He is laying on the floor of a corridor. The walls seem to be carved into stone, the floor looks metallic, but is not cold to the touch. The weather is incredibly hot.

There is shouting above him, steel swords clashing, and shouting in an unfamiliar language. People dressed in black with face-covering helmets are trying to push past a muscular man who is surrounded by some sort of field, and protecting a door. If he looks through the door he'll see three people standing in the next room.

One of the soldiers notices he's still alive and makes an attempt at stabbing him.

The heat makes him think that he's in Avernus, but he realizes that Avernus does not have metal floors and also devils do not look like that.

Instinctually, he draws his dagger to parry. It doesn't look like it will intercept the soldier's blade, but it suddenly shifts to being a five foot long greatsword.

The soldier is surprised when his blow gets parried, and hesitates for a second before trying again, from a different angle.

He is going to totally let go of the sword, and the sword will fly out to stab the soldier in response! Now swordless, he will roll over and get up.

The flying sword gets blocked by the soldier's shield. He thus doesn't pay any more attention to it while trying to get the weirdly dressed person for the third time, which is why he doesn't notice that the sword is still pushing at his shield, and slowly getting through it. He is dead before his sword has a chance to connect with his enemy.

Who is that? How did he? Is that a sword sized Hunter-seeker?

He had to use Sword of the Mage – that's what he calls it – twice, but it seems that it was worth it. He's mildly surprised the soldier went down in one hit. Maybe he hit a vital organ? He wasn't really aiming.

The sword returns to his hand, and he adopts an actual fighting stance.

Does he have spells?

No. He still has his three open spell slots – one at first, one at second, one at third – but all his other spells are expended. And he can feel that his sword doesn't have the energy in it to let him cast an extra spell.

It seems he'll have to go through this entire fight without spells. Hah. He, a wizard, has been reduced to a below average fighter. A small part of him is glad that the martial skills – which he knew everyone mocked him for for training – are paying their due.

The door to the other room closes. There are 11 of the black clad warriors in the corridor, beside him and the man who is protecting the door. Four of them are on the floor, dead or dying.

"That's a fancy sword you have there."

He's speaking to Conrad, but it doesn't sound like any language he knows.

He's...aware that the man is speaking to him, but it's not like he can understand him, so. And it doesn't sound like what he's saying is important, based on the tone. He responds by just staring at him for a little bit.

Do the other soldiers try to come at him? He doesn't think he can take on eleven soldiers, but if they're also coming from the other person, and they all only die in one hit, then it could be doable? He feels so...exposed without his spells. It must be what having no armor is like, for a fighter. Indeed, that's literally the case for him. He always goes out with Mage Armor, and now he doesn't have it. He has learned to conjure something like Mage Armor not as a spell, but it seems he's exhausted that ability.

The soldiers are protected by some form of... shield, or barrier, such that he can only hit them if he does so slowly. They will all die on a single hit, if he hits critical organs, or two hits if he doesn't.

Duncan is used to fighting that way, and can easily kill five of the remaining warriors, if Conrad protects his flank.

Conrad is very much not used to fighting like that, so he will mostly take up space vaguely near Duncan so that none of them try to go in that direction. Truly, Conrad is Helping.

What kind of magic item or spell is this??? He has never seen anything like it before. A shield that only deflects fast things???

He could use Sword of the Mage again – it worked last time – but the core issue with that ability is that the sword has to leave his hands for several seconds while it flies to the target, stabs, and comes back. He will only try using it if any of them try to advance towards him.

Do they have any ranged weaponry? He is very much fine with just stalling if they don't, but if they start shooting at him, he will want to very aggressively eliminate that person as fast as possible.

Working together, they manage to kill or incapacitate the remaining soldier without any major wound. They don't seem to be using ranged weaponry at all. When things seem to be looking up, six more warriors appear, with heavier armor and one of them is handling something that could possibly be an heavy ranged weapon.

"Come get me boys!"

Conrad has never seen a rifle or a gun in his life but he knows the body language of pointing and shooting. He has seen crossbows before.

He will send his sword flying towards the person holding the big heavy long thing!

The person holding the big heavy long thing is now on the floor, wheezing, while the other five charge. They split into two towards Conrad and three towards the other guy.

Duncan quickly dispatches one of them, and is trading blows with the second, when his knife gets stuck in the man's armor, and the third soldier takes advantage of the momentary distraction to sword him through.

He falls to his knees, then on his side.

Shit. The greatsword will return to him faster than the two can get to him, but he still barely has enough time to get both his hands around it until they're in range.

Not having spells is So Awful.

He'll be able to kill one, but not without getting wounded first.

Then the two who were fighting the muscular dude join the remaining soldier, and it's three against one.

His odds don't look good.

Ow. It's...painful, but it's not lethal. He once got gored by a vrock and survived. Well, that was with Mage Armor, Shield, False Life, and Mirror Image on. But still. He's really proud of that one.

He would run away, but. It doesn't seem like he'll be able to.

He will fight until the very end. Against whoever these people are. And for whoever this person is.

They're closing in, going for grapples if they can, and trying to stab him in that weird fast-then-slow movements designed to go through shields. He might be able to kill one, but it's going to be difficult avoiding the other two while doing that.

His odds don't look good. At all.

He's confident he can take one of them in a grapple, but there are multiple of them. So he's going to avoid that.

He doesn't have a shield, so the movement they're doing is entirely redundant. He's not sure if they haven't noticed, or if it's too ingrained in them for them to attack in the normal way.

Can he stall? Thought that's pointless – no one is coming. Can he make a run for it? Probably not. Not without getting stabbed more. He might or might not make it through that. Is there anything around he could use? Something to throw?