Brief Recap: Last turn the company made their way into Heklamar via a secret trail. They had a brief conference with King Ozrik, and learned that Egmund wants to send Humphrey a message the following night. Humphrey began preparations to receive the message.

The next morning, the Githyanki attacked the city...

Seige of Heklamar

Dawn seems slow in awakening this morning, as if the sun itself dreads the battle ahead. Banks of snow clouds fill the sky from horizon to horizon, and a soft flurry falls. The Githyanki are attacking.

Over a hundred gith knights gather behind the purple shield before the city walls. Many stand in tight circles focusing their mental powers on the defenders of the city.

Nearly two dozen wyvern riders also attack, diving on those who man the walls. The company is stationed atop the wall at a tower next to the main gate, defending a ballista machine there. Humphrey is on the balcony of the next tower, higher than the other adventurers. The old mage casts a spell to protect himself from missile fire.

He then watches briefly as a pair of wyvern swoop upon the party's position, near the main gate. From Humphrey's distant vantage, it at first looks like the wyvern snatches one of the company up as it flies by; but by the wyvern's erratic flying, Humphrey surmises that the pick-up was not intended. He sees Blade appear behind the wyvern rider, as if by magic. Humphrey laughs. No matter how obnoxious Blade could be, Humphrey had to acknowledge his bravery and skill.

As Humphrey watches Blade, he takes his eyes off the second wyvern. When he looks again, he catches a brief glimpse of the second wyvern swerving into the wall just beneath the party. He can't tell why it happened, but the party and nearby soldiers are cheering.

Blade, Ghotu, Bronk, Bardock, Mog, and Bibi stand on the wall guarding the ballista, which has stopped firing at the purple wall. The men working the contraption are furiously adjusting its aim, trying to train the massive weapon on the wyverns overhead. Bowmen from the walls fire arrows sporadically, but many defenders of the walls have been demoralized by the mind blasts from the gith knights gathered behind the purple shield. As a result, less than a third of the bowmen are prepared to fire on the wyverns, the rest having ducked for cover against the mind blasts.

Two wyverns swoop upon the party's position. Ghotu readies his net to capture one of the wyverns, while Bronk and Bardock ready their halberd and two-handed swords, respectively. (Bardock carries a two-handed sword, throwing axes, and chain armor.) Mog and Bibi duck away from the Wyverns and move down the wall a few steps, preparing their Dispel Magic spells.

Blade sheathes his swords, pulls a dagger from his bandolier and clenches it between his teeth as he moves to the edge of the walll. He waits eagerly for the wyverns, calculating their speed and trajectories. As the first one nears, a volley of arrows, are launched towards it causing the wyvern to alter it course slightly and begin pull up from it's descent to avoid being struck. It's momentum carries it about 5 feet away from the edge of the tower as it struggles to pull out of it' s dive. Blade jumps off the ledge just before it it shoots past his position. After a very short, intense freefall, Blade manages to grab hold of the Githayanki riding the wyvern. They are in the middle of the rider changing course of the weyvern from a downward trjectory to an upwrd one when Blade slams into the rider from behind.

Ghotu had been preparing a javelin and oil to chuck at the purple wall, but when he sees the other wyvern diving toward them he quickly unwraps his Net of Entrapment, which he was wearing wrapped around his shoulder like a baldric, the net twisted nearly into a steel mesh rope. As soon as he unslings it he flings it into the air, holding onto the fine tether chain that connects to it. The Net snaps fully open directly in front of the animal's nose, than wraps tightly around both wyvern and rider.

Ghotu quickly wraps the remaining length of tether chain around his armored right forearm and grabs hold with both hands. He sets his feet, but the momentum of the wyvern and rider begins to pull Ghotu off the wall. He can feel himself losing his balance and toppling toward the inner edge of the wall, which is protected by no rail.

At that moment Bronk and Bardock drop their weapons and dive for Ghotu from his right. They both hit him at full speed just as he is losing his feet, and their tackle pins him against the wooden base of the arbalest, just at the edge of the wall. One of Ghotu's feet hangs over the edge, dangling over the courtyard below.

His movement halted and held by the Rasheman brothers, Ghotu's arms are stretched cruelly as the wyvern reaches the limit of the tether chain. It's momentum is directed from the downward angle of the dive into straight down, then following the circular path allowed by the net and Ghotu's arm, directly into the inside of the wall. It hits with a satisfying crunch and its neck folds back gruesomely. Ghotu shakes the chain, and the net flops open like a loose sheet, letting the still living rider and dead wyvern fall a hundred feet to the turf below. Ghotu yells "ABOVE!" to those below before he is pulled back to a sane footing by Bronk.

On the other side of the wall, Blade knocks the wind out of the rider. Stunned by the sunned blow and barely able to hang onto the now climbing wyvern, the gith rider is an easy target for Blade's dagger. He spits the weapon into his hand (holding on to the saddle with the other, feet now tucked inside the saddle straps) and plunges it through the seam of the rider's leather armor. The githyanki gasps, then hisses and falls off the wyvern, which passes by the party just as Blade looks up. He grins sardonically, then slides forward into the saddle putting his feet into the stirrups. The lance gone, he draws his Dragonslayer sword and leans left. The wyvern banks away from more arrow fire and away from the wall. Crouching low to hide his non-githyanki features from the other riders, Blade looks for a likely target.

Bibi and Mog reach the climax of their spells together. The double Dispel Magic hits the purple glow of the translucent wall and turns it black in a wide area, expanding outward. But the black expansion reaches only two of the three stone bunkers, and then the purple begins to resist the black. Slowly the purple begins to overcome the Dispel and the black begins to recede.

Then, from the tower, another black bolt strikes the purple shield. Humphrey gives a victorious yell as his spell joins Bibi's and Mog's. The blackness immediately engulfs the purple wall, and it turns into a thick smoke, evaporating. Bibi immediately begins a Wall of Fire spell.

A cheer goes up from the wall of Heklamar. The few hundred githyanki who were mind blasting the defenders are suddenly exposed to missile fire. They begin to run down the ramp as the captains on the wall bellow orders to the archers. Within seconds, ranks are formed and a volley of arrows arcs into the sky, followed by a second. As the third rank of archers fires, the first arrows fall among the foremost fleeing githyanki. Before they make it to the first turn, nearly half of them are wounded or dead. They turn the hairpin corner, no choice but to attempt to flee down the ramp.

Bibi's wall of fire spell springs to existence ahead of the Fleeing Githyanki. Those behind do not stop as arrows continue to rain down, and they push those in front into the wall to be burned alive. Thus trapped, every githyanki still standing on the ramp is slaughtered.

Movement can still be seen inside the three large stone bunkers. No other Githyanki try the ramp immediately.

Posting Instructions: I will post more action for this turn soon, for now your characters enjoy the break from combat.

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