Luc picked a magical link, the best he could do to find the ghouls, and at Ti's assurance that there was no one on that one, he let loose a torrent of fireballs in a wide enough cluster that most managed at least a partial impact on the creature. "How'd that go?"

"Direct hit!" Ti cheered as she flew circles around Luc's head. She sat down in his hair and grinned. "What's next?"

Luc grinned. "Let's call this north. Tell me which way to aim." He began chanting the next spell and a gout of flames burst from his hands, and focused into a constant wash of fire from his hands. To the others, it was probably spells like this that got him kicked out of places for burning things down.

Ritzen ducked as the creatures claws swept the air where his head had just been, quickly he pulled his sword from its back and in a sweeping motion plunged his dagger into the beasts chest.

Behind him he felt the surge of power again, glancing towards it he glimpsed the sight of a large red streak, it smashed into one of the ghouls near him and Ritzen felt the heat of the fire on his neck.

Ritzen severed the head of the ghoul he was fighting leaving it for dead, as he turned in the corner of his eye he noticed a gleaming sword a few feet from where he was standing, Ritzen turned just in time to see a second ghoul charge him.

Ritzen tried to move aside but his timing was off, the ghoul slammed into him sending him flying through the air crashing head on into a rock. Stunned, Ritzen couldn’t reacted to what the ghoul would do next.

For some reason, the ghouls that had been set on fire seemed very unhappy. A cacophony of unnatural, inhuman shrieks and growls filled the air. Ritzen's attacker reared up to end him, then suddenly jerked back with a ragged hiss when a blade whipped out and sliced into his hands.

Paelias stepped between the stunned drow and the ghouls, his sword poised next to his shield in a powerful defensive stance. "Come on, you bastards," he cooed, tapping his blade against the edge of his heater shield. "The more hits to your faces, the prettier you'll get."

The majority who weren't on fire at some level or another surged towards him and Ritzen, while the flaming ones careened towards Luc and Ti, no doubt intending to do them harm.

Off to the side, Iya had found her quarry. No tree root, bush, or stone seemed to keep her from the necromancer, her blade ever darting and seeking flesh. While normally so calm and quiet, here the avenger was a fury. She had no eyes for anything on the battlefield except the spellcaster, which was a disadvantage as much as an advantage. If Luc, Paelias, and Ritzen could not keep the attention of the ghouls, she'd end up injured from behind. The menace of an angry deity clouded around her like a stormy mantle, inspiring the devotee of Vecna to try and flee.

As Ritzen regained his senses he noticed a rather large human standing over him fending the ghouls back single handedly, but the ghouls were overwhelming him and Ritzens long sword was far out of reach to recover safely.

Ritzen leapt to his feet, his black dagger singing through the air as it bit into the ghouls cold hard flesh to buy the knight some time to recover from handling so many at the same time. “Do you think you can keep them busy for a while?”

Without waiting for a response Ritzen stepped back, drawing upon some power deep within himself, in his outstretched hand a small white glob of light began to form.

Luc's beam of fire turned into just a flurry of flames, pounding into a ghoul over and over and over... and over...

Ti giggled and hopped down from Luc's head to his shoulder. "I think you've got him."

"Think he needs some more?"

"You bet! FIRE!" she shouted, laughing at her word play. He couldn't see or sense much, so once he started, he kept going. "LUC! There are two more coming towards us. You know what to do!"

Ti directed Luc, and he chanted, gathering as much power into his hands as possible, and then he pressed it into the ground. The earth shook and split. A gout of fire shot up from underneath both ghouls, trapping them in the molten energy.

Meanwhile, there were a couple of ghouls moving towards Iya. One had turned from Ritzen and Paelias, and the other was a stray. Luc couldn't aim while the others were in between him and them, so he hoped the others could manage, or that there might be some divine intervention. He could hope.

"Over here, drow!" Paelias shouted, charging towards the ghouls that were breaking away for Iya. The fact that their races were blood enemies--eladrin were part of elvenkind, after all--could be handled later once much less was on the line. He wasn't doing a great job of bulling forward, however, with the ghouls all around him. Thankfully, their claws were busy trying to shear through his shield and armor instead of hitting exposed flesh.

The smells of burned flesh and hair were beginning to fill the clearing, along with the unnatural howls and screeches of the ghouls that were consumed in flame. The creatures popped and sizzled as their muscles began to roast, white maggots wriggling free of their undead hosts to try and escape the horrible heat.

Paelias cursed as a blow managed to puncture through the armor of his upper leg and whirled about, abandoning his pursuit of those heading towards Iya. Instead, he drove his sword into that noxious, gaping maw and silenced one of them, only to have another latch onto him in a crushing bear-hug, its teeth gnawing at his shield arm.

The first ghoul that approached Iya was met by a sudden flare of divine power, searing light striking it. The pulse stripped away flesh and left charred, smoking wounds behind. Her would-be ambusher yowled and retreated for the moment, but the other was coming up fast. The battle between necromancer and avenger was not over yet, not by a long shot.

Luc was busy pressing back against his followers, and while Ti could enhance his magic, she couldn't exactly fight the ghouls, so she stuck to Luc like glue. Heat and flames tore up the earth in front of them. Very little would be left unscathed at this rate, and there was definitely going to be some long term damage. That didn't bother Luc so much as the fact that their group was being cut off from helping Iya.

"Iya! Behind you!" he called out, but that was the best he could manage. These things were ridiculously tough. The necromancer was no joke.

"I know you're supposed to love thine enemy, but I think Sune makes an exception for these hideous creatures! Ah-ha!" A streak of green and metal ran in for interception. His greatsword sliced through the air behind him as he leaped, twirled, and used the momentum to cleave through the undead beast. As he landed, he turned to watch the distance he had flung the upper part of the body. "Only a dozen feet? Tch. I've done better."

He shook his head and his long black hair danced over his shoulders. "You guys look like you need a hand!" The new wild elf's blade began to glow with a divine light similar to Iya's, although at the same time it was different. He was a knight of a different deity. "Fire boy, incoming!" He began to charge to Luc's assistance, though the blind mage probably didn't need it.

Ritzen saw the human knight move off, he followed at a distance letting the light in his hand grow to the size of his fist, this spell would drain him of almost all his energy, he needed to get the ghouls in a group.

He heard the shriek of a ghoul and saw pure divine power rip through it as a sword would parchment.

It was then Ritzen saw the holy avenger with the blood lust in her eyes, searching for something not seeming to notice two ghouls coming from behind.

Ritzen extended his hand towards the seemingly strongest ghoul and let the energy in the globe free, it shot out in a ten foot cone, Ritzen smiled slyly to himself as its hit two of the ghouls dead on disintegrating them instantly. He heard a grunt of pain, turning just in time to see the human knight get hit.

Paelias slammed his shield into the offending ghoul's head with a vengeance, baring his teeth savagely and cursing in elvish at the creatures. It took a few more blows until that particular creature succumbed. The tide of the battle was turning quickly--now the group was winning, quickly beginning to finish off the ghouls.

Iya pressed forward with more confidence now that Ritzen had torn through the two ghouls behind her, lithe frame bending and twisting to avoid the branches whipped about by the attempted flight of her quarry. She was faster than the unfortunate necromancer, however, blade slicing into his hamstrings and dropping him to the ground. Without a moment's hesitation, the eladrin raised her blade and drove it down between his collarbone and shoulderblade, a full yard of steel piercing the spellcaster's chest cavity.

There was a little sound of suction as she pulled the blade out and blood burbled out like a stream. Iya turned back and moved towards the group, just in time to see Luc and their second newcomer finish off the last of them.

"Not a bad fight," she commented, tucking her silver hair back behind her ears. It was easy to see her in the moonlight now that her hood had fallen back. "And it seems I owe my thanks to two strangers as well."

Ritzen approached Paelias. “Would you like for me too see to your wound?, I will understand if you don’t but I don’t think you want to wait for it to heal by itself.” He glanced at the eladrin who he guessed was in charge for her approval.

Paelias grunted his assent, stripping off his pauldron so that the drow could take care of the wound. Those claws had smelled too foul not to be somehow poisonous or infectious. And, as he often reminded himself, beggars couldn't be choosers. "Just don't try to finish me off, and there'll be no harm. I've not met a drow before, but I've heard much of them."

Luc, under Ti's mischievous guidance, had come out unharmed, though the landscape wished it could hint at being in such a state. He walked from ghoul corpse to ghoul corpse, and incinerating the remains with bursts of fire. "Thanks strangers!" Luc called out to the two newcomers.

The wild elf walked up to the majority of the group and took a bow. He drew out a deck of cards and began shuffling it as he looked between them. "You're a tough bunch. I saw you were having some fun, and decided to jump in." He continued to shuffle the deck until he was satisfied and flipped up the top card. He grinned. "Well, well... We are fated to meet again, be it for better or worse. I don't intend to stay, but when we next meet, I'm sure it'll be for a while." He looked over at Iya and flashed her a smile that could easily be interpreted as more than friendly. "May Sune's guidance continue to watch over you, Champion."

Ritzen examined the wound. “Your very lucky, these things have been known to paralyze their victims.”

He glanced at the mage and wild elf to see if they needed healing as well. “Do you require any healing?”

Ritzens hand became gloved in white flowing energy, he looked at Paelias, “this wont hurt a bit.”
Ritzen pressed his hand on the wound letting the energy flow into Paelias’s body, in his mind he felt the wound close, Ritzen lifted his and as if pulling out a needle from cloth and a thin line of green mist followed from the wound. “You were poisoned, but I have drawn it out.” Ritzen gestured to the green mist now dissipating.

Iya was puzzled slightly by the wild elf's comments, but she accepted them without argument. Many times had Her Lady ruled her life. If that meant Sune was going to have a say as well, so be it. "Walk always in the light, child of the Fire-Haired," she said quietly, returning his farewell. "When we meet again, may it be in better circumstances."

Paelias shuddered slightly when Ritzen showed him the green mist. "I do not like those things, or their poisons," he muttered darkly. The warrior rotated his shoulder, checking for stiffness or pain. It felt good. Better than he'd expected. "You have my thanks, drow. My name is Paelias Shatanryl. What name have you?"

Ritzen bowed slightly. “I am only known as Ritzen, I wish we had met under better circumstances Paelias.”

Ritzen checked the mage and wild elf over to see if they needed healing, despite all the smoldering corpses of the ghouls they looked unharmed.

Ritzen stood to his feet only to fall to his knees in a groan. “Forgive me, it seems I used to much of my reserves than I had previously thought.”
He glanced at Iya. “Would you grant me your permission to stay the night with your party?”