We are almost up to current events at this point. This morning, we accepted a request for help from a village near Vardan. There had been sightings of lizardmen massing near the village, which is never a good sign. I haven’t had many dealings with lizardmen myself, but their reputation is little better than goblins. It took us most of the day to get our gear sorted and make it to the village. We arrived with only a couple of hours of daylight left. Naturally, I was dispatched to scout ahead to see what I could discover. Unfortunately, what I saw was not good.

  The lizardmen had two camps… one on either side of the village. They had significant numbers in both camps and they appeared to be preparing for an attack. My guess was that they intended to take the village in order to expand their territory… or worse… use it as a base camp in order to take neighbouring villages… and eventually the region of Vardan as a whole. It is hard to guess the motivations of a group you have had no dealings with, but they definitely intended to attack somewhere.

  We were only seven adventurers; we would not be able to take down both camps without reinforcements. Lizard men are huge. The shorter among them are over seven foot, and the taller ones don’t bear thinking about. Our best chance was to reinforce the village, place traps, get as many of the residents somewhere safe as we could while preparing ourselves for the oncoming onslaught.

  This plan worked well… to an extent. The traps thinned the enemy numbers down a bit, although not as much as I would have liked… if only we had had longer to set them. The enemy were attacking from the north and the south simultaneously. As a result, we had two teams of three defending either side with me on the rooftops switching from one side to another as needed.

  Chloe, Tilda & Kiyui took the south while Asmodeus, Phoenix & Agaroth defended the north. Kiyui’s buffing spells enabled Tilda to punch right through the lizardmen while Chloe sliced her way through them with her great sword.

  The lizard men may have been large but their attacking force lacked organisation and decent equipment which was very lucky for us. The north seemed to have the larger attacking force. It seemed as though no matter how many of them that Asmodeus, Phoenix, and Agaroth took down, more kept coming. They even seemed able to climb up the outer walls at great speed, so funnelling them through choke points wasn’t working. They were flowing into the village.

  The forces at the south eventually began to retreat. We thought things were about to get easier. Unfortunately, that was far from true. Soon after the southern force retreated, the main gate to the north was smashed down by a ridiculously large lizard man. He must have been at least 10 foot tall. He was accompanied by a shaman who was in the middle of spellcasting.

  Asmodeus ordered me to take out the shaman, so I rushed across the rooftops and took up a sturdy position. As I loosed my arrow, the shaman finished its spell. I was too late. My shot was true and hit the shaman right in the eye… but as it died, the giant lizardman that it accompanied began to get even larger. Its muscles bulged, its claws grew to a terrifying length, its teeth looked like they could tear an elephant in two and it roared so loudly that it was almost deafening.

  Chloe asked “What the hell is going on over there?” Asmodeus responded “We are going to require assistance.” “That’s puttin’ it fucking mildly!” Agaroth added. While they crossed the village to back us up, I attempted to shoot it with my arrows but it tore the roof off a nearby market stall and used it as a shield to bat away my arrows. Asmodeus told me to hold my fire so as to avoid wasting arrows.

  Asmodeus cast his shield reinforcing spell and began to advance towards the creature. It was wielding a large club, which had grown in size with him when the spell was cast. His repeated blows against Asmodeus prevented any real advancement.

  Then the lizard spoke. It had a deep and booming voice that was so loud it felt like my ears may explode. He shouted “I am Dominus! Lord of lizard men! You dare to stand in my way!” A bit cliché, but lizardmen aren’t exactly known for their originality or wit. He began to advance towards Asmodeus, swinging his club with even more force than before. Phoenix shot a fireball at this behemoth of a lizard. It used the club to deflect the fireball which set fire to a nearby market stall.

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  Chloe and Tilda arrived, which Dominus did not take too kindly too. Kiyui said “wait.” But I couldn’t see where he was. Dominus picked up the market stall that had recently caught aflame and threw it across the square at Chloe & Tilda. They managed to dive out of the way, but the path behind them was now blocked.

  Asmodeus ordered “Tilda, find a way to put that fire out, if it spreads, we could lose the whole village! Chloe, let us push this demon back!” Agaroth chimed in “Where’s twinky?” Tilda responded “He was behind us a moment ago.”

  Agaroth seemed concerned… which in all honesty I did not expect. Agaroth said “Shit, the spell’s still working so he’s alive. Where are ya, ya little shit?” Kiyui eventually responded “Sorry, I saw a girl. I need to get her to safety, but we’re stuck in a side alley. Lizard men are everywhere!”

  He was right… since we were focussing on Dominus, various lizard men had been able to pass by us and get into the village. Asmodeus dispatched me to find Kiyui and help him as I was on the rooftops and could easily pass the flaming market stall that blocked their path.

  It didn’t take me long to find Kiyui. He was backed into a dead-end alley with a lizardman approaching him. He had the small girl behind him. For somebody so timid it was surprising to see how determined he was to defend others.

  I only had a couple of arrows left and this lizardman was unaware of my presence. I decided to save my arrows in case I needed them later. For the first time since becoming an adventurer I was going to actually use my daggers for combat. I dived off the roof and flew past the lizardman’s head. Using my dagger, I sliced its neck on my way past. I cut swift and deep; the beast began to fall to the ground and bleed out. I was very pleased with myself in all honesty.

  In an uncharacteristically commanding manner Kiyui told me “Cover me for a couple of minutes. I can teleport her to safety.” I was confused… I had only ever heard of teleport magic in stories… I was pretty sure it wasn’t real… and if it was real, then why had he not shown us it before.

  I asked “can you seriously do that?” He said “I can only teleport up to two people at a time and it takes too long to be practical in most situations… but this is the only way I can see that we can get her to safety, so please, let me concentrate.” “Understood” I replied, getting my bow out again.

  I briefly looked at the girl… she looked so scared… Kiyui placed her on the ground in front of him and began mouthing something that I couldn’t make out. He hovered one of his hands over Feiffer… seemingly drawing energy from him. A glowing glyph appeared on the floor underneath the girl. It was dull at first, but got progressively brighter as he continued.

  Unfortunately, as he said, this was not a quick process, I turned to see a group of lizardmen advancing down the alley toward us. I used the last of my arrows to take shots at the first two lizardmen. Unfortunately, I was only able to stop one of them by hitting him in the eye. The other was unfazed by the arrow in his shoulder. And were several more behind them. This was not good. I drew my daggers again and advanced on the incoming group.

  Three of them appeared to take on my challenge while the others laughed. It was all going well at first. Before today I hadn’t used my daggers in a fight since my mum’s fighting test all those years ago. It felt like I had never stopped using them. I slid through the air, dodging their blows and administering cuts swiftly. The cuts weren’t very deep… but there were many. I knew I would never be able to take them out with a single blow… my best hope was blood loss. Even a lizardman needs blood to live.

  Despite what I initially thought, I was very out of practise, they adapted to what I was doing pretty quickly. They were all heavily bleeding by this point, but none of them had bled out enough.

  One of them set up a feint with his club, which I fell for, and that was it, it brought its fist straight into my leg. My nimbleness was obliterated in an instant. I tried to dodge and retreat but with my leg damaged… I just couldn’t.

  It slammed my arm with its club. I felt my bones shatter as I fell to ground. They advanced on me as I lay on the floor. I raised my remaining arm in a feeble attempt to defend myself, one of them grabbed my arm and proceeded to snap it before kicking me in the face.

  The pain was unbearable. Then… there was a bright light. My vision was blurry at this point. I looked back to where Kiyui was. The child had gone. I assume the teleport had worked. But why… why was Kiyui still there? I could taste blood in my mouth; I tried to speak to tell him to run but I couldn’t… the only thing that came from my mouth was blood.

  I began to drift… I felt… light… like I could float away… my vision began to go completely. I heard a strange, deep voice say “Gav or Dan.” I remember thinking ‘what the hell does that mean?’ before everything went black. I do recall briefly trying to open my eyes and seeing a ceiling… there was candlelight… I think I heard Agaroth say “fuck right off…” but then I drifted into the black again.