<div class="floatright">(http://s3.amazonaws.com/cdn.roosterteeth.com/uploads/images/54063e01-6933-4e38-b195-d0fc28595a06/md/2181220-1448930942333-Warrior_Karsten_Face.jpg)</div>Walking up along the side of the little ravine not only helped him stay out of the way of the pair of newly minted rat killers, it also did a ton for letting him avoid stepping in too much of the fetid gravy that stank like a corpse someone had taken a dump in and then left in the sun to slowly melt. As he watched the girls huddle up to discuss their strategy, he considered it for a moment and wondered if that wasn’t exactly what had happened.<br/><br/>While a few more inches of distance from the revolting sludge didn’t actually do much to lessen the impact of the stench as it sent cloying tendrils tickling his nose hairs, he couldn’t stop himself from leaning away from it as much as he could as he braced his broad, leather armored, back against the wall of the cliff walling them in with the scurrying, putrid, critters.<br/><br/>As the sun bore down up them, burning the odor into the leather of his buckles and harness, and etched it into the metal of his bracers and sword, he wondered if there was magic potent enough in the world to remove it. Or if he’d have to run through the damned Halls of Lost Echoes again just to get a new set off armor. The only saving grace was that he hadn’t bothered to put on the heavy duty stuff for what should have been a short little sortie to ease the weight of boredom from his shoulders long enough to let him avoid it dunking his face right into a flagon of mead.<br/><br/>Although, with how this little outing had begun, that was still a very real possibility, he mused as he watched the two of them finally agree on something. His eyes panned over them, half appreciating the determination edged upon faces where their beauty still shone under the grime, and half wondering what they were up to.<br/><br/>He nearly called out to the dark haired priestess as she started down the slope towards the small group of rats, wondering what the hell she was doing, but stopped with his hand half outreached towards her in some desperate hope she just wanted to get a better angle or had seen some lone straggler he’d missed.<br/><br/>Really he was still expecting her to stop at any second. For surely she couldn’t mean to do the exact same thing he’d told her not to do only minutes before. His eyebrows slowly rose the closer she got to the pair of pestilent rodents happily gnawing away on their rotting meal. In time with the shrinking distance he found it harder and harder to not interfere and, when only steps kept her from a whole lot of beady-eyed attention, he had to physically bite down on a knuckle not to yell at her to get her fine ass back up the slope and act like a proper damn priest instead of thinking that she was a bloody tank.<br/><br/>While he had thought his eyebrows had come as far up as they could possibly rise, he felt them shoot far enough up to be a danger to passing dragons as she willfully stepped into the range of their active area and purposefully call their attention to them. His mouth fell open and worked soundlessly up and down as he then saw her turn around and scramble up the path, slipping and sliding in the muck as she desperately fought to keep her distance from snapping teeth that looked like half fossilized carrots dripping with phlegm.<br/><br/>Stuck between the urge to let out a rumbling laugh at the sight of Sophie frantically claw for purchase in the unholy brew of mottled green and brown sludge, throwing thick gobs of it into the air to rain about them with wet splats, and to throw himself into the middle of the combat as his need to do his duty as a tank flared to life in his chest, he remained in place, staring at the ludicrous scene playing out before him. It wasn’t often he let himself be held by indecision but this time he was stuck between just crushing the critters and be done with it, and letting the two willful girls eat the burnt pie of their consequences.<br/><br/>That didn’t mean he didn’t grumble steadily under his breath as he watched her reach her redheaded friend. Who actually managed to freeze both of the charging rodents until they looked like a pair of young boys getting stuck in the window leading to the girls baths, with their fat rumps wagging furiously in the air, the naked tails snapping in the air like whips swung by a mad slaver.<br/><br/>The pair of rats shouldn’t pose any danger, and were quickly disposed of by his unwilling protégées, letting him relax back against the wall again, his heart still beating harder than he’d ever admit to anyone in the thick trunk of his chest. He was just opening his mouth to offer some pretty useful advice; like don’t fucking run to the mobs like a newly paid seaman towards a brothel, when you can attack from range; when he heard some chittering deeper down the ravine. Apparently he wasn’t the only one that had taken offence at the foolhardy tactic as two patrols of dog sized rats converged at the same time and took off up the trail.<br/><br/>Blame for that he couldn’t entirely place on the girls, he mused, as every party got unlucky. No harm, they just needed to back off far enough to let the guards return to their…<br/><br/>A deep, utterly tired, sigh passed his lips and his mouth turned into the same flat line as a parent that comes home after a day in the field and discovers that yes, their kids had tried to bake, and yes the flower was now painting the whole inside of the cottage white, and they had for some reason let the cows inside where they had eaten half the bedspread and taken a dump on your mattress, when he saw that no, they were indeed not running back. Because of course they didn’t. His palms suddenly itched and he wondered just how worth it would be to lose his eardrums, and the feeling in his hands, should he try and spank some sense into them.<br/><br/>Those thoughts came to a halt so suddenly they might as well have been a platoon coming up on a gorgon without blindfolds as he saw the redheaded girl kneel down in the horrible sludge and start glowing like a polished gold coin lying alone in Robber’s Alley. It wasn’t that he hadn’t seen what a mage could do before. Or that he hadn’t seen one turn half a battlefield into a sheet of ice. But never one of her level. It shouldn’t be possible. There was simply no way that she could do it, she’d burn herself out and…<br/><br/>His mouth fell open as he saw the soupy ground turn hard and sparkle like a rotten cake of mud someone had decided to glaze. How? How had she? His mouth snapped shut with a clack that sounded like ice breaking off a glazier as he saw the proud, if strained, grin on her lovely face as she attempted to galvanize her friend into action.<br/><br/>Whatever it had been she’d certainly earned his curiosity, and some extra help, he decided with a shake of his head.<br/><br/>“I admire your bravery, if not your brains girls.”<br/><br/>The broad shouldered warrior grunted with a voice swimming in the deepest trench of grouchy sarcasm as he stepped forwards, the sound of his gleaming blade cutting through the sound of jagged claws scratching and screeching over the icy muck. He still couldn’t quite believe how Lesniya had managed to pull of the kind of spell she did, but the ice cracking faintly under his heavy boots didn’t lie. She saw her unsteadily try and get to her feet though, the magic obviously taxing her to the limit. A pulse of crawling fear for the girls safety leached into his voice as anger.<br/><br/>“Remember what I said about conserving energy? I didn’t mean to run down and bodily pull the bloody monsters! And what about what I said about running when odds are bad? That doesn’t mean throw everything and the town crier at them and hope for the best!”<br/><br/>Heat flashed in his eyes and he stomped down hard on the half solid sheet of piss brown stew of carcass and shit, grimacing in distaste as shards and partly molten drops of it sprayed around him even as the shockwave snapped down towards the scrabbling rats. Followed by a thunderclap of wet, meaty, yowls as two of them were tossed in the air before crashing down onto the frozen ground where they lay spasming and twitching as ice blue tendrils sparked over their mottled fur, sending fingers of black smoke to stab the air.<br/><br/>Him disposing of two of the DROUS left two remaining and even with the redhead, Les he reminded himself, panting and trying to get on her feet, he figured they should be able to handle it. The enormous pair of rotting pelts hissed like teapots boiling over as they finally got their mangy claws to burrow in the uneven ice coating. Their beady eyes, filled with endless hunger, had locked completely on the panting and wobbling mage as if she was the last female rat in the den. They ignored the warrior inspecting the damage the stomp in the muck had done to his boots and pants as if he wasn’t even there.<br/><br/>“Step back slowly Red,” he remarked as casually as if he’d advised her about when the library closed, “see if you can summon lesser frost bolts to delay their approach while conserving your power.”<br/><br/>His eyes turned partly to Sophie as he went on.<br/><br/>“Meanwhile why don’t you get some distance and move up to the side here and start whittling them down? If you pack anywhere near the punch your friend does, it shouldn’t be all that impossible.”<br/>