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Post by TrueBlue© on Feb 7, 2010 20:49:31 GMT -5
It was as if she'd already eaten, the alien had perked up so suddenly. "Igashu and Constance," repeated she, and dipped her head. "Rush Delta, fourth Guardian. Pleased to meet both of your acquaintances." She grinned without thinking, flashing a mouthful of white fangs. "Are they done cooking that? Can we eat?"
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Post by Teh Donut on Feb 11, 2010 4:35:36 GMT -5
*Stonebreach*Blood nodded again, then reached behind the counter. After a moment of rustling, he produced a dusty old scroll and held it out for Janis. "Here then. I've made and kept several copies. Pardon the dust, but most of my patrons are long-time regulars. Still, even with a map I doubt two outworlders will make it far without a guide, especially what with conditions as they are nowadays." *Kegan*Igashu didn't seem at all outwardly phased at the sight of Rush's pointed teeth as he gave a quick jab to Constance's shoulder while the trio advanced upon the cooked beast. "Very true...and I'd say it smells done to me. Done enough, at least." Indeed, several slabs of the meat had already been carved off. Igashu slapped down the necessary coinage to pay for all three of them, and the three slabs were carved off, wrapped in a couple layers of cheese cloth, and handed to each of them in turn. Igashu unwrapped part of his as they walked away from the tent, and took a bite. "I do apologize for you behaviour earlier," Igashu commented out of the side of his mouth. "My friend Constance means well; I'm sure we were all just startled earlier."
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Post by Ninmast on Feb 11, 2010 8:39:39 GMT -5
*Stonebreach*
Janis carefully unrolled the map and looked it over. "And what are conditions nowadays?" he asked. No sense going any further than necessary without knowing what was ahead.
*Kegan*
When Constance unwrapped his own slab, the likely reason for Igashu's lack of response to Rush's fangs became clear. The teeth that reached out to bite into the yale with zeal also bore a fanged quality, though not quite as pronounced as Rush's own teeth.
He glanced over at Igashu with a raised eyebrow, however. "Startled by what?"
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Post by TrueBlue© on Feb 15, 2010 19:47:36 GMT -5
Rush might have noticed, and felt another stab of longing for home at the sight of Constance's teeth when he already reminded her of Lucubro, but as it was the cheesecloth hadn't made it all the way off the meat in her haste. With vigor the alien woman tore into it, her shoulders hunching and her head ducked down to shelter the donated meal from other hungry eyes. Perhaps she didn't hear either of the travelers she was with, because "Mmthank youm!" was the skinny girl's only response.
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Post by Teh Donut on Mar 24, 2010 2:19:30 GMT -5
*Stonebreach*
"Well...to be brief about it, a civil war has been brewing for the past couple years. House Erikkson up here in Loum and the royal house down in Darnathir have been friendly for ages, but since the firstborn heirs of both went missing several years ago, then the murder of Lord Erikkson himself, and then the recent assassination attempts on the royal family, things have reached their head. The House declared Loum and its holdings an independent imperium a few days ago; you can still travel between the two, but that probably won't last long."
"Travel's been a lot more dangerous recently anyway, even without the possibility of war. Bandits and briggands have grown more active and bold, but they're not the biggest problem. The odd creatures of the wastelands to the west, and even the badlands beyond there, have moved east...or so I hear. Don't know why, but I don't really care much; the mountains have more or less kept them out of the Imperium, but I don't recommend traveling south beyond this gate unless you have an armed escort."
The aged barhand paused as if thinking of more to add. "And...well, I guess the snows have come a fortnight or so early, but I'm sure you've figured that out by now, so...I guess that's more or less the jist of what I've heard recently. Personally, I don't recommend going anywhere until all of this - the war an' everything - just blows on over."
*Kegan*
After a light pause, during which his mouth opened to say words that he couldn't find, Igashu shrugged. "You know, just...startled. Not scared startled or surprised startled or alarmed startled, just startled startled. I don't know...unless you have a better word for it..." Igashu fell markedly silent after that, until they passed a booth lined with targets, where the booth manager stood off to the side and deftly (and boredly) twirrled a dagger between his fingers. "Oh, I love this game," remarked the prince as he stopped short.
((Unless some more people are entering, I really have nothing more for the fair. It's fair. A Carnival. I'm sure we get the idea. If no one minds, we can either play this out, or skip ahead to the early morning and get to the plot.))
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Post by TrueBlue© on Mar 24, 2010 2:36:51 GMT -5
Rush consumed her meal the way a dragon scarfs down a knight and his horse. It was gone in seconds, and she was sucking the grease from her gloved fingers when Igashu stopped at the standard throw-darts booth. Her cat eyes roamed the prizes, a Cheshire grin sliding over her fangs. "Ooh!" she cried, pointing at a stuffed and ferociously posed werebunny, the "big" prize that no one ever wins. "If you win, can I have that? "
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Post by Teh Donut on Mar 24, 2010 3:42:40 GMT -5
*Kegan*
Igashu's massive grin almost matched her own as he set his wager upon before the manager of the booth, exchanging them for a set of darts. "Why madame, of course! I'll win us each one!"
---Later that evening...or early morning---
The trio had retired to separate sleeping quarters within the Tin-Hand Tavern late in the evening, worn out from the various activities and decidedly werebunnyless. The rooms may have been sparsely decorated or even furnished, but to the two roaming swordsmen, the luxury of actually getting to sleep on real featherbeds and use real washbasins instead of their usual bedroll-upon-rock arrangement was not lost. Igashu, at least, had fallen to sleep almost as soon as his head had hit the mattress...still fully clothed, even.
And so, with the first rays of a new day barely beginning to break upon the horizon, Igashu's eyes slowly opened, blinking through their dreamy haze. Perhaps the uncomfortability of sleeping in full armor was what had awoken him too soon. Perhaps it was the fact that he was sleeping on his arm, and it the sensation of it going numb had awoken him.
Perhaps it was the icy cold touch of the rough iron stiletto as it was slowly slid into killing-position along his neck.
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Post by TrueBlue© on Mar 24, 2010 4:11:04 GMT -5
Rush had thought to extricate herself from her brand new clothes, so they might stay nice and relatively wrinkle-free. That, and her tendency to fight in her sleep would have shredded them. She chose to sleep on the floor, too, afraid the cost of replacing the inn's feathery mattress would break the bank of the dynamic duo that had taken her in. It was already generous enough of them to pay for her own room. So the Pyran slept, clad in sheets ripped up by her fitful sleep.
At the end of one peaceful dream, she felt pressure on her head, like a strong hand holding her down. As the iron dagger met her throat, Her lightning eyes fluttered open. Her right hand crackled with yellow electricity, shifting into a katar as she gripped the stranger's forearm with her left hand, and lopped the offending forearm clean off. She was on her feet in the next second, and her arm buried itself in the assassin's throat. She shoved the corpse down, blood coating her cobalt skin as she scanned the dark room for more trouble.
"Igashu!" She called, "Constance! You guys should wake up!"
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Post by Ninmast on Mar 24, 2010 10:25:56 GMT -5
*Kegan*
Constance was already awake, of course. He had been since he heard the clumsy attempts at stealth (at least to his ears; they were very likely quite sufficient for other, less attentive ones) stumbling up the stairs and fumbling with the door's tumbler. They then shuffled across the floor and pointed a rapier at the Rentisian's neck.
Though he hadn't opened his eyes and seemed quite at rest, the thought couldn't help but go through his mind: Once, just once, I'd like to be able to stay at an inn without getting into a fight.
All the same, this was hardly something he and Igashu were unaccustomed to. It was practically a morning ritual. Behind his closed eyelids, his eyes scanned the room. One attacker with the rapier, two more at the door. All of his clothes save his pants were nearby, along with his sword, but they were on the opposite side of the bed from the man. If he tried to go for them, he'd get run through the back, so his own weapon was out of the question.
The would-be assassin apparently got restless after a moment of no response from his hostage and he reached down to shake the man's leg to attempt to wake him, the better to see his horror at his deathly state no doubt. That was his mistake.
Constance's legs shot out, catching the man's head in between them like a scissor and snapped down with the upper leg and shot his knee up with the lower one. The man fell limp in an instant.
By this time, the other two had started forward, drawing their swords, but Constance was already up, his hand closing about the dead man's sword and as he spun out of bed, his first slice went across the middle of the closest. The man doubled over and Constance cracked him on the base of the skull with the hilt. The final man didn't even get that far as the Rentisian's fencing style lanced outward in a fluid stab that pierced the man's skull, his stunned expression destined to be the last thing on his face, living just long enough to roll his eyes up to look at the shaft of iron sticking out of his skull, then collapsing as Constance pulled it back out.
Shouting down the hall, it was the girl. Had she been able to take care of herself? He started into the hall and glanced down it, the walls no hindrance to him. He could see her fine, a warm body on the floor nearby. So she had, good. He started toward Igashu's room next. There was at least one man standing over his traveling companion, who was still in bed. He paused outside the door to wait for a more opportune time, rather than risk startling the killer and pushing his hand.
*Stonebreach*
But Janis shook his petite head. "That isn't really an option. Wars have a tendency to take a while to resolve, by which time I could lose track of my brother altogether. Do you know where we could get a guide like you mentioned?"
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Post by Teh Donut on Mar 25, 2010 15:00:29 GMT -5
*Stonebreach*
"There are some guard-for-hire services in town here, but because they're so few and in such high demand recently, unless you have brought a small fortune with you, I doubt you can afford their services for more than a day or two. The pricing situation's going to be like that all the way until you get to Reims, at least." With a small thoughtful pause, Tobias called down to the end of the bar, "Isa, you said you lot are headed to Medst?"
"Thereabouts, yes." The reply was short and weary from the blonde-haired woman by the fire.
"Have room for a couple more?"
At that the woman moved for the first time since they had come to the tavern. With a small turn of her head, she gazed back at Janis from the corner of her eye, sizing up him and his companion before boredly asking, "Can you hold a weapon?"
*Kegan*
The commotion from the other rooms alerted the mystery man that something wasn't quite right with there plan. Deciding not to take any longer than he had to, he quickly jabbed the stiletto where Igashu's jugular should have been. Should have been being key, for the peculiar noises had also alerted Igashu as to what the cool sensation on his neck meant. He rolled to the floor as the knife passed harmlessly into the mattress. Igashu picked himself up off the floor as his assailant recovered his weapon and faced him.
With his weapons by the door, Igashu was unarmed. Even without his arm being numb and limp at his side, his brawling "skills" weren't somehting he could honestly brag about, but that didn't mean he didn't at least know how to improvise a little. When the assassin tried jabbing at him again, he grabbed at the man's arm and gave it a sharp yank. The assassin stumbled forward from the unexpected force, whereby Igashu delivered a hearty headbutt to the face that sent both men reeling; the mystery assailant crashed his back against the wall with a yelp as he held his broken and presumably bleeding nose, while the momentum of Igashu's own movement had caused him to nearly trip over the bed.
As Igashu regained his equilibrium, a second assailant seemed to appear out of nowhere from behind the prince, even to Constance's vision. Half Igashu's size, and with a short length of cord gripped tightly between his hands, he lunged at the back of his victim, looped the cord under his chin and snapped it back, letting his dangling body act as a deadweight. The force of the move threw Igashu off-balance, causing him to stumble backwards and crash hard into the wall as he desperately grasped at his neck to try and relieve the pressure.
Standing out in the hallway, Constance would also be able to see and hear the two more cloaked assailants, who had been standing watch out of sight on the first floor, bounding up the stairs with their blades drawn.
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Post by Ninmast on Mar 25, 2010 15:19:34 GMT -5
"Delta," Constance shouted the girl's offered last name from the night before sharply, as one barking an order. "To the stairs!"
Whether or not she was able to do so, they would not arrive before Constance could aid Igashu. He slammed his shoulder against the door to throw it open and charged the dagger-wielding opponent, intending to make quick work of him. A midget with a rope was not as immediate a threat as the man who could shiv the ranger prince in the meantime.
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Post by TrueBlue© on Mar 25, 2010 19:03:52 GMT -5
Rush Delta was able, if a bit under-dressed. The order was barely out of his mouth before she bolted past him, still half-naked, with bloodstained silver blades for forearms. Hey, Constance wasn't wearing a shirt, either.
She met the first man, slashing with her right and stabbing in with her left in almost the same second. "Readytodieshortstuff?"
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Post by Teh Donut on Mar 26, 2010 20:42:18 GMT -5
*Kegan*
Rush's speed caught the man completely by surprise. While he was able to reflexively deflect the slash, there was nothing he could have done to prevent getting skewered through the stomach on her left arm. He made a weak gurgling noise before falling and rolling limply back down the stairs. In the darkness, the second hand stepped out of the way of the rolling body, and seemed to be doing something with his hands.
A third also appeared, but not from the stairs. In the same manner as the "midget", he literally came out of nowhere. This time though, he simply fell from above with his arms outstretched, literally attempting to grab on to Rush's head.
In the meantime, back in Igashu's room, the stunned man attempted to reach for the dagger again while still holding a hand to his nose, but was not able to do so before Constance ran him through.
By this time Igashu was able to regain some feeling and movement in his arm. With both hands he was able to reach up and relieve a bit of the pressure, but it wasn't enough. In a last-ditch effort to get him off, Igashu jumped into the air, twisted, and let himself crash to the floor full-force on his back. While this did literally knock the air clean out of both him and his attacker, he was at least able to cough some air back into his lungs again.
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Post by Ninmast on Mar 26, 2010 20:48:35 GMT -5
The man with the dagger finished, Constance hurried across and stabbed down at the midget, as well, in a quick coup de grace. "Come, Igashu," he told him. "There are three more outside. The girl is fending them off, but it won't hurt us to help."
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Post by TrueBlue© on Mar 27, 2010 12:24:02 GMT -5
While Rush was inhumanly fast, her strength was negligible. The weight of the midget yanked her over, but it was like pulling a rabid dog's tail. She flailed and thrashed like a demon, her arms whirling blurs of silver and blood, blenders aimed at the more immediate threat behind her. How dare it pull her hair!
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