, and dare we say, most unseemly for someone of your social standing!"

    Once that is done, she holds her staff vertically, a few inches from the ground. She closes her eyes, focuses, and intones one of her chants. Ominous, and oppressive, in a crescendo, ondulating up and down in volume, but growing in peak intensity, as the last note is hit, she strikes the ground with the bottom of the staff, and from the point of contact, a wave of darkness ripples out, spreading out in a front and directed straight at the Knight...

    Rylen slowly works on breaking everyone bone in the Skeleton's bandit body, which works out fairly well, before it vanishes into wisps. That is when Rylen spots now at least three of the undead charging for him with blades at the ready!

BlackRose also makes quick work of her own, and like Rylen, they seem to be trying to now gang up on her, instead of just going in one by one. Miho, also cuts down her own, and finds herself being rushed by at least four, and this continues down the path for everyone after the Undead bandits!

    Meanwhile, Kaydon refuses to leave the Knight alone, and goes to strike his own blade toward the armored skeleton warrior. The blade hits true, cutting deep into the armor, as the electric current continues to surge around the skeleton.

The Knight then slams his own sword into the ground, seeming to be saying something, as the gems on his bracers start to glow, along with some runes on his armor. Dark energy starts to pull around him...

    Schneider throws out several flaming darts, which sets the skeleton on fire, and at long last the Knight starts to rise, the dark energy following his sword from the ground, that dark energy swirling around the knight, as a flicker of green light lights up in one of the eye sockets.

Uta's dark wave slams into the knight, it roars around him, like a torrent, cutting into his armor, but the knight stands, even as his HP drops a bar. Then as Setsuna throws out his challenge, he flings his dark orb at the Skeleton Knight and in time the Knight roars angrily at the sky in defiance, before he slams his blade once more into the ground.

A massive dark eruption explodes outward, toward the group that has assaulted him and knocks Setsuna's attack off path, as he rises up fully once more. "... Living bastards.." It hisses out. "You shall repent in the name of her Majesty Helena Lethe. May she ever reign!"

==============================================================================

         Rylen, BlackRose, Miho vs 11 ]
        [ Kaydon, Setsuna, Uta, Schneider vs 8 ]

    Setsuna uses the earth itself to move him above the wave of darkness as he shakes his head and looks around. "Poor poor Snowball. Is that the best you can do /boy/?" The living taunts back to the undead with his own words while the earth lowers him back down. With a cocky grin on his face, "Spirit of earth, I beseech thee. Be my arms and allow me your rage. Strike!" The summoner slams his hand on the ground as stalagmites erupt around the knight trying to pierce him.

When the skeleton knight sends the blast wave out in all directions, Schneider raises his free hand, and a shield of air appears, and the energy of the attack is deflected away on either side. "I repent nothing," he says with a chuckle. He begins chanting, this one more involved, his voice dropping into a menacing growl. "Brain, Brain dead. Obey your blood oath, come forth from the land of Avalon. Fire of Gehenna, become a fiery blast and burn everything around us!" He makes a hurling motion and shouts, "EXODUS!" He hurls a wicked fireball at the skeleton night. This may hurt.

"Hah." Rylen laughs at Uta's suggestion, "I bought this outfit before coming up here to deal with this particular problem." He admits, one of those amused smiles linger on his features despite the danger of the situation. "Unfortunately, they seem to like to poke holes in both me /and/ my jacket when I least expect it."

It's at that moment when multiple of the skeletons turn on him, making it far harder to avoid them all-together. Instead, he almost seems to dance between the blows, sometimes bending himself backwards, other times jumping over sword slices, giving a display of his acrobatic prowess.

Afterwards, he lands stepping forward and moving his hands almost as if he were scooping the air, but instead, large chunks of rock seize up from the ground floating in mid air. Throwing out both punches and kicks, Rylen launches the huge stones towards the skeletons, as if he were trying to bowl them down as a group.

No matter what you try to do with BlackRose, she'll simply defend it. There's no stopping her. "Looks like we're getting you guys down to the bare bones!" She says with a slight smirk as she works on wielding her sword to take out the remaining bandits.

    Uta has not stopped chanting since striking the ground, but right now, her chant purifies from dark and ominus to a light and melodious aria, in a seamless fashion. The wisps of darknes that were circling her staf turn bright and colorful, but for the time being they seem not to do much else. They occasionally flare up to follow a particularly high or intense note in Uta's song.

    The song moves towards a final crescendo, and it turns out to be the kind of crescendo that does not stop. It just go on, higher and higher, louder and louder, the lights growing in number, intensity and speed, enveloping her even; the vocalization becomes so loud one can't believe there are no stadium amplifiers in this world, and when it seems like she can't go any higher, or louder...

    ...she does.

    One last note, powerful, coinciding with another slamming of the staff, blasts a shockwave of color and sound all around; chromatic ripples wash over the area, its most intense spot focused on the Knight. It's the kind of sound that makes an airport takeoff sound like a whisper, raw, unbridled volume buffed up by air magic. The kind of thing that deafens people, stuns the senses, and shatters glass if there is anything like that around...

Miho's eyes seem to light up as she takes down another.

"So that's the person we need to take out?"

She'll sheath her blade, drawing her bow quickly. She'll notch several arrows at this -point and level them at the incoming horde of undead at her.

"ARROW SHOWER!"

She'll just keep firing arrows into the air at such an angle. To rain them down on the charging undead.

The Salamander then leaps back and lays down more fire hoping to bring an end to the bandits so she can turn her wrath upon the Knight.

If there's one thing that Kaydon recognizes it's an AoE attack. He pulls his blade free, and takes a few steps back, before diving and rolling away from the Knight before his erruption of darkness.

Once he's clear, he rises back up to his feet, and takes a moment to pop his neck. If the knight is pulling out a move like that, he must be getting close to the end, "Your queen shall not win. But she'll keep sending you and others like you out to die while she hides like the coward that she is."

He twirls the blade around in his hand for a moment, before he drops into his combat stance again, "Tell us where she is so we can put an end to this unecessary bloodshed."

And then he's off, lunging forward, blade flashing again. He's pulling out the same move he used on the 1st floor boss, creating a massive tornado with the force of his strike, localized at the Knight's feet.

    Setsuna sends an aggressive ground attack and the Undead Knight, now erupting with dark energy, uses the energy to break the very attack. The Stalagmite being cut into pieces as the armored figure stands there.

Schneider summons a massive fireball, which slams into the ground and erupts the area into flames, but the armored knight walks through the flames, as his armor starts to glow brightly and some of it melting off.

The knight goes to swing his blade, but Uta starts to her magical song and it causes the knight to stagger back. This gives Kaydon the open he needs to slam his blade hard against the melting armor and cut into the bone. The Knight turns his attention onto Kaydon at the moment and with his hand goes to shove it forward and with a dark blast, attempts to blast Kaydon away from him, before turning that energy and sending it whirling like a wave toward the others that dare to face him.

    As this goes on, more continue to cut down the undead, and more undead continue to come. More and more of the bandits try to outnumber the group, trying to overpower them by sheer numbers rather than by brute force.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Falling back to the ground is one skeleton bandit, flailing around, before landing like a cannon ball into fountain, causing a young specter to 'eek' in fear.

The young ghost blinks at him, as her long hair flows like water, "Sir Bob! Are you okay!?" She asks placing her hands in front of her. Then she tries to reach out with one hand, before she eeps back as the jaw comes off, as the skeleton gives a thumbs up, before just letting itself lay there.

    As Helena Lethe just walks by the court-yard sipping what seems to be very dark, reddish tea. "You shouldn't play with the knights like that, my dear."

The Specter looks at her and puffs out her cheeks. "Like you care! Your not even my real mom and-- and-- I wasn't playing with him! He fell from the sky!" She waves her arms around.

    "That is nice dear." Helena says as she continues to walk on.

"... stupid old witch... your fault my dad suffered like he did... I know it." She hpms and crosses her arms over her chest. She then looks over to the knight. "... we probably should report you to Alaphor. See if he can fix you up..."

==============================================================================

        [ Kaydon, Setsuna, Schneider vs 8 ]
        [ Everyone else vs 7 ]

Though Rylen had managed to avoid taking any serious blows up until this point, there is a point where the bandits simply overwhelm his ability to keep them at bay. One tries to leap on him, and in the process of tossing them off, he takes a gash to one leg.

It certainly isn't the sort of damage that he experienced the last time in a fight against the undead, but it seems to be enough to cause a flicker of dark energy to ripple across his fingers.

Pressing his hand down to the ground, there is a crack that opens there, a hand reaching up from below. After a short moment, a woman in damaged, ancient looking samurai armor appears, her head tipped forward, black hair hanging across her face. She looks back towards Rylen, ever so briefly, then charges into the fighting, lashing out with a katana blade.

Unfortunately, BlackRose makes mistakes here and there, and this time her defensive timing is a little off. She takes a hit and staggers back, gritting her teeth. "Damn, I zigged when I should've zagged," She mutters before staring at the bandits with a scrutinizing look. "No more fooling around, gotta be careful," She says as she attempts to approach the bandits from the side this time before going in with a more carefully planned attack.

Schneider's shield flares, protecting him from the slings and arrows of outrageus fortune, and he takes arms against a sea of undead, or at least an UNDEAD KNIGHT and by opposing, incinerates it. Takes some of its health, anyhow. Taking arms is a literal thing, in his case, and Schneider, having spent all of his ranged fire magic, will dart in and slash with the long sword he carries. Flames run up and down the length of the blade, and it's pretty clearly him channeling fire just the same as he usually does, but this time, up close and personal. There's something weird going on over with the fountain and the undead, but he can only spare a glance before he returns to the fight.

    Uta, still panting after her last performance, catches a glimpse of BlackRose taking damage. "Hold on," Uta exclaims, pointing her staff at BlackRose. "I'll see if I can... uh... unzig and then zag you? Is that how it's called in gaming terms?" The newbie behind the avatar shows again for a moment, but soon the singing starts again, and healing tendrils of light and color fly towards BlackRose, interwined with the music...

    Setsuna can't help but let out a low whistle as the knight breaks through the spears of rock. "Someone is getting a little upset I think. Snowball, perhaps you should,.." He has to shut his mouth as activates his emergency speed buff to move out of the way. "Damn, all that and still can't hit me. Here let me show you how it's done." A magic circle, that the knight might even recognize as one for the undead, " I gather the dust, I form the ash, I summon my warrior to beat this knight's..." The last word goes muffled and unheard as Setsuna's own personal guard of skeleton rise from the earth and charge the knight.

Miho has been pretty adept at fending off the undead for the moment. still, there's a lot of them and she ends up not doing so well at taking them out. he's forced to miss a few shots though. She will draw and notch another arrow. She takes a moment to line up her aim, magic is channelled into the arrow. She draws back and lets a powerful shot fly.

"BURST SHOT!"

It hits hard enough it could go through several bandits before all is said and done.

The sword Kaydon wields can also be used to deflect attacks, which he does with expert, practiced precision, as he manages to block the dark blast, which still sends him skidding across the ground from the force, "Your time is up." He aims his blade forward, to emphisize his point, and then moves in again.

The gnoll were fang isn't doing a slash this time, instead opting to try to rend the blade through one of the weakened armor points on the knight's body, and get at the skeleton within the armor. If he can do internal damage maybe he can end this fight for good!

    The effort of the group, at last starts to make a number on the bandits. Rylen's summon undead cuts through the Bandits with great precision. BlackRose's planned strikes also make quick work of the remaining forces, while keeping on her guard.

Miho summons a powerful arrow and fires it at a line of bandits, including a few that the other are trying to deal with. The arrow pierces several in a row, which all glow before exploding into wisps of light!

The Skeleton Knight meanwhile, attempts to block Schneider's attack, but is just short of doing so, as the flaming blade cuts the shield in half. Setsuna's skeleton warriors then overrun the Knight, as he attempts to cut through them. Dark wave of energy slashing through like dark purple flame into the very air.

    As Kaydon goes to strike once more, the Knight turns quickly and blocks the attack with his own blade. The skeleton knight looking directly at Kaydon, as glowing green burning eye socket lights up more brightly. "I. Think. Not." The undead replies calmly.

Then than knight breaks away from Kaydon, before summoning up the dark energy once more, this time though it doesn't send out a controlled explosion, but with a swing of the blade, unleashes all the dark energy it has built outward toward everyone.

    As the wave moves toward all in the party, it cuts into trees, rips the ground apart, and doesn't look at all like something you want to be hit by!

That said however, the Knight /does/ go down on his knee. Seeming actually /stunned/ by its own attack power.

Schneider is wows by the intensity of the dark energy coming off this boss. A Wall of Flame goes up quickly, and though the darkness buckles it in places and shrinks it around Schneider, who has fallen to one knee with the effort of holding the magical shield, the defense holds, and the firey sorcerer rises again with a triumphant grin. "Well, that got my attention." But the boss has taken a knee also, and that blast seems to have taken a stitch out of him. Well, Schneider doesn't let that stop him, he hauls off with his sword and lays into it with savage blows.

When the skeletons fall, at last, the undead warrior turns to look at Rylen, giving him a nod of her head before she stabs her sword into the ground, forming another crack which she crawls down into before vanishing. Though he had been relatively in good spirits most of the fight, seeing her go seems to have a brief look of sadness pass his features.

Then, his attention turns to the remaining foe. Just in time to see that powerful wave of dark magic come their direction. Rylen pushes off with his feet, launching himself upward in a flip that would normally have earned a round of applause in a performance. In this case, it just barely gets him out of the range of the attack, allowing him to land in a very stereotypical 'hero' pose.

"I think we've had about enough of that." He slides one foot forward, pulling up another rock from the ground and giving a hard side thrust kick to it, sending it towards the armored enemy.

Once again, BlackRose slips up with her defense, and despite her best efforts, she gets hit. Fortunately, the bandits are taken care of, so now it's time to take on the big kahuna. "OK, let's finish this!" BlackRose says as she goes in with her sword.

    "This won't do!", exclaims Uta, slamming her staff against the ground, eliciting a loud wood-against-earth noise. "Rylen! That flip deserves BETTER than this sad undead battle as a reaction! An artist shouldn't suffer such humiliation!" Somehow, a bunch of slimes just *pop* into existence, as quickly as a soap bubble bursts. "Look, I have finally become a Monster Handler! And Summoner! I can summon slimes whenever I want, and they obey me!" She looks down. "Let's give Rylen the round of applause it deserves!" The little slimes... mostly just wobble. They don't have hands to applaud with. They smile and jiggle. That's all. Well, except one slime, though: it tries /very/ hard to be a good audience member, and make some sort of... at least stubby appendage appear. Uta turns towards Rylen with a sheepish grin. "...well, it's the thought that m-"

    Uta shakes her head, and her fluffy daydream dissipates. She's back in the moment, this battlefield of death, undeath and destruction, of people putting their life on the line, of /serious/ matters to take care of. If people could taste blood, she'd definitely do right now. "Uta! STOP getting distracted like that! A second wasted could cost you, and worse, the people who rely on you... everything!", she growls at herself.

    Uta twirls her staff with a single hand, and slams it on the ground. "Today's special is lightning bolt salad. Served hot in your face!", she yells at her opponent. She picks up the staff and intones a quick, erratic tune; a kind of virtuoso piece that would belong nicely with Flight of the Bumblebee. Short bursts of notes moving to and fro, up and down, left and right all over the place, the wave arte compounded by martial artes. Are they even called martial artes? I suppose they are now...

    The music generates a whirlwind around the staff, dust is picked up from the ground, making the effect even more visible. When the melody gets more complex, lightning beings to crackle. As a last movement, Uta jumps, leaps, performs three pirouettes, and finally discharges a massive boltnado at the monster!

Kaydon is unable to get out of the range of the skeleton's attack this time, so he tries to block it. It fails. He watches his health bar get dangerously low, but he's not done yet.

He pushes forward, through the darkness, and tries to get in range to land one more hit. This time, he's going to go for the head.

Putting everything behind the swing, despite his lifebar screaming at him to back off and find healing, he hauls back and unleashes a powerful blow, aiming to sever the knight's skeletal head from his skeletal shoulders. At the very least Kaydon is going to go down fighting if he's going to go down.

Miho is pleased with the end to the bandits. The knight? The knight however needs to go, they are one of the commanders. He needs to go, as it will deny a major commander to the enemy. Losing them would put the undead hordes back. At least that's what Miho thinks as she now looks to Uta for a moment as she puts on a hell of a show. Miho stalks towards the Knight for a moment. She will seem to approve of the display as she takes a deep breath if on,y Grandfather could see her now. She fills her lungs as deeply as she can and whatever pilot light she has lighted up inside her and then she breathes a gout of fire at the Knight. She looks like she intends to end this /quickly/.

    Setsuna raises a wall of earth infront of him to try and protect him from the wave but the energy rips through his earth wall anyways and he ends up knocked on his back with a thud. Out of habit as he stands up, wiping blood from his lip and lets the world settle for a moment as he watches the stunned knight get pounced on like sharks smelling blood in the water.
     The Monster Handler waits for his opening as he starts his magic ritual while the others attack. He kneels and presses his hand with the blood on it to the ground as he speaks." Spirits I beckon you to listen and do my bidding." Spiritual orbs begin to hover around before the caster before twinning and appearing around the knight. "By my words I command invoke the powers of the spirits. By the shadows I cloak you and restrict your powers. By the wind I bind you. By my blood I capture you."
     Long rituals, magic circles, blood, everything you would expect at some form of magical ceremony. Shadows from the knight would erupt encircling him and pressing into the knights bone white skin before gaining a magical pattern of chains along his body. Followed by a strong wind lifting the knight into the air and binding the knights ability to move as well.
     "Now servants welcome your brother into your ranks." Out of the ground 4 skeletons appear and take hold of the captured knight and bring him towards Setsuna. "Don't worry Snowball, I'm going to take care of you." Anyone watching Setsuna's status would see his magic power gone, and anyone looking at the knight would see a debuff, 'Captured by: Setsuna Kibo'

    The attack has taken a great deal of energy out of the skeleton knight. It tries to stand, but it doesn't seem able to do so. "My queen... I have... failed you." The light dims from his eye socket, just as Schneider drives the sword into the undead warrior, followed by Rylen giving the monster a swift kick.

BlackRose charges in and her own sword goes to slide in another angle, as that kick from Rylen earlier rose up the knight to be pierced by her sword. Uta sends out a twirl of lightning the zaps the Undead dead in the chest, freezing it in place as the electrical energy surges around its damaged armor and bones.

This places the Skeleton is a horrible position, as Kaydon comes in swinging with that blade. While it doesn't cut the undead's head off, it does remove the lower jaw, along with a nasty gash across the bone, with Miho setting it shortly ablaze.

    The skeleton tries to not scream in pain, but it becomes more and more difficult. If the undead could cry, a tear may find its eye as it tries to reach up to the sky, "My Queen ... I... was..." The words are cut off however as the ritual commences from Setsuna.

The orbs floating around the undead, as it is suddenly captured, and goes limp. Now a servant to the Necromancer.

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    Not far from the battle vampiric eyes watch the battle. The figure stands up, the lizard tail flicks behind the graceful figure, as their cloak gently blows in the breeze. Her hand barely touching the skeleton hound that tries to comfort her. "Look at them... Look at what kind of monsters they are... savages." Her teeth bite into a snarl, vampiric fangs showing, "If Auther had let me..." She then lowers her head. "... But we did already lose so many."

She sighs softly, before an armored werefang skeleton walks out, she brushes her fingers along its shoulder. "Come, my pups. We need to report back to Auther. We are losing ground, we need to recoup, and the line... the line is going to cut off. Hector.. Hector may be on his own." Her eyes close gently. "... The princess will not be happy..." Then she walks back into the forest, with the hound and werefang in tow.

Finally, the situation is taken care of, and BlackRose can breathe a sigh of relief. She looks to the others and smiles. "We did it. We did well out here."

His part done, Kaydon sheathes his blade, and walks away from the ritual as Setsuna takes control of the knight, "Let me know if you get any information about the queen from him." He says, simply, "This threat is getting far too grave to allow it to continue any longer. We need to shut it down ASAP."

He does pause for a moment, after hearing BlackRose, "Agreed. Well done, everyone." He has...Notes, but that can be for another time.

    Setsuna looks at his new acquisition and then to the others, " Thank you all. I couldn't have done that without all of you. I owe each of you." Taking a deep breath he checks the status once more of the knight, to verify again it worked. " I almost expected something ominous to happen by doing that. Evil eyes in the sky or something. Guess queenie may never even know what happened." Setsuna tries to stand from the ground and feels his legs get weak as his own status states exhausted. " Well then I guess I am trudging home at half speed with my new found friend."

Schneider looks around, grins as it becomes clear that's it. He eyes Setsuna's captured undead warily, but it seems well and truly captured. It's not a thing he understands so he just has to accept it. "Are you sure that's safe?" he asks warily. Then again, he hurls fire around, so are any of us safe?

Miho looks to Setsuna for a moment and she looks right at them. She does not seem happy with Setuna from the lookf of it.

"Even for one such as that it is dishonrable to do this it would have been kinder to put him down then turn him on his master." With that Miho walks off and her tail swishes in a way that she's not very happy with this turn of affairs.

    Setsuna looks at Schneider for a moment and considers that question deeply and then shrugs, " No clue. Maybe its not. Maybe I screwed up the spell, maybe I binded my hp to it's. Maybe maybe maybe. We try things, and sometimes they work. Worse case scenario, I think I put a target on my back." That last bit causes Setsuna to take a breath with a heavy sigh following , as his words hit him. Then the Salamander says her two cents as well and doesn't comment on the matter, but more on the relationship between the Salamander and the human. " I am glad we get along so well."