Master of Strings Ch 114: Cutting the Rope

Jin, Zilo, Sparky, and Alaroc dusted themselves off before walking into the next room. They walk in to see... Precisely who they are looking for. There sat Wisp at small table to his left was Vinny, and on the right was a man with a shaved head and a high collar. His skin was pale and his eyes were a light brown color.

Zilo blinked a moment, "Oh... there you are Wisp."

Wisp looks up from the table with a surprised look and says, "Uh, Zilo... I thought finding the lair would take longer than... an hour, why are you here?"

Jin takes a step forward and says, "Well, me mates an' I tink dat it'd be far quicka just to beat ya to an inch a your life den, get ya to do as we want."

Wisp slowly nods three times before hopping onto the table and nodding to both the men before saying, "Horace do it." The man with the shaved head then closed his eyes and motions to both Vinny and Wisp before they all look to each other with a deep stare and Vinny charges.

The thug unsheathes a rapier and in a flash he has stabbed into Zilo's shoulder, pinning him to the doorway, and followed up with kicking Sparky away and across the room. Jin tries to move over to help, but he can seem to move, as the psion's hand points to him, holding him stunned in place.

Alaroc takes out his two blades and moves to free Zilo, just as he does he is brought to his knee as he looks to see Wisp at his leg with a dagger in his hamstrings followed by another slash to his side.

All of the heroes were taken by surprise in their own ambush, but Sparky was intent on turning it around. Sparky readied Selective Fireball to blast everyone in the room other than his friends and luckily it worked just as expected.

The Green Dragon agents fell back to recover as Zilo snapped out his violin and played a soothing performance to undo the damage done to them. As the bard looked to Alaroc, both of them could see on their faces that those attacks had left wounds beyond what Zilo thought. Vinny and Wisp had used Crippling Strikes, leaving the bodies hit with lasting damage.

Jin charged at the Psion and slammed his fist into the undefended mental mage. Alaroc made his move on Vinny to keep Zilo safe from another charge. Alaroc brought down his energy blade and despite Vinny's attempt to parry, it was pointless. The blade phased past the metal and slashed at the man's chest.

Now it was the enemy's turn, and Horace made a quick hop backward followed by whipping his right arm back and thrusting it forward as his left arm rested gripping his temple. Jin could feel it, he was trying to attack his mind. However, the monk's force of will proved strong enough to shrug off the damage, now that he was able to see the mage and he wasn't distracted.

As Jin reveled in his success he felt a sharp pain in his side. He looked there to see a dagger, stuck there, and bleeding far more than any wound should. He looked up to see Wisp returning his arm from a throw before continuing to stab methodically at Alaroc from behind.

Alaroc was flanked as the little Halfling shifted his place to be surrounding Alaroc with Vinny. Both Vinny and Wisp had been stabbing at the Cavalier, who hadn't expected such a maneuver after the blast of fire. Upon a closer look, it seemed both rogues had managed to avoid nearly all of the flames from the spell that broke up the fight's start.

Zilo wanted to heal again, but as long as these rogues continued their assaults he couldn't match up, so he began to play his song of Inspiring Courage, before also casting Haste, and Cat's Grace as he retrieved Harmony from his back. Sparky immediately began to use his newfound speed to double cast two Scorching Rays to pepper the two men attacking Alaroc.

Alaroc let out all his frustration on Wisp, who nimbly danced around the sword swings, not taking anything more than a few glancing blows. Jin had much more luck, however, as he stepped in quick on the psion and unleashed a full flurry of blows.

Jin let out a monstrous 5 hit combo of a jab, followed by an uppercut. After the psion was made airborne, the Vanara spun in place and kicked him up higher with a stomach kick before reaching up, pulling him down and stopping his descent with another uppercut.  As the Psion's body stayed suspended, unsure if it should fall or fly, Jin made the choice for him with a flip leading into an ax kick in the skull.

The psion lay there, unconscious. Wisp hopped away from the bleeding and hurt Alaroc before weaving his way around Jin's range to come to a halt over to the psion. He then looked for a moment to Vinny, only to grimace and shout, "Vinny, link is down put the monkey down!"

Vinny continued to use his rapier to keep Alaroc back but as he did he reached for his belt and took out a dagger before throwing it past Alaroc's head at Jin. Jin snatched the dagger out of the air by the blade, stopping any serious harm, but suddenly he felt woozy, before falling to his knees. Vinny smiles as Alaroc looks to the monk, and then back to Vinny who unsheathes another dagger, showing a small layer of liquid on it saying,

"Blue Whinnis, knocks you out if you ain't careful."

Wisp lets Jin fall to his knees, but grabs him by the fur on his chest, holding him between Zilo and Sparky. Zilo tried his best to fire arrows without hurting Jin, but all his shots missed their mark as Wisp used the Vanara's body to dissuade the bard. Sparky tried a more up close strategy and tried to unleash two of his burning fists from the side that the rogue couldn't block with Jin.

Sadly, Wisp saw the attacks coming and once again used his rouge Evasion to avoid both blasts before shouting for Vinny to put down the goblin as well. Alaroc continued to put pressure on the Vinny, but not enough for him to miss his mark and put Sparky to sleep as well with a well-placed dagger throw.

Wisp dropped the sleeping monk, and looked to the psion. Wisp shouted, "You think you can tell me what to do Zilo? Well, you are wrong! And you will pay for that." Wisp took his dagger out of Jin's side and threw it at the unconscious psion. He hit him right in the chest and the psion's breathing is halted. Wisp smiles and says,

"No way to call it off now, your girl is dead soon as Jake doesn't hear from me."

Zilo is frozen still, as is Alaroc and Vinny, though Vinny has a smile on his face. Alaroc runs over to Zilo, forgetting about the fight and his wounds, and speaks, "Zilo, you need to go, right now!"

"But..."

"Move! I can handle this! Get one of our horses and ride as fast as you can, get to Deneval!"

Zilo begins to step back toward the stairs, hesitating, before saying, "You got this?"

Alaroc laughs and says, "Like you need to ask."

Zilo bolts up the stairwell, and Alaroc stares down the two leaders of the guild. The knight grips his blades and sheaths them both as he whispers under his breath, "Guess now is as good of a time as any."

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