Two horsemen ride up to a tavern...

The leader finally lands two blows on Katrin. He has a moment to see the resolute fiery gleam in the dwarf's eyes before his chest explodes in a cascade of red vapor a split-second before two resounding thunderclaps sound in the ravine. The leader collapses. The one remaining fleeing orc staggers as a red plume erupts from his temple, but somehow continues onward. Ascian's action.

It’s far from quiet on the battlefield, even with most of their targets dead - yet it almost seems that way to Ascian, who watches it all from above. Below, in the ravine, blades still clash and clang off armor; spells still fly - and there, far off to the north, legs still move in an urgent bid for freedom. The orc is far enough away he can’t make out the details, but movement is enough - desperation is enough - to train his bow upon. Lifting it for a final time, Ascian notches the arrow and watches the warrior run, feeling the familiar brush of fletching pull past his cheek. Then he squints, and releases, and from a hundred and fifty feet away sees those same feathers sprout like magic from the fleeing orc’s heart.

The volley of booming shots ring throughout the ravine for several seconds, giving way to a momentary stillness. Thezra watches the orc limp into the distance, even after a spurt of blood exploded from his head just seconds earlier. She growls and starts to run after him when a blur of motion whizzes past her just a foot or so to the right. A moment later, the orc in the distance stumbles, crumpling to the ground. Thezra halts in her tracks, glancing back to see where the shot had come from. Eventually, she spots the pale-faced young man, bow still drawn before him, staring with the same emotionless expression in her direction.  Hurrying up to the body, she can't help but grin as she kneels down beside it. That shot had to have been almost 200 paces, yet the arrow had found purchase square in the orc's heart. Her large, gauntleted hand presses down into the lower back of her fallen former brother as her other hand wraps around the arrow's shaft, yanking it free of the body. "I am no traitor ,"  she spits on the ground beside him, " heretic ." With no immediate sign of the rest of Duar'ken's party in the distance, she makes her way back to the rest of her new companions, beelining first to the young man. "That was an impressive shot, Ascian," she nods down to him, holding out the still-bloody arrow.

The blood that sprays across her from the orc's torn chest sizzles as it hits her skin, burning hot with the fires of the Forge. She glances at Beshk, nodding her thanks before sheathing her axe. Her eyes are burning coals, and she does nothing but stand looking at the orc for a long moment after the fighting stops, an impossible heat shimmering in the space around her.

Akiran shouts "VIVEX!"  (draconic for victory)   giving the captain a friendly thump on the back as he does. Shifting back to common he fixes his snout into an approximation of a smile and looks to his new companions  "We need to press our advantage. Unless the priest has worked his magics the camp is likely still reeling from the fire." Akiran wipes a bit off orcish blood off of his otherwise shining armor "If we hurry we maybe able to strike before they can dig in or flee." Looking at the pale man " Ascian you move like a ghost with wings, if you are willing it would greatly aid us to have your eyes in front. The rest of us should start marching, the element of surprise is gone but speed will win us the day." Looking around the group "Do any of you posses magics or the ability to see from above? It may help us on our trek to ensure that we are not out maneuvered as we approach.'' 

Ascian picks his way down from the ledge, pulling arrows out of flesh as he goes, content as much as he was distantly surprised the plan had worked. He’d seen his last shot pierce the orc’s chest, knew it had downed him - and yet still the need to check seemed compulsory. The craving for certainty always was. He’s already shifting across the field of orcish bodies when he finds himself to-to-toe with a live one, the very arrow he’d been headed to recover offered in one hand. Taken off guard, he stares down at it for a moment before from across the ravine Akiran’s triumphant order meets his ears. He nods vaguely, “I’ll catch up with you.”  He looks back to Thezra to take the arrow from her, tip still glistening with her kin’s blood, and slides it into one of the two quivers crossed across his back. “Thanks.” He knows he needs to move but continues to stare at her, grey on orange. “You didn’t have to do that.” 

“That could probably be said for much of what I’ve done in recent days...”  she takes her own sword in hand and drags the flat of it over her forearm, wiping off the blood. She winces a bit as a sudden twang of pang hits her from where an orc’s blade had struck, and all-at-once the events of late rush back, as if a dam had broken. Her pleas falling on the deaf ears of the raid party, the sting of the first blow striking her, and her numbness to the last. She was sure she’d recognized a few of the men gathered in this most recent party for a reason. “Scout well,”  she says, clearing  her throat, “If Duar’ken escapes or succeeds, this will all have been for nought.”

Ascian scouts ahead with the rest of the group trailing far behind. As nears the site of the camp, he can feel the heat radiating out of the raging inferno that has become of the orc camp. He can see that the camp seems to be abandoned, with nary an orc in sight.

Ascian appears out of nowhere back to where the others are following him through the woods, following the sounds of shifting armor and trodding footsteps. "They're gone," he says bluntly, barely slowing down as he darts through the trees past them. "They didn't put the fire out. Get to the village."

Ascian darts ahead of the party once again, and within 15 minutes shoots out of the woods near the tavern. Spying the flicker of torchlight along the road in front of the tavern, he approaches, finding Na'arik on the porch talking with the two soldiers and sharpshooter that Beshk sent back to check in.  The tone of the conversation had been -- not jovial, but not exactly urgent either. That all falls away at Ascian's approach. "What is it?" Na'arik says, eyeing the slight man. After Ascian explains, Na'arik and the gathered soldiers begin scanning the hills, watching warily. "We haven't seen anything yet. Hopefully the others return before they arrive." Four or so minutes later, the rest of the party and the company of soldiers spills out of the forest and joins Ascian and the soldiers on the road. Beshk receives a report from his men, exchanged in hushed, urgent tones.  Just as the silence of the night begins to ease the party's spirits, they hear a shout from the military camp. "Orcs!"  At almost the same time, Ascian, Callahan, and Katrin see a red glow flares to life on the western reaches of the village.

"We need to find out what's happening over there," Katrin can feel a knot forming in the pit of her stomach. She turns to Beshk. "Can you and your men hold the orcs here?" 

Beshk looks toward the watchtower his men constructed, as if waiting for something. After a few moments, a sparking purple light begins to pulse from the top. "Purple flare," Beshk growls. "That means their force is at least a dozen, but no greater than twenty or so. We can hold them." He looks to the sharpshooter he had sent back to the village originally. "Jenkins, is that weapon loaded?" The soldier nods. "Yessir," he says. "Good. Go with them," Beshk says, gesturing to Katrin. The party moves toward the west end, toward the faintly glowing red at the edge of the small village. The flickers of flames come into view, but those that have wandered the village before know these two burning buildings to be abandoned -- victims of the earliest orc raids. A small orc contingent holds a position between those two homes. At the rear, metal chestplate dully gleaming in the fire light, is Duar'ken. "I grow tired of you killing my men," he says in the common tongue. "Before your merry little band showed up, these raids weren't a problem. The civilians retreated to the tavern, we took some wares, and everyone lived on. Now? Well...let's just finish this, shall we?"

The moment she lays eyes on the bastard, Thezra can feel her blood start to boil. With barely restrained rage she steps out from the group and jabs a finger towards him,  “You lying little worm!”  she shouts in common, “The raids are no problem? You besmirch our honor as warriors to resort to thieving wheat from gubuk  like this. You drag Chief Kerak’s name through mud,  Oh Great Spiritual Advisor , and most of all, you put words in the mouths of the spirits you know  to be false.” Yanking the blade from her back and holding it aloft towards him, she loudly but with a now-controlled fury, calls out, “You are an affront to the gods themselves, Duar’ken, and I will see your head roll before the sun rises again.”

Duar'ken looks at Thezra, confused for a moment. "I don't even know who you are," he says, his expression morphing into slight amusement. "But I had heard there was a traitor."

“Aye,”  she glowers, “I’m looking at him.”

At the first sign of aggression, Jenkins turns and makes a tactical withdrawal up the hill to the northwest to get a better vantage point. Ascian does much the same, vaulting over a hedge and into another field. Ascian's action.

Thrandimir rolls his eyes and hurls three bolts of force from his staff. They streak through the air to strike Duar'ken with pinpoint precision. "Enough talk. Let us finish this."

The orcs charge in toward the party. Seeing the present threat leave, Asian fires an arrow into the flank of a wolf, which trembles and nearly collapses, blood matting its grey fur. Greataxes meet the party line and the clash begins. Akiran braces himself and uses the momentum of one of the attacking orcs to sneak his broadsword in for a blow. Thezra takes 10 points of slashing damage to vigor, reduced to 4 by DR. Kaed takes 6 points of slashing damage to vigor, reduced to 2 by Dr. The back line of orcs close in and the party takes a hail of javelins. Thezra takes 9 points of piercing damage to vigor, reduced to 3 by DR. Katrin takes 8 points of piercing damage to vigor, reduced to 3 by DR. Kaed takes 8 points of piercing damage to vigor, reduced to 4 by DR. As the javelin bounces off Katrin's shield, it makes no sound. Then suddenly, nothing is making any noise. The sounds of the fire and the night are gone in an instant. Ascian can still hear though, and he hears the orc near Duar'ken chuckling slightly -- presumably the priest's second in command. Kaed's action.

Kaed surges into the fight after the orcs oblige by attacking them, he swings his blade with measured control, using his shield to push the orc's weapon out of line and exposing a weakness in the side of his armour, the sabre draws blood and the porcine eyes of his foe glare balefully at Kaed, who makes no sound but offers an infuriating wink to the bleeding creature.

Duar'ken flings his hand forward, sending three bolts of fire out across the field. One impacts the ground in front of Ascian, one bounces harmlessly off Katrin's armor, and the third catches Kaed in the arm. Kaed takes 6 points of fire damage to vigor, reduced to 2 by DR. Katrin's action.

"Shit," Katrin mutters under her breath as the sound is sucked away, even her own voice. In a tempered fury, she leaps forward, but at the last second brings her axe swinging sideways, catching the Orc in front of her in the side. She can imagine him grunting, and her frustration increases as the silence presses in on all sides.

The sound of silences slips by unnoticed to Thezra, who can hear only the beating of her heart thumping a fervent battle hymn in her head. The rush of battle sweeps up around herself and her new allies in the form of a bevy of orcs, and she readies herself, dropping her front knee down and leaning forward, bracing against the slash of their feeble first strikes. She roars, though none can hear it, as she pulls back and carves through the air itself to instantly drop the first man to hit her. Wasting no time, she uses the adrenaline to keep her momentum going, twisting her torso as she strikes the first orc so the blade slides cleanly through as she turns to meet the next one with her stride. Rising to meet his pained gaze, she simply snarls, a long, pointed tusk jutting out from the side of her raised lip. Callahan, meanwhile, finds himself in a world wholly unknown to him - that of complete quiet. The bodies around him were moving; surging and striking and sliding in unison - violently choreographed chaos - but he could hear nothing. The firbolg’s eyes widen in a mix of sheer curiosity mixed with confusion, and he’d have been keen to stay a moment longer were his mind not also screaming that he lend aid. He watches Kaed come under attack, and the new one, the orc woman, take a bad slash to the back that she seemingly ignores as she stomps towards another member of her own tribe, and knows what to do. Taking several steps back, the silence is suddenly suppressed with the return of cacophonous battle, and he has to center himself to find his connection to the stars. The light billows once more up and out from him, this time in the form of a glimmering chalice overflowing with swirling galaxies and fog-like nebulae.  “For the protection of the kind people of this community, we cannot fall here!”  His words echo unheard through the area as he directs his energy towards Kaed and Thezra, hopefully alleviating any damage they’d taken.

Akiran rushes forward slashing at the Orc between Katrin and Thezra. His broadsword smashes into the man just as Akiran's places his foot behind the warrior. Sending the orc crashing to the ground. Akiran attempts to smashes his armored foot into the man but he proves to quick for the dragonborn. 

The wolves charge in, leaving their wounded packmate to attempt to pull the arrow out of its flank. It instead snaps the shaft off and yelps as the arrowhead drops deeper into his body. A thundercrack strikes and Duar'ken staggers, the sound of the shot echoing with the sound of its impact into the orc's armor. Ascian's action.

Fire sputters to nothing at Ascian's feet and he looks up into the eyes of who can only be Duar'ken, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that despite the hundred or so feet between them, despite the darkness that shrouds him, despite the clashing visuals of a battle happening elsewhere – the orc knows exactly where he is. So he runs. It isn't far, for him to press back into the hedges he'd recently climbed over; tall enough to obscure him and thick enough that though he knows he should be able to hear the battle just on the other side of them, a battle that is there everywhere but in sound, there is something of a barrier between them. It's only when he glances up at the indifferent night sky to make sure no one is vaulting over the hedges as he had done that he sees once again those inexplicable shreds of mist that seem to slough off of him when he runs or hides so urgently as this; they lazily left up over the hedge wall and spear down to find purchase in, he has no doubt, some awful orifice below. Dry lips press into a thin line watching the bolts of horror dart downward but he tries to force himself to focus back on what he knows lurks on the far side of the hedges, bow tense and ready for Duar'ken.

As silence falls on the battlefield, Thrandimir spots Duar'ken's cleric weaving the insidious enchantment far in the back rank. However, the wizard is not without his own tricks. Closing his eyes and concentrating, Thrandimir summons the same bolts of force that he mere moments ago threw with a twirl of his staff and an arcane incantation - but this time without uttering a sound. Clearly not expecting such magic, the cleric is caught off guard by the impact and the third missile breaks his concentration on the spell.

The orcs charge in with a suddenly audible battle cry. Kaed nimbly dodges out of the way of two blows, while Thrandimir succeeds in blocking a greataxe with his quarter staff. Akiran and Thezra parry the axes with their blades -- making no one blow a deadly one, even as the orcs continue to press forward.  As they do, sound once again filters out of the world, leaving most of the party in another unnatural silence. Ascian and Callahan are the only ones who can hear the soft crackling of flames and the chirping of night insects.

Frustrated by the sounds coming and going Kaed loses himself to his icy rage the sabre flicks out, taking the already wounded orc hard in the side, the creature slumps to the floor bleeding heavily.  The momentary lack of an target in front of him let's him look about and he sees another greataxe wielding orc assaulting Thrandimir. Although he has been surprised by the sprightly nature of the old man in the past he pushes through the press to smash his shield's rim into the face of the brute, seeing but not hearing the destruction of its nose under the force of the attack. Hoping he has done enough to protect the wizard for now Kaed turns back to the mob forming around them.

Duar'ken steps forward with a smile on his face. For Kaed, Thrandimir, Akiran, Katrin, and Thezra, all the light is sucked out of the world. They cannot see the weapons in front of them, much less their enemies.

Heat begins to roll off of Katrin, like the coals in a forge as darkness descends and her anger increases. If anyone could've seen her, they would see her eyes glowing red-hot, like coals. She'd had enough of this Duar'ken and his spells. She screams in frustration, bringing her axe down in front of her. It bites deep, and something hits her toes. Something warm. Something....that felt a bit like an orc. Grim satisfaction and cold determination fill her as the heat increases.  

Callahan’s world goes dark, and his mind immediately returns to that sunken chamber of the old Tollonian tomb, but he steadies himself when he realizes he can make out himself, and light to the north and south. He rushes around, finding himself still somewhat cut off from viewing the orc leader.  No matter , he raises a hand forward, eyes closing,  the stars will guide me, always.  A piercing beam of radiance rockets from his palm. It vanishes in the inky blackness of the unnatural void ahead of him, but he knows it struck true. Thezra, sees Duar’ken’s smile as the world goes black, and her anger festers over. She feels the orc ahead of her collapse, no doubt the work of the dwarf, and doesn’t hesitate. Primal intuition takes over as she bounds forward, slamming into one orc before turning and continuing forward. She swears she can feel metal clang against her gauntleted arm, and the claws of a wolf at her leg, but neither phase her. Her vision is gone but the image of her quarry is seared into her retinas. The light floods back in as she emerges from the darkness, and storms ahead, her every step propelling her forward, barreling through the field. The orc turns as she approaches but she is already upon him, her sword a whirlwind of motion as it slams with all the weight she can muster into the man. A gout of flame billows from his hand as he stumbles back, crashing with a dull thud.  “I am Thezra .  Remember it or not, I do not care,”  she declares in orcish, “ for you’ll soon be nothing.”

Akiran opens his mouth to roar with joy as his sight comes back but as he opens his snout nothing emerges. Shaking his head he levels his gaze on the two wolves two his side and cocking his head back once again he opens his snout and unleashes a torrent wind and ice. The blasts batters the wolves slowly sapping their resolve.  Turning his attention to the Orc in front of him, he slashes his blade upward smashing into the orc's armor. Leaning back he rockets his head forward bashing his horn against the orc's skull. As he withdraws he notices the orc's eyes have grown fogy and disoriented, and has a steady downpour of blood flowing from the cut on his head.

One wolf responds to the icy breath of the dragonborn by fleeing to the east. The other two remaining ones jump toward their attacking silver-scaled prey. They catch only cold steel in their jaws. Jenkins works frantically to reload his weapon.

Unnerved by the silence coming from the other side of the hedge and, worse, the fact he can no longer see Duar'ken, Ascian ultimately bursts through the foliage that had separated him, sprinting past the strange juxtaposition that is what ought to be a loud, clashing battle but seems to be a horrifying, dream-like pantomime of one. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Kaed and Akiran, Katrin and Thrandimir; all locked somewhere within that writhing mess of limbs. From his, in a sensation he's worried he's beginning to be able to sense coming, he can feel those wisps again; watches over his shoulder as they tunnel down the soundless, shrieking maw of an orc as he darts by, the cry choked from him by a different type of nightmare than the one that had first taken his speech. Vaulting over the low barrier that separates the road and the hill, he ultimately shudders to a stop in the semidarkness and lifts his bow immediately, one eye closed in preparation as he trains it on the orc beside Thezra and waits for Duar'ken to make his move.

Thrandimir scowls as silence falls around the melee once more and hurls another series of silent magic missiles at Duar'ken's cleric. Unfortunately, this time the Orc is able to maintain his concentration.

Two of the four remaining orc warriors suffer from their necrotic wounds dealt by Ascian. They both attempt to disengage and retreat. One collapses on the spot, while the other staggers a few feet away and then falls to the dirt. The remaining two gang up on Kaed, attempting to bring the barbarian low, but to little success.  The cleric moves up behind Thezra and reaches out a hand. Life energy leeches out of Thezra, pulled by a sickly green glow.

Kaed lashes out at another orc the blade defeated by the armour and his shield missing by an inch leaves the orc on the back foot by still in the fight. Shadowy streams flow from Kaed's arms as his anger rises, at least in part by the frustration of missing the more glorious battle against Duar'ken.

Duar'ken scrambles to his feet, glowering at Thezra. A low pulsing energy emits from his hands and he takes a deep, satisfied breath -- seemingly reenergized. Then the pulsing expands, and the party sees thousands of small insects and tiny chaotic explosions rip through the air around Thezra, Duar'ken, and the cleric. Just as suddenly, an arrow impacts his armor, knocking the wind from his chest. His gaze turns frantic, looking back and forth from Thezra to Ascian. He begins muttering something low within his regsiter, the frantic gaze turning back to steely anger.

As the darkness dissipates, Katrin can finally set her burning eyes on the orc priest, Duar'ken. She strides over the fallen orc in front of her, continuing past the wolf. It snarls, lunging for her, but meets her shield with a silent  thud . Suddenly, sound returns, and she can hear the roar of flames and the sounds of battle as Thezra is locked in combat with Duar'ken. She speaks aloud, pleased to hear her own voice, and Duar'ken's armor begins to glow. She stamps her foot, and the Hammer of Tempus appears near Kaed, but it misses the orc by a hairsbreadth.  She gives a satisfied smile as she hears Duar'ken grunt with the pain from the hot metal. "Poor choice of armor, wasn't it?"

Callahan takes the opportunity to once again assail the orcish leader with a bolt of radiance, watching from a distance as Thezra battles both Duar'ken and the cleric. Sensing he is too far to aid if needed, he rushes forward, hopping over the fence before him and right into a wall of quiet that makes him pause in his tracks. Meanwhile, the glow of the Cleric's magical wounds pulse through her shoulder, but she has eyes only for Duar'ken at the moment. As the flurry of lights and explosions wrap through the air around her, she nearly hesitates, but just as quickly as they appeared, they vanish, leaving the orc looking flummoxed and furious, the arrow jutting from his plate telling her all she needed to know. Even further, a moment later his armor itself begins to glow a deep crimson red, searing into his flesh. With a devilish grin, she grabs him by the back of the head and pulls him in close, "What do the spirits say now? " Before the last whispered word has finished leaving her lips, the massive blade pierces his heart, is in motion, coming up from low down and piercing directly in through his chest and out the other side. The only noise he makes is the gasp of air escaping his lungs as she hoists the blade upwards, carving farther before pulling it down and back out, now utterly drenched in gore. A wave of deep satisfaction fills her to see the look of anger twist into shock and then pain on his face and she lets out a sigh of relief at last. Duar'ken stumbles, his footing failing alongside the rest of his body as he reaches out to grasp at something to hold, but finds nothing. Thezra turns, ready to face the cleric still behind her, when she hears him mutter something low in his dying breaths. At first she can't make it out, but he repeats it again, desperately sputtering out barely formed words through the rush of blood entering his airways. " Help... me... " She can only scoff as she turns her back to him, quickly roaring once more as she swings her sword around and into the other orc, catching him in the crook between his neck and shoulders and sending a stream of blood into the air. Her hand presses against the cool steel of her armor, right above a intricately carved symbol - a flaming sword surrounded by chains - as she closes her eyes. "To the nine hells with you."  Immediately, a gout of flame erupts in a circle around the Cleric's feet as a series of hellish chains burst forth from the ground, latching onto his every limb and searing his flesh as they lock him into place. Satisfied he posed no more threat, she turns and walks away, back towards the remainder of Duar'ken's forces and back to her new companions. 

As Duar'ken falls, the battlefield turns eerily quiet. For a moment, Katrin, Ascian, and Thezra think the silence spell has expanded, but this is a different silence -- not a deadening of the air, but an expectation of something. A calm before a storm. Duar'ken's body spasms. One twitch of the shoulders and chest turns into many -- every muscle in the orc's body convulses. Bones crack and distort. Skin swells and stretches over bulging muscles. The smell of dank, feted earth fills the air as two new limbs crack and emerge through Duar'ken's torso. All four of his arms now end in long, wicked claws. His jaw snaps menacingly as he rises from his felled position. The raspy, rumbling roar sounds almost mournful in the still night. He had called out for help -- and something answered.

Akiran's snout falls as Duar'ken's body breaks and morphs itself into it's monstrous new form. He looks over at the wolves and orcs and sees fear in their eyes. Akiran wasn't sure if it was good or bad news that this was new even to them, for a moment he considers running past them to aid Thezra. But squashes the thought nearly as soon as it came into his head. He had no idea what the hell that monster could do, better to watch and see if this fight is winnable before further committing himself.  Looking at the remaining orcs and wolves he shrugs and thinks "their scared now, but if that bastard can still speak and starts barking out orders I bet they'll keep fighting". He then swings his broadsword down clipping one of the wolves, he tries to kick the beast but unfortunately the wolf proved to be to fast.

The wolves, sensing the change in the air, flee into the night, away from the monster that just spawned. Jenkins looks up wide-eyed for a moment before continuing with his reloading.

Ascian watches bones crack and twist in front of him, twisting into something horrible, and finds he can only stare at it, arrow held loose in his hand. No. That's not possible. It's not real. At first, with a cold, sinking feeling, he thinks he's left again – that the world has gone grey at the most inopportune moment and he simply hasn't noticed in the dim light. To his right, supporting the thought, Akiran doesn't charge it – but around him enemies are fleeing and wolves are crying and somewhere, as if from far in the distance, his ears ring with the terrible, high-pitched noise the one he had first struck had made when he'd shot at it from the dark... Stop. Just stop. Distracted, he lifts his bow and fires, watching without really seeing as it soars just past the monster to disappear into the night, of this realm or another.

As the orcs begin to rout, Thrandimir pushes forwards towards the monster that Duar'ken has become, until he finally breaks out of the bubble of silence and sound returns to his ears once more. Concentrating his arcane energies on a new enchantment, the wizard speaks an incantation, probing the creature's mind with his own psychic power.

The two remaining orcs flee, seeing the tide turned against them in a completely unexpected way. Sound floods back into the ears of the party as the cleric burns in the fiery grip of Thezra's summoned chains. 

As the sound returns again Kaed funds himself without anyone to fight so he makes the only logical choice. With a roar he sprints forward leaping over small obstacles and dodging larger ones, sabre held low shield out in front he slides to a stop on front of the hulking fork of the monster Duar'ken has become. " Well, this should be fun." He whispers to himself.

Katrin darts across the road as Kaed sprints past, heading right for the demonic creature. The fire behind her eyes faded almost immediately after Duar'ken's ruined armor hit the ground. With her shield hand, she waves the Hammer of Tempus towards what remains of Duar'ken, and speaks a short prayer. Ascian, Thrandimir, and Akiran feel a warm wind stir around them, red halos visible around their heads for only a moment as the blessing takes hold, and hefts her battleaxe.  "Let's send this thing back where it came from!"