As you decide what to do, two of the creatures suddenly stumble and fall to the ground. That leaves four still standing.

The ranger calmly dismounts, his feet sinking into the freshly dewed grass of the dale. As he looks upon the strange creatures, he raises his hands in a gesture of friendship.

"We mean thee no harm, and simply wish to pass." Myrage punctuated the words with a slow moving body language, in an attempt to mime his words.

These were creatures of the forest, and he had to offer them a recourse. The ranger knew how threatening the creatures looked, and he doubted that they would listen to reason. But he was a forest cleric of Mielikki and it was his duty to spread the goodlyness and wisdom of his forest deity.

He knew he was safe from any melee attacks from the creatures, Az' would see that none would get within striking range

He had to try.

Jacosa follows Myrage's lead, dismounting so as to provide a less imposing figure and walking slowly a good ten paces behind the ranger. She adds, "Do you need assistance?" to the ranger's remarks, her face a picture of open concern.

the creatures stop thier strange dance and look at Myrage. two of them whip out small blowguns and fire small darts, hitting Myrage in the arm, and Belak in the chest. Myrage jerks the dart out, and feels the poison course through his viens. His knees buckle for just a second, But he fights off the poison, and is soon ready to fight. The dwarf barely even acknowledges the poison in the dart, and pulls the dart out, now fully enraged.

Rondad spurs his horse forward, hanging to the side of the horse. He rides forward and tries to grab the man and lift him to safety.

Rondad rides off to a safe distance, making every effort to watch for the man trying to attack him. He puts the man on the ground and awaits the others,

Myrage bit hard upon his lip, the poison rushing through his veins, mixing with his blood.

The pure anger and adrenaline of the ranger almost cause Myrage to rush to the beasts and rip them limb from limb with his bare hands, but he paused, turning slightly to look at Jacosa through his haze restricted sight.

"It would appear that I do require assistance.......to rid the land of these foul scum."

As the words left his mouth, his rapier was in his hand, it's fine point bending with the sheer speed of it's withdrawal from its sheath. The ranger rushed then, toward the figure of the closest fiend. The beast expected the attack, and raised his crude weapon in a lazy parry-attack combo that it obviously thought would defeat the woodsman.

Myrage rolled below and beneath the strike, rising to the side of the monster, his rapier sticking into the ribs of the creature behind his original target.

The afore beast, twisted and looked in amazement at the swift figure, attempting to get his feeble brain around the complex manouver.

The turn only caused the short sword that protruded from his armpit to enter his lung.

If the creature had known that that breath was his last, he perhaps would have tried to savour it.

He didn't.

"That'll be the last mistake you ever made vermin!!! Belak leaps from his pony with his battle axe in hand. "I was willin' to let words run their course, obviously the feel of my blade in your side is much more to your likin'. "Belak rushes in amongst the foul creatures. Attacking the nearest one with a full two-handed overhead chop looking to cleave the being in half (or at least close to it).

As Belak raises his axe high over his head, the creature lunges at him. Just as the blade slices downward towards its target, a break in Belak's armor shows traces of blood. His battle axe now in full swing hits the being at the base of the neck and continues downward several more inches. The hole in Belak's armor now reveals more than just a little blood. Belak looks down at the wound, "A whole army of orc's couldn't lay one finger on me and look at this!" Belak staggers and drops to one knee complaining about how he must start to train more and that he must be getting old.

An almost maniacal gleam crosses Jornath's face as he draws for his emerald blade. His voice seems to ring in your minds as he shouts, "Prepare to face the Justice of Tyr miserable curs! You have been Judged, and your hearts found wanting. Death awaits." After his sermonette, Jornath wades forward into the thick of things, swinging wildly at the nearest creature.

As Jornath charges forward towards the nearest creature, his steps become faster and faster and he breaks out into a near run. The creature snarls, drops a little lower, and awaits Jornath's charge with weapon ready. Too quickly for the creature to react, and at nearly the last minute, Jornath jumps into the air, performs a forward roll over the head of the creature (~6 feet up), extends Tearulai to his full reach, and lands just behind the monstrosity. It is only then that the rest of you recognize Tearulai's brightly pulsing blade sticking out of the crown of the now dead accoster of Tal.

Jornath looks around, sizes up the remaining two creatures, and with a call back to Tal says, "I will be able to attend to you soon, but Tyr demands that these demon-spawn be ushered into their afterlife of torment." So saying, Jornath proceeds to head to the next closest feline creature with a no less feline smile on his face.

Jacosa swings up onto Obsidian's back and gives him his head, riding full into the nearest creature. As his hooves wreak havock, she draws her sabre and slashes down on the most available target.

Blake, seeing a tactical advantage of encircling the enemy, gallops his paint horse into a flanking position. Monitoring the battle as he moves into position, he picks his target, the one Jornath is charging. He draws his hand ax from his belt and raises it over his head and with a forceful snapping motion, let's it fly to the exposed back of the green cat thing. The ax hits with a sickening thud and the creature staggers toward Jornath. Blake, draws his long sword ,surveys the battle and looks for possible reinforcements before moving in for the kill.

Jornath's mouth tightens momentarily and then relaxes as he sees Blake attempt to muscle in on his newest foe. Jornath heads in towards the staggering creature and with a mighty cry to Tyr, lops off the arm of the cat-thing. As it looks down to its former limb, it looks up just in time to see Jornath's second swing catch it cleanly across the belly. As it falls to Jornath's feet, he can be heard to mutter to himself, "Two more for the innocent, infinity to go."

Having recovered somewhat from the poison, Tallandril staggers to his feet. It may not make sense to enter a battle that's already well in hand, but if any of these strangers got hurt on his account, well... he couldn't permit that. Drawing his shortsword, Tallandril melted into the forest's shadows, encircling the battle field to reach the exposed back of one of the creatures, all the while keeping a wary eye on the forest, which could still contain an unknown number of foes with their camouflaged skin.

Clayton steers clear of the melee and readies his sling. From a good distance away he lets loose one of his bullets. The bullet hits one of the creatures in the face and stuns him long enough for one of the others to get him. After that Clayton watches the rest of the fight and heads over to the new found friend. "I am Clayton friend," a dark haired human in leather armor says with a grin. "What encouraged your 'friends' over there to bother you?"

Tallandril froze when Clayton headed in his direction. Surely no one could have seen him once he had merged with the shadows... unless... Sheathing his shortsword, Tallandril gave up his pretense of hiding, but still watched the forest for signs of any other creatures. "They didn't take too kindly to my daydreaming in their forest," he replies to Clayton's question. "I wouldn't figure them for being the territorial type, but who can say?" So saying, Tallandril changed his strategy to staying out of the fray-Clayton was an interesting character, and well worth chatting with. Drawing a long knife from a wrist sheath, he flicked it with an impossibly fast motion of his wrist, sending it end over end into the nearest creature's thigh, crippling it. "So," Tallandril said, "What about yourself? Pick fights often?"

A stranger no more