A Knight Off Duty (open)

[Wystern]

Wystern just watched the thugs get completely overwhelmed. They never stood a chance. It did not feel as right as it should be, but they were drunk and armed to the teeth. Were.

"I'm not quite sure if I should be happy because I met Kavran again or concerned because of the bloodshed," he said as he gave a short applause after the show.

The man was sitting on a bench in a shadow, watching as the fighters were taking care of themselves; his hands clenched together, gray eyes gleaming from under the cloak; an almost concealed Syliran crest was on his chest.

"Somebody is going to be pretty ticked about a fight breaking out in the middle of the damn street," said Wys as he got up and approached Kav, extending his arm in a greeting.

[Kavran]

Kavran nodded at Kamrynn's salute and gazed at each of the others in turn. His expression was hard to read; it was a mixture between rapidly-cooling anger, concern, and disappointment. His eyes were as cold as ice, as always, though his grim visage was beginning to lighten.

Deciding first to voice his concern, Kavran popped his knuckles and said,
"Good, you're all alive. That's all I needed to know." He looked down at his bloodstained hands and flicked his wrist, sending a small spray off the crimson liquid off his fingertips and onto the cobblestone streets below.
"I want these men identified, Kamrynn." He said coolly, his ruthless identity as a Knight coming through. "I want their family names taken down, reported, and then I fully expect to have compensation from said families taxes by morning. One way or the other, we will stamp these insects out. Do you understand?"

He turned at the sound of clapping and immediately noticed yet another Knight. His relaxed position and comments were of the usual variety, though Kavran was all too aware of just how dangerous the man was. He was good with blades, unnervingly so for such a young Knight, but Kavran welcomed it nonetheless. The Knights could take all the swordsmen they could get. Crow stood to his feet and extended his arm in greeting.

That was something both men had in common. They shared a similar background, but their chosen paths were as different as night and day. However, Kavran was born an urchin, and raised a Knight. He still knew the way of the streets, and this greeting was the first lesson ever taught. Moving forward, Kavran closed the gap between himself and Crow, and took the other Knight's offered arm in the familiar gesture. On the occasions when Kavran had to work with other Knights, he had often elected Crow to join him, since he had a better understanding of the world. However, he hoped to make Kamrynn understand as well. He sensed great potential in him, and when it came to sizing up others, Kavran was second to none.

"Crow." He said with a small smile- a huge gesture in its own right, since Kavran rarely smiled at all. "Well, I'm glad you enjoyed the spectacle. I didn't get any blood on you, I trust?"

[Wystern]

Wys chuckled as he looked down, "I think there's some on my boots. Or maybe it's from earlier today. Same situations, just different places."

Wys pulled his hood down, looked around and turned back to Kav, "In retrospect, wouldn't Kamrynn have less explaining to do, considering that he did kill...less?"

Wys looked at the mess, then at Kamrynn, then at Rythern, then at Elliot, "I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Wystern of the Syliran Knights, but you may simply call me Crow,"he said with a small bow.

He then looked back at Kav, "Why does it feel like you are the one running the show again?"

[Kamrynn Sleightyr]

Kamrynn nodded, "Yes sir!" He said with a simple salute, then rushed to investigate the corpses. The few stragglers had by now joined their brethren in the afterlife, and laid motionless in shallow pools of their own lifeblood.

Kamrynn grimaced as he flipped the corpses over to rummage through their pockets, staining his hands and clothes with crimson in the process. "Morramar family." He mumbled, pulling out an identification seal from one of the men's pockets. About half of them had some kind of definite identifying possession, and he was almost through with his investigation when Wystern approached, clapping.

Kamrynn stood and spun around, recognizing the new knight grasping Kavran's hand with conflicting feelings. Wystern was, in Kam's opinion, a mixed bag of good and bad. The man was a genuine asset to the Syliran order, and one of the few knights their age that could best Kamrynn in a sword fight -he had, in fact, done so on a few occasions.

That wasn't what bothered Kamrynn; it was the man's dark sense of humor. He had a penchant for extremes, be it words or actions. While Kavran presented himself as a role model for chivalry and honor, Crow seemed more like an anti-hero. Still, Kamrynn had nothing but respect for the man.

Waiting until Crow had finished his greeting to Sir Deilos and turned to introduce himself, Kamrynn raised his hand in salute. "Sir Wystern!" He called, as far as he knew, Wystern didn't have a surname. "Good to see you, I'm afraid you missed out on a fight. And of course Sir Deilos is in charge, he pulls rank here." Kamrynn grinned, honestly. "Unless you've gotten a promotion I hadn't heard about..."

Having said his peace, Kamrynn turned back to picking through the remaining corpses. By now, a crowd had built up around the scene; people gawked and screamed upon seeing the bloodbath, then booed and cursed at the Syliran Knights, calling them butchers. Things would have been bad had several other knights shown up to investigate the commotion. They held the crowd at bay, looking to Kavran for instruction, and a messenger was dispatched to summon more reinforcements.

Kamrynned pulled a letter from the final man's pocket, it had a broken, black wax seal on it, Kamrynn recognized it without ever having seen it before. The Blinded Eyes. Weren't they just a rumor? He opened the letter, his hands trembling, and scanned over it quickly.

It was written in code, completely indecipherable, but the slant of the letters and characters written on the paper held an ill intent, and they chilled his blood. Is this some kind of joke? He wondered to himself, but in his heart, he knew that it was not.

"Kavran. Crow." He called, too engrossed to bother with titles. His cheery voice now deathly serious. "I think you should take a look at this.

[Wystern]

"I would not call it missing out, it just looked like you didn't need my help, and I was correct. Besides, I wanted to see yours and Kav's skills in action after I was away," said wystern with a slight reminiscence of the "good old days". If only there were more good things about them.

Wys was helping out with crowd control when he heard Kam called him over. Too many dead bodies, too many questions, not enough patience to explain the situation.

Crow tried to make his way there without too much blood getting on the bottom of his cloak, "Same situations, just different places," he muttered to himself.


"Well, this is either bad or funny.What's more important is that Eyes are in Sunberth. What is this doing here?"

"One more thing. I think that I worked for the Eyes before. I was nine years old, I think. At that time I was a thief, a messenger, and a delivery boy. I was a criminal for the first ten years of my life, following in the footsteps of my parents; they were killed when they stole from the wrong people. Until I was rescued from my misery, I transported drugs, money, various papers for various crimes. No one pays attention to a nine-year-old kid."

Wystern looked at Kam, then at Kavran, then he turned his gaze down again. The crowd was receding at that point in time. Knights overlooked the cleaning up of the bodies and blood on the street.

Wystern got up and slipped into a little more heavy thinking. He looked at the letter with a slightly annoyed look.

Crow pulled out a dagger cut off the seal, and put it in his pocket with great care. Wystern handed the note back to Kamrynn and looked up at Kavran. "I will visit a contact in Sunberth that should know something about this. Anyone wants to tag along?"

[Rythern]

The arrival of a third Knight - plus the gathering crowd around them - meant the surviving fighters were no longer the only witnesses to the fight's aftermath. Rythern was not entirely sure if this was a good or bad thing. On the one hand, it could set an example for the city. On the other hand, he could think of several examples that were decidedly preferable to a pile of bodies in the street.

His eyes were settling back to their typical blue, and he was in the midst of bandaging the scratch on his shoulder with a strip of cloth when the newly arrived Knight spoke.

"I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Wystern of the Syliran Knights, but you may simply call me Crow."

"Vakya," Rythern replied amiably. "I'm an entertainer of sorts."

As the other knights began to converse, the young Vantha set about retrieving his lost knives. He'd dropped two of them somewhere near the dead-end alley but wasn't certain where. After some searching - he was used to this task, but here it was made more difficult by the long shadows, the uneven light spilling from the tavern, and the cover of night - he located the fallen blades, cleaned them of blood, and returned them to the knife pouch at his belt.

"Kavran. Crow," Kamrynn called suddenly to his fellow Knights. "I think you should take a look at this."

Curious, Rythern wandered over to look over Kamrynn's shoulder. The young knight was holding up a note retrieved from one of the dead men.

He blinked at it.

It was completely unreadable. The message had been written in some kind of code that looked like all but gibberish to Rythern, so he turned his attention from the paper to the Knights. Crow was voicing some of his speculation in a tone of concern, and he outlined his intention to visit a contact for more information.

Rythern didn't get into politics as a general rule. It wasn't that he disliked it exactly. He'd never cared enough to dislike it. Certainly the power plays of those circus years might have been less than pleasant, but they were part of life. And they made for good stories. Nah, he didn't dislike politics. In the tents, Rythern's offhand resolve to avoid all of that had been in the interest of his own survival. If you don't want to get burned, don't jump through the flaming ring.

So he stayed at least a knife-throw's distance away and had done so for quite some time.

Still. The young man had just fought alongside several Syliran Knights and the verdict in the end was that he liked them. At any rate he liked them a hell of a lot better than the thugs they'd just fought against, and if there were more of those around, Rythern knew which he'd rather see on the winning side.

As the three knights discussed the message, the grave words of the knight called Crow piqued his attention.

It was very interesting.

Rythern thought about the now-interrupted story that he'd begun about them, for which he was still in the midst of improvising. The fight had cut it off mid-tale, and its aftermath now painted the night in colors that promised something for the near future - he had no idea what, but it was definitely not more boredom. Hm. Maybe he'd get around to finishing that story sometime. Maybe with this.

It was very, very interesting.

He cleared his throat, despite the fact that he technically wasn't supposed to be in this conversation. Ah, why not. "Considering recent events," the knife-thrower remarked, "an ally might be useful to you. A lay person; a commoner. Someone who doesn't bear the crest of knighthood." He was referring to himself, obviously, as they had nothing to fear from him anyway. He could use the excitement.

"I fought here, and I already know what's going on. As well as anyone else does, anyway. And I'm not too bad with people or a knife or two." The Vantha shrugged and decided to go for full disclosure. "Plus, I'm kind of bored."

[Wystern]

"Now that I think about it, in this time a dumb criminal is usually an oxymoron. After all, we have spent quite a bit of our lives killing the dumb ones, so only the smart remain. At least in this type of business," Crow pondered on the subject a bit more.

Wys turned to Vakya, "If you understand what you are getting yourself into, then welcome aboard. I've seen you fight, you can stand for yourself; trust shouldn't be an issue since you've had plenty of opportunities to attack either Kavran or Kamrynn by now."

"Should anyone agree to come with me, you have to cover your crests. I would be going to a place where the marks would spook the wrong people. Especially so, since the contact is a fence for stolen goods. I leave him alone and he snitches on the really bad people."

[Rythern]

At the sound of familiar hoofbeats, Rythern turned and was surprised to see that Aeyo had returned.

"Hey, hey," he said with the roguish twitch of a smile. "Enjoy the show?"

The mare nudged his shoulder in greeting - it was the shoulder, incidentally, that had gotten the long scratch - and he winced before playfully swatting her away. "Watch it."

Then he realized that Crow was speaking to him. "If you understand what you are getting yourself into, then welcome aboard."

"Sure thing." Rythern put a hand on Aeyo while giving Crow a nod of acknowledgment; inwardly he was quite pleased. It had become an exciting evening - moreso than he'd anticipated, with intrigue and interesting people and a fairly good skirmish on the side. As far as evenings went, that was not shabby.

"I've seen you fight, you can stand for yourself," the Knight continued to Rythern. "Trust shouldn't be an issue since you've had plenty of opportunities to attack either Kavran or Kamrynn by now."

Rythern shrugged. In theory, if an enemy were among the Knights, there was a logical explanation for why he might not attack; the Vantha knew from experience that a spy's order of business was often to gain trust first and betray later.

For him, however, those days were over. They'd faded fast behind him with the circus tents when he left. The Knights tonight had little to fear from the young knifethrower who called himself Vakya; just a wanderer looking for a good story.

"Should anyone agree to come with me," Crow added, addressing his companions, "you have to cover your crests. I would be going to a place where the marks would spook the wrong people. Especially so, since the contact is a fence for stolen goods. I leave him alone and he snitches on the really bad people."

The Vantha grinned. He was becoming rather partial to the guy's dry, unusual sense of humor.

"I'll come," he said to the group, "but not with. A few minutes before or after and I can meet you guys in there." He gestured at the curious onlookers on the street, whom several Knights by now appeared to have somewhat appeased. "As the hour gets later, the drunk get drunker and the sober get nosier. If your description of the place is anything to go by, Crow, I doubt rudimentary precautions to stave off questions would hurt."

[Kamrynn Sleightyr]

[[OOC Let's let Kavran get a word in before we press further]]]]

[Wystern]

[[OOC Ditto, I will try to get Harlequill to read this thread and maybe make something of it.]]