End Games

Back in the amphitheater …

The last of the guards turns out to be a stubborn brute. Xavier hacks into him but is only able to cause some minor damage. The guard's counter attack is way off target, however, probably as the result of the fact that his armor is starting to get very hot indeed. In order to take out the guard as quickly as possible before the beasts are upon them all, Bennett lends a hand and manages to bring the guard down with a couple of well aimed blows from 'Retribution'.

With the guard taken care of, Winnacer, Flint and the mystery woman all look round to see the two horrific creatures loping towards them, scattering those in the seats of the amphitheater before them as they are brought out of their fear by the sight of the creatures, making towards the doors.

"Donna be lookin at me!" Faewen'il calls out as she sees the creatures almost upon you before she begins to read the scroll.

As she finishes reading from the scroll, the rest of them cast their eyes aside just before a vivid, fan-shaped spray of clashing colors springs forth from her hand, heading towards the beasts. This immediately stops the creatures in their tracks as they start to bellow with rage and start to toss their heads from side to side, trying to scrape at them with their hooves.

Faewen'il is relieved to see the spell worked, but it does not make her over-confident:

"We needs ta be actin fast," she says. "Tha spell nae be lasting more than a few minutes."

At the Bookies' Office …

Viktor and Tomas have finally found their form as they manage to hit with each of their blows. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the Dragons, who seem unable to find their way through the guards' mail. The guards continue to injure the Dragons, but luckily none of them fall.

At the front gate …

The Dragons are getting hammered badly. Although they are doing a little damage to the guards, they are taking a terrible beating and no less than three of them fall.

Boris, who is himself quite badly injured, sees that there are only three of his boys left fighting at his side. Realizing that he is now outnumbered and outclassed, he realizes that it is time to get out of there fast:

"Everythin's gone to shit, boys," he cries. "Get out while yer still got a chance!"

At the animal pens …

Eladria is not at all happy. First her attempt to control the Flying Penta-Croc failed and now she sees that Faewen'il's spell has brought the charge of her other two 'babies' to a standstill. She decides to take control of the matter personally and starts to walk out of the animal pens heading towards the group in the amphitheater, with the three hunters advancing before her in order to help screen her. The junior druid stays behind and casts barkskin upon himself.

Luckily, the fact that the hunters are protecting Eladria means that they stop shooting arrows into the tree containing Will, Yaz and Jihan. However, they have enough problems of their own without that.

Will manages to cause a cut on the last remaining hunter, only for the hunter to immediately retaliate and send an arrow soaring towards the bard. Will gets hit badly and immediately topples out of the tree. Luckily, the bough was low and so the fall was obviously not fatal, but Will is out for the count and losing blood fast.

Jihan shouts out at Yaz as he sees his brother fall:

"Yaz, see to Will, for Prirodna's sake. I'll take out this last hunter …OOF!" another arrow from the hunter hits Jihan hard. Now he's not looking to healthy either. The elf tries to launch a couple more arrows towards the hunter, but they are both off target.

Immediately that he hears Jihan's plea to assist the fallen Will, Yaz responds, shinning down the tree with quite alarming speed. As he stoops over the bard's bleeding, unconscious body, the druid starts to utter the familiar words of the healing incantation and then lays his hands on Will's body.

Immediately that he does so, Will's eyes open:

"Wh-what? Where?" the bard stutters, still obviously very badly off, but certainly in no more danger of dying.

"Stay down," Yaz tells him. "This battle's over for you."

Will is in no position to argue, being totally unable to move, even if he wanted to.

With Will out of danger, Yaz scratches his head for a moment, racking his brain in order to find a way out of this terrible mess.

Meanwhile, back in the amphitheater...

Winnacer sees Eladria coming forward, knowing that this threat needs to be dispatched with alacrity if they are going to help the over-matched Dragons at the box office:

"We should spearhead through the hunters so that we can slay Eladria quickly, using whatever methods we can to keep her from casting," he shouts to Bennett and Xavier.

The mystery woman, her sultry tone used when speaking to Klauf now replaced with a very serious but calm tone, chimes in:

"May I suggest that now would be a good time to take our leave of this place, before more of those monsters decide we would make a appetizing snack."

With that said, she starts in the direction of the horses, keeping a close eye on the monsters.

Winnacer responds in kind, pointing towards Nathan, Barbarossa, Maire and the other beasts:

"Bring them over to us. We'll mount up once the Creator of Abominations receives Spravedelna's Judgement."

With that, Winnacer concentrates on the task at hand, which is slaying Eladria as quickly as possible.

The mystery woman nods her understanding as she rushes towards the horses.

An impassioned Xavier, the veteran of so many battles, is still able to measure the odds. In the red mist of his anger, he turns to focus on the more immediate threat. Only full repentance will save Klauf from the holy judgement of Rodengast, he thinks as Rodengast has little time for men without honor. Collaboration with such vermin as the Nyemetz is a crime that he finds most abhorrent and nearly impossible to forgive.

The Saxon shouts to Faewen'il as he turns to face the onrushing hoard:

"Fraulein, disarm that whoreson or I shall run him through upon the ground. I want not his sword in my back or yours when he recovers from that enchantment which laid him low. At a better time shall he repent for his crimes against his brother and Bohavia, who shall he die by my hands, in a trial by combat. That by Rodengast do I swear"

Hoping that Klauf will realize, as Xavier has done, that now is not the time for petty squabbles, Faewen'il kicks Klauf's longsword from his hand and then rises gracefully from his chest to reveal the smiling face of Winnacer's brother.

Klauf's expression immediately changes to one of anger as he sees Xavier staring at him, however:

"Fear not of receiving a sword through your back, Saxon," he spits. "While I would dearly love to run you through, I am not some dishonorable assassin. I challenge you to a duel to the death, free of any witchcraft once this combat is over. Try not to die before then."

Xavier is off before he hears the end of Klauf's challenge, however, as he sees Winnacer rushing forward in order to confront Eladria, with Bennett and Flint either side of him. Xavier spurs himself onwards in order to assist in the confrontation against Eladria. Faewen'il rushes on behind him, so as to lend her assistance too, taking Klauf's longsword with her.

Klauf stumbles to his feet, but is having difficulty in doing so and the rest of them have soon left him behind.

As soon as Eladria sees them running towards her, she immediately stops in her tracks between the pit and the food hall. She then shouts to the three hunters and they kneel before her protectively.

They rush on towards them with weapons drawn and see, to their horror, that Eladria is casting. As they leave the seating area and charge the last forty paces towards her, Eladria releases the spell and the grass beneath them starts to rise up in order to grasp their feet. At the same time, a volley of arrows flies out towards Flint. Two of the heavy arrows hit Flint in the stomach, inflicting some terrible damage upon the dwarf, almost knocking him over. The dwarf is looking to be in a pretty bad shape now.

The two beasts are still bellowing out in pain and scratching at the ground, as they are still blinded by Fae's spell.

Meanwhile, at the Bookies' Office, the battle rages with a great deal of damage being dealt out by both Dragons and guards alike. Although many of the guards appear to be close to falling through the masses of cuts to them, just one Dragon falls in the combat.

At the front gate, Boris and the last three of his boys that are still standing dash away from the gate, knowing that their battle is lost. As they turn to flee, two more of the Dragons are cut down and Boris is wounded terribly, but he is still alive. Boris and the last of his men start to run away as fast as they can, dropping their swords in order to hasten their departure. They run through the stream of departing visitors in order to make pursuit as difficult as possible. All but two of the gate guards start to rush after them.

In the animal pens, the junior druid starts to rush towards Eladria in order to lend her some assistance.

Outside in the forest, Jihan unleashes another couple of arrows at the last remaining hunter. The first of them hits the hunter full square, but the second is way off course. The hunter tries to retaliate by sending another couple of arrows towards Jihan, but neither of them comes close to hitting the elf. Yaz sees the hunter is bleeding badly and is obviously close to death. He reaches into his pouch and draws his magickal sling and tries to send two bullets towards the hunter. Even the enchantment upon the weapon is unable to compensate for Yaz's lousy marksmanship, however, and both bullets fly way off target.

Back in the amphitheater, everyone struggles against the binding of the entangled grass. Somehow, Bennett manages to get free of the entanglement, but it slows his movement to a painfully slow walking pace, as he continues to advance toward Eladria, determined to get revenge upon her. As Winnacer and Xavier struggle to get free, everything around them seems to suddenly go into slow motion.

Faewen'il is the first to react, immediately uttering a quick incantation and then casting her hands towards Eladria. One after another, three bolts of magickal energy fly from the lass' outstretched fingers towards Eladria, before impacting upon her, each of them causing some pretty terrible damage upon her. Eladria immediately responds by casting an incantation of her own. As she is doing so, the three hunters nock more arrows into their bows. Flint, his face wracked with pain, brings up Towcester with the last of his energy and aims it towards the tight grouping.

Eladria finishes her casting by pulling out another piece of bark and a couple of snake scales and then points to the ground, which is littered with debris from the destroyed VIP rooms. As she does so, 13 of the smashed pieces of wood immediately morph into snakes.

No sooner has that been done, however, than Flint touches the rune on Towcester and it once again spits out another orange blob of flame which flies towards the grouping before erupting in a mighty fireball. The force of the fireball sets them all screaming with the terrible injuries, although just one of them falls. These are all obviously some very tough opponents.

Fighting off their pain, the two remaining hunters let their arrows fly. One of them hits Flint, adding to his pain, while the other one hits Faewen'il, injuring her badly.

The beasts are still affected by Fae's spell.

At the Bookies Office, the combat is starting to become deadly, as the injuries mount. Two Dragons and two of the guards all fall in the combat, which is proving to be a fight to the death.

At the front gate, four of the guards and the two hunters, plus another one that has just appeared, start to chase after the rapidly departing Boris and the last of his remaining men. The guards, in their heavy mail, are no match for the nimbleness of the rogues and so soon fall far behind. The hunters are more lightly armored and so continue with the chase. However, Boris and his sidekick know that they are running for their lives and, as they weave through the throng of people flooding away from the site, they show that they have a great deal of experience in weaving through crowds and are obviously losing the pursuing hunters.

The mystery woman reaches the horses and starts to untie them. One of the gate guards spots her doing it and starts to rush towards her.

Outside in the forest, Jihan sends another arrow flying towards the hunter, but it only grazes him. In response, the hunter hits Jihan with a retaliatory arrow, which hurts the elf badly. Finally, Yaz manages to send another bullet flying towards the hunter, which hits him in the skull, finally killing him.

Yaz looks up at the badly injured Jihan and Will:

"You two had better stay here and try and keep out of trouble. I'm out of healing spells now and so we can't afford to take any more risks. I'm going for the gate."

With both Jihan and Will unable to move, they are in no position to argue and so can only watch on as Yaz begins to run though the forest heading in the direction of the gate.

Back in the center of the amphitheater, Faewen'il is again the first to react. She sees that, although Eladria survived Flint's attack, she is looking close to death. The lass makes the incantation once again and sends another three bolts of magickal energy flying towards the druidess. Faewen'il looks on hopefully to see all three of the magickal missiles impacting upon Eladria once more and the druidess screams with the pain before slumping to the ground, obviously quite dead. As she dies, the thirteen snakes that were advancing towards the entangled ground suddenly stop advancing and become calm, much to the relief of Bennett who was moving towards them.

The two remaining hunters continue in their attempts to rid themselves of the threat. Flint realizes that one more shot on him would almost certainly result in his death and so risks using another burst of Towcester's precious limited energy by sending another blast towards the hunters. As another burst of flame erupts between them, the hunters start screaming in agony, as their flesh starts to boil and they both fall to the ground.

Bennett finally gets to the edge of the entangled area where he was heading for the hunters, but now finds himself without a target. Winnacer, Faewen'il, Flint and Xavier, however, are still stuck fast.

The two creatures are obviously starting to get their sight back now, as they stop thrashing about so much and start to look around themselves. The Tri-lionoceros, that had previously been bounding towards Flint, is now staring at Darius-monster with its three lion heads and is starting to roar at it provocatively. The junior druid is starting to rush up behind the two creatures.

At the Bookies' Office, the fight continues with neither side managing to fell anyone on the opposing side, although the damage continues to mount up.

At the front gate, Boris and his lone companion have now managed to get far ahead of the hunters and so they decide to give up on their pursuit and are starting to run back to the gate.

One of the gate guards rushes towards the mystery woman as she continues to untie the horses. As the gate guard reaches her, she slashes at him with her knives and causes some damage. She easily manages to dodge the guard's retaliatory blow. However, as they see the fight breaking out, four more of the guards start to rush over in order to give their comrade some assistance.

In the forest, Yaz continues to rush towards the gate, moving as stealthily as he can in order that the guards don't see him, as he knows that he is no match for them all.

Jihan, still grimacing with pain, looks around the arena for targets, as he feels rather helpless to assist in any other way from his position. There are few targets available to him and so he decides to try his luck upon the junior druid. To continue his run of shockingly bad luck, however, he breaks the string of Weitbeissen, much to his immense frustration.

In the center of the amphitheater, Winnacer, realizing what has happened and just how stuck he is, turns to Faewen'il:

"Can you get rid of these grassy shackles? Sitting here is going to make us pin cushions sooner than later."

Faewen'il is reaching into her pouch for a pinch of sand as she hears the young Lord's words. She simply shakes her head in response and looks around for a target.

Winnacer grimaces a little and then turns to Flint:

"Can you burn this stuff off - without charring us?"

"No," replies Flint, having great difficulty in standing up due to his terrible injuries. "If the grass burns, then so do we."

As he realizes that they are going to be bound by the grass for several more minutes, Winnacer's face is one of total frustration. He curses the fact that he has no missile weapon with him, a short bow hardly being an appropriate item for a Lord to be carrying with him to a social event.

Xavier, however, had got his light crossbow with him and has it in his hand looking for potential targets, but sees few. He picks it up and takes aim at the junior druid and loosens a shot at him. Much to the Saxon's surprise, he actually manages to hit the druid, although manages to just nick him.

Bennett has similar ideas to Xavier and has the hope that attacking the druid might leave the monsters without control, so diverts away from them, hoping to attack the druid instead.

As soon as the druid sees Bennett charging towards him, however, he starts to run away from the advancing warrior.

Through her pain, Faewen'il glares at the rapidly fleeing druid and mumbles something akin to "I think not" as her hands begin to weave yet another spell; tears streaming down her cheeks to mingle with the blood from her wound as she controls the pain long enough to cast her spell. The sand flowing from her fingers indicates the sleep ensorcellment they are all familiar with.

She points her hands in the direction of the druid and he falls to the ground, obviously unconscious as a result of the spell.

Only when her spell has flown does she double over in pain with a high pitched whimper; heedless of the entangling grass around her.

As Bennett sees his target fall, he stops in his tracks. He looks around and sees that Tomas, Viktor and the Dragons are close by and are continuing to get hammered by the guards. He immediately changes direction and heads over to help them out.

Returning to its natural instincts of killing everything that gets close to it, the Tri-lionoceros launches towards the Darius-monster. It bites into the Darius-monster's flesh with one of its lion heads and kicks into it with its heavy front legs. The damage that the beast causes is immense and the Darius-monster reels from the blows. It responds immediately and launches itself against the Tri-lionoceros, tearing into it with two of its four giant crab-like pincers. The monster then bounds over the creature on its gigantic back legs and plunges its rear stinger into the beast. The Tri-lionoceros roars out in pain as the venom hits its system and then crashes to the ground. Darius' head looks around and then starts to bound onwards towards the entangled group.

At the Bookies' Office, Viktor brings another one of the guards down by plunging his rapier into him while Tomas continues to hack into another with his longsword. The two Dragons' brass have really been showing their form of late, causing more damage than all the other Dragons put together. The guards take out another one of the Dragons in retaliation.

Towards the gate, the mystery woman sees the other four guards coming towards her and realizes that her two daggers are no match against the broadswords and axes of five guards. Abandoning her plan of bringing the horses, while deftly dodging the first guard's parting blow, she starts to dash back towards the rest of the group, unaware that they are currently entangled. Four of the guards start to charge after her.

Outside, Jihan can do little but curse his terrible luck and restring Weitbeissen yet again. Yaz has now made his way around the perimeter of the complex while remaining unseen. From his hidden position some 15 paces from the gate, he sees that there are two guards and three hunters guarding the entrance, looking around to see what they should be doing next. Knowing what fearsome opponents the hunters are and how fragile he usually is in these situations, and all out of useful spells for this situation, Yaz decides to stay put rather than embark on what would probably turn out to be a suicide mission.

In the center of the arena, Darius-monster bounds towards the group. However, as soon as it enters the entangled area, it, like the rest of them, gets bound tight by the grass beneath it. The Darius-monster starts snarling and bellowing at its prey just outside its reach. Xavier reloads his light crossbow and loosens a shot off against the creature, managing to nick it with the quarrel. From his perch in the tree, Jihan sees the group's predicament and tries to help out by sending another couple of arrows in its direction and is most relieved to see them both strike home, quite an achievement from this distance. The Darius-monster is now bleeding terribly as a result of all of its wounds and looks as if it is not going to be able to take much more of this damage.

At the Bookies' Office, the combat again looks to be going in the Dragons favor. Tomas finally manages to kill the tough brute that he has been fighting for several minutes now and one of the four remaining Dragons takes down another one, leaving just three bodyguards standing. Bennett rushes past Corrow, who is still gesticulating wildly, his arms now beginning to get very tired, and the warrior leaps into the fray in order to help out the Dragons. He lays into one of them with Retribution, but the bodyguard is another huge bruiser and so does not fall.

The mystery woman is running towards the rest of the group in the center of the combat. As they come into her line of sight, she sees their entangled predicament and so hesitates for a moment. The four guards behind her also see what is transpiring in the rest of the battlefield and hesitate also.

Continuing in the center, Xavier calmly brings up the light crossbow and sends another quarrel hurtling towards Darius-monster. With just a few paces separating them, he can hardly miss and the quarrel impacts upon it with force. Darius-monster starts to reel on its giant hind legs now, obviously a hair's breadth away from falling. Jihan tries to put the creature out of its misery but the range is long and both of his shots just fail to connect with the beast. Faewen'il and Flint are in too much pain to do much at all and Winnacer can just continue to watch the events unfolding around him.

At the Bookies' Office, Bennett easily brings down another one of the bodyguards that has already been greatly weakened during the combat. His appearance has greatly spurred on the Dragons and they bring down another one between them and injure the last of them. Now seeing that he is surely about to die, he falls to his knees and starts to beg for mercy.

The guards from the front gate who are watching the scene have realized that there is still a major battle going on in the center of the complex. Two of them rush back towards the gate, shouting for the three hunters to come and join them quickly so that they can lend their bows to the fight.

As the three hunters rush off into the center of the complex, Yaz sees that there are just two guards left on the gate. He is just wondering whether he should risk taking the two of them on or not, when he hears people rushing through the forest just a few paces to the side of him. Ducking so that he can be sure of hiding his position, he looks round and sees Yurek returning to the fight along with two guards.

Yaz smiles as he sees Eladria's husband returning:

"Welcome back, Yurek," he whispers to himself. "I've got a little job for you."

Yaz doubles over, and collapses into the bushes around him as loudly as he can. He moans in agony, lying in such a way that the blood from his arrow wound is plainly evident.

"Unghhhh..." he groans.

As soon as Yurek hears the moaning, he stops fast and then he and the two guards that are with him come over to investigate, holding their weapons tight in case it is a trap.

As Yurek comes across the druid laying on the ground, Yaz shows Yurek his face, then tries to stand before falling, while holding his ribs:

"Unnghhh... Yurek... the rebels... they are here to kill the animals... we must... stop them..."

At this, Yaz cries out in pain and throws his head back in a show of untapped acting talent:

"Aigh!" he cries as he drops to the ground again. "I must see Eladria, she is the only one who can save me..."

Not surprisingly, considering the fact that he is charmed, Yurek falls for it totally. He barks an order to the two guards and they both run to pick Yaz up and help carry him towards the arena. Luckily, the guards do not question Yurek's orders.

Yurek and the two guards supporting Yaz come out of the trees and advance towards the gate. As he does so, the gate guards see them approaching and look quite relieved at seeing the boss returning. Yurek shouts out an order telling the guards to regroup and to come with him. The guards and hunters immediately obey his order and start rushing towards him.

Back in the center of the complex, Winnacer is getting more and more frustrated at not being able to contribute more to the combat. He takes his hip dagger in hand and looks for suitable targets, but sees none except for the Darius-monster that has almost collapsed as a result of its injuries. He decides to keep hold of his dagger in case the guards start a counter attack. Flint and Fae are still badly affected from their wounds and so are grateful that the entanglement prevents anyone from attacking them.

Xavier tries to finish off the Darius-monster with another bolt from his crossbow, but his run of luck ends as the bolt just fails to connect with the creature that is tossing from side to side as a result of its injuries. Jihan, however, makes up for it. Although his first shot misses, his second shot hits and, with a scream of agony, the Darius-monster falls to the ground having finally been put out of its misery.

It is with some relief that the mystery woman sees that the guards are not pursuing her any more and have headed off in the opposite direction in order to regroup with Yurek. Not wanting to run the risk of having to face all of them alone, she rushes towards the Bookies' Office so as to stay close to Bennett and the remaining Dragons.

At the Bookies' Office, Corrow cannot keep up the gesticulations going any longer and so lets the hypnotic dance of his finish. As he does so, the four remaining bodyguards and merchants start to snap out of the trance that they were in. Bennett sees this happen and decides to do something about the situation, having no desire to kill any more bodyguards that are simply performing their duties:

"Get the hell out of here!" Bennett shouts to all of those remaining around the Bookies' Office. "Now's your chance. If you want to get out of here, do it now and no one will stop you. That goes for any of you in the employ of Eladria as well, since she's dead now!"

Bennett gestures towards the deceased druidess:

"Get out now and live, or stay and die! It's your choice!"

Tomas and Viktor are quite relieved as they hear Bennett saying this. It is obvious that they are interested only in the money from the operation and have seen far too much blood spilled in this exercise already.

The bodyguards, who have no interest in the matter other than the security of their employers, do not object and all of the merchants start to rush towards the main gate, obviously greatly relieved to be escaping with their lives.

Panting, Viktor motions to the few remaining Dragons:

"Quickly, let's finish what we have started. Get into the office and get the cash."

At the main gate, the surviving six guards and three hunters have now rejoined Yurek and the two guards that are supporting Yaz. Yurek asks them for a status report and they tell him that there are two groups of hostiles left, one at the Bookies' Office and one entangled right next to the pit.

Yurek immediately orders them to accompany him to see the rebels off and they start to run into the center of the complex.

While Winnacer & Co. stand in the center of the complex still tangled by the enchantment, the Dragons are busy ransacking the coin in the Bookies' Office, depositing it in sacks that they have brought with them. As they are just finishing the exercise, the mystery woman gets to them and points to Yurek and his troops that are coming towards them:

"It's the guards coming for us. Get ready to defend yourselves."

Viktor and Tomas look up to see the twelve warriors running down the hill towards them and a look of terror comes to them, knowing that they and their few remaining men are in no condition to fight a new combat with mostly fresh troops.

Corrow is looking fairly nervous too, but there is hope in his eyes:

"I believe that now would be a good time for some reinforcements, don't you think?"

Without waiting for an answer, he pulls forth a piece of fleece and starts to chant an incantation.

Yurek and his men get closer to the action. The Polak is scanning the area, obviously looking for his wife. It doesn't take long before he sees her terribly charred body:

"OH MY GOD!" he cries, "THEY'VE KILLED ELADRIA!"

Yaz can barely suppress a grin as he sees that his arch-nemesis is finally dead, but manages to put up a pretense:

'THE BASTARDS!" he cries. "THEY MUST BE MADE TO PAY FOR THIS!"

As the hunters reach for their bows, Yaz notices that both Flint and Faewen'il are both seriously injured and that a good volley from the hunters could very easily kill them.

He points towards Winnacer, seeing that he is protected by field plate and has only been scratched during the combat:

"He's the leader of them," the druid cries. "Take him down and the others will surrender."

With that he takes his sling and hurls a couple of bullets towards a very surprised Winnacer. True to form, however, Yaz does a lousy job and both bullets miss him by a mile. The hunters are much better shots than Yaz is, however, and two arrows hit the young lord, one just nicking him and the other one causing him some quite severe damage.

"That's it," cries Yaz, trying hard to keep up the pretense. "A few more shots like that and we'll soon bring him down."

Secretly, however, Yaz is getting a little worried that the situation may be in danger of getting out of hand.

Xavier, as is the case with the other members of the group, has no idea as to what the hell Yaz is doing and fears the worse:

"Vhy you fey bastard turncoat!" he shouts out at the druid. "Change sides vhen things start going badly, vill you?"

With that, he points his light crossbow towards the half elf and fires. Luckily, Xavier is not much more of a marksman than Yaz and his shot is also wide.

Jihan decides to try his luck at the hunters, but both of his shots fall short of their targets.

Yaz is starting to get worried now. He realizes that Yurek and the guards are actually in a stronger position than the party. However, as the hunters nock fresh arrows into their longbows, Tomas' voice cries out from the Bookies' Office:

"Throw down your weapons. Our reinforcements have now arrived and will not hesitate to open fire if you make but a single move."

Everyone looks up and sees, to the east of the complex, that a horde of masked men have arrived. They are all dressed in black and are holding longbows trained upon Yurek and the rest of his men. There must be twenty of them at least, hiding behind and in the trees around the eastern perimeter.

Not seeing Corrow, who is well hidden behind the Bookies' Office, Yaz has absolutely no idea who these men are or where they came from, but is thankful for the excuse to get to the second part of his plan:

"Yurek, this is not going well!" Yaz says fearfully, staring at the reinforcements. "We must surrender or we will all die! Yurek, surrender!"

With that, the druid throws down his scimitar and prostrates himself:

"We surrender!" he shouts.

Yurek too is looking at the horde of new arrivals. Upon hearing Yaz's words, Yurek too throws down his flail.

His men hesitate for a while, not sure what to do, but then one of the guards throws down his battleaxe, followed by another one. Pretty soon, all of Yurek's men have thrown their weapons to the ground and have put their hands upon their heads in surrender.