The melee quickly became both brutal and confusing.

As Lugh dropped away, he felt a light thump against his lower stomach, as the kappa slammed their knee into his torso. For a moment, there was some sensory dissonance, seeing the slimy creature’s knee pressed so deep into his body and yet not registering it at all as actual pain. His health though, did reflect that change, [b]7 points[/b] of damage inflicted by that unarmed strike. He would survive, that was for certain, but it was still worrisome that the creature before him, manlet or not, could even inflict damage upon him through Lugh’s crazy END.

If he simply held on, threatening with his blades in his hands, perhaps Magpie would have been able to score a clean hit. Instead, however, Lugh abandoned his weapons, and became an afterthought to the kappa’s mind. As polished steel thumped into the ground and the warrior went to reciprocate the grapple properly, he noticed something.

Those were some hella thick neck muscles that the manlet was sporting!

Dropping their own spear, the grappler kappa twisted their body, pivoting to face the same side as Lugh who was already unbalanced due to his strange posture. Magpie, rushing in with a wild haymaker, suddenly didn’t have much of a target at all when the kappa pulled Lugh closer, preparing for an over-the-shoulder throw. To strike would be to crack Lugh’s cranium, not the kappa’s, and the brawler barely managed to stop in time!

[i]"Get out!"[/i]

Until Klein returned favors and barreled into her from behind, inflicting [b]3 points[/b] of physical damage and infinite points of humiliation. It was a domino effect from there, one that Raime saw play out in slowed motion. Zoned in, he could see Magpie fall over a Lugh who was on top of the kappa, before Klein’s inertia carried him onto the other two adventurers as well. There was a split second where they all flopped onto each other, supported by the surprisingly strong kappa on the bottom, before that slippery river-monster sprung out from underneath, and they all fell into a disorderly heap. With foes prone and weapons scattered, the kappa grabbed for the closest weapon available, Lugh’s wakizashi, and it was then that Raime’s bolt was fired, causing the creature to hop back, a crossbow bolt vibrating on the ground where their leg was moments ago.

Of course, where one kappa was unarmed, another was certainly ready to steal some kills. Having spent most of his time hopping to and fro, evading Ari’s surprisingly well-aimed stones, the spear kappa saw a golden opportunity amongst the heap of Immortals. With a squawk of ‘fuck yea, three in one’, the turtle rushed forwards, thrusting its spear into Klein’s back and inflicting a hefty [b]19 points[/b] of damage as the spear dug deep. For the poor 40% pain player, the experience was as if someone stabbed him with a pencil with all their might, his virtual muscles flaring up in pain. That wasn’t all though! The kappa’s muscles tautened, feet pushing into the dirt, as they prepared to thrust in even deeper, hopefully to skewer Klein and stab into the second Immortal layer: Magpie.

[i]"Pieprzyć twoją matkę!"[/i]

Amulak felt a burning in his veins, something warming up beyond just his blood as an incomprehensible exhilaration filled him up until he was like a balloon about to burst. Motes of energy manifested around him, before swirling into the palm of his outstretched hand, and with a flash of light, a recoil that he felt through his whole body, a magical bolt shot out, hitting the spear kappa right in the shoulder and sending them spinning away from Klein, Magpie, and Lugh. A solid hit!

But as the kappa reoriented himself, eyes narrowed in frustration and anger, blood dripping from both his spear and his shoulder, Amulak knew too, that he was most certainly on the top of the river-manlet’s hitlist now.

Which was why it was definitely a smart, savvy tactical decision to have one melee specialist, in this case Ames, stay in the backline!