[i][h3]The Vale[/h3][b]The Town,[/b]
[b]Currently[/b][/I]

The first blast of eldritch energy falling aside harmless, turned by one of the shadows' shields, the only thing it walked into then from the opening was the point of Cesar's blade - Wick, by accident, had helped facilitate the graceful stroke and allowed the swordsman's gleaming weapon to strike as true as ever. As the slash ended, the dark fiend disappearing into a plume of inky, fading smoke, more chaos continued as the remains dark defenders avoided wizard and paladin alike. Swiftly, upon their narrow feet, they dodged and weaved almost as quick as their lesser counterparts who, thankfully one might add, were not harrying the rest of the heroes and their gnomish assistant. Avoiding Thea, Haemar, and too a much lesser extent Katia, they maneuvered in and about for their actual attack.

Not impressed with the taunting, one of the remaining two circled around the young aasimar and brought out its weapon in the chaos that seemed to follow them; in a startling maneuver, under her guard, one of the shadow soldiers slipped a strike against Thea's armor and wounded her - an attack that would have regularly glanced off of plate stung now as though it were much more direct. Fortunately, the pain was brief and icy, rather than searing and bloody. Whatever this place was and its strange, discomforting qualities, they were good for something.

Haemar, in the midst of his sweep where the parried blow of lightning charged sword was turned aside, found an attack endured all on his own; in the wake of his defensive sweep, the point of the enemy's sword in all its blackness grazed him. Of course there was a violent flash of radiant light that leapt from the elven wizard's form outward and lashed violently at the shadow, stunning it for a moment as though it were uncertain if it were destroyed or whole still, but the point drove home. Unlike their lesser enemies, these creatures of the dark truly were soldiers or echoes of them; they knew enough of combat to prove they weren't totally mindless, just easily distracted as with any undisciplined guard.

Until it too was finished off by the gnome in a crackling burst of silver that followed the brilliant gold illumination. The small man, fingers arced out before him, seemed to be doing his best to mitigate the suffering the unexpected heroes were enduring, not quite aware that by any standard they were in far better condition than they appeared at this current moment. The positive news was, the overdressed smallfolk apparently had no awareness of this poor show - too busy hurling barrages of sizzling arcane magic.

"Don't worry friends, Birbin's magic will help you put out these no good shadows!"

The gnome then seemed to ready another spell only for it to immediately fizzle out in a cloud of argent dust and bits of crystalline light.

"Uh... on second thought, maybe Birbin is all out of magic."

[hider=Effects]
The north most [i]Shadow Soldier[/i] attacks and hits Thea for 7 piercing damage, having rolled unusually well on both its rolls. The other shadow attacks Haemar, succeeding in striking him as well for 4 piercing damage but suffering 10 radiant damage for its troubles - it remains standing despite the outburst of light.

The gnome casts another spell of silvery bolts, finishing off the shadow that was beside Haemar and presumably injuring the one Thea was skirmishing with using the other two flickering shots. He appears to be out of spells and instead hurries to help distract the last shadow.

[b]Score[/b]
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1P4Z7HimuU]Countdown[/url]

[b]Map[/b]
[url=https://www.myth-weavers.com/map.html#id=4370]Town[/url]

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