>>5798194>>5798190>>5798189>11 for your summoned fire elementalThe flames coalesced not into a smooth-skinned desert fairy-child nor (as one might have hoped) into a great and terrible titan of heat and ash, but into a small and semi-spherical shape, which sprouted a thin head and limbs from licks of fire sprouting off its sun-like central core. It illuminated the area as it wobbled into being and settled gently upon the ground, setting the thin and weedy grass around it ablaze. For a second you feared—or perhaps hoped for, as you considered the possibilities—a raging grass-fire.. Not no, it simply burned a small circle of barely-there plant-life around it to ash.
The goblins stared, as did you. The spell of fright and dread was broken. As your foes understood the relatively weak nature of your <Summon Elemental> spell. So, too, did they realize the other implication: you weren’t surrendering, not yet backing down.
“Attack!” one roared in accented, throaty Commontongue.
Muffins leapt to rend, loyal defender that he was, but even as two goblins charged you with knives, another was taking aim at your deadly pet with his bow. A notched arrow was fired, and you heard a hiss, alarmed bleat, and whimpering roar all at once as it struck true.
“Muffins!” you heard yourself and Pearce cry as one.
The chimera’s momentum carried it forward but, lacking any precision of aim, it carried him over and past the diving goblins. He landed awkwardly, but still on his feet, and stumbled to adjust his stance and to turn and face the two closest foes—those who threatened you…
>1, 3But then seemed to stumble sideways, this way and that. He shook both of his forward heads, while his snake-headed tail scented the air behind him, as if trying to seek out a peculiarity in the air. The goblin who had loosed the arrow pumped his fist and laughed madly.
Poison. The arrow had been poisoned!
“Bastards!” you screamed, and rushed to Muffins’ side… or tried to, but the two other goblins stood between you and your beloved beasty now.
“Get the kho-blis!” the goblin’s evident leader shouted again, using what you recognized to be a rather unkind word for a spellcaster.
“He’s not the one you should be worried about!” Pearce bellowed, attempting to pull their attention as he cast a spell in your defence…
>13, 12…But he was boxed in by enemies of his own.
>10, 10, 15Meanwhile your father was able to scramble and seize his sword , and subsequently clamber to his feet, his slices and slashes at empty air could do little more than hold the enemies at bay long enough to keep himself and your best friend safe. It was a holding tactic—he could not advance.
“Back, you savages!” Rudolfo snapped. “Back!”
Luckily, your fire elemental was able to do much the same for you—flickering and flaring in little gouts that caused the dagger-wielding wastelanders to shriek in alarm and to leap back from the heat.
