Snippet #1576409

The Child stepped back, howling and clutching at his face. Talae was hardly surprised- acid tended to cause that sort of reaction. She used his obvious distraction to stab through his gut, casting the orc off the blade with a foot even as Koni rushed by much faster than he probably should have been able to and took out someone with little more than a kick. This on its own did not disturb her, but the cold feeling that coiled somewhere in her abdomen in the wake of his passing did. That was dread, and she hadn't known it so acutely for a while.

If she had been functional enough to muster fear last time he transformed, she would have understood it, but as it was she had no idea what was causing the sensation and tried to ignore it. Jumping over the arc of a halfling's knife, she landed on his shoulders and forced him down, impaling the hapless soldier on the way down. The next time she turned around, it was to discover that there were some sort of spikes protruding from her partner's legs, and Pel had a look on her face like she was trying to decide something.

And there was that feeling again. "How are you-?" she asked, or at least she managed the first half of what would have been a full question before the battle once again demanded her attention. Casting another flask of acid into a group of incoming Children, she watched them scatter and picked her target, sidling around to the edge of the group and catching two with thrown knives and another in a slightly-longer pass at close range. One of them shot that damned fire at her, and she hit the ground, bringing a foot around to attempt a kneecap of the bastard. She'd nearly been roasted last time; not something she wished to experience again.

---

When Thanaros fell and Faera attempted to go to his aid, Alistair shifted his fire towards a few of those that might block this transition. The enemy numbers were thinning out, but he doubted the dragons would give up their city this easily. He'd been in enough battles to figure that much. This was a strategic holding, and not one that most would wish to give up without considerably more resistance than the standing garrison alone provided.

He could have sworn he saw Neira disappear out of the corner of his eye, but dismissed it as an illusion of some kind. He was nearly out of arrows, so gave up the attempt at ranged combat and took up his spear instead. Things were always a little better that way. He was a good shot, but by no means prodigal for his farsighted species. Ascending a few dozen more feet, Alistair gripped the trident firmly in both taloned hands, picking his target carefully. There- that Child appeared to be directing a few others at the very least.

Angles and drop-speed were calculated almost instinctively, and the harpy tucked his wings in, streamlining his aerodynamics for the dive his clan was known for. The wind tore at his plumage on the way down, whistling through his ears enough to make just about anything else inaudible. The Children saw him coming, but by then he was too fast to hit with a projectile, and it wasn't until the last possible moment that he opened his wings and flattened out, impaling the leader cleanly and dragging him off the wall with momentum alone. For a second, he was dragged downward, until the body slid off the polearm and made its descent to the earth below. Alistair swept back upwards, followed by the expected flurry of arrows, and he wove precariously in the air to avoid them. One nicked his leg, but didn't do sufficient damage to the scaly limb to unbalance him.