Vampire: Dark Ages (Vienna) - Chapter 2: East Gate

[Ekaterina]

Spend 2 rage for extra actions....If Sasha seems likely to take an arrow, *wince* step up and take it for her...I got some soak, she don't. Climb up wall onto parapet (figure that takes 2 actions to manage the climb this round). Dodge if I'm shot at....

[Sasha]

I look back for Ekaterina.

"What are you doing? Leave them!"

She's too busy climbing the walls.

I'm not sure if I should leave her or stay and help. I stop the horse while I think about it.

[Faelan]

Faelan spends a blood point for Celerity

Faelan orders his troop to the other side and shoot at Ekaterina climbing the wall.

Faelan orders one of the runners to go get the city watch and bring them to this gate.

Faelan shoots at Ekaterina

[Goatkiller666]

Round 2

Kaldrenzi, now in the moat, moves towards the wall and changes to rodens form before entering a rat tunnel under the moat.

Yefim continues to walk backwards. [Spends 3 rage for extra dodge.]

Faelan calls his men to cross to the back of the wall and fire on Ekaterina, doing the same himself as he gives the order.

Sasha speaks to Ekaterina, but otherwise doesn't do much.

The regular city guards shoot at Yefim. The man sidesteps three arrows, but the fourth hits him. [1 agg] Yefim yells in pain from the blow, and reaches for the wound. He pulls away blood on his hand, and continues to yell, more in rage than pain now.

Eric gives a great shout, in no language anyone understands. He walks backwards.

Constantin casts Raven's Curse on himself. He shouts at the archers and stands still with his arms raised.

Wendell turns sharply along the wall and runs his ass to the north, to stay in cover.

The sergeant drops his bow and starts to flail at the man next to him, one of Faelan's guards. His blows aren't very damaging through the man's armor, but he is unable to shoot.

Ekaterina spends rage for extra actions, and then begins to scale the inside wall, towards the archers. Since all of their arrows are coming towards her, she ends up spending her effort dodging them instead of climbing very far.

Faelan's guards all cross to the interior of the wall and shoot at Ekaterina, except for the one fighting the sergeant. Faelan's shot hits her, though Luna's armor and her own actual armor manage to prevent damage. One other of Faelan's men hits her, also dealing no damage. The other three don't even connect. Still, Ekaterina ends up dropping from the wall in her attempts to dodge the arrows, so finishes the turn on the ground by the walls. When the arrows hit, Ekaterina lets out an unusual scream, which seems too deep for a woman's voice.

[I'm assuming that Faelan's celerity actions are also to shoot at Ekaterina.] Both shots are clean hits. The first one also does no damage, while the second does a small amount. [1 agg] [Luna's Armor was seriously a good choice.]

Unfortunately, Ekaterina feels the pain of the silver arrows, and since the full moon was only days ago, she is extra on edge. Ekaterina begins to frenzy.

[Sasha]

I try to turn the horse and ride back to Ekaterina, and pull her on it with me.

[If I still have movement left, once she's on, I'll ride away to the south.]

[Faelan]

Faelan spends 3 blood points to raise Str, dex and Stam each 1 point. Spends another for Celerity
Fires at Sasha while preparing for Ekaterina to make it to the top of the wall.

[Kaldrenzi Culls-The-Chaff]

Safely made it into the tunnels, find the Champion, and seek an audience, again.

[Goatkiller666]

Round 3

Yefim - Frenzies. He changes to crinos form. His armor is more suited to this kind of change, and it simply falls off at the change (he has to tear away a piece here or there). He spends 4 rage for additional actions. His first action is changing and then running ahead to the walls.

Faelan spends blood, then shoots at Sasha. His first shot misses because she dodged.

Sasha dodges an arrow then rides the horse over to Ekaterina.

The regular city guards - Seeing Yefim change to crinos form, they all target him for their next shots. Yefim uses his four extra actions to dodge these arrows, instead of climbing the walls. Even though he dodges, it's not good enough. Two arrows strike him true, and he falls to the ground. He starts to rise up, but the second two hit him just afterwards. He does not rise again.

Eric - Spends 2 rage for extra actions. He calls out in German, "The Spirits protect us. Flee!" He smacks his horse on the rump as well, so that it will flee away from the city.

Constantin - Spends 2 rage for extra actions. Now that he knows the group plans on retreating, he steps forward to pick up the body of Gotzon, and then turns to race away.

Wendell - Skirting the wall, he is mostly out of anybody's attack range.

The sergeant - continues attacking Faelan knight.

Ekaterina spends a Willpower to avoid frenzy. She climbs up on Sasha's horse.

Faelan's guards - They all shoot at Sasha. She has no extra actions, and already dodged Faelan's arrow. The four arrows speed on their way, but are suddenly knocked out of their path.

Suddenly, dozens of… something, pour out of the sky. They manifest into the world, small winged sprites, glowing faintly in several colors. They swarm the tops of the walls, tugging at the bows of all the archers. Others dart at the faces of people. A few buzz the horses left on the bridge.

[Assume some kind of celerity / rage actions here.]

Faelan's first celerity action goes here.

Eric - runs forward under the cover of the spirits, and grabs Yefim's body to run away.

Constantin - Runs away (carrying Gotzon's body)

Faelan's second celerity action goes here.

Eric - Runs away (carrying Yefim's body)

Constantin - Runs away (carrying Gotzon's body)

[Only Faelan has actions. The werewolf NPCs are all retreating, under the cover of the sprites. What'll it be? Then I'll post everybody else's stuff once I know that.]

[Faelan]

Faelan orders his men to take cover while he tries to attract the sprites away from his men

[Goatkiller666]

When the archers take cover, some huddling low against the stone walls with their arms over their heads, others jumping down the stairwell for cover, the sprites focus on those still standing. Several fly at Faelan, others fly at the Sergeant, who seems to go mad with rage, and tries to attack them. (He has no celerity actions, so he can't really do much. But he's changed his target.)

Due to his supernatural speed, Faelan manages to strike a few of the sprites. They give out piercing shrieks before vanishing, though they seem to display expressions of pain in those few moments. Other than darting at him and dodging away before he can hit them (or trying to, at any rate), they aren't doing much damage. It seems they're acting as a distraction.

On the ground, Eric and Constantin pick up the bodies of Yefim and Gotzon, and start to run away from the walls.



Round 4

x 6 - Faelan's action goes here.
● 4 - Majid - A crinos form appears in the gate tunnel (hidden from those on top of the walls). It lets out a howl, which startles the three remaining horses on the bridge. It moves over to Mauricio's body and picks it up.
■ 4 - Sasha's action goes here.
x 2 - Sergeant - He continues to try to attack the sprites, who dodge around him. He is being lead towards the edge of the wall. [He seems quite mad, more like a raging bear than a person. He's making gutteral screaming noises as he attacks, he's not using the sword on his belt, etc.]
■ 1 - Ekaterina's action goes here. She is mounted behind Sasha on the horse.
x 1 - Faelan's Knights - Taking cover behind the crenelations.

The sprites are still in the air, and while they're not doing any damage, it seems likely that they'll interfere with any archery that is attempted. The surviving werewolves are running straight up the hill, but would be in arrow range for several more rounds otherwise. The horses and NPC werewolves (except Majid) are all off the map.

Even carrying bodies, they're moving too quickly to be chased, except by mounted men. But then you'd have to go outside the walls.

[Sasha]

"Hold on tight." I try to ride the horse away as fast as I can. [I have no dots of Ride.]

[Goatkiller666]

[Having not heard anything from Faelan or Ekaterina, except that I IM'd Ekat just now, I'm going to declare the fight over.]

Sasha and Ekaterina head south and leave the fight.

NPC werewolves leave the scene, running east up the hill towards the forest line. Wendell is inside and fleeing north on his ass.

The sprites lure the rampaging Sergeant towards the edge of the wall, hoping to get him to stumble over. But, due to a lucky roll on his part, he manages to grab ahold of one before he can fall. He tries to bash it against the stones, but ends up damaging his fist in his haste. The sprite falls to the ground then, stunned, and he stomps on it a few times until it disperses into glowing dust.

Majid, with Mauricio's body, steps sideways again. Shortly after this, the rest of the sprites fly away, and the last few horses can be seen topping the hill and going out of sight.

The city gate is still open now. [In hindsight, the werewolves should have run into the city, not away from it. Oh well. My mistakes in judgment will count as their mistakes in judgment.]

Faelan is left on top of the walls with his men. When the sprites fly away, they rise from their huddled positions to look around. At the same time, the Sergeant finishes stomping on the now empty stone, and rushes at the closest of them. The five of them manage to knock him out, after taking several solid blows themselves.

[Goatkiller666]

South of the Estates, and south of the less wealthy but fairly clean residences of the merchant class, are the docks. This is a place of river boaters, and stevedores. The Danube is wide and smooth, filled with clean water. That does a lot to make the docks area less disgusting. Otherwise, one might smell all of the poverty and human excess that always abound in such places. The docks themselves are outside of the city's walls, though there is no moat on this side. It is hoped that the swift current of the river itself would prevent any attack from the far side. And the city walls have several ballista to handle attack by river boat.

The gates to the docks area are open, so that those from the ships can enter and leave the city freely. There are separate gates to prevent land access to the docks from outside the city walls, which are closed, so this is unreasonable.

Sasha and Ekaterina ride Sasha's new horse through the Estates and into the docks area, still within the city walls. Shouts of alarm can be heard from back at the East Gates, spreading to the other guard towers along the walls. A few of the city guard see Sasha's horse trotting away (she couldn't get it to go faster), and step forward to stop her.

When the two guards get in front of the horse, it pulls up short and stops, instead of trampling them. One reaches for the animal's reins. "Halt, in the Duke's name. What's your business fleeing in the night when there's an alarm bein' called?"

[Sasha]

"I... there was an attack at the gate... they'd gotten through the door and into the city. A... man... a Knight, told us to get on his horse and flee."

I'm almost crying.

"I don't know how to ride a horse." I hit it in the neck. "It wouldn't go any faster than that. Stupid horse. I just wanted to get away from the invaders."

[I'm not good at lying. Help?]

[Ekaterina]

Follow Sasha's lead....

"My companion is understandably distressed. What has happened, or is happening? As it near to cost us our lives, we are interested in understanding this."

Act "very scared, but barely keeping ti together"

Manip/Subt to make them buy it, Cha/Etiquette to be exquisitely charming in a very apropriate manner..

[Goatkiller666]

The guards key off of the women's fear (especially Ekaterina's much better performance), and notice one thing. "... they'd gotten through the door and into the city..."

Both guards start running toward the East Gate, shouting "To Arms! To Arms!" (Only, in German, of course.)

[Other stuff happens here. Sasha & Ekaterina exchange PMs.]