Everything Goes Square-Shaped

"The prisoners must be coming out of the Witchfinders' Building," booms the voice of the giant-sized Winnacer. "We need to start heading towards the VIP Box."

"What about fraulein Fae?" asks giant-sized Xavier.

"I'm sure that she has her own plans," replies Winnacer, wondering what the magess has in mind.

The answer comes immediately, as there is suddenly an almighty crack before a fork of lightning forks from a position just before the VIP box and crashes into the box. The bright flash then punches a hole in the back of the thin wooden structure, finishing not far from the goblin company in the southeast corner of the Square.

They can just make out the black clad form of Faewen'il leaping backwards before her form dematerializes as she retreats into the sanctity of invisibility.

Bennett pounds his fist against the wall:

"Goddammit! Now we are screwed. How in the hell are we supposed to get to the box now? Son of a bitch. Goddamn girl and her secret plans."

Back in the safety of the area made invisible as a result of the enchantment cast upon the cloak, Faewen'il watches the ozone subside in order to see what the effect of the lightning bolt was upon its target. It is with a great deal of annoyance that she sees that Lord Protektor Strakota, who was the main target of the spell, is looking very much singed, and even more pissed than he was previously, but is far from being frazzled. The Lord Protektor's lady friend who was sitting next to him, however, is now just a smoking hulk. The Lord Protektor of Trebova and the Witchfinder accompanying him were also caught in the blast. Both of them manage to survive the blast, however, although the Witchfinder is clinging on to life by his fingernails. Through passing through the thin wooden back wall of the VIP box, the lightning bolt has set the wall on fire, due to the fact that the box was covered in flammable cloth banners on both sides. The fire starts to take light alarmingly quickly and all of the occupants of the box decide that they really don't want to stay in there any longer and so start to bale out.

Immediately upon seeing the lightning bolt hitting the box, the warriors start to pile though the relatively tiny door of the scribe's house and start charging towards the box so as to make the most of the chaos that is there.

As the group runs out into the Square, Bennett continues to curse about everyone keeping everything a secret from everybody else:

"Untrusting, uncooperative bastards, the whole lot!"

They have got about halfway towards the box, with Gronk, Xavier and Bennett in front as a result of their increased speed, when the air starts to fill with arrows. It soon becomes evident that, upstairs in both the Merchants' Guild and the Wineshop are platoon of goblin archers.

Arrows rain from both buildings towards the warriors. None of them can pierce Winnacer's plate, but Gronk, Bennett and Priest Born all get hit by stray shots, although in none of the cases are the wounds severe. Will and Xavier are both protected by Petr's enchantment. However, with the amount of shots that fly towards them, it uses up all of the enchantments upon Xavier, and Will's protection is almost used up as well.

Bennett runs, cursing as the occasional arrow hits him:

"Goddamn, son of a bitch, f***ed up plan once again!"

The rest of his monologue is only sparsely peppered with words that are not curses, and it intelligible in any regard.

But worse is yet to come. As they are running forwards, both Bennett and Priest Born suddenly come to a complete halt, both of them becoming totally immobile as they are held by magickal means, with neither of them able to move a muscle. The others look around to see where the magic emanated from, but can see no sign of any spellcaster.

Just as the unheld warriors, namely Winnacer, Xavier, Will and Gronk are wondering whether to try and aid their held colleagues or press home the attack, everyone within the Square starts to feel the ground rumbling beneath them. Then everyone looks on to see an area in the west of the Square start to shake violently before giant cracks start to appear in the ground.

The crowd, who had already started to panic as a result of the lightning bolt upon the VIP box, start to scream in terror as the ground starts to open up underneath many of them. Perhaps as many as 50 members of the public fall through the chasms in the ground while the rest of them are thrown to their feet within a 75' diameter radius.

One of the companies of goblins to the west of the Square are caught in the radius of the earthquake, but sadly just two of them fall through the cracks in the ground. The Armorer's shop next to them was also within the radius of the earthquake and it starts to collapse as it shakes to its foundation showering rubble into the Sqaure. Luckily, one of the platoons of the Foot led by one of the Padres of Radegast had just left the building, otherwise they would have certainly been crushed to death by the falling masonry. As it is, just two members of the Foot fall into the chasms, never to be seen again, while the others fall to the ground.

In the center of the earthquake, Fae and Aneira somehow manage to avoid falling into the chasms below them. As she crawls towards the safety of the cloak of invisibility, Aneira can be seen to be holding a scroll in her hand, and to have a look of extreme embarrassment upon her face.

As suddenly as it started, the cracks in the Square close up, burying alive those unfortunate enough to fall into the holes.

Elsewhere in the Square, the Padres of Radegast are leading their platoons of Foot out of the shopfronts and heading straight for the execution platform, to which it can be see that a platoon of ten orogs that were in front of the Witchfinder's Building are accompanying the accused.

Platoons are emerging from the White Cat Inn, the Money Lenders, the Mare's Head tavern, putting them right behind the warriors as they dash towards the VIP box, the Armorer's, which was the one destroyed by the earthquake and from the Distillers, which is the unit led by Padre Kokal.

All five of the platoons are trying to ignore the chaos around them, heading towards the execution platform as fast as they can. The platoon coming from the Money Lenders comes under fire from a company of goblins hidden in the upstairs of the Pawnbrokers next door, which has fairly devastating results, as four of the Foot fall to the ground.

Similarly, the platoon coming from the Distillers led by Padre Kokal comes under fire from the upstairs of the Wheelwrights. Luckily, however, just one of Padre Kokal's Foot falls as a result of the volley of arrows rained down upon them by the goblin archers, although several citizens are also killed.

All five platoons continue to charge in towards the center of the Square in order to help release the prisoners. As they rush forwards, they start to get caught up in the mass exodus of the citizens who are desperately trying to get away from the Square as fast as they can. The result is total chaos, with the Foot struggling together as they fight through the swarming mass of people attempting to leave the Square. The goblin companies at the edges of the Square have a similar problem and they are slow to react to the Foot piling into the Square. They start to charge after the Foot, but the citizens are getting in their way too, slowing down their advance.

To the north of the Square, Glorin leads the dwarves from the Bakery, sending them crashing into the remaining ten orogs guarding the front of the Witchfinders' Building. The dwarves manage to bring down one of the orogs, while one of the dwarves also manages to fall as a result of the orogs' counterattack.

The Priest of Spravedelna who is accompanying them pays no attention to the orogs that the dwarves are fighting with, but is more concerned about the Witchfinders' Building, from which it can be seen that four Witchfinders are watching the events unfold. Before the Witchfinders have a chance to react, however, the Priest starts to gesture towards the Building and the front of it goes silent.

The dignitaries within the VIP box are now starting to leave it as quickly as they can. As they do so, they see the gigantic warriors thundering towards them. Lord Protektor Strakota is screaming at the ogres to stop the giants from reaching them.

From his position in the upstairs room above the Money-Lenders' house, Jihan has an excellent view of the battlefield. As the dignitaries start to pile out of the burning VIP box, he draws back the string of Weitbeissen and loads his sleep-envenomed arrows into the bow. Seeing the Trebova Witchfinder clinging on to life, but knowing how deadly he could be were he to start casting at the warriors, this is his first target.

Without the benefit of any armor, the Witchfinder is an easy target for the elf, and a shot in the back easily brings the Witchfinder down to the ground. Without missing a beat, Jihan brings up a second arrow and lets it fly towards Lord Protektor Strakota. The shot, however, misses him by a narrow margin. Next to bale out is Sylva and so Jihan tries to bring her down, knowing that she is likely to blink out at any moment. To his great delight, he sees the arrow running true. The arrow just nicks her arm, causing only the most minimum amount of damage. However, Jihan looks on with relief as she stumbles and then falls to the ground as a result of the effects of the sleeping venom. Now there will be no easy escape for her.

On the opposite side of the box, Winnacer, Xavier and Gronk are charging into the disorganized mass of ogres and dignitaries. As he closes into the attack, Winnacer's eyes start to glow green with rage and, his voice, already deepened through his gigantic stature, gets still deeper as he bellows towards the ogres in rage:

"You have all been Judged unworthy through the eyes of Spravedelna. Depart now or face the full wrath of Her holy representative."

The ogres don't need to be asked twice. Seeing the three enormous warriors bearing down upon them was almost enough to send them fleeing without the intervention of the Fear of Spravedelna. The combination of the two factors sends the ogre chieftain, the ogre sargeant, the ogre shaman and 16 of the 18 ogres fleeing away from the box, screaming in terror, leaving just two of the ogres together with the two Lord Protektors and Kurtek to face the wrath of the warriors.

Xavier charges forward, his mind consumed with revenge. For him, all those in the VIP box are worthy of a bloody end. But one name burns in his brain. A name of great pain to one of whom's faith he owes much - Kurtek the butcher. For Aneira shall his blade strike through bone and flesh. Few men go quietly to their deaths. Kurtek will go down screaming!

Xavier's feet pound across the cobblestones of the square, his body and mind oblivious to the stream of arrows. He vaults towards the VIP box, The Justifier raised to strike fast and deep into those who have brought so much pain to those with a place in his heart.

Before the half orc knows what is happening, the gigantic form of Xavier is above him, wielding the gigantic form of 'The Justifier' as if it were little more than a dagger. Kurtek tries to dodge the blow, but in his hastened form, Xavier is far too quick for him and brings the blade crashing down upon the half orc. The injury that the blade causes is horrific in the extreme, and would have killed a normal man, but Kurtek still lives … just.

In his hastened state, Xavier is able to swing at the half orc once more. This time, however, the half orc is ready for him and manages to dodge out of the way just in time to save him from an instant death from the Saxon.

Panicking now, Kurtek brings up a slim wand and points it towards Xavier. Immediately, a thin ray of bluish color shoots from the wand aiming towards the Saxon. Xavier sees the ray coming and tries to use his speed in order to move out of the way. However, as he is in front of the half orc, there is no chance to dodge far and he is hit by the ray. Immediately, the Saxon is struck rigid, unable to move a muscle.

Gronk, meanwhile, has his sights set upon Lord Protektor Strakota. He charges towards him with battleaxe in hand. As was the case with Kurtek, Strakota is taken by surprise at the sight of an 8' tall dwarf looming towards him, especially one that is moving at the great rate that Gronk is. As a result, Gronk is able to catch him fullsquare with the battleaxe, which cuts deeply into his flesh, adding another terrible wound on top of the results of Fae's lightning bolt. In response, the Lord Protektor lashes out at the dwarf with his longsword. The huge dwarf makes a large target and Strakota is easily able to plunge the sword into Gronk's flank, injuring him badly. The attack puts Gronk off his stride and so the Lord Protektor is easily able to dodge Gronk's second attack.

The Lord Protektor of Trebova rushes to Strakota's aid and cuts into the dwarf with a blow from his broadsword. Gronk is now starting to look pretty beat up as a result of the damage.

The two remaining ogres, however, charge towards Winnacer, who was responsible for scaring off the rest of their unit. The young Lord, however, is well protected by his platemail and so the clubs of the two ogres have little chance of causing him any harm.

While the warriors have been closing their attack with the dignitaries, Will breaks off from the group of them, knowing that he is no match for the combat abilities of the ogres. Instead, he joins in with the crowd that are running from the Square as fast as they can so as to avoid the arrows of the goblin archers situated in the buildings around the Square. He sees that two units of goblins are still heading towards the center of the Square, chasing after the units of the Foot. He waits until two companies get close to him and then produces his traveling harp. He then starts to sing a popular Nyemetz drinking song.

Upon hearing the magickal sounds of the harp, the two goblin companies immediately stop chasing after the Foot and stop and listen to the song. As they listen to the familiar words, they start to laugh to themselves, before starting to join in with the lyrics of the song, totally enthralled by the bard's magickal music to such an extent that they become totally oblivious to their surroundings.

Elsewhere, the Foot are heading through the crowds getting close to where the platoon of orogs has managed to lead the accused close to the execution platform. Aneira and Fae, who have by now managed to pick themselves up off the ground after the earthquake experience, see that the Foot are going to be heavily outnumbered by the orcs that are surrounding the platform once they get there, and so decide that they need to help out in order to redress the balance a little.

Fae rushes out of the area covered by the invisibility cast upon the cloak. She emerges amongst the hordes of petrified people streaming away from the center of the Square with a scroll in her hand. She then begins to read from the scroll, the words magically disappearing as she utters them. As she gets to the end of the scroll, she gestures towards the closest company of orcs. As she does so, a dense cloud of misty vapors comes as if from nowhere, completely engulfing one of the companies.

Aneira also rushes out of the invisible protection of the cloak. Not wanting to run the risk of using her scroll again, she resorts to using a more tried and tested method. Clutching the metal snowflake symbol close to her, she produces a flower petal and a piece of mud and then starts to chant while gesturing towards the orog sargeant of one of the other companies of orcs. Immediately that she does so, the orog starts to leap around as ants and beetles start to swarm all over him. He is powerless to do anything else but to leap around in an attempt to get away from the painful bites of the insects.

As the orogs leading the accused get to the execution platform, the first platoon of foot led by Padre Chernik reach them. As the orog platoon turn in order to face the Foot, the Padre's eyes start to blaze with fury as he uses the Fear of Radegast upon them. The results are a similar success to Winnacer's use of his Gift, as eight of the ten orogs run off in fear as a result of the Padre's actions. Of the two that remain, one of them is immediately brought down by the foot, leaving just one remaining, who manages to wound one member of the Foot, but does not bring him down.

At the same time, Padre Kocharnik brings his platoon, which is down to six men as a result of the goblins' bowfire, charging towards one of the units of orcs that are starting to figure out what is going on and are heading towards the accused. Almost when the orcs are upon them, the Padre takes his turn in using the Fear upon the orcs. The Fear has its usual decimating effect upon the orcs' morale and fifteen out of the twenty orcs in the company decide that it was high time that they got out of there. The five remaining orcs, seeing the Foot bearing down upon them from all sides, decide that it would probably be safer if they joined them and so follow their comrades in the rout.

With one company of orcs totally lost in the swirling mists of Fae's spell, and the other having run as a result of Padre Kocharnik's Fear, just two companies of orcs remain in the center of the Square. They, however, are not so easily deterred by these setbacks and charge towards the accused in order to try and stop them being led away. Seeing that this is the orcs' intention, the four companies of Foot charge towards them in order to stop them retrieving the accused.

With civilians in the way, the situation is total chaos, with all attempts at keeping to formation an impossibility. The brawl between the orcs and the Foot is difficult to follow, but incredibly bloody, as the Foot and the orcs hack at each other with fury.

On the east side of the platform, the fight is fairly even, with five orcs and five members of the Foot falling. To the west, however, Padre Kokal shouts encouragement to the Foot as they hack into the Nyemetz. The greenskins don't know what's hit them and ten of them go down beneath the longswords of the villagers. By the time the orc company has realized what is going on, half of their number are already dead. Fearing for their lives as they see that they are now outnumbered by the Foot, the remaining ten orcs start to flee the scene, running for their lives.

There are now just 15 orcs remaining by the execution platform, already badly outnumbered by the 34 surviving foot, not to mention the Padres that are leading them.

In the northwest corner, Glorin's dwarfs are still locked in combat with the orogs in front of the Witchfinders Building. Glorin hacks one of the orogs to the ground, and another orog falls also, but four of the dwarves fall to the orogs as they counter attack. The melee seems to be going in the orogs' favor now as their numbers stand at eight each. Glorin is starting to look decidedly less confident than he did in the tavern the previous day.

The Priest of Spravedelna sees one of the goblin companies threatening to join in the fight, which would almost certainly spell doom for the struggling dwarves. Once more, the Fear is witnessed as the Priest's eyes start to glow with the Wrath of Spravedelna. Just two of the goblins manage to stand their ground from the result of the Fear, and these too decide that they would much rather flee along with their comrades rather than risk suicide by joining in with the combat.

As the Priest sees off the departing goblins, he hears a commotion from the Witchfinders' Building above him and realizes that his silencing spell must have been dispelled.

From his spot in the window of the Money-Lenders, Jihan watches the fight unfold. In the chaos down below, it is very difficult to tell friend from foe, especially with all of the civilians milling around in utter panic. It is presumably for this reason that the goblins have ceased their archery.

The elf looks on with alarm, however, as he see Xavier paralyzed from the effects of Kurtek's wand. He realizes that, unless Kurtek is taken down, either Winnacer or Gronk are going to be the next target. He sees that Xavier managed to wound Kurtek badly from The Justifier's blow and that one good hit upon the half orc will be enough to finish him. The elf realizes that it is going to be a difficult shot to get, however, what with Xavier being so close to his target.

Offering a silent prayer to the Three, Jihan nocks another sleep-envenomed arrow into Weitbeissen and tries to steady his aim. None of the three seem to be listening, however, as the first of the arrows flies past Kurtek hitting the much larger target of Xavier. The arrow just nicks the Saxon, but the sleep venom takes effect. As Xavier is paralyzed, however, it makes little difference to his fighting ability.

Knowing that he does not have the luxury of time to curse his bad luck, Jihan nocks a second arrow into the bow and lets it fly. However, this one is way off target, just missing a fleeing citizen. He tries for a third arrow, but once again he hits Xavier instead of the half orc. He tries one last arrow, but it misses both targets by a wide mark.

In amongst the melee by the side of the blazing VIP box, Winnacer too has seen the danger that Kurtek poses. As Kurtek swings around with the wand to face Winnacer, the young Lord realizes that he needs to take him down or else he has a good chance of being paralyzed too. Kurtek grins evilly as he brings the wand up to send a ray of light heading towards the LawBringer. The grin soon fades, however, as he sees the gigantic form of Winnacer bringing his borrowed longsword crashing down upon the half orc's head. The force of Winnacer's strength enhanced blow is immense and it hacks the half orc's head in two.

Kurtek is dead.

"Justice," Winnacer says.

Winnacer has no time to feel pleased with himself, however, as the two remaining ogres continue to try and knock the wind out of him with their clubs. Once again, however, Winnacer's black plate mail ensures that he comes to no harm. Winnacer exacts a measure of revenge, however, as he hacks into one of the ogres, causing it some pretty serious damage, but not quite enough to finish the beast.

Gronk, meanwhile, is in the process of trying to finish off Lord Protektor Strakota. With another mighty blow from his battleaxe, he hits the Lord Protektor hard, leaving him clinging onto life. Strakota knows that he is fighting for his life now and whirls his longsword around in a blaze of fury. The blade impacts badly upon Gronk and now the giant dwarf is looking as badly off as the Lord Protektor. His eyes blazing, the giant-sized, speedy Gronk is determined now to finish off the Lord Protektor before Strakota finishes him off and brings the battleaxe crashing down upon the Lord Protektor's back, finally finishing him off.

Before Gronk has time to realize that Strakota is no more, however, the Lord Protektor of Trebova lifts his sword and hacks deep into the side of the dwarf. Gronk immediately crumples to the ground, bleeding heavily from his wounds.

Winnacer realizes that he is now all alone in the center of the battlefield facing the Lord Protektor of Trebova and the two ogres. Never can he remember such blood flowing in such a short amount of time.

As Jihan sees Gronk fall, he sees that Winnacer is going to have his work cut out in order to finish off the Lord Protektor of Trebova as well as the two ogres. He carefully takes aim at the Lord Protektor and lets fly another sleep-envenomed arrows. The shot is on target, but the Lord Protektor is wearing half plate and so the arrow simply bounces off his backplate. Undeterred, Jihan lets off another shot, but it goes far wide. In a whirl of activity, Jihan loosens a third arrow towards the Lord Protektor and is rewarded by seeing the arrow hitting the Lord Protektor in the leg. As was the case with Sylva, the injury caused by the arrow is minor, but the Lord Protektor immediately stumbles and falls to the ground as the sleeping venom begins to course through his system.

Seeing five more companies of goblins about to pile into the Foot, Faewen'il realizes that the villagers will undoubtedly be slaughtered unless she manages to help them out once again. She runs out from the cover of the invisibility spell with the scroll once more in her hand. She then begins to utter the words upon the scroll and another dark cloud appears, as if from nowhere, engulfing one of the goblin companies, rendering them immobile.

The lass then retreats back to the safety of the invisible cloak. She then picks it up and starts to dash towards the flaming VIP box. Aneira, not wanting to be left alone and visible, has little choice but to chase after the feisty one as she dashes towards the box. As the two of them make their way through the panic stricken spectators, Aneira gets her first clear look at the results of the combat, seeing all of the targets either dead or unconscious. Her delight at seeing Kurtek and the others dead, however, is marred as she sees that Gronk is quickly bleeding to death on the ground amongst them and that Xavier is paralyzed. She also sees that Winnacer is locked in combat with the last two remaining ogres.

Wanting to get the combat over with as quickly as possible, Aneira decides to give Winnacer a hand in the hope that, once the ogres are dead, they can all get the hell out of there as quickly as possible. She positions herself in such a way as to get to within a few feet of the backs of the two ogres and then starts to utter a chant to Zima while pointing her fingers in an arc aimed towards the ogres. As she finishes chanting, freezing cold shards blast from her fingers hitting the two brutes. The one that Winnacer injured earlier immediately falls to the ground from the icy blast, leaving just one ogre remaining, and that one doesn't look to be in too great a form either.

Elsewhere in the Square, the crowd is now starting to thin out dramatically, as the citizens scream away from the area in terror, having never witnessed such bloodshed before in all their lives. Will continues to enthrall the two companies of goblins with his rendition of the Nyemetz drinking song while at the same time trying to keep among the crowds so that he can't be picked out by the archers.

In the opposite corner of the Square, the Priest of Spravedelna accompanying the dwarves realizes that, unless he acts quickly, the Witchfinders within are going to be raining a heap of spells down into the combat. Once more, he starts to gesture towards the front of the building while chanting and, once again, all goes quiet and the Witchfinders have no chance of casting for the time being.

The combat between Glorin's dwarves and the orogs continues. The dwarves realize that they are now fighting for their lives and so redouble their efforts to finish off the orogs. As a result, two of the large greenskins fall beneath the dwarves' axes. One of the dwarves is seriously injured in response, but he does not fall.

In the center, one of the Foot in Padre Chernik's platoon manages to hack the last of the orog minders in two. His platoon then grabs the chained prisoners and start to drag them towards the Great North Road in order to get them away from the Square as quickly as possible. Padre Chernik sees that one of the four remaining goblin companies are going to crash into the rapidly departing group of Foot unless he does something about it.

Immediately, he starts to chant as the greenskins charge forwards, while producing a golden caltrop from his pouch. As the goblins are about to charge home, the Padre tosses the caltrop into their midst, creating hundreds of magickal replica caltrops in an wide area around it. The goblins' momentum is such that it is impossible for them to stop in time and they scream out in agony as the blades of the caltrops pierce their feet, leading them to fall upon the sharp spikes. The results are devastating, with all of the goblins dying as a result.

To the east of the execution platform, Padre Kocharnik has the same idea and performs the same actions as his colleague. He starts the incantation and then tosses a golden caltrop amidst the company of goblins coming towards his platoon from the east. The results are the same in that it forms a field of caltrops into which the goblins charge. The results are not quite as devastating as the first Padre's actions, as some of the goblins had witnessed the effect upon the other unit. However, 11 of the goblins fall to the ground, impaling themselves upon the caltrops, while the nine survivors from the broken unit try to pick their way out of the field.

Although three of the goblin companies have been taken out of action as a result of the spells cast by Faewen'il and the Padres, two companies crash into the four platoons of Foot that are in the process of finishing off the last company of orcs to the north of the execution platform.

Padre Kokal manages to spur his platoon on to resist the charge of one of the goblin companies. As the greenskins charge, the nine men in his platoon manage to bring down six of the goblins between them. The other platoons, however, have less luck.

The goblins take their revenge upon Padre Kokal's platoon, however, and the remaining goblins manage to bring down seven of his men, leaving just two of them remaining along with the Padre. Such heavy losses are too much for the remaining troops to stand and their resolve breaks, forcing them to rout away from the action, heading north in the same direction as the fleeing prisoners.

Worse is to come for the Foot, however. The remaining orcs, which are in the center of the Square, are surrounded by the Foot on all sides and fight like caged animals in order to clear a gap through the humans. Padre Kocharnik's platoon take the worst of the damage, getting cut down to a man and leaving Padre Kocharnik on his own.

Seeing that there are now only 16 men remaining from the Foot facing 32 goblins and 15 orcs, Padre Kocharnik realizes that holding their ground will be suicide and so orders the retreat. The two remaining troops and the Padres start a fighting retreat in order to try and protect the prisoners from being cut down by the Nyemetz as they flee.

With just one ogre remaining, Winnacer launches himself at the beast in order to finish off the last opponent. With his massive form and enhanced strength, the LawBringer has no problem at all in hacking into the creature, which is already badly injured as a result of Aneira's frosting. All the opponents around the VIP box are now dead.

This proves to be a mixed blessing, however, as there is now nothing to stop the goblin archers from launching more volleys at Winnacer and Aneira, who are both out in the open. Protected by his plate mail, Winnacer has little to fear, and all of the arrows hitting him simply bounce off the plate, except for two, which manage to find the chinks in the armor, although the damage caused to the young Lord is not great. Aneira, however, does not have the luxury of Winnacer's armor. Luckily, however, she is dwarfed by the giant-sized warrior next to her and so does not receive quite the same amount of attention that he did. Even so, two arrows find their way through her chainmail, both of them hurting her pretty badly.

Knowing that a few more arrows could easily finish her off, Aneira shouts out to Winnacer:

"Quickly, get under the cover of the cloak of invisibility or else we'll both be pincushions."

Not waiting for a response, Aneira dashes towards the front of the blazing VIP box and immediately disappears from view. Winnacer, not wanting to be left alone, immediately dashes after her.

Covered by the blanket of invisibility, Aneira sees that Gronk is just a couple of minutes away from having his soul depart from his mortal coil and so immediately falls to her knees next to him and casts a healing spell upon him. The effects of the spell are excellent and Gronk's eyes open. He is still in terrible pain, but is able to struggle to his feet.

As Gronk regains conciousness he looks up to see Aneira:

"Again yar be da one patchin' me up. I be owin' ya again."

Aneira looked at Gronk and speaks to him in dwarven:

"You do not owe me anything. You fought well."

Winnacer sees that Faewen'il, meanwhile, is in the process of relieving the dignitaries of their items. The first thing that she snatches is Kurtek's wand, not surprisingly. Then she grabs the Witchfinder's rod and sweeps it over the others in order to determine what else is magickal. From Kurtek, she identifies some bracers that he is wearing as being magickal and quickly pockets them. She also finds a potion in a pouch attached to his belt and so grabs that as well. From Lord Protektor Strakota, she takes her knife and hacks off his little finger, upon which he is wearing her ring. She quickly pops the ring back on her own finger, not wasting time in wiping the blood off first. She then picks up Strakota's longsword, which she also determined to be magickal.

She then moves on to the sleeping form of the Lord Protektor of Trebova and is disappointed to find that only his broadsword is exuding magick. Picking that up, she moves on to the Witchfinder, and snatches a magickal dagger from his belt. Then she finishes with Sylva. The gem at the end of the Witchfinder's rod glows bright as she sweeps it over the sleeping form of the assassin. From her body she grabs a pair of bracers, her glassteel daggers, a couple of potions and her boots. All of these items, she deposits into a sack, which is now bulging as a result of her haul.

Elsewhere, Will is continuing to play his enthralling drinking song upon the two companies of Nyemetz. Bennett is still held, along with Priest Born.

To the north, the Foot are trying to make a fighting retreat out of the Square. A couple of the Foot fall as they try to hold back the Nyemetz along with the Padres, but their deaths buy the others time as they continue to stream out of the Square. As the prisoners run out of the Square accompanied by the Foot, the goblin archers above the Wheelwrights unleash another volley towards them. Two more of the Foot fall from the volley, along with the replica Fae and Aneira. The replica Xavier, Gronk and Yaz are injured by arrows, but they continue running away up the Great North Road in order to get out of danger.

From his position above the Money Lenders, Jihan sees that the majority of the party has now managed to fight off all of their opponents and are hidden under the cover of invisibility. He sees that the Foot need all of the help that they can get in order to get out of the Square. Taking his quiver of regular arrows, he lets out a quick burst of arrows aimed at the orcs. The orcs are a fair distance away and so it is a difficult shot. He manages to wound a couple of them, but none of them fall.

The fight between the dwarves and the orogs continues before the Witchfinders Building. The Priest of Spravedelna looks up to see if the Witchfinders are up to anything, but all is still silent from the windows. Seeing that the dwarves need all the help they can get in order to fight off the orogs, he draws his longsword and piles in along with them. With both dwarves and orogs tiring from the combat, one dwarf and one orog both fall to the ground as the combat continues.

Realizing that they are all short of time, Winnacer kills the Lord Protektor of Trebova. He then turns to Aneira and Faewen'il and speaks:

"Have either you two any ways of totally securing Sylva? We can't afford to have her blinking out again."

Both of them simply shake their heads:

"In that case, the only solution is to kill her."

He turns towards the unconscious spy and lifts his longsword high as he says his final words to the turncoat:

"The threat that you pose to the villagers of Bohavia is too great to allow you the possibilities of escape. In the name of the children of the Orlitze Valley, I sentence you to death so that they all may live without fear."

He is interrupted by a shout from Faewen'il, however:

"Donna kill her yet, just gag her an break her legs an fingers. I need ta read har mind!" Fae shouts to Winnacer over the din of the combat as she is relieving the spy of her magical items.

Winnacer catches himself just in time and so instead starts to secure Sylva while Faewen'il continues her looting of the bodies.

Gronk, still feeling half dead, looks around the Square and sees that the dwarves are still locked in combat with the orogs on the opposite side:

"We be needin' ta 'elp out me brothers, 'ey can't be aholdin' out long against 'em overgrown greenskins."

Gronk's tone belies that his words are really a plea to go help the dwarves.

Aneira immediately advises the dwarf, however, that this wouldn't be a terribly good idea:

"You're hardly able to stand," she tells him frostily. "What help do you think are you going to be to them in this state? In any case, I need you to help me get Xavier out of here. He's far too big for me to be able to drag him on my own."

Aneira looks around and sees that Kurtek is dead. Her purpose for being in the Square is now complete. She looks further afield and sees that Bennett is held and out in the open, along with Priest Born:

"Can anyone help him?" she asks.

There is no response from the others, however.

"We need to get out of here. Now," she adds.

Ignoring her own wounds for now, she helps Gronk sling the paralyzed form of Xavier over his back and helps to support him.

With all of the pilfered items now safely stashed away, Faewen'il too decides that it is time to move out of there. Not waiting to see who is or isn't following her, she picks up the cloak and heads off towards the south of the Square.

Seeing Faewen'il departing, Winnacer tries to do some quick math, remembering back to Jihan's previous poison usages. Gently, so as to not wake her, Winnacer lifts Sylva and follows Faewen'il out of the Square.

As he sees that the Square is now pretty much clear save for the bodies that litter the area, Will decides that it is probably time to depart the place before the archers get tired of not having any targets to aim at. The bard pulls the old Pied Piper of Hamlin bardic trick and tra-la-la's out of the Square, leading the two companies of enthralled Nyemetz with him.

Jihan looks around for targets, but see that there are none currently available for him now that most of the Nyemetz have run up the Great North Road heading after the escaping prisoners. He scans the Square, looking in case there are any targets available.

Outside the Witchfinders' Building, the combat between dwarves and orogs continues, with the Priest of Spravedelna providing all of the assistance that he can. The fight continues in its intensity as all of the combatants are suffering from their wounds. Three of the orogs fall, but so do two of the dwarves. There are now just two orogs remaining, however, compared to Glorin, the Priest of Spravedelna and three dwarves facing them. The orogs realize that the odds are now stacked against them and so decide that it is time for them to get the hell out of there, turning and fleeing to the east. Relieved at this, the dwarves start to pick up the weapons that the orogs dropped. It is fortunate for the dwarves that they are situated in the extreme northeast of the Square, as neither the archers in the Pawnbrokers nor the Wheelwrights have line of sight to their position. The other archers in the Merchants' Guild and Wineshop can see them, but after their first volleys aimed towards the dwarves all fall short, they realize that the dwarves are out of range of their shortbows.

Under the cover of the invisible, Fae, Winnacer, who is carrying Sylva, plus Aneira and Gronk, who are dragging Xavier between them, head south as fast as they can, which is not very fast due to the difficulty of transporting the giant-sized Xavier. As they rush past the held Bennett and Priest Born, Winnacer whispers to the others:

"We need to drop off Xavier and Sylva at the Scribes first, as we can't carry anyone else with us. We can come straight back and pick the two of them up afterwards."

They continue on to the Scribes, where they deposit Xavier and Sylva.

The dwarves, meanwhile, have now picked up all of the weapons that the orogs dropped and run up Barrow Lane away from the Square, disappearing through a gap between the buildings.

Having deposited the burden of Sylva and Xavier, Winn, Fae, Aneira and Gronk head back out of the Scribes and head towards Bennett and Priest Born.

From his position, Jihan, who has been watching the battlefield intently, sees the forms of the Bennett and the Priest suddenly dematerialize, as they are hidden by the invisibility of the cloak. He, however, is not the only one to notice this phenomenon.

In the upstairs window of the Wineshop, Jihan sees that, in addition to the platoon of goblin archers, there is also a goblin dressed in extravagant robes, obviously a shaman or a witch doctor. As he sees the forms of Bennett and the Priest disappear, the goblin officer immediately begins to cast towards the position that the two of them were occupying.

As the goblin finishes casting and gestures towards the area, the partymembers, who were huddled under the cloak, are immediately made visible as the effects of the invisibility are negated. However, that's not the only effect it has. Much to his relief, the dispel also breaks the hold that Bennett is under, although not the one effecting Priest Born. It also effects Bennett's size, however and he is immediately reduced to his normal stature.

Within seconds of the invisibility spell being broken, the air is once again filled with arrows from the archers located around the Square. Fae's worst nightmare comes true as she finds herself out in the open with no protection other than her ring that she retrieved from Strakota's finger. As an arrow pierces her side, her only thoughts are for protection as she dashes for the safety of the Scribes'. Winnacer and Gronk grab Priest Born, while Aneira leads the very disorientated Bennett away. As they do so, arrows shower all around them. Luckily, most of the goblins are firing at extreme range and so their shots are wild. However, two arrows find their way through Bennett's Fabio armor and Priest Born is also hit.

As all rush towards the safety of the Scribes', another volley comes from the four buildings around the Square, less this time, as they run out of range of the goblin archers in the Wheelwrights to the North. Once again, the vast majority of the arrows scatter around them as they run, but by the law of averages, some are bound to strike home. Faewen'il gets hit by another just as she reaches the door to the Scribes'. She's badly hurt now, but manages to get through the door to safety. Aneira is hit too, but the wound is only slight. Gronk is the only other to take a wound. The arrow only graizes him, but Aneira wasn't just being melodramatic when she told him that he was still in a very bad way, and the wound is sufficient to send him tumbling to the ground once more. At seeing the dwarf fall so close to the door, Winnacer tells Aneira to get the Priest and Bennett into the Scribes' while he drags the unconscious dwarf the last few steps into the Scribes and slams the door shut behind him as another volley of arrows thud into the portal and smash through the windows.