Talking was for those who lacked confidence and those who hadn't yet accepted the inevitability of bloodshed. Turilia was neither. When invited to surrender or leave, she immediately decides to open fire with her crossbow, and is rewarded with a bolt sticking into the female cultists' shoulder- and further rewarded by a harsh, grating chitter of pain. "Very well!" She calls. "They fight! We only need one prisoner- the rest are ours!" The two cultists draw their swords, and the cheetahs begin to shriek. It doesn't sound like any big cat that any of the would-be heroes have ever heard... still, the surprise is enough that there's still an opening to do some real damage before the cultists can rally and start introducing whatever dark surprises they have in store for rescue parties!<br/><br/><br/>[[4of- yeah, I'll allow Mage Armor. As long as it lasts, it should be a thing you cast when combat seems like it might happen sometime soon, so it's pretty reasonable to have it up when a fight starts. Now:<br/>INITIATIVE LIST, ROUND 1:<br/>(Early) Sira, Turilia, Xarithe, Albali, Ain<span style="font-weight: bold">Currently Up</span><br/>All Enemies<br/>(Late) Gorun, Ambrosia, Eiyre<br/><br/>How it works: Anyone in the Currently Up group can act. If actions conflict, I'll let the PC with the highest initiative (so Turilia has priority, then Xarithe, then Albali) have their say. As before, I am holding to a 24 hour clock; at any point after 24 hours have passed, I am liable to just give you a Reasonable action and move on. So, for this fight, Xarces, 4of, and Tigerclaw are all on deck for their own actions. I'll update with all the enemies' actions tomorrow night, with or without them, and then AP, Ambrose, and masterful are all on deck for the next day.<br/><br/>now, for the map! Those without pictures are represented by letters; G for Gorun, etc. Green border is an ALLY, red border is FOOD. Hopefully it is mostly self explanatory who everyone is; a lot of detail on pictures is gone because everyone is so far apart. :3 The tiles that are more than 50% green count as Difficult Terrain, i.e. 2x move cost.<div style="padding: 3px; background-color: #FFFFFF; border: 1px solid #d8d8d8; font-size: 1em;"><div style="text-transform: uppercase; border-bottom: 1px solid #CCCCCC; margin-bottom: 3px; font-size: 0.8em; font-weight: bold; display: block;"><span onclick="if (this.parentNode.parentNode.getElementsByTagName('div')[1].getElementsByTagName('div')[0].style.display != '') {  this.parentNode.parentNode.getElementsByTagName('div')[1].getElementsByTagName('div')[0].style.display = ''; this.innerHTML = '&lt;b&gt;Spoiler: &lt;/b&gt;&lt;a href=\'#\' onClick=\'return false;\'&gt;hide&lt;/a&gt;'; } else { this.parentNode.parentNode.getElementsByTagName('div')[1].getElementsByTagName('div')[0].style.display = 'none'; this.innerHTML = '&lt;b&gt;Spoiler: &lt;/b&gt;&lt;a href=\'#\' onClick=\'return false;\'&gt;show&lt;/a&gt;'; }"><b>Spoiler: </b><a href="#" onclick="return false;">show</a></span></div><div class="quotecontent"><div style="display: none;"><img alt="Image" src="http://i.imgur.com/CLjvXB2.png"/> (Ain is 1 square north of Albali)</div></div></div><br/>Again, remember, include as much tactical detail as you're comfortable with and I will try to parse what you give me, just don't be angry if I err. ]]