Open Just my luck....

[Mortas Darkscourge]

41st of Winter, 513AV

As soon as Mortas woke up he knew he was going to have a bad day. Did he have any proof? Nothing but a gut feeling, over time however he had learned, when in doubt to follow his instincts.

As his stomach rumbled the slaver groaned and moved sluggishly towards his bag, where he clumsily unwrapped a loaf of bread and was surprised to find it stale. " Stale already?! I just bought this yesterday.." There had certainly been many strange occurrences throughout the city recently, he had even heard a wizard had arrived in town from a gal in one of the local "establishments" Sighing he put the bread down and got dressed, clipping on his armour as usual, it was heavy and was a burden at times but Mortas decided a long time ago he would rather be tired at the end of the day than dead. And of course with defence came offence he thought as he strapped his "Widowmaker" greataxe, whip and shortbow. Usually the sight of these would deter any thieves but with the things the way they were now you couldn't be certain.

As he walked out the door Mortas slung his backpack onto his shoulders and was hit by the full force of the cold. Taking a moment to compose himself he walked towards the slave market, he still needed to find a way to safely set up his business without being cut down by ruthless competition. He was so deep in thought he didn't even notice his bag being opened and a child running away with a half eaten loaf of bread. All he could do is hope a more ambitious thief didn't witness the event.

[Amora Jade]

The tavern provided a nice escape from the wretched cold that lurked outside. Amora swore winter was only in existence to torture her. If there was anything worse than cold weather, it'd be cold weather and snow. Snow. Cold and wet and sticks to everything and everyone. Too much snow and all of a sudden buildings turn into big heaping piles of wood and stone. There was no use for the stuff at all, it'd be better if it would just leave and never return. The thought of being outside in the cold again made her shiver violently. A nice mug of ale would be sure to warm her up quickly. Luckily, some drunk fool wasn't paying any attention to his that was sitting on the bar between him and Amora. Quickly she snatched up the mug and brought it up to her lips, letting the fuel burn her throat as she chugged it down. "Hey! That were mine petching ale you good fer not'in.." His words trailed off as he attempted to stand up and grab at the thief who took his only reason for living. Luckily he was a bit too plastered to move very quickly, so she ducked under his tree trunk of an arm and shot her way through the tavern doors. It took her several strides to realize the harsh cold. The ale's magic had worn off too quickly and left her stranded to create her own warmth. While cursing the cold under her breath, she pulled on her hood to try and cover her face further to shield it from the icy air. Thud! "Oof, what the..?" All of a sudden she found herself with her bottom in the snow. "So sorry miss!" The small kid shouted after he got off her and darted away with what looked like bread. It made her laugh, she remembered being that young and stealing like that. She examined the area and saw a big man totting his open backpack over his shoulder. "Hmm... if that kid could get what he wanted..." Amora stood and brushed herself off before nonchalantly heading towards the victim of the child to try and take a piece of the action. If a child could do it, so could she... right? Sure, she had taken from men much larger than her before and found herself in a lot of trouble, but this could be different. While closing the gap between herself and the heavily armed man, she began to rethink picking his pocket. Only with slight hesitation she got up close behind him and stuck her hand into his coat pocket.

[Mortas Darkscourge]

Ugh... this cold was beginning to get to him, as if the hailstones the size of someone's head wasn't bad enough punishment, now he had to deal with petching snow! His shoes were already soaked through, which reminded him that he needed to better clothes, the ones he had didn't do much to keep out the cold. The thought made him shiver, just in time to feel something brush off his leg.

Instinctively Mortas reached down to his pocket, only to find someone else's hand reaching in for a treasure hunt. Grabbing the hand tightly he turned to find a girl. Anger began to well up inside him, erupting into a bellow "Petching thief!" Probably not his finest moment but he didn't care anymore to be frank. All he was concerned about was this runty shyke in front of him. Without thinking Mortas threw a punch straight a the thief's nose. If a punch from an armored hand landed it was going to do some massive damage

[Amora Jade]

Just as the pick-pocket began to pull her hand away from the pocket, unable to find anything to take, her target noticed and grabbed it with an unrelenting force. Amora looked up just in time to see a giant fist coming straight for her face, she flinched away quickly enough to where it only caught the bottom of her chin. It still hurt like hell though and caused her to fall on the ground. Without thought she reached under her coat and grabbed the dagger she had strapped to her leg. During the winter in a poor city it was extra important to have protection from desperate people looking for some spare change for a meal. She had only pulled the dagger out a few times in her life, and only injuring a couple people with it. Amora's elder brother, Raul, had given it to her before he left Sunberth. He told her only to use it if she absolutely needed to. Not like he really needed to tell her that really, she had no interest in physically harming anyone. Unskillfully, she held the dagger sideways in front of her as a warning, but stayed on the ground to try not to instigate a fight. It was obvious she'd die if she even attempted. A low growl was sounded nearby and the young thief quickly looked behind her, but saw nothing. Ignoring the sound she looked back up at her opponent and scooted away a bit. "..what was that?" She knew she herd something, but was too afraid of the man to search for it more.

[Mortas Darkscourge]

Too say Mortas was angry was an understatement. He was furious. He didn't mind thieving, or even approved of it sometimes but today was not his day, being stolen off made his blood boil. He let out a grunt of triumph as his fist connected with her jaw with a satisfying thud. Mortas took a quick look around, the relatively small crowd seemed to be already dispersing.

The would be thief was still planted on the ground, time to teach her a lesson. Reaching down to his whip he held it in his hand, he usually didn't use it as a weapon but he thought it would be suitable now. Still oblivious to the growling. Raising the whip behind his head he brought it down with a sharp crack. Subconsciously he realised he might be going over board slightly but this was quickly pushed out of his mind. This petcher needed to pay Immediately after he raised his arm to do the same only to feel an immense force thud against his the side of his chest, causing him to buckle and hit the ground.

Ugh... Mortas was seeing stars, his vision blurring. The sound of rabid snarling brought him to his sense however. As he raised his head he saw a pack of mangy dogs surrounding him. "Just my luck... he muttered under his breath. How the petch did he even get into this situation?! The time for thinking about that came later however, fighting off these mutts was the main priority, he just hoped the theif realized that, it would hinge on their survival. Quickly getting back onto his feet he switched out his whip for his Widowmaker... the whip would be better for speed but he needed raw power and damage for this situation. He could only quickly spare a glance for the thief to see how she was getting on...

[Amora Jade]

The awful sting of the whip across her arm caused her to shriek slightly, which must have startled the growling creature and force it and more from they're hiding places. Suddenly the scene changed. No longer was she worried about the man, she needed now to just worry about not getting her throat torn out by a hungry street dog. A smaller one jumped towards her, almost landing on the dagger Amora had ready. Sure, it would've been nice that the creature end itself and not harm the thief, but that's not what she wished for. No matter how bad a person she was for taking things that didn't belong to her, she knew all life had value. No matter if the life was trying to take her's or not. There was no way she was about to kill one of those creatures. Amora drew back her leg and broke loose of the grip the dog had on her boot, then forced her leg forward again to kick it as hard as she could. The dog fell back and she scrambled to get on her feet quickly. "One.. two... three.." She assessed the situation and counted the creatures to see where she and the man stood when it came to numbering. "Mmph!" One more was behind her and had grabbed her by the boots to pull her onto her face. She repeated the action she had performed before to get the other dog off her and scrambled to her feet again. "...four." This time, she didn't hesitate. Quickly she found a way to get out of the dogs' reaches. Her feet moved before she could think, one landing on the seat of a bench and the other pushed on the side of the building behind it, lunging her upwards towards the edge of the roof. She grabbed it tightly and swung herself on top of it. Only taking a slight moment to catch her breath, she looked down over the side to see a larger one of the dogs trying to jump for her. Amora flinched, both eyes were forced closed and she didn't open them until she realized the dog couldn't reach her. She felt sorry for the creatures, she knew what they wanted. They were just hungry and didn't know any better. They probably just smelled food that was in the man's pack and were trying their best to get it. That's when she looked over to see the man trying to kill the dogs. "Don't! Please! They're just hungry they don't know no better! They smell the food you got in that there pack! Just give some to them and run, please!" Amora knew it was probably a senseless attempt to save their lives, but it was worth a shot.

[Mortas Darkscourge]

Mortas would've sighed if he wasn't so worked up. She was genuinely asking him not to kill the mongrels that were trying to rip out his throat. Not only that, but she was asking him to feed them?! Food was scarce enough as it is! These dogs were going to have to be put down.

Looking around Mortas assessed his situation, he was surrounded on all sides by mutts that wanted nothing more than to have a nice snack on his entrails. In order for him to have a decent chance he would have to have them all facing him, if he were surrounded he would be worn down and eventually killed while that petching thief sat there and cried that the poor mutts had to work to get their food.

The simplest option it seemed to Mortas would be to target the dog nearest to him, that would have them all facing him and he would have an alley-way to run down if the worst came to worst.... not that he had any chance of outrunning them.

Another dilemma Mortas faced was the speed of the dogs, they were quite nimble, more than enough to dodge an axe. He would have to find a way to take that advantage away from them... but it looked like the time for thinking was over, he needed to act before the mutts did.

Charging forward Mortas lashed out a front kick from his back foot, a simple affair, only used for setting up his next attack. As his foot came down he used the momentum gained from his kick to bring his axe down on the dog at full force.

The axe hit the dog squarely on it's upper back, crunching through bone and tearing the internal organs. Crimson blood squirted through the air, splattering against his face and armour. It was dead before it hit the ground. Not sparing a moment Mortas turned around to face the rest of the mutts, if they were any way discouraged by the death of one of their pack they didn't show it, they just kept advancing slowly, growling menacingly with death in their cruel dark eyes.

[Amora Jade]

Amora watched the death from her perch on the rooftop. The cracking sound the ax made when it came in contact with the creature made her stomach churn and caused her to flinch away. She closed her eyes tightly and kept her head turned away, there was no way she could sit there and watch that violence. "Maybe one of the dogs will hurt him pretty bad... maybe he will get his punishment." She knew there wasn't even the slightest possibility that she could be the one to teach him, no matter how terribly she wanted to. A man with no heart who lived in Sunberth, how rare. Sure, the city was lawless and people could do practically do what ever they wanted, but didn't they have morals? Amora was a thief who would take from nearly anyone to get what he wanted, but she wouldn't go so far as to kill anyone or creature. Taking a life wasn't worth all of the mizas in the world. Once you end a life, that's it. There's no more for the murdered - all that would be left was a grieving family. By ending one single life, one would be sending an endless ripple effect. OOCSorry for the short post, I didn't really know what else I could do at this point.

[Mortas Darkscourge]

Despite his small victory Mortas was still facing great odds, he was still heavily outnumbered. While he had given himself a better position for defence, is offensive capabilities were now compromised. If he tried to attack any one of the dogs, the others would encircle him and catch him in a pincer movement. His only choice was to defend for now... Retreating slowly Mortas was poised, ready to spring into action at any time. He didn't have to wait long, the dog in the centre sprang at him, trying to leap up and bite his throat. Reacting quickly Mortas moved the head of the axe towards his hand slightly, giving him a shorter grip and a bit more control over the axe. As the dog leapt into the air, Mortas stabbed forward as if he were using a spear with the upper portion of the axe. With the combined force of the stab and the momentum of the dog, the sharpened points sunk into the dog's chest, not quite killing it but doing major damage, not giving it any time to recuperate Mortas advanced with a cleaving sideways strike, crunching through it's muzzle. Now it was dead, The odds were slowly evening out and the other two dogs were starting to back off, the one he just killed seemed to be the alpha of the pack and without his presence they seemed to be a lot less confident, slowly an idea began to form in his mind. Looking up at the thief he checked if she was going to get off her behind and help him. Nope, no surprise there. Mortas doubted she would have been so fond of the dogs when they began to feast on his corpse. Springing forward quickly Mortas cut at the lower leg of the dog to his left, severing it. With that the other dog bolted, yipping loudly, it's tail between it's legs. The other dog on the other hand was in no state to run. Now Mortas would put his plan into place. Reaching into his bag which he found was open, he took out some rope and tied it around the leg of the dog to stop the bleeding. Calling out to the thief he yelled "Come on! I don't want to kill these things you know! Come and help me out, I have a friend who looks after injured animals

[Amora Jade]

The heart breaking sound of the next dog's yelps caused the young girl to fold into herself. It was so tempting to just jump down there and grab the food from the man's backpack and end it all - but after murdering two of them, the other two were probably seeking revenge. After a couple heart beats after the second dog was dead she gained anough confidence to look back at the fight. Something about the dogs' behavior had changed. Almost as if they suddenly became lost and barely could tell what they were doing anymore. Amora scanned the two corpses that were laying on the street, examining them while trying not to get sick over the gruesomeness of the situation. The first that had been killed wasn't very large or muscular; from the looks of things it seemed to be the smallest and the most unhealthy of the four. "Omega.." Next, she looked over at the second death and realized how prominent the muscles were and how rounded his belly was. Amora also saw that this dog was much larger than the others. "Ah... the Alpha. The others don't know what to do without their leader." When Amora looked back at the man after noticing the other two were beginning to back away, she realized he was looking right back at her. Her eyes widened and she sat very still, as if she were afraid she'd be the next body laying bloody and lifeless on the street if she made any kind of sound or movement. Without even being provoked, the maniac swung his ax and cut one dog's leg off. A gasp forced itself out of the thief as she realized what kind of person she was really dealing with. "Come on! I don't want to kill these things you know! Come and help me out, I have a friend who looks after injured animals." "Hell no." Amora was about to just jump off of the backside of that building she still sat on and just bolt out of there, but her eye caught the poor creature he injured and her heart sank. On one hand she knew that man was a complete maniac and there was no well in hell she wanted to spend another chime anywhere near him, but on the other hand the dog really did need medical attention. It wasn't about her comfort anymore, it was about saving that dog. "I'll keep my dagger ready.. he tried one little thing and I'll cut off his man-business.." Slowly the girl lowered herself off the roof onto the bench, then to the ground again. She approached with caution and kept her distance from the man. "Why do you care? You just murdered two without even blinking."