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With a resounding crash, the roof of the castle collapsed. The trailing figure in the group walking away wearily looked over his shoulder. He rubbed a bloody finger over his soot stained nose, shrugged and turned to stare at the backs of his friends. The group of five adventurers stopped every so often and stood silently surveying their biggest failure to date. A tower crumbled as its interior support was burned away by the roaring blaze they had accidentally set. After about twenty minutes of walking, Hädrich turned to Brother Francis and looked him right in the eye.
"Get him!?! That was your plan? Get him!" he yelled, his voice echoing over the fields.
"Well...I ran out of patience, it seemed like your plan was talking him to death." replied Brother Francis.
"It was going fine, you didn't wait for the signal."
Loreanna spoke up now, "What signal? You kept going on about the weather and the harvest. The guy is a robber knight, he's not interested in the harvest unless he's extorting it from someone. Besides, you jumped in so quick we didn't have time to figure out what the signal was. And you," she rounded on Francis, "the next time you jump the bad guy without apparent provocation or warning to the rest of us, I'll...Well, I'll be pretty upset."
"Ohh, the big bad elf speaks her mind. Sorry, but something needed to be done, this Klaus wasn't going to wait for us to fall over dead of old age, I figured it was the best chance we would get."
"Best chance?" sputtered Pascal, "Let me tell you something. Me and Alan coulda convinced this Klaus guy we were Knights of the post and then we would have been free to come and go as we please until we had a plan, I mean, I guess it was smart talking first, swinging second, but come on. None of us were prepared for that. I had to hit the guy beside me with a plate before I could draw my weapons."
"Oh yeah, and the way you webbed everyone in the room up Loreanna, I can't thank you enough." muttered Hädrich, "I mean, everyone knows that magic like that can turn the battle...for whoever isn't tangled up in the webs!"
"Look, at that point the only people left standing were Klaus, these two," indicating Pascal and Alan, "and myself. Against five of those bloody mercenaries and their boss. Serves you both right for jumping the gun."
Alan took off his sooty, tattered cloak and spread it on the ground. Peeling off his holed leather jerkin, he exposed his bloodstained shirt. He sat on the cloak, rummaged through his pack and pulled out some salves. The group continued arguing around him.
"Serves me right? If it weren't for me, those guards back at Mainz would have strung you up for a devil, with your pointy ears. And what I want to know is, who the hell started that fire?"
"Uh, that was me." answered Pascal, staring down at his heat cracked boots. "I threw a lantern into the web hoping to free us. How was I supposed to know it would explode like that?"
Hädrich smacked his forehead. It left a bloody smear on his face and he grimaced at the pain in his hand. "Next time we try something like this again, maybe we should try and coordinate it."
Brother Francis tossed his almost useless shield to the grass and dropped his pack beside it. "So what else did we learn with this futile attack?"
"Well, first off you don't light a spider web on fire, second, don't let Hädrich do the talking and three, plates make good weapons." He broke into a smile at the last one, shotting a wink to Pascal. Pascal snorted, but grimaced right after.
"Say, Francis, what say you start laying down some of that god power on me, healing and whatnot. I'm in a teeny tiny bit of pain." said Pascal.
"Hmm, we'll see. Everyone get out of your gear, assess damage to it and let's have a look at your wounds."
"Oh yes," started Loreanna, "where did that cloud of fog come from? That made it pretty hard to find a way out."
Alan coughed, "Well, after everyone went out, Pascal and I were fighting three of them back to back. One of them went down, and then Pascal dropped. I had to do something to cover myself. So I conjured the cloud and used it to my advantage. I finished the last two off and started waking people up. Not easy with the tapestries burning out of control."