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blai in book 11 of asftv
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He is not great at horses but they do have them at the Worldwound, tremendous numbers of them for the patrols. He gets on.

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Companions are much easier to ride than horses! Or can be with some effort on their part, at least; they have to go more slowly than if Katri were riding alone, but it's still going to get Blai there a lot faster than he could run on foot. 

 

Katri is getting confused mental updates from her Companion and relaying them to Blai in fragments, but it's all happening very fast and it seems like even the Companions are having trouble keeping track. The monster still has the Queen's daughter; they think she's still alive, she had a very high-quality protective talisman, it just didn't protect her against falling through an enormous hole in the ice. Savil is in the water and Vanyel is co-casting with her from the shore. Some of the Queen's personal Guards are dead and more are injured; they're definitely not effectively able to fight the creature, but they're trying anyway. Vanyel thinks it's resistant to magic - Savil is trying to trap it or distract it enough to get Arven free so Vanyel can Fetch her out of the water - 

 

They reach the riverbank. There's an enormous hole in the ice and a lot of terrified people are screaming. 

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Vanyel is in a snowbank near the water. It sorts of looks like he fell like that, maybe while in a hurry trying to reach the site; Yfandes is nearby and clearly not able to bear weight on one leg. 

He's apparently in trance, and doesn't open his eyes when they approach, but does reach out with Mindspeech. :If we get her out, you can heal injuries, right? - I don't know if you can fight underwater, or - is there anything you can cast at a distance to help Savil out, she's - about thirty yards from here, that way and down -: 

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:I have one Air Bubble, touch range. Prayer will work when I'm forty feet away and it'll also impair the monster. I have both my channel healings left.:

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Vanyel is thinking quickly, and then Mindspeaking at the speed of thought. :Savil thinks she can distract it and get Arven free if she has a little more of an edge – or if she's willing to risk being injured. But she's not sure she can lure it to within forty feet of us. ...I hate to ask you to take risks for us, you don't even know us, but - if you can swim and have a way to breathe underwater and can get within forty feet, that might be enough.: 

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:I can't swim and don't have time to get out of my armor anyway but if you can toss me a rope I can breathe underwater for five minutes.: He casts Endure Elements on himself so he won't be shocked into nonfunctionality under the water, now that the Companion is running instead of him doing it. Lights up his holy symbol too, it might be dark down there.

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:All right.: A lot of people nearby already have ropes ready in hand - Arven wasn't the only one who fell through the ice - and Vanyel can Mindspeak the nearest person and have a rope for Blai in seconds. He pushes across a mental sense of direction. :That way. - if you don't think you can swim that direction on purpose, I can give you a push with magic. Should be over in less than five minutes: one way or another :but we'll make sure to pull you back before that. I'm going to Fetch Arven out as soon as it lets go of her, she may need Healing.: 

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When they arrive, Blai casts the Air Bubble, lashes the rope around his waist, and jumps in. He sinks like he's wearing forty pounds of armor, because he's wearing forty pounds of armor, but that's fine. The symbol shines. The water's not too cold, with the Endure up, and he can breathe no problem, and he spends the Guidance on swimming toward the action less incompetently. He casts his Prayer.

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Savil senses the unfamiliar magic, of course - she's not caught off guard by it, Vanyel warned her that Select Blai was going to attempt to get close enough to cast a spell from his world that might help, but she does have a flicker of attention to spare to notice that the structure of it is really very odd - 

- and it feels like something, too, entirely apart from what's visible to mage-sight. She just...has the sourceless knowledge that things will be a little more likely to go her way and less likely to go well for the monster she's fighting? 

 

 

It's all she needs. She still has Vanyel's power to draw on; she casts an incredibly bright mage-light to distract the creature, then pours power into a fireball near its tail - the magic can't get through its hide but the heat ought to bother it - and then she smashes its head with a blunt hammer of mage-energies, trusting that Arven's shield-talisman - she's close enough now to sense that it's intact - will protect her enough that the force won't kill her outright, and Blai's Healing will be able to handle anything else, at least well enough to give the Healers a chance to work - 

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The monster is indeed disoriented enough by all of that to loosen its jaws around Arven's ankle! 

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:NOW: she snaps to Vanyel in Mindspeech. 

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And he Fetches out one small child to safety, along with a fountain of freezing water that sprays all over him. 

 

She's not obviously bleeding, though her winter clothes are torn as well as drenched and her face is bruised all across one side. She's not moving, or breathing, but Healing-Sight can still sense the faint thrum of her life-force, and one of the Healers is there before Vanyel even has time to get a link. 

:The child is safe: he sends to Blai. It's been maybe thirty seconds. :She's half-drowned but I don't know if your Healing does anything for that - we'll know more in a moment -: 

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The monster is very upset to have lost its tasty prey, and the mage closest to it is scary and also very well shielded! 

 

It heads straight for Blai, moving remarkably fast. 

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SHIT. 

 

Savil tries to throw a shield ahead of it to block its passage, but distance-casting underwater is very difficult even with the web and Vanyel's copious power. The shield isn't going to hold up to much. 

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Blai's got a plus one cold iron mace. He can whack it in the face.

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It doesn't like that at all! It also doesn't seem to be very damaged by it, but Blai was able to injure it at least a little; there's a thin trail of blueish-black blood in the water, now. 

The long snakelike coils of its body lash as it whips its head back and forth, and then it comes at him again, but with less precision than before. Among other distractions, Savil now has its tail in a force-net. 

 

Her Mindspeech is tense but focused. :Can you hold it off for half a minute, do you think? Don't want it to get away but - hasn't got much endurance - if we tire it out and buy a little time I can trap it.: 

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I don't have a lot of maneuverability but I can hit it and expect to be able to tolerate a couple bites. Do what you need to do.: Thwack.

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Savil fireballs its tail again, just to keep it distracted, and then starts working on a larger force-net. She doesn't dare drop her own shields in case it decides she's an easier target, but - she has it where she wants it, right now. 

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After the second lunge also gets a cold iron mace to the face rather than a tasty morsel, the creature dives and then tries to come at Blai's feet from below instead. 

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He's actually top-heavy so he can pull off the specific maneuver of "be aimed downward" all right.

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The creature is clearly injured at this point, leaking more dark blood into the water, but it seems more driven into a frenzy than incapacitated. It snaps at him again without success, then pulls back out of the reach of his mace and flings itself violently against the half-formed force-net Savil has pinning its tail. 

 

Savil is right that it doesn't have a lot of endurance, and is already tiring, but it's apparently enraged enough to tear itself free of the force-net and execute its preferred maneuver, of coming at its prey from both directions at once with its teeth and the bladed tip of its tail. 

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Savil is briefly disoriented by the spell shattering and backlashing on her, though she's already working on reforming it. She doesn't have a chance to try to shield Blai. 

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He wasn't really expecting her to. He can tank a hit or two and hit right back.

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:Sorry! Think I've - almost got it -: Savil is just going to trust Blai to handle himself, though, and focus her full attention on weaving a net that will actually hold the thing. At which point maybe she can risk getting close enough to hit it with a lethal blow - from a safe distance, the moving water attenuates her magic too much and the creature's resistant hide does the rest. 

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The monster does manage to pin Blai a second time where he can't defend from both directions at once, but it's not hitting as hard now, and its third try is slow enough that Blai can probably dodge.

It shakes its head dizzily, and then seems to decide that perhaps this tempting prey is also too tough a target, and tries to eel away. 

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