Rats! Litterally and figuratively!

The little monsters had cleverly laid an ambush, clearly using the pile of bones as bait to draw in unexpecting prey, only to pounce on them with the all the cunning and skill of a master assassin! ... Or, perhaps not... Regardless, the situation was nevertheless very real and very dangerous. With one of the vermin rushing straight past Guard Lady, the half-elf turned as quickly as she could in order to intercept it. Alas it was too late, the little mongrel had already begun attacking the hooded boy. What a failure on her part, or so she thought, she had been in charge of front and yet she had let their very first enemy just slip by her, shameful.

Still, there was time to redeem herself yet! A second rat from behind was dashing towards their archer-friend, hell-bent on catching them from behind. Even if she were to try and help the boy fend off his attacker, her weapon wasn't exactly suited for small, precise attacks and chances were that she'd take the head off her companion just as well as the rat if she tried swinging for it. Thus, she decided to move infront of their forgeiner-friend, placing herself between the other girl and the oncoming rat. With a swift, determined movement she raised the polearm and brought it down sideways in an attempted horizontal slash.

Sadly, the rat - while much bigger than usual - was able to see the attack coming and somehow managed to evade the cleaving swing. Having missed her mark, Guard Lady became unbalanced and had to recover from her failed attack. This moment of disarray allowed the huge vermin the chance to counter, and so it did - leaping into te air and biting down on the girl's torso. HEr leather armor buckled and deformed slightly under the large frontal fang of the rat, but it was durable enough to withstand being pierced through at the very least. The sudden addition of weight on her torso was enough to stagger the half-elf though, and in a clumbsy backwards motion, she dropped her weapon and fell on her bum, trying with all her might to pull the beast loose from herself, all the while cursing under her breath.