Die Hard In A Treehouse

A tornado had been summoned within the central spiraling stairwell of the tree-carved mansion. The swirling vortex ran the length of the tree. Mercifully, it was a small whirlwind whose summoner did not appear to want to destroy the manse from within. Skott and his surprise children/ersatz adventuring party vaulted down the stairs, careful to always have one foot on a solid foothold lest the winds send them flying.

Windows were broken all along the walls, notably inward. Elvan construction didn’t use much in the way of glass, so flying debris was not so much a threat. As they neared the tree’s midpoint, however, they found a figure in robes wearing a partially disassembled glider on his back. A face-obscuring shawl of sorts covered all identifying features from the chin up, obscuring the hair. The sole exception to this was two pointy, flesh-colored ears poking out on either side of the mask— an elvan mark of pride.

The robed figure held a long wooden wand-type thing aloft. “Elvan supremacy now. Elvan supremacy tomorrow. Elvan super-oof.”

Skott batted this fellow into the vortex. The elvan flew wildly around the room’s central chamber as the whirlwind spun him around. A constant “wwwuaaaAAAAAHHHHHhhhhhh” grew louder and slower in intensity as the hooded Redeemer-type flew in and out, up and down.

“Is it just me, or is the tornado weakening slightly?” Lucy asked.

The whirlwind did indeed seem to waver, but only thus. Bad luck for the wizard caught up in it, as he just barely avoided slamming into the floor far below.

“Eh, it’s possible.” Skott shrugged. “Got to be more than one person casting the whirlwind spell though.”

An arcing fireball just barely missed Skott’s head. He ducked on instinct, got a beat on a magic-spamming elvan two stories below, then peeked up to bait out a second fireball. Skott’s baseball bat struck the fireball and sent it flying right back as form of riposte.

Skottson and Sethset fired their rifles down at another staff-wielding Redeemer two stories below. These rifle shots did not hit their intended target, but did send the mage scrambling for cover. Hot lead was an intimidating spell in and of itself. They suffered no further fire-artillery attacks as they continued down

“Okay, they aren’t shooting at us, so they don’t have guns. Just have to watch out for magic,” Skott said, huffing as he rounded the spiral staircase. Then, he said at a lower octave: “… and hope they don’t have spells that teleport us out into the middle of the ocean.”

Magic in Aeirun was the standard fare: azure missiles, fireballs, nature magic, and rare instances of blood magic. Technology had advanced at rapid pace, as did portal magic, and Skott wasn’t about to take fields of magical study lightly. He still had a slight burn scar from when he got fragged by a mage north of Crossroads Ford sixteen years ago.

Onward, the father-sibling squad went. Skott swung his bat, sending another Redeemer out a window. Sethset and Skottson put the orc-half of their parentage to good use by tackling a hapless staff-wielder and then suplexing him over the edge in a tag-team fashion.

“Wow. They teach that in the coalition army?” Skott said, feeling some small amount of pride in the sons he’d never known.

“It’s a staple of basic training,” said Sethset. “They call it the Skott maneuver.”

Skott chuckled. Memories stirred. He did that to an elvan taskmaster when he and Lamora’s party liberated a mine out in the western mountains.

Redeemers fled before them until the family/party reached the ground-floor annex. A trio of fresh mages stood with their arms up before the ‘tornado’, which by now was looking anemic. If Skott had a vacuum, they could sweep it right up.

“Aha!” Skott cried, taking advantage of the element of surprise.

The human took a flying leap over a stair railing and held his bat over his head for a vertical strike. The mage turned and held his staff up in a guarded pose. Skott swung, and snapped the wizard’s staff clear in half.

“Have at you!” Lucy echoed her father’s battle cry. She embedded her sword deep into the second mage’s staff.

With its summoning base interrupted at two points, the tornado running up through the hollowed-out tree dissipated. That just left the third summoner free to cast more spells, though.

“Haha!” The third Redeemer pointed his staff square at Lucy-Kignora and muttered out an incantation.

Another smaller whirlwind manifested and beelined towards Lucy. It picked both her and the hapless other mage she was grappling with and spun them around until it puttered out at the far wall. Lucy was flung through a clerk’s window and into a desk, while the mage crumpled onto the floor.

“Lucy!” Skott and the she-orc’s brothers all cried.

The three remaining mages uttered a new incantation. Rather than summon forth more twisters, a bubble of distorted space appeared to warp around them. Skott swung at the nearest mage, but by the time he made contact the spell was cast. He hit nothing but air, for the mages had warped out with some personal teleportation magic!

“Huh. That’s different from a portal,” Skott presumed. “Lucy, you okay back there?”

“I’m… I’m alright!” Lucy jumped back through the clerk's window. “Natural healing abilities sure come in handy.”

Skott chuckled. Being a half orc did seem to have advantages. He felt the strange desire to ruffle Lucy’s hair, and make sure she was alright. Almost like some kind of fatherly instincts were taking over.

They were left with a scene of bedlam. That ornate central annex they’d first entered the tree-manse through earlier that day had been obliterated by the cyclone. Loose papers lay strewn about the floor, like a gunfight had erupted in an Earth office space.

The ‘front doors’ exploded inward and numerous soldiers in coalition-blue uniforms marched in.

“Steady,” Skott said.

“Hold fire,” said Corporals Sethset and Skottson.

“Hey, that’s the Prime Ministresses sons. Hold your fire!” Ordered a squad captain. “And… by the gods, that’s Skott of Omaha!”

“Hehe.” Skott was left waving awkwardly.

“Yes, the whole family is here!” Lucy declared, quickly finding herself searched by soldiers who didn’t recognize her.

“Where’s Lamora?” Skott asked.

“Twister was just a distraction,” explained the guard captain. “There’s some elvan in the conference chamber now. They don’t seem to be taking hostages, and the Prime Ministresses’ full guard contingent is there, but the doors are barricaded, and if we try to bust in who knows what kind of magical booby trap we’ll trip?”

Skott scratched at his chin. Lamora wasn’t in immediate danger, and yet he wasn’t about to leave her with potentially-hostile terrorists.

“Is there any kind of ventilation duct?” Skott wondered aloud.

How did airflow work in a tree-building anyway? In the movies the good guys always crawled around in the ducts. But did air just seep through the porous bark of the walls? Skott frowned, unsure of a way forward.

“Oho, good instincts, father!” Lucy grinned, showing her fangs. “I have just the route of ingress for you~”