A white wolf crashes out of the mist and hurls itself at the drow. Kamakulzar is suddenly in the middle of it, with elves bursting from both sides of the reeds.
The first elf line nearly tramples him, boots splashing mud at his feet. One young fighter stumbles too close, eyes wide as he tries to keep his balance.
An arrow snaps past the youngster’s head, and the marsh erupts with answering shots. The hidden drow on the far tree line step into view and return fire in a hard, glittering wave.
Bolts and arrows cross in a lethal web. The wolf pack scatters through the reeds, the white leader still driving forward as shafts thud into hide and mud around it.
Old Tusks stirs in the cairn-voices at Kamakulzar’s back, the bone-song tugging sharp at his blood-mark. The whisper in it feels hungry for this chaos.
The trio he has been tracking is swallowed by the fighting lines as the marsh turns into a kill lane. If Kamakulzar wants control, he must seize it now from the bone spirits, the elves, and the drow alike.
“I cast stone skin myself”
SUCCESS (Good Arcana, rolled +0)
Kamakulzar draws the mud-dark line of power inward and hardens it over his skin. Stone closes across his shoulders, chest, and forearms like a second hide, while a sharp crack of grit ripples through the reeds around him.
The spell takes, but the cost lands at once, a ring of pale dust bursts off him and his blood-mark flares bright enough to betray his spot in the marsh.
The Elf
There, in the reeds, he is casting!
The Drow
All eyes on the brute, loose the line!
The Wanderer
Keep moving, do not let the wolf or the mage pin us!
Bolts snap toward the flare, and the white wolf veers hard, using the sudden glare as cover to crash deeper into the drow line. Old Tusks hums at Kamakulzar’s back, pleased and hungry, as the marsh war tightens around his revealed shape.
“I cast haste and flee”
SUCCESS (Great Agility, rolled -1)
Kamakulzar snaps the haste through his limbs, and the marsh seems to stumble around him. Mud smears into a blur under his feet as he tears out of the kill lane, the stone on his skin rattling with every stride.
The burst throws him clear of the first volley, but it also kicks up a bright spray of grit and torn reeds. His blood-mark flashes again, a hard beacon in the foggy rush of arrows.
The Elf
There, he breaks from the reeds, after him!
The Drow
Ignore the wolf, cut down the brute!
The Wanderer
No, look, he is already gone, keep your line!
Behind him, the white wolf crashes on into the drow line, and the trio’s voices split over one another in the mud. Kamakulzar gains the open edge of the marsh path, but the noise of his flight and the flare of his mark make his shape plain to anyone still watching.