[center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][center][color=dimgray][h1][i][b]X2[/b][/i][/h1][/color][/center][center][color=dimgray][i][b]Location:[/b][/i][/color] [b]E10[/b][/center][center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center]
[center][img]https://i.ibb.co/pKswWS6/Rat-Golem.jpg[/img][/center]

	The creature didn't appear outwardly to be capable of processing thought nor emotion; nevertheless it might be inferred that it was not exactly pleased about its evening so far. One might especially have this feeling when it was very rudely shoved into a brilliantly burning barrel of mildly refined tree sap. Certain individuals possessing exemplary sensitivity might actually have sympathized when the barrel split open, partially engulfing the creature in sticky, liquid fire. 

	As a direct result of this, the flaming pitch spread out in a more or less circular pattern from its dumping point, meeting the nearby spillage from the other overturned barrel. [color=darkgray][sub][i](Will update the map at the top of next round.)[/i][/sub][/color]

	The Rat Abomination, [i]now fully aflame[/i], showed the barest twinge of self-preservation as it awkwardly rose, shaking its limbs in an ungainly fashion before hurling itself, possibly foolishly, into the melee as it strove to fulfill its orders. Instead of specifically targeting the Tiefling, it contented itself to strike out at the closest living thing to it. As it stepped forward, the nearest living creature - [i]was Victoria.[/i] 

	In its present state of disrepair, instead of attacking with closed, ham-sized fists, it opened its crudely reformed hands to reveal vicious talons at the end of its brutish phalanges. The fire it was engulfed within gave it difficulty with its aim but not its ferocity as it launched a wild, arcing swipe at the Bard's face. Victoria was able to easily twirl out of its way. The second attack was a little more successful, scoring a deep slash across her leathers but not penetrating the flesh below. 




[center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][center][color=darkgray][h1][i][b]Cavendish[/b][/i][/h1][/color][/center][center][color=darkgray][i][b]Location:[/b][/i][/color] [b]A10[/b] [/center][center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center]
[center][img][/img][/center]

	The Infernal utterances which issued from the Constable's rodent-like features continued right up until the point that the currently burning Rat Abomination launched a rather successful attack against him, followed by a very unexpected jolt of [i]sideways lightning[/i]. This gave him a tiny delay. Then his annoyance could be readily measured, inhuman face or not. [color=darkgray]"Outlived your usefulness,"[/color] he hissed suddenly. 

	Black, crackling energy corrupted Cavendish's eyes and spread across his face, leaving streaks of necrosis where it touched. As quickly as it formed, it retreated, seemingly gathering in a mass of ebon plasma in his free hand. Even this close to his attacker, the Constable possessed the fullest of confidence in his ability to strike with something ordinarily reserved for a much longer range. The energy traveled a tight arc from his raised hand, forking into two distinct plumes of arcane power before it slammed into the beast in front of him. 

	The thing, pieced together of anthropomorphized rodent parts, gave a hideous, inhuman wail and sank to its knees. Cavendish plunged his vicious looking shortsword into the creature's flesh, cutting off its cry into a dry, raspy scream, just before kicking it into the puddle of flame before him. 

	Cavendish's voice boomed with annoyed authority, [color=darkgray][b]"I'm through playing. [i]Give the tall one a hug, and drag her into the fire![/i] We're finishing this now."[/b][/color] He looked from Kosara to Baronfjord and back again, plotting his strategy for the upcoming moments. 

	

[center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][center][color=dimgray][h1][i][b]X1[/b][/i][/h1][/color][/center][center][color=dimgray][i][b]Location:[/b][/i][/color] [b]B10[/b] [/center][center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center]
[center][img]https://i.ibb.co/pKswWS6/Rat-Golem.jpg[/img][/center]

	If a thought was to be had in its final moments, it might have been anything. Cursing its nature, relief, freedom, fear; this was one of the great unknowable properties about a heretofore unencountered entity. What might be said with certainty was that the last thing to pass through its brain before expiring was the heat licking up from the sticky fire it was kicked into. 

	
[color=red][b] - Several rats are dead and/or on fire, and the area to the north that is not aflame is still considered [i]Difficult Terrain[/i], with appropriate movement penalties.[/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] ? [/center][center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center]
[center][img][/img][/center]
	[color=darkgray]Guard 2[/color] remains out of sight. Maybe he's just behind the nearest tree. Maybe he's far away, packing his stuff and getting out of town while he still can. Maaaaybe he's right behind you. However would you be able to tell? 

	Spooky, isn't it? Doesn't this build dramatic tension? Doesn't the notable absence beg for attention so hard you want to swat it in the face with a rolled-up newspaper? Hmm?
 
 


[@rivaan] [color=f7941d][b]Kosara[/b][/color], please end our round and tag me for the top of the next. Thanks!