<b><span style="font-size: 22px">Then:</span></b><br/><br/>Kaerwen screamed as the heavy blade drove past her interposed guard and crunched into her forearm, carving into the steel rings. Thankfully the stroke she'd blocked had been blunted by her mail, and though her arm was surely broken from the impact she was able to fight on with her limb merely useless rather than severed outright. Pivoting under the Marcher Lord's counter slash, she barged Sebastian to safety with her shoulder. That serrated blade swung back and she danced out of the way, lashing her longsword across the robber knight's ribs and then back across his vambraces.<br/><br/>She heard Ezedd's battlecries descend into inarticulate snarling as the vast barbarian fighter began to foam at the mouth, saw Khan vengefully cutting down one scrawny goblins after another as he chanted the names of his fallen kin. She whirled back to face the enemy leader and barely parried the heavy blade short of her side. Her second blade fallen to from her limp grasp, she was struggling to simply fend him off never mind press her own attack but victories were not won by caution. When he brought it around, rather than parry his inhuman strength she ducked under and in, then swung her blade low into his side.<br/><br/>The dark figure staggered back, then yelled out words of fell power and lunged forward in fury. Again she parried desperately, but one-handed her blade slid aside as his dark weapon drove through her lower breastplate and into her chest. She felt her strength beginning to drain away and fell back to stones of the courtyard, taking the blade lodged between her ribs. She couldn't breathe, why couldn't she breathe? As her vision darkened, the last things she saw were her swordmates closing in on the Marcher Lord, suddenly weaponless. She tried to smile, then there was nothing.<br/><br/><b><span style="font-size: 22px">Now:</span></b><br/><br/>Kaerwen awoke before she knew it, slowly realising that her eyes were open and she was staring at a fluttering corner where the temporary canvas roof to her impromptu shelter hadn't been entirely completely tied down. At one stage the shelter had been what was left of the ruined tower's guardhouse, but the roof had been missing for decades. That had left it too inhospitable for the Marcher Lord's creatures, while the bitter wind had swept it free of most of its filth. When the warrior maid had awoken under Sebastian's skilled care, days had passed and most of her friends had already gone north into Old Arrium. She was surprised to be alive, and and vastly happier to be laying on a thin bedroll on a paved floor than she would have been with any amount of filthy used bedding.<br/><br/>Never before had she fully appreciated Sebastian's mastery of his healing craft. The clean cloth bandaging wrapped around her arm was more than simple material, reinforced by his woven enchantments that numbed her pain and promoted healing. She still couldn't breathe deeply or support any real weight with her arm, and after some discussion and ill-advised experimentation she'd been convinced to follow healer's orders and take things more easily. She still felt shamefully drained of energy, but grew restless in the confines of the shelter. She was used to the open plain, to the rolling road of adventure and at last pulled herself up to her feet and wandered out into the yard.<br/><br/>"I feel useless just laying there," she explained when she finally found the bearded healer sweeping out another room deeper in the tower. Dressed in loose cloth trews and tunic, the tattooed redhead was as unarmoured as he would likely have ever seen her, and still moved gingerly despite the numbing of her pain. Still, the sweeping didn't seem that strenuous. "How are your wounds? Can I take a turn with that thing?" She had fought and quested with Sebastian for close to two years, but in the larger group there had never been that much opportunity for anyone to get to know one another. This was different. If she was able to get her hands on the broom she took to sweeping where he had left off until she was breathless and weary.<br/><br/>"What have you discovered about this place today?"