The Westmarch Gryphons : Sam
Sam knew that having a troll loose in the delve wasn’t going to be an easy fix. Sure, the crowds would be ecstatic when the announcers let out that there would be a random encounter roaming the map but he really, really hoped that it wouldn’t be his team that ended up tackling it.
Like many things in the past month, things didn’t exactly work out for Sam.
A giant fist slammed down in front of Sam, sending him in a rolling doge to the edge of the small arena, nearly tripping over one of the shattered skeletal corpses they had just finished dispatching before the troll had burst through the ground.
Sam came up wheezing and coughing on a fine charcoaled ash that was, in all likelihood, the powdered remains of a once-proud, if mummified, warrior. Few things retained their original shape under the attention of Beatrice and this scorched fellow was no exception. With an effort he pushed himself up onto one knee and focused on the defensive wards shimmering around his teammates. Nahrah was the one most clearly in need. With each fierce blow from the troll her aura shimmered in increasingly violent protest. Sam would guess twenty, maybe thirty percent integrity on her wards at best.
“Bernie, incoming drain, take cover!” The short redheaded woman finished weaving the fireball she’d been working on in the corner of the room and dove behind a jagged outcropping of rock. A beat later a hand shot up with the thumb extended, all clear.
Sam marshaled his focus and pulled as much of Bernie’s aura into his own as he could. He felt the barrier around himself thicken. Becoming more steel-like and less flexible than its usual state. As the power flowed around him he stood, buoyed by the presence of it. This was the part that people didn’t understand. Breakers get the glory of the charge, Burn mages get the adoration of the crowds, and Shades got the love of the Observers for clever tricks and their ability to outsmart the most devious of traps. But Wardens? Glorified babysitters. Important but in no way flashy. The feeling, however, was glorious. Better than the love of any crowd. Better than the victory itself. For that moment, as he held the fate and the protection of his team around himself he was the lynchpin upon which everything hung. Perhaps, it was really just that wardens were control freaks.
With a shudder he pushed it away from himself and into Nahrah. A small voice in the back of his head supplied estimates for himself and Bernie, *Five percent if you’re lucky*. It was a single target fight and they could afford the risk if it meant that Nahrah could hold in the face of the Troll’s onslaught.
He dropped to a knee again, now robbed of the bracing strength, and readied himself to rebalance the wards should the troll’s attention become focused upon anyone but Nahrah. The young dwarf had finally freed herself from the troll’s grip and was going on the offensive. Trolls didn’t get along with Dwarves very well for a good reason. Nahrah’s people had been fighting and winning against them for a very long time.
The troll charged with a great roar and at the last moment Nahrah stepped to the side, slamming her maul into the monster’s skull and dropping it to the ground. A moment later it exploded with a wheeze of blue-tinted magic. Sam reached out again, this time to the creature, and with a force of will pulled the lingering magic of the dispelled summon into himself. Weaving it deftly into the wardings that sparkled around Bernie and the panting Nahrah.
The dwarf rolled her shoulders with s crooked grimace and slung the hammer back at her side. “Nice job, Sam. Thought he had me there for a moment.” She extended her gauntleted hand and pulled him to his feet. “How are we looking?”
Sam attempted to brush the powdered remains off his breastplate, giving her a tired smile. “After that assimilation I’d put us all at…” He squinted, running the numbers, “a solid 65% all around. We managed to come out better than I thought considering we lost Ralph at nearly full shields to that acid trap.”
Nahrah gave a curt nod. “Glad to hear it warden.”
There was a loud crack as the sigil on the far wall split in two, revealing a long, torchlit hallway leading away from the room.
“On to the next one then. Adventura won’t know what hit them”
