Where to Start? (Open)

[Brodon Windriver]

Brodon stopped in the middle of the near-empty common room, "I will being right back" he said and hurried up the stairs. He was glad now that he hadn't brought in anything from his horse, Lovaak's, stall. He grabbed his pack, putting the packets of food and seed back in and grabbed the cage with his bird, Prombus, who warbled softly as the cage swung off the table.

He returned to the common room and went to the door, throwing his room key to Mahib, "I am being back this night or in day or days. I am not being sure." He nodded to the door and as they got there he said, without looking at the Dhani, "So, I am having it hard to believe you are not knowing who is asking you to hurt me. Perhaps you are thinking I have forgetting to ask ?"

He went through the door and turned left towards the stables, "We are needing to be hurrying. If you need, I can be tying you behind horse and drag you for going faster. Maybe it will help your remem..membering." He switched the cage to his left hand and dropped his right hand to his whip, in case the Dhani tried to run.

[Ispsyavinsens]

The smile fell from Vins' face. He didn't have the will to keep forcing it.

"Memory is good, no need!" he sputtered, "Memory is good. Was hoping not to say everything out in open, but will say then."

He looked between the whip and the sword with dread. Hopefully they'd believe him, as he wasn't sure his answers would be satisfactory.

"Do not know who really wants you dead, only who they get to hire me. Was hired by go-between to get your ssymbol and kill you, well, maybe just maim a little. He was gentlemen from historian's office. Wish had better words to describe him."

He shifted carefully on his feet, trying to find a position where the sword was not so perilously close to his vitals.

"Uh, no bad feelings?"

[Brodon Windriver]

Brodon's face set in stern certainty. He remembered the historian's office. He had seen the Dhani aide who had tried to hide his reaction at the sight of the symbol. This same Dhani before him now, silently pleading to be believed. They had already known he was coming.

This man was just a hireling. He wouldn't have known that there was any significance to a newcomer in town showing a drawing around, unless he had already been told to watch for it. The man at the desk had made no reaction worthy of note. It made sense. They would naturally expect Brodon to show it too the man at the desk first. They wouldn't tell him anything for fear of a giveaway reaction. But it would give some lurking aide - he glanced at the Dhani - a chance to see it without being noticed. So someone had informed the aide to watch for it, but not informed the man he worked under. Someone even higher in the historian's office than the man he had visited.

So who had tipped him off. Brodon tried to think back to his visit to the pavilion. He thought of the order of people he had talked to. There had been one who had mentioned a variety of professionals to see regarding symbology. But there had been one in particular that had said to be sure to visit the historian's office. he tried to recall the image of the stall when the words were being said...tapestries?...no....scrolls?...wait...both...no, not tapestries, maps! Some rolled up like scrolls, some hanging, letting the ink dry....the cartographer! Not in an office, though. It had been a booth in the pavilion, a man selling maps!

He turned and faced the Dhani and the man holding the sword, "My friends, I think we are being needing to be buying a map." he turned to the swordsman and indicated the Dhani, "I am thinking he is OK. What he says is making sense to my remem..bering." He rummaged through his pack and took out his drawing. He paused as if making a decision, nodded to himself and handed it to the Dhani. "I want for your...contract....man....not to know anything went no good. I want to be surprise for them. You take drawing. I can be drawing another."

He was about to tell the swordsman, in Pavi, that it was ok because they weren't going to visit the historian anyway, so it wouldn't matter if the Dhani warned him, when a voice broke his train of thought. A voice from the far end of the stable.

"Actually, horse-boy, you can just give that drawing to us."

Two men, dressed in Fox-guard armor approached, swords already drawn. Brodon looked over his shoulder at the near end of the stable and was not surprised to see two more just appearing from that side.

The other of the first two guards grunted a laugh, "You know, he looks pretty healthy to me." he glared at the Dhani, "Healthier than he was supposed to be. I thought you had a bite for that, snake-shit! Weren't you supposed to put him to sleep or something?" He scowled at the man with the sword, "And who in Dira's hells are you?"

[Gracen]

Gracen was good at what he did, and most of what he did had to do with violence. The Dhani did not escape while the Drykas was off faffing with something or other, and he was ready to go find some alley where this could all be hashed out, but Lhex, it would seem, had other plans. The Foxes appeared and he knew that a clean escape was unlikely. His blade was hovering near the ribs of their chosen assassin, if he was reading the situation correctly. But he didn't release the Dhani either. Adrenaline and djed Fluxed through him, his muscles beginning to quiver with swelling power, such that he could command. The knee jerk reaction also emboldened him to answer first. "I'm her favorite lover. Who the hell are you?"

[Brodon Windriver]

The Fox narrowed his eyes at the swordsman and began to move to his left as the four of them began to form a wide semi-circle to herd the three targets back into the horse stalls behind them.

"MInd your own business, pretty boy. If you want to put your blade through the scaly bastard's ribs, be my guest. We just want the Horse boy here."

"Am I being under arrested." Brodon asked as he scrutinized the armor design. Something was wrong with it, but he couldn't place it. "What is being the charge?" Brodon asked as he set the bird cage down to his left, sliding the door up with his thumb and flipping a wire catch to hold it open. "I have did no things wrong." he laid his staff on the ground in front of him, as though surrendering, leaving the near end atop his right foot.

"Fighting at the Inn will do for starters, boy. We've got a description and everything. Now just come along quiet." he held up a detailed sketch with several paragraphs of text below it. Something about the uniformity of the paragraphs triggered it. The uniforms were mismatched. The guards Brodon had seen around the city had consistent patterns on all the pieces of armor they wore, the patterns indicating rank. What these men wore were thrown together piecemeal. Besides, in the five minutes since the altercation at the inn, there was no way the guards could already have such a detailed wanted poster in hand. These "guards" were fake.

Brodon stood up and raised his hands. He hoped that, since the swordsman knew Pavi, he might also know Grassland sign as well. He made a gesture denoting "enemy"...

The guard rolled the poster back up and slipped it back in his armor. Brodon made a gesture denoting "Three"...

The guard nodded to his partner who started forward as the other three relaxed, anticipating an easy capture. Brodon gestured, "Two"...

The guard brought his two empty arms forward as he moved to prepare to get hold of Brodon, relegating the ones with weapons to a less accessible rear position. Brodon gestured "One"...

Brodon softly kicked the birdcage. Prombus squawked and flew from the cage to the rafters. The four guards froze as one, all eyes following the bird, taking their eyes off their targets. Brodon closed his fist, gesturing "Zero"...

[Brodon Windriver]

The "guard" in front of Brodon realized he'd been duped and swung his gaze back down from the rafters to the target in front of him...Just in time to have his field of vision filled by Brodon's fist. Staggering back, he was easily nudged to step to his side, straddling the iron staff, with its end still perched on Brodon's right foot. Brodon kicked the end of the staff up with a savage yell to generate force. The staff impacted his crotch with a thump solid enough to make Brodon wince in sympathy.

As he doubled over with a wheezing gurgle, his eyes rolling dizzily, Brodon grabbed the lifted end of the staff, and swung his right leg back down with force enough to generate an "opposite reaction" boost to the left leg, which now kicked up and across to knock a pair of teeth from the thug's mouth.

The shot of pain in his left foot, from the impact, left him with the certainty that the guard collapsing in front of him was not going to be continuing the fight. With the motion of the kick, his left foot had now crossed over the staff and brought him to pivot on his right. He now had his back to the other guard and, though initially frozen by surprise, this second guard now shouted angrily and charged.

Having taken note of the man's prior position, Brodon had a pretty good estimate of path of the man's charge. He pulled the staff forward with his right hand, allowing the inertia to bring it sliding in his loose grip, until more than half had extended before him. Gripping now with both hands, he dropped to a crouch and made a spinning swing at kneecap level. He heard the hiss of the sword passing within an inch of the top of his head at the same time he felt the impact of the staff and heard a muffled crack.

He instinctively rolled to the side to avoid any strikes his enemy may have been delivering with one of his other arms and was lucky to only get a deep slash down his side. He had no idea what was going on with the other two, but could not resist the verbal jab at the screaming guard, now clutching his maimed knee and writhing on the ground.

"Six good arms, but only one good leg." He turned to see what else was transpiring and grimaced as a sharp pain in his left foot almost made his leg buckle. Probably a broken toe or two. Damn, he needed to work on that kick. It seemed he, also, only had one good leg now. But two men were down, and neither of his wounds were disabling.

[Gracen]

Grace's eyelid twitched when he recognized the brash young Drykas' plan. He would have sighed, but that would give things away. Four men he tracked with his eyes, obviously not who they said they were, and two against one were not good odds. He did not count on the Dhani to aid them in this; in fact, he would have bet the snake would slither away as soon as Grace let him go. But the time came to act, and so he did, shoving the Dhani down hard and letting his momentum rebound and flow with speed and djed-born ease into a quick overhand swipe at the nearest guard. If only he had his katana, but there had not been time. He could kill a man more easily with a katana, but the wakizashi was what he had to deal with. So much for a relaxing soak, and he could only hope to get out of this without more than a few scrapes, but that was unlikely.

Vins?Are you still alive?

[Ispsyavinsens]

Vins had expected something like that, and let himself be pushed to the ground without a fight. He's spent years of his life on his belly in the dust, a few more minutes to keep himself out of the fight were worth it. He curled his hands over his head and tried to make himself a little smaller - no point in getting stepped on.

His captors were skilled combatants; his true target dispatched a few guards quickly, albeit not without injury, and his accidental target was eager to join in the fray. Face against the ground, Vins' thoughts started racing, trying to find a solution, or at least an accounting, of what a mess this was and what he could do about it.

These guards were probably working for his real employer, not just his contact. When their men didn't return, or returned sans a few people, they'd know that he's failed in his assassination attempt, whether he brought back the symbol or not. He knew quite well that whoever he was working for had no qualms about killing. How then, he asked himself, could he guarantee that he lived out the season? Even if he used this chance to run, who was to say that his failure wouldn't be taken out of his hide.

A foot hit the ground near Vins' head and he flinched out of the way. One of the guards was above him, weapon drawn, although Vins couldn't say whether the man was looking at him or if he'd been forced there by the fight. Whatever the guard's next move was, the Dhani pre-empted it, kicking him in the leg and trying to knock him off balance. Wherever his best chances lay, it certainly wasn't with these backup assassins.

ApologiesI got busy and kept telling myself I'd get something up 'tomorrow,' which turned into the next day and the next and here we are now. Very sorry about that.

[Brodon Windriver]

Brodon made a decision. Another in a series of rash decisions. The first guard he had downed with the kick to the face had dropped his sword. Brodon knew that he himself had no skill with blades, but perhaps the Dhani did. These so-called 'guards' had already made it clear that the Dhani's life was worthless to them. Perhaps, given a sword, he would join in.

The human already had his sword. More of a long knife, actually, but stout and wicked looking. He had no doubt he could kill someone just as fast with that as with a longsword. Reach was the only problem. Distraction the answer.

With his first step he kicked the downed guard's sword across the dirt to the Dhani, yelling at him to grab it. With his second step he pulled his whip and unlooped it with a flick. Already the human was faced with four weapon-bearing arms and was hard pressed. With his third step he lashed the whip in front of the nearest of the two guards facing the swordsman. The cured thongs snaked across the guard's body and wrapped his three left arms together, rendering them clumsy and making their normally coordinated moves at odds with each other.

Brodon immediately pulled hard, spinning the guard to face him, rather then the human with the sword. The guard stepped down hard, nearly stepping on the Dhani's head. The guard predictably slashed through the whip, but it didn't untangle his left arms. Brodon dropped his end of the cut whip and charged in, screaming to try to distract the other guard.

Brodon made as if to swing his staff two-handed, but deceptively allowed the pole to slide through his right hand until it was just beyond the midpoint. Then he gripped hard with his right, releasing with his left and slamming the end of the staff, spear-like, into the guards stomach, just below the ribcage. The guard, having been anticipating a swing approaching from the side, had his arms out of position to parry the sudden swing-turned-thrust.

The guard double over, the wind knocked out of him. Brodon rushed in to capitalize, only to discover that the guard was not as winded as he let on. His sword swung up and Brodon ducked as best he could, but still the blade laid his right shoulder open in gory detail.

His arm suddenly too weak to hold the heavy iron staff, he let it slip, trying to grab it with his left and failing. The guard stood over him, left arms still tangled, one right arm holding his sword high for a disemboweling stroke, the other two clenched in fists. Brodon saw a flash of a blade to his right near ground level. The Dhani had grabbed the blade he had kicked to him. Brodon could only hope he had been right about him.

[Gracen]

Grace was holding his own, but not making any obvious headway. His Fluxed speed and unexpected leap into the fray had been an advantage, but the fact of the matter was, he was less skilled with the wakizashi than his katana, but he only had his indoor blade to hand, and so he made the most of his skill and used his speed to make up for it. But he remained embattled, and was only keeping the one faux guard occupied, which left the rest to Brodon and... Well, at least he had armed the snake. Grace could only hope the snake would know what was good for him and fight off the guards who would most certainly kill him, possibly after torturing him. The Eypharians were a cruel race. But finally his Fluxed reflexes allowed him to act on a quick opening, his opponent's momentary falter allowing Grace to attack and attack and attack at the sudden cracks in his defense that opened due to his inability to match speed. But even with the speed, the guard opened a cut along Grace's arm as he sunk his blade into the man's gut and kicked him away, the adrenaline preventing him from feeling the wound. He wheeled about then to see if he might not yet survive this affray.