[center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][center][color=darkgray][h1][i][b]Guard 1[/b][/i][/h1][/color][/center][center][color=darkgray][i][b]Location:[/b][/i][/color] [b]J12[/b][/center][center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center]

	The Guard was obstinate. He had no intention of dying on this rainy autumn day, though he had to admit that getting knocked around by magic - [i]magic[/i], of all things - frigging hurt. This most recent attack slammed into him with less force than before, but still, OUCH. This was not his favorite way to spend an afternoon, and to be quite frank, those attacks were piling up to a very negative outcome. 

	This was rural living; the only practitioners of the arcane were supposed to be the occasional Cleric (and there really wasn't much of a religious presence in this town) or a hedge magician of some kind who stumbled onto a useful trick or two. Hells, the last person of any magical ability who lived here left this place a while ago for bigger and better things. Now there were a group of them and [i]one in particular[/i] was giving him a hard time. Well, no matter. She had sealed her fate the moment she openly cast an attacking spell in front of the crossbowmen. Then blatantly taunted them. Then didn't bother moving or taking cover. All he had to do was hold on for a liiiittle longer. 

	But first! He really, [i]really[/i] wanted to stab her. His spear was still in hand and he intended to use it. Teeth were bared, slightly elongated incisors in view and lisping out a hiss of aggression as he spiraled the weapon in his hands, looking for an opening. It was an easy find, as it turned out. The tip of the weapon pressed against Kosara's flesh. It met unexpected resistance at first as the woman's mage Armor held, but a concentrated shove helped to get past it, barely. Blood was drawn. It was a minor victory at best. He wrenched the spear free and made for the same spot again, hoping that he had found a weak point in her defense, only to pass his spear through empty air. Full miss.

[@rivaan] [color=red][b]Kosara has taken 5 points of piercing damage.[/b][/color] 



[center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][center][color=darkgray][h1][i][b]Guard 2[/b][/i][/h1][/color][/center][center][color=darkgray][i][b]Location:[/b][/i][/color] [b]K12[/b][/center][center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center]

	Guard 2 had a decision to make. None of his options were particularly great at this time and it looked like the two opposing forces were more or less evenly matched if his allies in more elevated positions got a couple hits in. But this was all wrong. This was supposed to be an easy, overwhelming win for them. There weren't supposed to be this many people capable of using magic. There weren't supposed to be this many [i]people[/i] here at all. And the Constable? Either he was the one being overwhelmed, or he was holding back for some purpose unknown to him. This was not exactly going to the battle plan. But they could still pull out a victory. This was far from lost. 

	Between himself and the other Guard next to him, they could probably both gang up on the slender Tiefling and fill her full of holes before she could compensate for the rush. But this would place his back to the strange Dragonborn with three arms, two of which were ...interesting... at best. And painful. The Guard to his side was damaged but not down yet. No, he would go by the ancient and well-polished art of looking after his own skin. Be it that their orders were to concentrate on the tall woman, they had to get by these two to get to her. 

	Baronfjord it was, then. This was an unusual opponent, and he hadn't his spear on his person. Maybe if he could dip low and snatch it up, he could attack under the magic appendages and hit the scaly flesh behind them. If he was able to strike a final blow, he might even claim the unorthodox combatant's shortsword for his own. Yeah, they would turn this fight in their favor, and this azure outsider would go down first. The crossbow bolt had already done an remarkable job, all he had to do was finish it. The Guard made his move. 

	The low assault of a matter of a couple of feet was executed flawlessly as his boots shuffled in exactly the right balance of speed and coordination. No jerky movements were these, but the practiced steps of a men intent on skewering his prey like one might a charging boar. His lithe, strong fingers wrapped around the haft of his dropped spear and his other hand touched the ground briefly, giving him the exact balance necessary to insert the point of his weapon between the ribs of his enemy. His thrust was executed without tangible flaw to his martial technique, and he was in the exact position to put this person down. 

	Then he missed. Utterly. TWICE. 

	Looking very foolish, the Guard righted himself and stepped back, sighing as his own ineptitude, and breathed out a quiet, [color=darkgray]"...well, shit."[/color] 





[@Arty Fox] Your turn!