Wulfric darts towards the trees, and Edwin rushes in to block Janus' path, pleading to spare the holy man. Janus keeps casting the spell, to hit Wulfric square in the back as he tumbles into the woods, breaking a lot of twigs as he disappears from sight.
Luciu casts his spells, and the two figures he could see disappear from sight. Whether they dropped as they fell asleep or hid in time is impossible to tell, as there is a lot of noise from Wulfric and others trying to escape further into the woods. Wulfrid was already falling, even before he could possibly get under the sleep spell.
The grogs come after Edwin and turn to Janus. «What are you thinking of, master Janus? Attacking a holy man like that. You will have us all damned.» The two specialists are approaching cautiously, awestruck by the violence. They are still behind Luciu though.
When Rubellius is ready to act, Wulfric is already gone into the woods, and the spell can do little difference.
You can roll Awareness + Perception again.
6+ to hear that there are at least five people breaking their way to escape in the woods.
12+ to get a glimpse of two people picking up the scorched body of Wulfric to drag him along.
18+ to see all there is to know.
We are still in round mode, so please state your intentions, and I'll try to put the pieces together in initiative order. I hope you are happy with the narrative.
Janus is dazed from his last casting so Awareness roll is 9-5 = 4. He will blindly charge in to the woods to enact the famous “Flambau Defence” of no witnesses!
Edwin can hear people crashing through the woods, but he can't see the holy man to run after him and help. He turns to the grogs and says "I know that the holy man shouldn't have been attacked, but master Janus is very quick to anger. We all need to calm down, then retreat from this battlefield before any more people come."
Luciu swears in Italian. Then he speaks in Latin, "There are many footsteps in the trees. 5 or more men. We need to get out of here, right now, and across the border to the nearest domain. I thought Magus Janus was going to be able to contain this matter, but it seems not."
He turns to the grogs, "You are men of the Order of Hermes, your first loyalty is to us. The one you call a man of god was a threat to our lives and freedom, perhaps one that could have been dealt with differently, but a threat just the same. Nobody is damned for defending themselves, and you didn't take part in his action, anyway, so it is not your sin. Now, we need to get moving." He points at the two specialists. "Next time I tell you to stay with the wagon, please do so. You put yourselves at risk of injury and you have left my property unguarded." He looks around at the whole group. "Does anyone know the land well enough to get us out of this lord's domain quickly?"
Janus charges into the woods. Sweat is running down his forehead, and into his eyes, and if the rage did not blind him, the sweat certainly contributes. Seeing little, and exhausted by the effort of magic he staggers, and leans on a tree. There is man lying on the ground, dressed like a peasant. It looks as if he is sleeping. He is certainly not able to put up a fight if Janus tries to kill him in cold blood¹.
The grogs bow apologetically under Luciu's reprimand. «But but,» they mutter. «That is what we do. We defend the magi's souls. What does master Rubellius require?»
Rubellius still has to act, but he is last on initiative.
¹ i.e. he can do that this round ... it takes another round to find other victims
Janus rests next to the sleeping man. He has lost track of the combat and he will not just execute a peasant if he can’t guarantee to silence all witnesses to his spell casting. He curses himself for not finishing a job half done.
Rubellius' face is red of rage, Janus did again what he could not do.
Before darting behind his sodalis trail, Rubellius speaks to the grogs "I require you to stay here, to protect our stuff, to ready everything for a soon departure, and to never again, and I say NEVER, raise a sword against us!"
When he reaches his friend he quickly checks with a glimpse he's not in pain, he then releases his fury on the guy by waking him up with a kick in the stomach.
"Where's Wulfric hiding? How many of you are still here in this wood? I know a few fled away! You alone?"
The man groans and rolls over, before he understands what is going on. He is unarmed except for a common knife in his belt. You recognise him as one of the scavengers you chased away earlier. «Euh? Wulfric? We were five. Wulfric I don't know. What happened? Where are they?» He gets up when he speaks and looks around, a little confused and very scared. In his hand he carries a sack. It looks quite big and empty.
Rubellius can see the broken trees and bushes, and hear somebody moving away. It sounds as if they are close and can be overtaken. They are ahead, a little to the left. He can also hear someone lighter moving more to the right.
P.S. You only need a roll for the kick if you seriously intend to do damage.
P.P.S. You can keep rolling awareness + perception every round. For Janus it is 6+ to hear what Rubellius just heard, 9+ for those still on the field.
Edwin is no warrior, so will not go chasing after the fleeing. He will look to see which way people went.
Actually, at this point he decides to use his talents - he attempts Magic Sensitivity - did Wulfric's "miracles" leave behind any trace of the Magic realm?
Edwin can sense the lingering traces of horrible magic over the battle field behind them, but here on the edge, where Wulfric made his appearance with the halo and spoke so forcefully, there is nothing. Just the mundane footsteps and burning corpses. Actually, he does not even sense the magic residues from the the abysmal fireball that Janus cast; his senses are not keen enough. He can only imagine what happened on the battle field last night, where the residues can still be felt.
Luciu is met by the specialists and the grogs, who will help him with the wagon. It takes a couple of minutes though, while Janus and Rubellius explores the woods.
P.S. Sorry, I forgot Luciu's grogs previously; I thought only about those of Rubellius.
P.P.S. Continue when @Nyriu responds.
P.P.P.S. Please copy dice rolls into the post (footnote/brackets/whatever) for easy reference.
Rubellius nods to Janus and bursts ahead and to the left, thinking that the lighter sounds is too light for a group of people with a wounded.
He is determined to find these runaways, while he strides he keeps recalling Janus' words: "he told me 'go get them'! He believes in me. He thinks I can do this, that I can catch them!"
" 'go get them' "
[ 2 # Awerness + Perception ]
Rubellius maybe is more focused at recalling his sodalis words in his head than at looking at the surroundings.
He's still running in the direction he took initially.
" 'go get them'! "
The peasant with the empty sack watches Janus suspiciously and cautiously. All of a sudden, he turns his back and darts into the woods. As he breaks through the nearest branches, he is startled and shouts, «hey, Æsc, get up and run». Janus can try to catch up. Ease factor 6 with whatever ability he wants and Quickness. A spell would have to be fast cast, with fast casting speed 6+, lest he disappear in the branches and out of sight. Running after him would be Athletics+Quickness 6+.
The trail is blatantly obvious, with broken branches and traces of Wulfric (or his body) having been dragged through the mud. Rubellius has no trouble following it. Wulfric cannot be far ahead, but he cannot actually see it between the trees. Continuing the pursuit, it feels as if they are turning back towards the battle field, and as the woods is thinner Rubellius gets a glimpse of a big red-eyed wolf appearing out of nowhere. It roars, grabs Wulfric by the shoulder to pull him away, and they both fade into nothing. The two scavengers who were helping him scream out loud and leap back. One of them fall on his bottoms.
Rubellius is probably no more than 30 paces away from where he left Janus, and he can glimpse Edwin on the battle field behind a few trees.
P.S. I have broken round mode for the sake of speed. I don't think it is needed anymore.
" 'go get them'! "
Then Rubellius stops as he is surprised before such unexpected scene. Does he recognize this magical wolf as something he saw on the battlefield?
Anyway, after surprise, the first thing he feels is disappointment and frustration, Wulfric fled again... So he grabs his cow bone club and strikes the back of the head of the standing one "At least we'll have one to ask questions to later" aiming at knocking him out.
[ TODO roll ? ]
"and you, you stay quiet down there, you'll be asked soon" pointing down to the one on the ground.
Yes, please roll attack against a dodge defence of 12, and calculate damage. I assume that you make a scuffle attack, in which case the effect is read off the table on page 175 in core.
And Awareness+Perception 9+ to immediately notice the shoe left behind where Wulfric was last seen. If the roll fails, the shoe is noticed later in the narrative, when Rubellius calms down.
And no, you do not recognise the wolf. You have a vague memory of an army of animals fighting with the Diedne, but the giant lizards and the fire dragon drew the attention away from the lesser creatures.
[ rolled 9 # 14 Attack Total (bludgeon scuffle) ]
[ 4 # Rubellius Damage Total (bludgeon scuffle) ]
[ 1 Short-Term Fatigue Level for the guy ]
[ 9 # Awerness + Perception ]
Rubellius hits the guy's left temple, making him swobble a bit on the side; he shakes his head twice rapidly as he recovers stability on his feet.
The magus feels better: having given a blow made him vent out slightly. With this recovered awareness and the excitement in the body, he notices Wulfric shoe on the ground.
He moves to that he cuts their escape to the wood, putting effectively them between him and the battlefield.
"Now walk out of the woods! Towards that cart down there!" he shouts, pointing to the rest of his group with the club.
He prepares to give another blow to either of the two if necessary.
While the first man staggers from the blow, the other scrambles to his feet, tugging a beautiful sword in his hand, scabbard and all. He must have carried it in his hand all the time. They make their way out of the woods, under Rubellius' directions, taking slightly different paths. Rubellius cannot keep both of them within reach.
Janus makes his way back and finds Edwin studying the burnt bodies, just before Rubellius makes his appearance thirty-odd paces further towards the end of the field. Twenty paces beyond that, the horses in front of Wulfric's cart move head and feet nervously.
Luciu is half-way back to the hill with the carts, together with his grogs and specialists.