Heroic Impulse {IC|Semi-Open}

[Endem]

Eler Yke

For the past week he was mostly not talking with anybody, well, he mostly stayed out of everyone sight for quite a while now, firstly because it could demask him as being a Dryad and secondly because he was making himself a hood to conceal his Dryad'ness, fortunately, the hood was done right on time. He stepped out of the airship behind everybody getting his bow ready.

There were three Oni's waiting for them probably to attack. He activated his magic and his sigil started to slightly glow but he couldn't sense any animals nearby, well then, he will need to stick to the old tactics.

Eler pulled an arrow from his quiver and put it on the string, then he pulled back the string and released. The arrow made a quick noise and was flying on towards the Oni with a bow. Hopefully, it hit, if he was lucky today, it will kill the Oni, and Eler was feeling lucky today.

[Clan Grimrock]

Lostglory Brothers
As the ground expeditionary team disembarked, Spanner finished his practiced routine, touching his necklace to each of Vanarr's bracers as he whispered something under his breath. The spell complete, he put the necklace back on, Vanarr nodding his thanks. Vorgrim and Spanner would accompany the team, but their expertise was not in direct combat. Instead, they would hang back in case of a fight, ready to help the others rearm and ready up whenever the need may arise.
When the group encountered Au's party, Vorgrim and spanner stepped back, allowing Vanarr and the others to take the lead. Vanarr adjusted his grip, steadying the axe held in his right hand while his left hovered near the grenades on his bandolier. Suddenly, the man to his right loosed an arrow, and the dwarf charged into action.
He targeted the oni holding a cleaver, and swung low, hoping to knock it off balance. As he did so, he unhooked a grenade, holding it firmly in his left hand.

[Lessoni]

Jackie Dredson

Jackie calmly surveyed the scene unfolding. He took it with a stoic expression, one that didn't betray any one particular emotion, his eyes blank and hands steady.

His hands did their dirty trick, finding a target in all three oni. Jackie sent two bullets each towards them, aiming in between the eyes with a taunt of "Step right up y'all." With his gun empty, he reloaded it, his hands swift. His bullets seemed to fly into the chambers, and in a second his gun was full again.

[Vulnier]

Jorgen Otoro

Jorgen was in a defensive posture as he glared at the three oni. His shield was in front on his left arm as his sigil glowed bright, his mace down by his side but ready to swing at a moments notice. He didn't bring much else with him, save for his pistol which hung on his holster.

When an arrow flew and shots were fired, Jorgen charged forward with a mighty roar just a moment after the dwarf. With surprising speed, he rapidly closed the distance with the oni who had the bow. When close, Jorgen used his shield to bash at the bow in an upward motion, hoping to throw off the oni's aim as he readied to bring down his mace on her arm holding the string of her bow.

[Charlia]

"..." August drew his sword, his eyes narrowing. He stayed poised to move if necessary, ready to take whatever action he might need to.

These oni were intimidatingly large, but he was nothing if not quick. With that much, he could hopefully still get through this.

But if not... well, that's all right.

---

Irie's eyes widened, and she quickly summoned a fireball, holding it in her cupped hands. "Maiden protect us," she whispered. This was an adventure, but she wasn't quite sure it was the sort of adventure she'd been hoping for.

Oh well. She'd done dangerous things in the past, and she could do them again. Xephine would help her. She was certain of that.

---

Karlin didn't exactly respond well to the appearance of the oni--she tensed, immediately aiming her weapon, not at one of the three armored oni but at Au. Back down. She knew she could hit her target--her magic combined with her general skill guaranteed that.

If there was one thing Karlin Eshana never did, it was miss.

---

"...Mm. Well, isn't this interesting," Salem said as if to nobody, smiling blankly. "Yes. This is quite the development."

But with all that armor and weaponry... Lovely.

She pointed at the oni with the cleaver, not speaking a word--and a bolt of purple lightning shot through the air, directly towards him.

[Faal Lot Himdah]

Battle With Oni
The Swiftpeak Citadel’s Island
Approaching the rear entrance of the Citadel

---

The ground expeditionary team began their assualt before Sir Silas or Fi could give any orders. But that was to be expected, as the threat was obvious, and they had to eliminate the threat and secure the key. So no orders were necessary. While most of the team went to deal with the cleaver wielding Oni and the bow wielding Oni, Silas, Min-Ki and Fi turned their attention to the glaive wielding Oni. Alicia, like Karlin, took aim at Au, past the three Oni that were between them and Au.

Eler fired his arrow at Waka, only to watch as while the arrow did hit, it bounced off the armour. The same happened for the bullets fired by Jackie. While each of the bullets did hit their target, they failed to penetrate the armour that covered the faces of the three Oni. The bullets did however cause all three of the Oni to stagger back.

Dispite being staggered, Doi was able to not only avoid the low swing of the dwarves axe, but as Doi avoided Vanarr's strike the Oni used the momentum of the dodge to start swinging the cleaver towards the dwarf. The cleaver was not fast enough that dodging was impossible, and there was no doubt that Vanarr would be able to avoid it. But the cleaver did hit something with its swing. It made contact with the purple lightning. But instead of Doi being electrocuted as Salem desired, the cleaver just cut through the purple lightning, spliting it in two, with the now two bolts missing Doi. With the split of the lightning, a shockwave was created, a shockwave that only Vanarr was close enough to be effected by. The shockwave knocked the dwarf a good distance back. With the lightning dealt with and the dwarf knocked away, Doi's cleaver ceased glowing. The glow returned as Doi turned to Salem, and charged the Witch of Merrigod.

Waka was surprised by the speed of Jorgen, and while still being staggered from the bullets of Jackie was unable to avoid the shield bash of Jorgen. The shield bash was definitely enough to through of Waka's apparent aim, but despite this, the Oni released the drawstring, and fired the arrow. As the arrow flew skywards, the bow ceased glowing. Jorgen didn't get a chance to bring the mace down as the moment that Waka fired the arrow, the Oni swung his bow at the demi-human with more than enough force to knock Jorgen back a step or two even if he blocked.

As Nura was staggered, Fi took the opportunity to thrust her spear towards the Oni. At the same time, Silas, who moved with a speed that was completely unexpected for a man of his age, got behind Nura, and swung for the Oni's armoured back. Neither of them hit Nura however, as the Oni quickly recovered from its stagger, and swung its glaive in a circle around it. The glaive made contact with Fi's spear and knocked it to the side, and then did the same for Silas's sword. As Nura knocked the weapons of its attackers away, Min-Ki fired. The genius demi-human fired a Gidakyra round, designed to penetrate armour, at the Oni. The round made contact and penetrated the armour of Nura, but Min-Ki was no sniper, so while he was aiming for the area where an Oni heart would be, he missed but still hit Nura in the shoulder, causing a short stagger, that no one could take advantage of, as Nura drove its glaive into the gound, and a small explosion errupted from underneath the Oni.

The explosion sent Nura upward, while also knocking Fi and Silas to the ground. While airborne, Nura began to swing the glaive as it began glowing again, and aimed to bring it down on Min-Ki. Howver, Min-Ki jumped back just before Nura was able to bring the glaive down on him. The glaive once again hit ground, and another explosion was created, knocking Min-Ki past the other memebers of the ground expeditionary team and also sent Nura airborne once again. Nura was able to stick the landing, and then charged towards the Oni's enemies, specifically towards Karlin.

[Lessoni]

Jackie Dredson

Jackie watched the bullets bounce off the Oni, but a wry smile lit up his face as they staggered. They felt that one, for sure. But he needed a new strategy if he were gonna do any real damage.

He racked his head for info on fighting armored targets, and remembered the joints. So simple he could've laughed. But the question was, where to aim? The neck might be a killshot, but if it wasn't? Well, not too much effect besides another stagger, and he only had so many bullets. So the neck was out. Then... the elbow or knee. Armor would be thinner, and they'd either take a real hard knock, maybe fall over, or have their weapon arms thrown off. Yeah, the elbow was sounding real good.

And he had a target in mind; the one with the cleaver. He'd never seen a blade cut through lightning, certainly not magic lightning. And that made him uneasy, yesiree. So he took a deep breath, cleared his lungs, and more importantly cleared his mind.

And he fired six shots at the elbow of the arm that was holding the cleaver. With that, he reloaded and pulled his other revolver from the holster. He'd a feeling he was gonna need it.

[Clan Grimrock]

Vanarr Lostglory
After narrowly ducking under the cleaver and being knocked back by the shockwave, Vanarr shook his head, trying to clear the slight dizziness. Taking stock of the situation, he saw Au and the goblin still standing away from the group.
Pull the pin, 2, 3, underhand toss. He lobbed the grenade so that it would bounce and roll to a stop just a metre or two away from her feet, giving her only a few seconds before it would explode.
Then he turned his attention back to Doi, and went for a feint. An overhead swing of the axe turned into a roll before it could actually hit the oni, but the momentum carried him through his opponent's legs. He stumbled back to his feet, now off balance, but he dropped the axe and drew his trench gun.
Safety off. Aim behind the knee.
A plea, short and blunt. The prayer of a pragmatist. "Zoysus guide my hands."
One shot. Fire.

[Vulnier]

Jorgen Otoro

Jorgen gritted his teeth as the bow made contact with his shield, staggering back a few steps from the force of a blow, from a bow of all things. While Jorgen had succeeded in throwing off the Waka's aim, the Oni still managed to get a shot, even if it was in the air. Jorgen swore that would be the Oni's only arrow.

Taking a moment to recover, Jorgen dashed to the side of the Oni. Though the armor was unlike anything he had ever seen, it must had still have some of the weaknesses of any armor. Jorgen could start to feel the strain of the sigil as he saw an opening behind the knee.

Hoping he could finish Waka off to help his allies soon, Jorgen used the end of his shield to jab at the knee, hoping to bring the Oni down as he readied his mace to hit right at the head of the Oni as hard as his sigil would allow.

[Endem]

Eler Yke

His arrow didn't do anything against Oni with a bow, how sad. He stood there for a second considering possible ways of next attacks then he saw the Oni with a glaive charge, no, it won't happen, the Oni is going down. He charged at it from an angle it wouldn't see him. When he was close enough he jumped onto it's back and grabbed its shoulder, his hood fell down.

He pulled an arrow out of his quiver, holding it in middle, lifted himself up a little still grabbing the shoulder, he could see the Oni eyeholes. Arrow in his hand swung going straight for the eyehole. If this worked the Oni would be dead, Eler would score the first kill, a sweet taste of victory...

[Elysian Kentarchy]

Valerian

I hold my bow to my side and instead raise my hand from my position. "Ready sister?"

"Ready." She tells me, taking her place by my side with her staff in one hand and raising her hand next to mine and both our sigils glow as we weave one of our older tricks. And the grass near us begins to grow exponentially, growing under my magic and being woven by my sister into something stronger, I am the grower and she is the protector. The goal is obvious to most of course, to stop that oni with the glaive or at least slow it down enough to be taken down by someone else as my sister the grass to tangle it around its feet.

[Charlia]

Battle With Oni
The Swiftpeak Citadel’s Island
Approaching the rear entrance of the Citadel

---

The ground expeditionary team began their assualt before Sir Silas or Fi could give any orders. But that was to be expected, as the threat was obvious, and they had to eliminate the threat and secure the key. So no orders were necessary. While most of the team went to deal with the cleaver wielding Oni and the bow wielding Oni, Silas, Min-Ki and Fi turned their attention to the glaive wielding Oni. Alicia, like Karlin, took aim at Au, past the three Oni that were between them and Au.

Eler fired his arrow at Waka, only to watch as while the arrow did hit, it bounced off the armour. The same happened for the bullets fired by Jackie. While each of the bullets did hit their target, they failed to penetrate the armour that covered the faces of the three Oni. The bullets did however cause all three of the Oni to stagger back.

Dispite being staggered, Doi was able to not only avoid the low swing of the dwarves axe, but as Doi avoided Vanarr's strike the Oni used the momentum of the dodge to start swinging the cleaver towards the dwarf. The cleaver was not fast enough that dodging was impossible, and there was no doubt that Vanarr would be able to avoid it. But the cleaver did hit something with its swing. It made contact with the purple lightning. But instead of Doi being electrocuted as Salem desired, the cleaver just cut through the purple lightning, spliting it in two, with the now two bolts missing Doi. With the split of the lightning, a shockwave was created, a shockwave that only Vanarr was close enough to be effected by. The shockwave knocked the dwarf a good distance back. With the lightning dealt with and the dwarf knocked away, Doi's cleaver ceased glowing. The glow returned as Doi turned to Salem, and charged the Witch of Merrigod.

Waka was surprised by the speed of Jorgen, and while still being staggered from the bullets of Jackie was unable to avoid the shield bash of Jorgen. The shield bash was definitely enough to through of Waka's apparent aim, but despite this, the Oni released the drawstring, and fired the arrow. As the arrow flew skywards, the bow ceased glowing. Jorgen didn't get a chance to bring the mace down as the moment that Waka fired the arrow, the Oni swung his bow at the demi-human with more than enough force to knock Jorgen back a step or two even if he blocked.

As Nura was staggered, Fi took the opportunity to thrust her spear towards the Oni. At the same time, Silas, who moved with a speed that was completely unexpected for a man of his age, got behind Nura, and swung for the Oni's armoured back. Neither of them hit Nura however, as the Oni quickly recovered from its stagger, and swung its glaive in a circle around it. The glaive made contact with Fi's spear and knocked it to the side, and then did the same for Silas's sword. As Nura knocked the weapons of its attackers away, Min-Ki fired. The genius demi-human fired a Gidakyra round, designed to penetrate armour, at the Oni. The round made contact and penetrated the armour of Nura, but Min-Ki was no sniper, so while he was aiming for the area where an Oni heart would be, he missed but still hit Nura in the shoulder, causing a short stagger, that no one could take advantage of, as Nura drove its glaive into the gound, and a small explosion errupted from underneath the Oni.

The explosion sent Nura upward, while also knocking Fi and Silas to the ground. While airborne, Nura began to swing the glaive as it began glowing again, and aimed to bring it down on Min-Ki. Howver, Min-Ki jumped back just before Nura was able to bring the glaive down on him. The glaive once again hit ground, and another explosion was created, knocking Min-Ki past the other memebers of the ground expeditionary team and also sent Nura airborne once again. Nura was able to stick the landing, and then charged towards the Oni's enemies, specifically towards Karlin.

Karlin immediately changed her aim and started firing at Nura, using her magic to make the bullets' impacts more devastating. Even as she did that, she was preparing to dodge the oni, already knowing that if she was even a second too slow she'd likely end up dead.

---

Salem was in a similar predicament--with her bolt split in two and an oni rushing towards her, she didn't exactly see a lot of options except to dodge and hope things worked out. As she did so, she drew one of her twin blades, sheathing it in electricity and slashing at the oni in question. This was not looking good.

[Faal Lot Himdah]

Battle With Oni
The Swiftpeak Citadel’s Island
Approaching the rear entrance of the Citadel

---

Out of the six shoots fired by Jackie at the elbow of Doi, which considering it was a rather small, moving target, was still reasonably impressive. The first bullet that hit didn't penetrate, but it did cause Doi's arm to recoil slightly, while the second bullet did penetrate. As it penetrated, it caused Doi to let go off the cleaver, while causing Doi to stop the charge and look at the injury. Blue blood dripped from the wound as the Oni growled and reached down to lift the cleaver with the other arm. As Doi picked the cleaver up and continued the charge before the sound of a gun rang out from behind the Oni. The trench gun fired by Vanarr hit its mark, forcing the Doi to it's knees as it roared out in pain. It was finally silenced by the electrified daggers of Salem. While they did not penetrate the armor, the electricity in the daggers was conducted by Doi's armour, causing the Oni to fall to the ground fully, completely unresponsive.

While Doi was taken down with relative ease, Nura would prove more difficult. When Eler jumped up on to Nura's shoulder, it was definitely noticed. As the Dryad hating Dryad aimed to plunge an arrow into Nura's eye, he was given a nasty surprise as Nura tapped the glaive on the ground to it's side, the side that Eler was closest to. The tap was enough to create a small explosion, hitting Eler with the shockwave and heat, with the former being enough to not only through Eler's aim off, it also weakened Eler's grip. With Eler's grip weakened, Nura jumped forward in a front flip, causing Eler to be thrown off. The explosion had a secondary benefit, due to the heat primarily. Nura was unaware of the grass being grown and woven by the twins, and would remain unaware as the heat created by the explosion seared quite a bit of the grass around the Oni away.

Now there was nothing between Nura and her target. As Karlin turned to aim at Nura, the Oni sped up, and began to run in a more zig zag pattern. The first four shots fired by Karlin missed, but just as Nura was getting close enough to lunge at its target, Karlin's fifth shot was fired, and made contact. The bullet hit square in the Oni's chest, with enough force to significantly dent the armour. That force was also enough to cause Nura to stagger back, and fall on its back.

Jorgen's one on one with Waka was going perhaps as well as the battle against Doi and Nura. While Jorgen's attempt to drive his shield into Waka's knee was unsuccessful as Waka turned and took a step away from Jorgen. However, in taking a step away, and turning, Waka was left vulnerable to Jorgen's mace. While Waka attempted to block it with the bow, it wasn't quick enough as Jorgen's mace made contact with enough force to be felt through the armour. In the next second, Waka fell to the ground unresponsive. A moment later a whistle could be heard coming from above Jorgen, getting louder by the second.

With the assault of the three armoured Oni over, Au was left standing there, a little redder than normal. This was after she successfully dodged out of the way of the grenade thrown by Vanarr. But it was not over yet, as Nura was still alive, and so Au still refused to step towards her enemies.

[Charlia]

Karlin sighed, staring at her downed opponent. She'd missed four times... highly unusual for her, but the enemy was on its back anyway. So it didn't matter that she'd missed. It didn't matter at all.

She took several steps forwards, approaching the oni, an almost completely cold look coming over her face. No, it wasn't entirely cold. She was grimacing a bit, as if biting back rage, and there was a threatening gleam in her eyes.

There was nothing particularly honorable in killing a downed opponent, but what did she care? She didn't have any reason to hold to those principles.

"Remember," she muttered, "you're the one who attacked me first."

She could see a brief moment of realization in the oni's eyes, before she aimed straight into them and pulled the trigger.

[Lessoni]

Jackie Dredd

"Well, that takes care a' him. Now, let's kick it you other equally ugly bastard and bitches."

He assessed the battlefield, taking it in with a keen eye and careful ear. He saw the one in the background, surveying or cowardly. He wasn't sure which was worse. Either way, she seemed a fine target.

"Steady now", he whispered to himself.

And he fired 12 shots at her, aiming for each joint twice and the other four shots going for her head.

[Endem]

Eler Yke

Oh well, that explosion was certainly unpleasant, but definitely not unwelcome, if anything it could have proven beneficial to Eler, his hair torched, any bark removed, it would be great. But enough of it, he needed to make a land, right, don't want to get his neck cracked. He made a quick flip in the air and landed on his feet, just a little bit staggered ( okay, not that little bit ). When he got back to his normal state, the Oni with the glaive being shot in the head, there was still that Oni with a bow, but it seemed unconscious...

He took out his now, readied an arrow and aimed at Au. Allowing the arrow to fly for its target, he immediately drew another one, shifted his aim a little to the right in case she dodged and allowed this one to fly, one more would follow, once again shifting his aim, this time to left, he let it loose. He then put on his hood and started to run to the side, to fool the target into thinking the arrows came from nowhere.

[Vulnier]

Jorgen Otoro

Standing above the knocked out Waka, Jorgen couldn't believe that he had knocked an Oni on his own. He didn't spend much enjoying that fact, as he heard a whistle start to fill his hears through his heavy breathing. Using the last of his strength, he took a few steps to the side before diving out of the way of the arrow that was coming down.

[Faal Lot Himdah]

Battle with Au
The Swiftpeak Citadel’s Island
Approaching the rear entrance of the Citadel

---

By diving out of the way of the arrow, Jorgen was no longer threatened by the arrow. That could not be said for the unconscious Waka, as when the arrow stuck the ground, a black pit opened up from around where it hit the ground. Tentacles of black, inky energy wrapped around the unconscious Waka and dragged the unconscious Oni into the black pit before the pit closed up and the arrow shattered. With the firing of Karlin's pistol, the last of the armoured Oni had fallen, leaving only Au and the goblin upon her back. At this point, both Fi and Silas had recovered and stood with their weapons ready while Min-Ki and Alicia both aimed towards the red skinned, scantly clad Oni. Even though the name of their opponent was well known, they had very little idea of what their enemy was capable of, and would wait to see what Au was going to do.

As the attention of the entire ground expeditionary team turned to Au, they would see her just finishing a drink from the now empty gourd, which she tossed to the side. She smirked as she took hold of her club, and gunshots from Alicia, Min-Ki, Karlin and Jackie rang out. With an unnatural speed, Au swung her club in front of her, creating a blast of air strong enough to throw the bullets fired to fly off course, resulting in none hitting her. The arrows fired by Eler were also effected by the blast of air, though unlike the bullets, which where just thrown off course, the arrows were completely destroyed by the air blast.

The air of blast, which was not created through magic, but from the sheer force of Au's swing, also had an effect on the entire ground expeditionary team. The blast of air was great enough to cause them all to stagger for a moment. In that moment, Au charged forward. Before any of them could react, Au was bringing her club down on her first target, Sir Silas. Fortunately, the old man was tougher than he appeared, and managed to dodge just out of the way of the club. But the force of the impact of the club on the ground was enough to send the old man flying backwards, hitting the ground with a loud thud and with enough force to knock the old man out.

She then swung towards Fi, who fortunately was prepared, and dodged under the club. As Fi dodged under the club, she aimed to drive her spear into the abdomen of Au. Unfortunately, the spear never made contact with Au's abdomen, as despite Fi dodging the club, Fi's spear was grabbed by Au's empty hand. As Au held on to Fi's spear, Fi started to summon lightning through the spear. While this obviously caused some discomfort to Au, it wasn't enough to weaken the Oni's hold, and moments later, Fi was flying through the air after being thrown by Au towards her comrades.

"While I'd enjoy ending that old man." Au said and pointed to the unconscious Silas, "A friend has already declared his life will be hers to take. But the rest of you... come on. Is that the best you lot got?! I downed it all for this? I'm just getting warmed up"

[Elysian Kentarchy]

Valerian

I make note to inspect the soil in the area where that pit opened, I had never seen such a thing before so I am curious about the state of the soil after such a thing. Though my sister gives me a glare as if she is reading my mind and telling me to stay away from it. But we are both distracted by the last one, that woman, the wind picks up and we both work to stand, Kalmia jabbing her staff into the ground, and I holding onto her shoulder, our fate is to become trees so what is a little wind. And we both watch as Fi goes to engage, I with an arrow notched on the string of my bow and my sister observing it all.

And Fi is sent flying... There is no time to think as we both quickly (though with a slight delay on my sister's end) activate our magic and vines and plants start to grow out of the ground around us and forms a net to catch Fi in it. We haven't been doing much so we can at least do this.

[Lessoni]

Jackie Dredson

Well, fuck. Rolling backwards with the wind, he came up on his feet with a nimble leap. That really was new, never before seen by the gunslinger, both the pit created by the arrow and the bullet stopping. Still, she was in the thick of it now; maybe she wouldn't be able to pull a move like that again. And either way, there was no way he was closing up to her unless absolutely necesarry, that was for sure.

"Now, lady, I don't much appreciate those unkind words of yours. Care to apologize?"

Reloading his guns in a single, fluid movement, he readied, aimed, and fired in the space of a second. He was a quickdraw, alright. Twelve shots rang out towards her, scattered towards different parts of her body. He checked his ammo pouch; he didn't want to run out midfight if avoidable, and found roughly 36 bullets left. Looks like he was gonna need to conserve. He checked his other gun, reassuring himself it was loaded, and dashed towards her, though keeping a decent distance. He threw up a shield on his face, not, much, but enough to soften a blow enough to keep him alive. Probably.

[Endem]

Eler Yke

Well, f*ck, his arrows just destroyed, he had only 4 more make them count. Eler thought to himself, he fired all of the four shortly after, three for Au, one for that Goblin on her back, after that he drew his sword and waited to see if the arrows were to hit anything.

He then obviously once again relocated, nearly being behind Au, if he got behind her he could kill her. Yes. YES! It's a good plan for a start. Eler started to slowly make moves to make a half circle, this way he will be directly behind Au with only a short distance between them

[Clan Grimrock]

Vanarr Lostglory
Vanarr had just picked up his axe when he heard Au's taunts.
A challenge?
He could handle it, but there was still the matter of the goblin with the key.
Two targets, and Au seemed capable of handling bullets and grenades with ease. It was time for a concentrated assault.
He charged in toward her, swinging wildly with the axe, hoping for the goblin to make a move or expose himself without Au in the way. He had no idea what her powers could do in a fight, and he knew that she was likely capable of sending him flying back to the airship, but he had to be close to ensure that she couldn't block a shot against the goblin as easily. With the trench gun held in one hand, he'd only get one shot.

[Charlia]

August didn't want to get in the way of the others, so he hung back a bit, waiting for an opportunity to strike. He'd been shaken up by the appearance of--whatever that black thing had been, as well, and was taking the moment to recover his composure.

---

"...The Lady would not like you." Irie's eyes narrowed, and she stepped forwards, conjuring up frankly enormous swathes of flame--the type that would have been very concerning had they not been being controlled by a priestess. "So I don't like you either!" She lunged forwards impulsively, taking the fire with her towards Au, with the clear intent to consume the oni in flames.

---

Close combat was possible for Karlin, but hardly her forte--and she didn't want to get in range of that club, either. Still, her bullets had been swept aside, and she'd need a distraction to get a good shot in--which luckily, others seemed to be providing. She started to move, little by little, out of Au's line of sight.

---

Salem sighed, covering her mouth as if to hide a yawn of boredom. "Mm, I see how it is," she mused. "You're going to be a little harder, then? Very well."

She lifted her hand, and snapped her fingers, and a lightning bolt crashed out of the clear sky, heading straight for where Au stood.

[Vulnier]

Jorgen Otoro

Jorgen had landed on the ground when he looked back, glad, and a bit horrified, that he had dodged that arrow. By now, Jorgen had turned off his sigil so as to not strain his body more, but the battle was still raging with the drink happy Au.

His body a bit strained, Jorgen got up and quickly switched out his mace with the pistol on his side. Using his shield to support his aim, Jorgen tried to get around Au and fired three shots toward the goblin holding the sword.

[Faal Lot Himdah]

Battle with Au
The Swiftpeak Citadel’s Island
Approaching the rear entrance of the Citadel

---

It was starting to appear as if Au bit off more than she could handle as her opponents engaged with her. While some tried to engage her front on, others were attempting to get around her. This was to be expected, as they wanted the key, and by eliminating Graas the goblin they could obtain it. There was a more tactical advantage to getting around her as well, that being she would be forced to fight while surrounded. For most lone Oni warriors this would have been a hopeless situation, but Au was not a lone Oni warrior.

First she had to survive the gunslinger lining her up. As Jackie pulled the trigger of his guns, Au swung her club. Once again, the bullets where blown off course, but this time not nearly as much. As such, none of the bullets hit her anywhere vital and most just grazed her. The arrows fired by Eler however did hit her, but she didn't notice them. The blast of air was not nearly strong enough this time to create a stagger. But unlike before, Au never got a chance to surge forward, as the lightning called down by Salem struck its target. Au fell to a knee and started to breath more ragged. The lightning seemed to have great effect, however, Graas still held on and as Irie approached the breathing turned to a chuckle. Just as Irie was about to strike, Au swung her club upwards as she got up. The club made contact with the priestess and sending the poor priestess skyward.

"That was a litte shocking." Au said as she chuckled. The chuckles stopped as the sound of something hitting the ground came from behind her. Jorgen's bullets and Eler's arrows hit their mark, and Graas fell to the ground, releasing the Key from his cold dead hands. Au turned to look at the dead goblin for a moment, but then she crouched down, and whispered, "Rest in peace Graas, you will not have died for nothing."

The next moment, Au surged forward, and swung her club at Jorgen. Au moved faster than they had seen before, and gave Jorgen no opportunity to react as the club made contact with his side. The force and angle sent Jorgen airborne, and on a collision course with the airborne Irie. She didn't dwell on watching Jorgen go airborne as she turned towards Salem.

"You're next." Au said and charged.

As this was going on, the dryad twins were successful in catching Fi.

"Damn." Fi said to herself as she took a step forward, and looked to the dryad twins, "Thanks for the catch. Might want to catch the others... Where is Silas?"