The (demi)Plane of Trials ((Plot))

[Warpfire]

This small plane consists of an immense variety of terrain types. Stretches of verdant forestland sit next to hot and arid desert areas. Everything from low valleys to snowy peaks can be found here. It is designed for the military training.

It also has a few special qualities. One is that Nathaniel Coffyn and one other, not to be specified person can see anything happening on the plane, and can speak telepathically to anyone on it. Secondly, their are a few enchantments to make training less dangerous. Small wounds occur normally. However, any serious or fatal injury on this plane simply doesn't happen. Effects that simulate the injury replace them. For example, if a wound should remove someone's limb, the limb instead becomes incorporeal and paralyzed for the remainder of their stay on this plane. A blow that would kill someone knocks them unconscious for a few hours.

When mIshmale and his troops enter the plane, the other squad is nowhere to be found. They are standing in a grassy, rolling area with many small hills.

[Uberblah]

mIshmale and his troops enter and do not see the others. mIshmale sends out a few scouts to search for the other team.

[Warpfire]

The scouts return a short while later. "Sir, we have found signs of the other squad. They appear to have entered north of here and have since headed in an eastward direction."

If mIshmale inspects his troops, he will find that he has five bowmen(four with long bows and one, curiously enough, wielding a repeating crossbow) and fifteen soldiers armed with various kinds of close combat weapons. Most notable are a double-bladed sword and a pike about as long as three men standing on top of each other.

[Uberblah]

mIshmale seems to have noted that he has powerful troops. He turns to the scouts.
Excellent.
He turns to the troops.
We're heading northeast. Let's move.
mIshmale and the troops move in the stated direction. They come to one of the hills and slowly move around the base of it.

[Warpfire]

As they make their way around the hill, they see a miniature valley formed by two rows of hills in front of them.

[Uberblah]

mIshmale decides to take his troops into the valley. He makes sure to have his longbowmen in the back and his other fifteen in front. The orc with the repeating crossbow stands next to mIshmale, who in the middle of the mini army.

[Warpfire]

"Permission to speak freely, sir?" asks the orc by mIshamle's side.

[Uberblah]

Permission granted. What is it?

[Warpfire]

"This looks like an excellent place for an ambush..." The orc looks around suspicously.

[Uberblah]

mIshmale nods.
Exactly. I'm finding out how well you all are going to respond in the case of an ambush. I do know what I'm doing.

[Warpfire]

"Alright then, sir." The orc says no more as they proceed down the valley. So far, they have not been ambushed. There's a little ways to go.

[Uberblah]

mIshmale scans the valley in anticipation of an ambush. As his troops near the end of the valley, he forms two bastard swords.

[Warpfire]

"Attack!" The cry rings out from the valley as the other squad rushes down from behind the hills with their leader in the..erm, lead, headed towards the back of mIshamle's squad.

[Uberblah]

mIshmale smiles to himself as he turns around to face the oncoming troops. His troops also turn and stand at attention.
FIRE!!
The archers at the now front take aim and fire arcing arrows at the "enemy". As that happens, mIshmale orders the troops forward to attack. He and the crossbow orc stay towards the back.

[Warpfire]

The close combat troops quickly rush forward to form a shield in front of the archers. Four of the ten arrows (the repeating crossbow having shot five) fired find their home. One bounces off a rather unfortunate orc's head, knocking him out. Two others cause minor wounds to two different orcs. The final arrow hits an orc's leg and paralyzes it, causing him to fall to the ground.

The 'enemy's' return volley knocks out two close combat troops and makes various small wounds on one other. They appear to have only three archers, though apparently very skilled.

The close combat troops meet and the melee begins.

[Uberblah]

Some arms are paralyzed on mIshmale's side as well as two knockouts of two orcs. mIshmale and the crossbow orc head straigh for the leader of the enemy. The crossbow orc firing at all who get close to mIshmale. mIshmale attacks twice with each bastard sword at the leader if he gets close enough.

[Warpfire]

"Ah, I thought you would seek me out. A pleasure to duel you, sir." The well-dressed orc dodges all of the blows and bows, very nimble. He responds with two slashes of his large battleaxe.

[Uberblah]

mIshmale, also being quick and nimble, dodges the attacks.
Let's duel then.
He forms a dome of nearly-impenatrable air currents around himself and the well-dressed orc and attacks twice more each with his bastard swords.

((if anyone touches the dome, they will recieve serious slashes and possibly "lose" whatever touched it))

[Warpfire]

The orc blocks the first two attacks with his axe's handle, and dodges the third one. The last strike manages to score a hit on his arm, though it is too minor to take out the limb. The orc curses, though in a very proper and civilized way. He charges forward and feints with a slash at his right, and quickly follows up by trying ram the end of his axe handle into mIshmale's gut.

[Uberblah]

mIshmale does get slashed by the attack, but also minorly. The gut attack does hit also but fails to do much. Ishmale responds by exchanging his bastard swords for four daggers, one per hand, and launching a flurry of attacks at the orc.

((i must go. rough few weeks. be on when i can))

[Warpfire]

The orc responds to the flurry of blows by suddenly being behind mIshmale, though whether this is through magic or incredible speed is hard to tell. He brings the axe down towards mIshmale's head.

[Uberblah]

mIshmale senses the orc behind him and dodges to his left but not before his upper right arm is "chopped off". He turns and immediately fires a powerful blast of air at the orc attempting to throw him into the air dome.

[Warpfire]

((Just a warning, as I'm basically GMing this, I may godmod a little bit. Mostly on your troops.))

The orc curses as he receives many minor wounds. He is bleeding massively. His monocle shines and the dome disappears. "Retreat! Retreat!" The other squad flees, dragging their "dead" and wounded with him. Before mIshmale's team can respond, they are gone.

[Uberblah]

((on the troops is fine, just don't overboard it on mIshmale))

mIshmale and the troops who are still alive watch in confusion. Then mIshmale looks around at his troops analyzing the damage that has been done to them.

[Warpfire]

((Of course.))

The archers are unharmed. Three close combat orcs have been "killed", including the one with the pike. Another seems to have lost eyesight in one eye, and another is missing his left arm. Unfortunately, enemy casualties are impossible to judge because all the wounded were carried off.

[Uberblah]

mIshmale nods at this. He motions his troops in direction slightly off from that of the "enemy"'s.
Leave the 'dead'. They'll slow us down and we can come back for them later.

[Warpfire]

((Just to clarify, its a total of five knocked out including those who fell to the opening volley.))

The troops proceed in the ordered direction, filling out into formation. The archers march in the back.

If mIshmale is sensitive to magic, he may sense some magic ahead.

[Uberblah]

((correct. I'm down to 10 close combat and 4 archers. and about 23 arms. not including mIshmale's 3))

Unfortunately mIshmale is not sensitive to magic only other creatures. He orders his troops to continue.

[Warpfire]

Suddenly, there is an explosion. The orcs immediately pull back as it rings out. A smoking crater is left behind. By some strange luck, only minor injuries were sustained.

Apparently, they have spellcasting capabilities.

[Uberblah]

mIshmale, though insensitive to magic, has knowledge of it. He turns to his troops.
Do any of you have magical powers or spellcasting abilities of some sort?

[Warpfire]

One by one, the orcs all shake their heads.

[Uberblah]

Damn. Well this should get interesting. We'll have to be dilligent as we move forward. Let's move.

[Warpfire]

The orcs proceed as carefully as they can. They begin to enter a forested area. As they enter the forest, mIshmale should hear the sound of the enemy approaching from a great distance.

[Uberblah]

mIshmale does hear the enemy and decides to hop into one of the trees and move along ahead of the troops to figure out the distance. He orders the crossbow orc up there with him if he's able to climb trees.

[Warpfire]

After about a good deal of climbing, the enemy is right below mIshamale.

The crossbow orc, who did indeed come along, comments quietly, "Well, sir, the obvious maneuver is to go for an ambush among the trees."

[Uberblah]

Yes I realize that, but do you know if the others can climb as easily?
He figures that if they can. The five who still have both arms will be used as a distraction while the other five, mIshmale and the crossbow orc attack from the trees. The archers will most likely follow the ground troops he figures.

[Uberblah]

mIshmale and the crossbow orc return to the waiting troops and tell them of the plan.

[Warpfire]

The troops nod. All attest that they should be able to perform the plan without any problems, and head for the trees.

[Uberblah]

mIshmale hops into the trees again followed by the crossbow orc and the five that are able to climb. They silently move across the branches of the trees. Below them, the injured five and the longbow orcs rush ahead.

[Warpfire]

The other squad sounds close now. The ground troops should be meeting them in a few minutes.

[Uberblah]

The ground troops get excited a bit and the "arial" troops quicken their pace to keep up.

[Warpfire]

The crash of steel on steel rings out through the once peaceful forest as the ground troops suddenly clash together. The archers unleash their opening volley. Luckily, one arrow finds the throat of an orc dressed as a shaman. Only one other arrow from the ground troops hits, however, and only causes minor injury.

The repeating crossbow orc unleashes a storm of bolts from his treetop position, shooting five arrows and knocking out three orcs, one an archer. Apparently, however, the enemy didn't suffer many losses from the initial skirmish. They still have fourteen troops, and the well-dressed orc seems to have recovered completely, no doubt due to aid from the shaman.

[Uberblah]

The treetop orcs drop down behind the enemy as they are paying attention to the ground troops. They rush in from the back attempting to take off heads. mIshmale also silently drops down and silently finds his way behind the well-dressed orc. When he gets close enough, he attempts to run a bastard sword through the orc's midsection.

[Warpfire]

"Ah, well played, sir..." The orc coughs slightly as the sword pierces his midsection. He seems about to fall for a few seconds.

Then, he rams himself farther down the blade and attempts a slash at mIshmale, hoping to take him by suprise.

[Uberblah]

Thanks.
It does surprise mIshmale, only because he didn't think the orc would actually do that. But the surprise is enough to cause a serious injury to his upper left arm. It's not quite gone but it isn't functional right now. mIshmale attempts to run a longsword through the orc with one of his lower hands while still holding onto the bastard sword with the other.

[Warpfire]

The orc, apparently very hardy, starts hacking away madly at mIshmale as the longsword pierces him. It doesn't look like he can keep it going for much longer.

At that moment, an arrow flys towards mIshmale.

[Uberblah]

mIshmale dodges and weaves the attacks for the most part. The orc does manage to finish off his upper left arm and the arrow flies in and sticks into the fresh stump. mIshmale lets out a cry of pain and rips out the arrow, thus allowing the swords to dissapate. He steps away from the orc and does a quick, graceful jump over him and gets stuck in dead time in mid jump.

((gtg for about 2 hrs. should be on later))

[Warpfire]

The well-dressed orc falls to the ground, unconscious.

[Uberblah]

mIshmale comes out of dead time and finishes his flipping jump. When he lands, he turns and attempts to stab the orc again with two longswords, but to no avail as he has already knocked out the well-dressed orc. He stands smiling triumphantly at the unconcious figure.

[Warpfire]

"The battle is over." Nathaniel's voice rings throughout the forest. mIshmale may notice that only five troops of the well-dressed orc remain, all missing limbs. However, his troops haven't fared too much better. Seven are left, and only two aren't missing anything. "Ishmale is the winner." Ishmale's troops raise a ragged cheer. All those unable to move themselves disappear, including the well-dressed orc. A portal appears. "Please proceed through the portal."

[Uberblah]

mIshmale nods and tells all the orcs to gather up the unconcious and proceed through the portal. He picks up the well-dressed orc and walks through himself.