The trio (and wolf) seem remarkably calm about the avian apocalypse brewing overhead, which has me a bit concerned. Are they that stupid? Or are they that strong? I feel like delver isn’t a career where stupid gets to live for long, but I also feel like the attacks they were trying to use to lure Poe down were kinda pathetic, too.

Whatever the reason for their confidence, go time is truly upon them all. With a caw and a powerful flap of his wings, Poe sends two groups of birds at the trio. The flying blackness moves gracefully like a swarm of fish, moving at his command.

The halfling raises her staff and stands tall on her wolf’s back as she shouts “Enthrall!” Power bursts forth and sweeps over the ravens and crows as they near the group, but not a single bird falls out of line. The three notice quickly, but not quickly enough to avoid the incoming pain.

They all hunker down as best as they can as the mixed unkindness wreaks its namesake upon them. The mass of black feathers soon soars back to the sky, leaving the trio covered in scratches and slashes. The wood elf growls at his team mate.

“Yeah, that worked great! Got any other fancy spells to do nothing with?”

She shouts at him in response. “I didn’t see you do anything! How was I supposed to know that scion would make them immune? It worked on the wolf!”

“Shut up, both of you! If you haven’t noticed, we’re still in a fight!” The troll glares at the two, who glare at each other, but soon have to focus their attention on Poe. “Mlynda, tornado. Hark, fill it with pain,” the leader orders, and the two quickly follow it.

Mlynda raises her staff again and quickly summons a small tornado, and her favorite person to yell at starts throwing his boomerangs into it. It reaches some kind of tipping point as the next attack from Poe comes in, and the two shout.

“Razor Winds!” The two do their best to keep the uncontained blender between them and the birds, but all three still take further scratches. The two that love to argue are looking like they decided to wrestle with barbed wire, but the troll seems to be regenerating through the small wounds, mostly.

The tide of feathers ebs once more, and before they can get a look at the aftermath, the wood elf is screaming. If he wasn’t afraid of heights before, he probably will be once Poe decides to release him.

Poe

Poe had never understood why Aranya used to call the delvers ‘defilers’, but now he gets it. If these were the first delvers Lord Thedeim had encountered, how different would he run his demesne? The screams of terror coming from the delver in his talons brings his focus back; deal with the threat first, ponder theoreticals later.

He would have been happy to continue to ignore the three until they got bored, but then their boredom found a new target. The ratling will be fine once it respawns, but then they decided to threaten his Lord’s second Resident.

While Lord Thedeim is still an enigma to all but Teemo, the other scions can still sense his moods. While his presence is most-often soft and warm, a thermal to uplift, it became a storm-swept cliff when the troll advanced on her.

It warmed slightly once she escaped, which is the only reason he’ll soon be releasing the arms of his unwilling passenger in a few moments, rather than testing how high he can fly with such heavy prey.

He snaps a sharp turn and releases the wood elf to gravity, and watches the sloped roof rush to meet him. Belatedly, he sends a blunt gale to adjust the fool’s orientation. Lord Thedeim prefers to not kill thinking delvers. Poe isn’t so sure these ones match that description, but he’ll err on the side of mercy. It’s much easier to be less merciful to the living than it is to be more merciful to the dead.

The elf grunts from the rough righting of his tumble, and Poe feels the attacker should be glad to only be likely to break a limb, rather than his neck. He watches, taking satisfaction in the pained sounds as gravity introduces its new friend to all the interesting hard things the roof has to offer, before reuniting him with the ground. The elf lies in a groaning heap as Poe takes a moment to inventory his state.

Alive, no limbs broken, but likely a few ribs. And a lot of other injuries besides. He doubts the elf will be available to be introduced to any more of gravity’s friends for a while. That just leaves the other two.

Thedeim

The other two watch as Poe takes off with their… well I would say ‘friend’, but I think that’s a bit strong. The Lord of Unkindnesses has a claw wrapped around each of his biceps as he takes off, after having used the cover of the flocks to slip in and snatch him up.

I’m worried I’ll have to remind Poe to not kill him, but he releases the jerk barely before clearing the roof, not that he gives him a simple straight fall. He hurls the guy at the slanted roof and slings a dense bit of air at him as well, slapping him around a bit before he bounces off the roof, the gutter, and several thick branches of a tree, before landing in a pile on the ground.

I’m actually impressed. That was a pretty thorough beating Poe laid down without killing the guy. From the groans, he might have preferred that, but this group isn’t getting off that easily.

Speaking of the group, it looks like they aren’t finished yet. While Poe rallies his birds, the troll and halfling hatch their own plan. She summons two of those thorny vine things and the troll uproots them, letting them sink into his forearms. That’s gotta sting, but troll regen makes things like that an option, I suppose. Mlynda has the vines take his swords, wrapping around the handles, and leaving Vnarl looking like a purple Kratos.

Poe’s attack is different this time, too. Instead of two wings of blackness sweeping in from two sides, it’s more like a single river of black going at them. I don’t think he’s going to give them the chance to recover between attacks this time. That formation looks long enough that it can loop back in on itself and keep the pain going until the other two are as incapacitated as the first.

The troll meets the onslaught head on, swinging vine and sword like this isn’t his first rodeo. The halfling is crouched behind her wolf now, rather than standing proudly on top, shouting over the din of caws and ordering the vines to unleash their thorns. Between the thorns and the steel, the river of black soon becomes just a stream, then a trickle, before it peters out entirely.

The two stand, grinning and exhausted, though not unharmed. The halfling and her wolf are bleeding from so many scratches and slashes that I’m pretty sure they’re both actually in danger of bleeding out. And they both look better than the troll.

Where they have scratches and cuts, he has deep gashes and slices. They’re deep enough that even his regeneration looks like it’s not going to be up to the job of keeping him in the fight for too much longer.

He and the halfling laugh defiantly at Poe as he lands atop the porch to look at them. It takes them a few moments to realize two very important things. One: they haven’t gotten their boss experience yet. Two: They can still hear a lot of cawing.

The nearest wave of ravens and crows that were on expedition have been recalled. The grins vanish at the realization, and Poe takes off once more, the Marshal of Murders not finished with his prey just yet.

He flaps his wings, sending blades of wind to sever the vines, and the tired duo can’t protect them in time. The cawing changes as Poe looks down on them, my raven scion opening his beak to clarify the chant from his lesser kin.

“Again!”

The duo can only stare at the oncoming wall of blackness, and deafening tide of “again”s. Vnarl quietly speaks as they get closer. “But… it’s a toybox…” The halfling punches him in the hip before the blackness of feathers consumes them, and quickly leaves them in the blackness of unconsciousness.