MQ: Arms of Gold

[Djakara]

(Open)

The weather in Salvar was not pleasant at all. It wasn’t just that it was cold, but it was the kind of cold that sapped energy from a person. Djakara could feel his interest in his plan declining with every step along the way, not because his greed was abated as much as he just wanted to wrap himself in his blanket for warmth. He looked out of his wagon at the permafrost expanse only grudgingly, wishing that for all the technology that Alerar had invented, they had given a higher priority to heating devices.

However, the Freiherr knew that he could only wait in the warmth of his blanket for so long. There was a caravan to manage, weapons that were supposed to go to the King of Salvar to help him with his Civil War. Djakara had other plans. It wasn’t that he objected to the King’s political stance. For that matter, he didn’t really know what the King’s politics were, or what the politics were of the people the King was fighting. He didn’t pay much attention to the news, except for casualty figures and the kinds of weapons people were buying. Those were the things that he paid attention to.

Now, being asked to deliver an important convoy to Salvar, a high risk transport of weapons badly needed, was a boon. When the Alerar government had dispatched him, he could tell that the rest of the nobles had limited expectations for his success. They had suggested that he do his best, and that the government of Alerar would be grateful for any successes that he might have. The moment they said that, Djakara had decided to loot the convoy for his own profit. Normally when he was involved in weapons shipments, he was told that anything lost would be coming out of his hide. When the expectations were this low, he knew there was more profit in failure.

A failure, that was to turn and resell the weapons in Corone, of course. Djakara knew that Salvar wasn’t the only place on Althanas with a civil war going now, and with the amount of weapons he had on him, he knew that he would be able to start building that luxury villa he had been dreaming about in Istraloth. Djakara smiled when he thought of the villa, of the warm tropical breezes and the private swimming pool he’d have. With his money, he’d get a couple of attractive women and invest in the kind of technology that would return him to the life of luxury he was used to on his planet.

However, dreaming of the villa and owning the villa were unfortunately, two very separate matters. The caravan was moving along slowly, and Djakara knew that it would be a matter of time before they had to act. His plan was to recruit as many people as possible that he saw displaced by the violence, and then convince them to join his insurrection as soon as possible. Now that his caravan was within a few hours of the reaching the banks of the Holgalov lake, he knew he was going to have to act fast. It would only be so much longer until they reached Knife’s Edge.

Fortunately, the areas that Djaraka had passed through were the city strongholds, the places where the king was still loved and respected. There was now nothing between him and Knife’s Edge but countryside. Still, the Freiherr did not like to leave things to chance. He hated guessing games, and the only plan he’d come up with now was essentially that.

“If only there was snow,” he thought wishfully. “That’d slow the caravan down…”

[Call me J]

If it were snowing, Jame would have hit the ground much more softly. As it was, he hit it hard. He wasn’t sure how he had been spit out into Salvar, and when he’d first fallen to the ground, he had no idea where he was. Still, the temperature would have been inimitable anywhere else in Althanas. The half dragon would have shuddered, but fortunately, the enhancements he had received less than half an hour ago in Aglarlin were helping him against the cold as well. He looked up to the sky to check the time. It was nearing nightfall. In spite of the Aglarlin magic, he shivered.

There was absolutely nothing around him. There was just a cold expanse of deserted areas. A few trees, but the leaves had fallen off of them a long time ago. The sun in the sky hovered above, brightly but unhelpfully. This was one of the wastelands in Salvar where a person could easily never be found. Still, Jame was not afraid. “I’ve got to help Raiaera!” he resolved. “I was there, fighting through it all, and then this.” He looked around. If he wanted to help Raiaera, he would first need to find some place warm. Off in the distance, he could see a black dot. He preened forwards and began running towards it, the enhanced muscles in his legs sending him across the ground faster than he ever could imagine. Even with the cold wind chaffing at his face, he kept running until the small black dot turned into a convoy of traders. There were five wagons in all, and each one of them but the first seemed to be relatively well guarded. Under normal circumstances, Jame might have hesitated, but it was cold and he wanted to get back to Raiaera.

The driver of the first cart was a dwarf, a relatively old and wizened creature who seemed just as uncomfortable in the cold as Jame did. The half dragon, running off a combination of magical enhancements and adrenaline looked at the dwarf. “Let me in the caravan…” he offered.

The dwarf chucked. “Lad… this aint a charity mission ‘ere. Yer village destroyed, don’ wanna hear ‘bout it. Been happenin’ a lot lately.”

Jame scowled. He didn’t want any charity, he just wanted to save Raiaera from Xem’zund. With his frustration mounting, he debated jumping onto the wagon and pulling the arrogant dwarf off his seat. There would be resistance from the other wagons, but Jame didn’t care. If he could fight through the undead of Raiaera, he doubted he’d have a problem with a simple convoy.

However, a young boy popped his head out of the trailer, intervening, though it was not clear yet on whose behalf. “Oh but Blackstock, you must not be rude to a guest,” he began. He extended out a hand. “My name is Djakara Fraye, and please, come aboard.”

Jame didn’t like this, the boy was too well spoken to be anyone but the person in charge, and far too young to deserve an important charge. Still, he decided to reason with the kid, if for no other reason, than he didn’t have many other options at the moment. “I need to get to Raiaera,” he said. “Can I come in and warm up for a bit?”

The boy, Djakara seemed to bend over backwards for him. “Of course, of course,” the boy said. He pushed on the dwarf’s shoulder to get him to scoot over so that Jame would have an easier step up. “And I didn’t catch your name…”

“Jame… Jame Whitizard,” the half dragon offered. He looked at the boy carefully, just to make sure that there were no tell tale signs that he was dealing with a patriarch minion. Finding none, he entered the wagon.

Djakara smiled. “Good to meet you,” he said, as the caravan continued on its way.

[Leon Adalbert]

Only a few days had gone by since the caravan's departure from Ettermire, but already Leon missed the ale and the elven women. Not to mention he had none of the comforts of home out in this desolate cold land. Old man probably wanted to keep me out of trouble, he speculated. Still, the merchant's son had decided to make the best of it, keeping himself busy with rousing cardgames amongst the other crew of the caravan.

"Do ye 'ave any...eights?" asked the ruddy-faced dwarf across from him.

"Ah, you have me again," came his response as he pulled three cards from his hand, tossing them in the direction of his diminutive companion. "How do you always know what I have?"

"They be my cards, ye fool. I be knowin' ever' crack and corner," the dwarf laughed. "Ne'er challenge a man ta cards wit' his own deck."

The Adalbert boy laid his hand down. "I guess you're right. I forfeit, then. It was a good game while it lasted, though." He stood, patting the dwarf on the head, grumbles of sizeism and Alerian cowardice coming from below. Taking a few steps toward the front, Leon peeked out from under the canopy. Only one wagon was in front of him, in which Freiherr Djakara sat, guiding the caravan. The wagons had been going more slowly since they left the last city. Something's going on, he thought. And our good Freiherr has something to do with it, I know.

[Godhand]

Alerar. He hated Alerar.

Regular elves, light elves he supposed was the technical term, were aggravating in the sense that they had an enormously inflated pride due to what they thought was their superior heritage. The result of this delusion was that even the lowliest Raiaeran commoner possessed the ego of a much loved courtesan of any human court you could name. This was irritating but understandable when you considered that they had what some would call a proud history.

That mitigating factor was completely erased when the same criticisms were applied to the dark elves. They were just as smug as their brethren but so coy about it that it seemed vaguely insulting. When you also considered that their "proud history" was being exiled from their homeland for leading a failed revolution against their lighter-skinned cousins it took all of one's faculties not to backhand them for their unfounded arrogance.

Thus, being thrust into a writhing nest of them so he could do business with a mystery employer put Godhand something in less than an amiable mood. Still, if he'd managed to contact the mercenary then he more or less knew his stuff and thus had a reason for calling him Alerar. It's technology, in particular, was most likely the end goal of their arrangement. But the air, God the air. It was impossible to breath in the hellish smog of midtown.

When Godhand finally arrived at the canteen where he was to meet his employer, he was outraged to find that it was a child. A kid less than half his Goddamn age. But he kept it in his backpocket. He remembered that saying about how still water runs deep. Wether this kid was a noble's son or a self-made man, if he had the clout to be able to contact him then he probably had the money.

He laid it out nice and simple. Apparently he was a gun-runner for the Alerar council. Godhand had heard about the civil war in Salvar, of course, and knew there was money to be made there. But the sort of mercenaries that prayed for civil war always upset him. Vultures; his profession's answer to ambulance-chasers. If he was going to go to work in a warzone he'd have to be asked by someone higher up than some recruiter. And this was just the man, apparently.

The kid, Djakara, told Godhand about a big shipment of weapons they were leaving to his care. He admitted that while he would normally never, his words, "piss in his own pool", that their utter lack of faith that the weapons would actually reach their intended destination had steeled his resolve. He'd asked Godhand to attack the caravan, kill the guards and scare away any church zealots.

"What's my pay?"

"All the weapons you can carry."

"You sure about that?"

"What?"

"Nothing. You have yourself a deal."

And now he was in the middle of a Salvarian road, watching as the caravans slowly approached. Surely they had spotted him by now. Bundled within thick clothes he must have looked like a highway man. Not too much of a stretch, really. He remembered his final words to his young employer.

"Remember: under no circumstances are you to harm the cargo."

"Relax, kid," He began, "I'm a professional."

[Dark Temptress]

The cold never really bothered her that much, not this kind anyway, not when the winter had yet to set in. She was after all a native to these lands and as such she was quite accustomed to the wind swept plains, and the bitterness and the snow. Only, there was no snow right now, there was just the desolation of that time right before the winter set in, where every withered and died. She kind of liked that state of being. Once it started to snow, the death was covered in something pure and white, masking what winter truly brought. But right before that, when everything was still struggling with its last legs of energy, it seemed truly beautiful and truly alive. For when could anything be more alive then when it struggled?

The weather was not what had taken A’rai from the warmth and the protection of her estate at this hour, no. Something far more interesting and intriguing to her calculating mind was her purpose. She had heard rumours of a shipment of weapons moving through the Salvarian wastelands from Raiaera of all places. They had been spilled by none other than Marcus when she and other members of Kings and Shadows had gathered to discuss several issues, including whether or not they were going to participate in this little war that Salvar had found itself in. Sadly, several of their members were already involved in it and she knew that a few of them had lied about just what side they were fighting on. All had said they fought for the state, for who would fight for the church? Kings and Shadows did not mingle well with the church considering it was a secret organization to help pass the time of bored noblemen by summoning demons and killing for fun.

None had asked her about which side she fought for, for she was a woman after all and women did not belong on the battlefield. They belonged at home, preening and preparing themselves for the return of their husbands as they rode off to do great and noble deeds. Or some kind of laden bull shit like that she never truly believed in. A’rai may be noble by birth but that didn’t mean she did not like getting her hands dirty every now and again. She may not have any skills with a weapon, but she had her own abilities and they included summoning demons among other things, whether or not her fellow society members knew it was beyond her caring. The most interesting piece of information she had learned was that the caravan would be passing right through her father’s lands on it’s way to Knife’s Edge.

So for days now A’rai had been keeping a close watch over the large property that her father owned and managed. He was not in the region right now and so she was free to do as she pleased without his worry and his words. Meaningless, stupid words. One day she wouldn’t have to listen to them anymore, but she was growing restless waiting for that day to come. Finally, she had spotted what she wanted. Though quite small and nothing more than a darkened spec upon the horizon, the seductress knew it was what she was looking for. No one else would be passing by here and judging by their current direction they were heading straight for Holgalov Lake and then onwards to Knife’s Edge. Not that she was planning on allowing the shipment to reach the city.

The Seductress may not like The Church or many of the things that it stood for, but she was also not a large fan of the state considering she had grown up within it her whole life. There was a chance that this shipment could shift the balance of this war and she was not about to let either side have it. The thought of keeping it never truly crossed her mind; there was no gain in it for her. She already had all the money she could ever want for; she just wanted to have an influence on what was going to happen within the region she lived in.

With her cloak wrapped around her person and her hood hanging low over her face, A’rai was nothing more than a darkened silhouette upon the barren landscape, much as the caravan was to her vision. Leaning forward, she ran her gloved hand along the neck of her steed Firnin, receiving a snort that seemed rather loud in the still quiet covering the land. Then she dug her boots into his sides, spurring him on. His pace slow and steady along the rocks and the dried grass, it gave her eyes time to find that which she required. What she needed was a relatively flat piece of land where she could draw her incantation and safely summon the demon to do her bidding.

[Djakara]

Djakara smiled as he looked at Jame. He smiled like a man with purpose, the kind of smile that likely would have made many other people uneasy. However, he could tell that this Jame was so focused on a singular goal that hardly anything else mattered. Now, Djakara wanted to find out what that goal was. Whatever it was, it was something that the young entrepreneur hoped that it would be something that he could use to his advantage.

He already was expecting Godhand Striker, but despite the rumors he had heard about the mercenary, Djakara was somewhat skeptical if he could rely on him. The impatience of Djakara was making him believe that Godhand should have reached them by now, and the stories he had heard about the mercenary’s power were so fantastic that he was certain that they had to have been exaggerated.

Instead, Djakara was going to work what he considered to be a feasible backup plan. If Godhand Striker arrived, Djakara would keep him employed, and had absolutely no qualms about paying him. Five wagons full of top grade Alerar weaponry left enough profit for him regardless of what the muscular mercenary decided to take with him. But now, he had seen the way that this Jame Whitizard had ran towards the caravan, and he could see, with his own eyes, that Jame possessed far more speed than the average Althanian.

“He could take out at least five of them,” Djakara realized. He smiled politely at Jame and offered him an extra blanket. The quick warrior declined. Djakara nodded.

“So what brings you to Salvar?” he asked. “You don’t look like most of the people we encounter with the Civil War? Why do you need to get to Raiaera? Is it that much safer than it is here?”

Djakara could see the mention of the Civil War had surprised Jame, almost as if the warrior had no knowledge of the situation in Salvar. The boy tried to contain his surprise, but he realized now that Jame had no intention of being in Salvar, but had instead, wandered there by accident. “Probably one of those teleportation devices or something,” the boy thought. “They have those all over the place now. He was probably thrown into one by mistake, given the look of him.”

Jame’s reply was quick. “They’ve attacked Raiaera- Xem’zund and his people. I was with Tel Aglarim fighting against them, and someone sent me here for whatever reason. Not sure what, not sure why, but I need to get back to Raiaera, there is still a war too fight there…”

Djakara’s expression was even as he listened to Jame. There were too many things to process in that one statement. Raiaera at war meant only one thing for him: profit. Djakara had no idea who this Xem’zund was, but he didn’t care. Either the Bard Council or Xem’zund would want to buy weapons from him. The things they couldn’t get anywhere else.

With a wry smile, Djakara realized that selling his weapons in Raiaera might be much easier than selling them in Corone. Raiaera was much closer, and Djakara figured it would be easier to book passage on a ship. The more he could cut down on his transport costs, the greater the profit would be for him. Plus, he wondered if he could secure this Jame’s loyalty just by promising that the weapons would arrive in Raiaera. It seemed to be a winning proposition for him.

“I’d like to make an offer to you,” Djakara said. “I have these weapons from Alerar I’m supposed to be bringing to Salvar, but I don’t want them to go there. The Civil War here is not worth the effort. However, your Raiaera is. This Xem’zund needs to be stopped. Problem is, I only have some of the people in this convoy supporting me. Everyone in this wagon does, but outside of the drivers and a dwarf in the second wagon, I don’t have that much support. This is where I need your help. Kill, incapacitate as many people as possible, capture those that need be, we just need to make sure that this convoy reaches Raiaera, alright?”

Djakara smiled. He could see Jame’s face lighting up as he spoke.

(Judge, please consider all posts by Djakara and Call me J to be cowritten)

[Call me J]

Jame was overjoyed at the proposition. He had barely taken the time to warm up before he noticed the crates marked as weapons that were all around him. Though Jame knew better than to say anything about it out loud, his mind had already begun to churn about how he could get them for Raiaera. Now, it seemed that Djakara was thinking the same thing. “It’s good luck I met you,” Jame said as he clasped Djakara’s hand during their handshake. “Very good that I met you…”

The half dragon looked out from the back of the wagon at the next series of wagons. With four wagons, he imagined it couldn’t be much harder than the undead. While the half dragon was rarely militaristic, the boon of Aglarlin that was still fresh in his body made him want to use his power. Arrogance had caused him to be tossed into Salvar, but that was a mistake that he could now make amends for. He knew it was only academic how many of the undead he managed to kill. Xem’zund was capable of reanimating them, and given what Jame knew about the Forgotten One’s motives, he probably would. Weapons, however, might just give Raiaera the edge they would need when Xem’zund turned on Anebrilith or Valinatal, whatever his next target was going to be.

“So we have a deal then,” Djakara said. Jame nodded. With that, Djakara moved up to the wagon’s dwarven driver, and whispered a few words in his ear. A few seconds later, the entire convoy came to a halt.

There was the beginning of a panic in the air. Jame could sense it, and he could tell by the excitement emanating from Djakara that the boy was as well. The half dragon just followed his young coconspirator as the two of them stepped down from their wagon and moved towards the second one in the convoy. The buzz of confusion emerging from most of the guards was almost deafening, but somehow, Djakara managed to speak above it all.

“This is a mutiny!” he said. “Salvar has no need for these weapons when its own hubris has caused its problems. We’re taking them to Raiaera- for profit. If you want to get paid, listen to me and do what I say. Otherwise, you’re welcome to resist, but see where that gets you.”

Jame watched, impressed with the way the entire situation was going. He saw as a group of four guards walking by the second caravan fired their crossbows. Immediately, the half dragon grabbed Djakara and hit the floor. Once he had ensured the bolts had passed him, he let his skin transform so that he was covered with dragon scales. Then, without another moment’s hesitation, he leapt forward. With his enhanced speed, he was little more than a blur, and the sidekick that he had planted upon the first of the guards had occurred before the soldier had even had the chance to reload his weapon.

With one on the ground, Jame took care of the other on the left side just as quickly. Without even reaching for one of his weapons, the half dragon pulled the crossbow out from the guard’s hands before the poor soldier had even had a chance to fire a second time, and then, after a quick kick to the gut, Jame slammed the guard to the ground.

The half dragon was showing some mercy in his attacks, primarily because he could afford to. Four guards watching a caravan weren’t going to be much of a problem for him now. Even the other two guards that had come around and managed to get off shots didn’t do anything to him. Both of them ricocheted off his dragon scales, and then, Jame was able to lift both of them up by their necks and send them down to the ground with a slam. He had done this so that the guards in the other caravans could see.

“You can help Djakara or fight me!” he warned to the guards by the third wagon.

His threat had no effect. Either by blind patriotism or hubris they still charged towards him, though these guards had eschewed their crossbows in favor of swords. He could hear the sounds of violence coming from the wagons in the back, and he smiled. The weapons would be going to Raiaera soon enough.

(What Jak said)

[Leon Adalbert]

Chaos erupted around the young merchant as several guards from his wagon were knocked out by a silver-haired, dragon-scaled mystery man. One by one, the crossbowmen were subdued, and more Alerarian soldiers rushed into the wagon, swords drawn.

Leon reached for his own blade, fumbling with the pommel before getting it halfway out. Before he could fully arm himself, however, he caught a face full of weathered playing cards, and through the mass of paper, he caught a glimpse of a steel bludgeon flying at his face as it pivoted on a much lower point than expected. "King's crown!" he swore. He barely had time to dodge the blow, tumbling into a large crate with a crash.

Weapons scattered about the floor of the wagon. Pistols, rifles, swords, axes, and small metal balls. The Adalbert boy grabbed at a small flintlock pistol, stuffing a bullet into it as quickly as he could. He swung the firearm around to aim at the diminutive warrior, cocking the hammer as he did. The dwarf was still pulling his own warhammer free from the canvas where it had gotten caught when Leon pulled the trigger. Click! Nothing happened. Cocking and pulling again, his efforts were rewarded with yet another benign click.

"Yer a fool, boy. A gun needs more'n a bullet ta shoot," the dwarf sneered, tossing a small bag at the merchant's son in mockery. "It needs powder ta fire." With that, the warrior struck him about his side with a powerful swing. His breath was thrown from him, and he curled in pain, tears coming unbidden to his clenched eyes. He could say nothing, do nothing, as the dwarf bound him there, leaving the pistol in his hand to remind him of his idiocy.

[Crimson Rose]

Mariah's cloak flew behind her like a lost bird plummeted from its coarse. Her body was shivering as she trudged through freezing winds. She still couldn't believe she had lost her way. Before she had been following a guide, a guide hired specifically to lead her to house where she was supposed to meet a businessman. A businessman who had a bag full of herbs for her to buy. She was supposed to pick these healing items up, then head back to the dock to catch the ferry back to Lavinya.

However, she had failed, her guide had disappeared into some warm tavern, once this icy wind had picked up. She had managed to make it to the tavern, but then she had lost him in the crowd. Now...she had chosen to do something crazy. The red haired lass had tried to find her way to the building where the store was, but she had only gotten lost. Now in the midst of frozen tears and icy blue wind, she was traveling across a cold path that was nearly frozen.

Her eyes were stinging as she held up her un gloved hand, she was trying to see in front of her, but all she saw was a black speck. A black speck that was slowly moving away from the city. Blinking a bit as she saw flashes of light, she thought A caravan...that must be a caravan! I can warm up there!

The red eyed thief then pressed her way forward, pulling her cloak around her to shield her from the cold. As the black dot begin to form into five wagons, she grinned. Heading towards the first one, she waved at the empty driver's seat shouting "Hey! Is anyone there?" When no one answered, Mariah through away her precautions and moved closer. Seeing a young dark skinned boy shouting orders she calls 'Hey! Are you in charge? Can I warm up here?"

When he didn't answer she moved to tap him on the shoulder muttering "Hey did you..." pausing as her elbow brushed against a wooden crate she saw the word Alerar weapons labeled on it. Covering her mouth at this she called loudly "Sir...where are you bringing these weapons?"

[Godhand]

Goddamnit. He hated working with people from outside the organization. The slightest bump or shortest delay and they ended up flipping out and trying to do everything themselves. This of course blew the element of surprise, alerted everybody to their presence and made clear their objective. The dumb bastard hadn't even stabbed anybody or anything. He had just announced their intentions, clear as day. He might as well have grabbed a megaphone and yelled hijackers ahoy.

And then, of course, they swarmed him. Anybody would after that little display. So Godhand, a good forty or fifty yards from the wagon convoy, had to really hustle if he wanted to get there before they brutalized his employer. The mercenary leaped through the air, braving the chilly Salvar winds that only got harsher the farther from the ground he rose. But it was the quickest way to get there and now was no time to play it cool. Not while his Majesty's finest were working out on his current boss.

The compressed and semifrozen road-soil beneath him buckled as he landed from his long leap. The guards didn't notice him; they were all rushing back to the furthest caravan to try and subdue their boss-turned-traitor. This left Godhand with a unique opportunity that he was quick to exploit. The swordsman leaped once more before landing on the back of the front runner, crushing his spine as he landed and driving his limp body into the cold ground with the impact. The remaining guards froze at the vicious attack and their new opponent, deciding against attacking Djakara in light of this new threat.

Godhand calmly stepped off the dead guard's back before entering the Xinyi Lihue Quan - Iron Fist stance, the ground beneath him seeming to shift and complain as he drove his heels into it to solidify his footing. With his center of gravity secured a peculiar aura began to radiate from him, perceptible to all but experienced martial artists only as a sense of sheer menace rolling off of him. The bravest of them attacked first, all noise and fury as he dashed at him; he was brandishing his sword wildly and indicating an obvious vertical slash. But the mercenary was far quicker, instantly taking a short step forward and driving his palm into the soldier's face. Godhand felt the bone crumble beneath his skin and collapse inward before his body even hit the ground.

This scared his companions enough that they took a couple of steps back, but it was too late. Godhand was in far too foul a mood to take any prisoners, especially dark elves. They'd gut him in an instant given half the chance. Besides, he couldn't let them run back to the monarchy to tell them just who it was that ripped them off, now could he? The mercenary jumped forward once more, aiming at another hapless guard. He tried to raise his sword to block the monster, try to get him to cut himself in the fall. But it was no use; Godhand masterfully shifted his center of gravity to alter his position. Instead of a two-pronged missile kick he instead landed with one foot gingerly on the opposite side of his elbow and the other on his shoulder. The man didn't even have time to look up before Godhand drove his chin into his chest with another flat palm strike to the top of the head. The guard swayed for a moment as if unsure and then fell backwards, leaving the gunman on his feet.

Another soldier rushed forward with a sword strike but Godhand was still crouched after his earlier attack and while blocking the overhead strike with a strategically positioned forearm he lunged forward with a savage punch to the man's chest. His heart burst instantaneously. The mercenary ignored the guard's flailing corpse and instead rushed forth once again, shattering yet another skull with a high lateral chop. More blades came forth but he either destroyed them with a single blow or blocked them by pushing them away by their flat sides. Several more spinning kicks and throat strikes later and he was the last man standing amid a small field of dead, completely unharmed. Djakara had taken some men for his part with a bit of help from a mystery contender. Godhand walked forward and paused when he reached his employer, the menacing aura still clinging to him.

"What the Hell is wrong with you!? I thought I told you I was a professional! Thanks to you, I've..." He hissed as he looked at the cadavers behind him, "racked up a huge goddamn body count on what should have been a simple shock-and-awe operation!"

[Dark Temptress]

It seemed rather foolish what she was doing at the moment, and not to mention dangerous. But for some reason instead of feeling the pull of anxiety she felt the rush and the thrill of adrenaline begin to flood through her veins, spurring her further on. It was quite intoxicating like the gentle touch of a lover as he slowly brought you to your peak and left you balancing there for a moment of two, not wishing to relinquish his power over you. And the closer to the caravan she drew, the more the feeling began to seep into her.

With the relatively flat landscape that the Salvar wilderness provided her, the seductress found what she required relatively easy. It was a place where the dirt had hardened greatly in anticipation of the coming winter and the few growing plants sheltered amongst the rocks were nothing more than dried husks of their former selves.

Dismounting from Firnin, A’rai began a slow inspection of the area. Her long black and red skirt brushing against the ground as she moved about, kicking small rocks and ripping out the plants that would get in her way. When she was finished she had a small area that would be just big enough to do what she wanted and the ground appeared to be flat enough that it would not hinder her. If she screwed up though, that demon would break the circle and kill her within an instant. Of course, she did not plan on making any mistakes. She never did when it came to summoning, not unless it was on purpose.

Glancing to her right, she watched as the caravan came to a stop and felt her brows rise in confusion and surprise. Though the caravan had grown much closer to her, she could still not make out a great amount of detail. Voices carried on the wind as two figures emerged from the front caravan, but the words were far too mangled by the time her ears could catch anything more than the basic sound of what had been. Curious, she watched for a few moments longer as what appeared to be a battle quickly ensued. The one figure was throwing around the others as if they were rag dolls and then from nowhere came someone else. He ripped right through them and though A’rai could not be sure, she had the distinct feeling that everyone he came in contact with was utterly and irrevocably dead. Perhaps it was the way their bodies hit the ground. It was not the haphazard form of someone unconscious, but the skewed position of someone who no longer cared how they landed.

Where can I summon one of him? She thought with a smirk.

Turning away from the scene and walking over to her horse, she ran her fingers along his dark brown coat as her hand sought the satchel attached to his saddle. Once she had retrieved it, she quickly opened it and grabbed two things, a stick of white chalk and a book. The book was old, bound in leather that was worn around the edges and especially the corners. The spine was beginning to deteriorate and if it wasn’t for the fact that the name was embroidered into the front cover, it would have worn off long ago. It was the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum a book that Markus had in his library, hidden in the secret rooms that Kings and Shadows met in. She had liberated the book from the library the last time they had met and she highly doubted that Markus even realized it was gone.

Opening the cover, she took a deep breath as she felt that tingle of promise run up her arms. With great care she leafed through the worn and torn pages, yellowed with age. Some of them were worn passed the point of reading, which was quite disappointing considering the information that this tome concealed within it. Finally, she found the page she was looking for.

Belial…

He was one of her more favoured demons and she had summoned him before. The page contained the proper inscription needed to summon him and a suggestion on what kind of circle she should use. She disregarded it though. A’rai had her own circles and she certainly did not need the one they had drawn in here, it was slightly weaker than those she used to keep the demons at bay. She threw back the material of her cloak, allowing the cool wind to move along her constricting dress and dance across the tops of her breasts, eliciting a slight shiver from her. Her hood followed, dropping to her back, as it would only get in her way.

Kneeling, she held the book in one hand as she began to trace the circle upon the soil, making it no more than three feet in diameter. She would normally make it much bigger than that, but the landscape did not leave her much play. Not to mention the bigger it was out here, the more chance she had of messing it up. Belial’s incantation was relatively simple compared to the others she had done and so it would not take her too long. In fact, it took her less time than she thought. No more than a few minutes later and she had the circle with the inscription completed. To be sure it was correct, she went over it with her against again and again, looking for some kind of break in the chalk or even a misspelled word. But she found none.

Keeping the tome opened, she began reading aloud the ancient words written within it. The air around her shifted and changed and grew heavy with magical energy that flowed through her body and the circle in front of her.

[Djakara]

Djakara had turned to talk to the girl before Godhand, the mercenary he had hired back in Ettermire, came up to him and accosted him. However, the young entrepreneur couldn’t even manage to get a sentence out before being yelled at. Even in the cold winter of Salvar, Djakara could feel his ears going red. He was genuinely embarrassed, an embarrassment that was made that much more acute by the fact that an eighteen year old girl had been paying attention to him.

The fact was, even though he hadn’t even wanted to admit it to himself, he was in over his head. He had hired Godhand, a single mercenary, in Ettermire to have him deal with five wagons. True, he had a few other allies in there to help him, but for the most part, he had not gotten a large enough force to join him. Jame Whitizard had fallen into his lap, and grateful for providence, Djakara had taken the man up on his offer. However, their victory was not a matter of skill, it had been one of good fortune.

Now, he stumbled for some way to explain himself. “You’re later than I thought you’d be,” Djakara began. This was a lie, Godhand had arrived roughly right when Djakara had wanted. The young entrepreneur had wanted to get clear of all the big Salvarian cities and make his move in the wasteland, and that was what Godhand had done. Still, now that he was being dressed down in front of others, he wanted to defend himself. Jame had returned also, and Djakara hated to think that both of his enforcers would now think badly of him.

“Well, regardless of whose fault this is, we aren’t done yet,” he said. “We’re going to have to get a bunch of things done.” Eager to get moving, Djakara began to give a new series of instructions, though these instructions were not just for Godhand, but everyone involved.

“We’re going to need to get these weapons to Knife’s Edge,” he said. “ We get them there, and then That’s the only way we get paid, not if we in fight amongst each other. Jame and Godhand, I want the two of you to make sure that everything is going fine in the wagons back there. Make sure they have enough people to continue on, and then we’ll start moving. As long as none of the drivers are injured then we should be fine. We’ll still have to worry about the church, but the baronies here are too disorganized. If you need, take any of the weapons for the job, there’s more than enough to go around.”

With that, Djakara finally turned his attention to the girl. He had wanted to speak with the red haired teenager the moment he laid eyes on her, not only because she was attractive, but because she was also his age. The young Frieherr hated having to deal with so many people older than him, all of whom were eager to criticize him for his faults. Now, he figured he had someone his age, someone likely to be impressed by how far he had gotten in such a short time.

“We’re weapons dealers here,” he said. “And I’m the one in charge. You’re pretty brave if you’re going to walk up to a fight just like that, if you want, go sit in the first wagon and talk to the driver Brownstone, he’ll give you anything that you need. Just tell him you were sent by Freiherr Djakara Fraye.”

With that, Djakara figured he could talk to the red haired girl more later. There was one last issue he needed to deal with first. He had sent Godhand and Jame to take care of the three wagons in the back, but there was a man named Leon Adalbert that he wanted to handle personally. Unsure of whether the red haired girl would listen to him or follow he made his way over to the second wagon and entered it.

The young Freiherr smiled, Leon had been subdued. “When he wakes, let him know what the situation is,” Djakara told the dwarf. “We’ll give him one chance to join us, but if he doesn’t, I’ll let you decide what to do with him. He seems a principled man, so let him know that plans have changed and we’re taking the weapons to Raiaera now. They’re undergoing an attack from some Xem’zund and there is bound to be people there willing to pay more than Corone…”

The dwarf nodded.

“Well with that settled, it’s on to profit,” Djakara declared.

[Leon Adalbert]

With a groan, the dirty-blonde stirred and stretched out. Rather, he would have, if two factors didn't prevent him. First, his ribs were sore and bruised from the beating he had taken, and any such movement would have caused him terrible agony. Second, he couldn't move anyway, so tightly had he been bound by the dwarf.

His hands were tied together at the wrist, and his arms were bound to his sides by a single rope wrapped tightly around him. He might have wriggled out of the latter binding, but for his current handicap. One thing was strange, however. The gun still lay in the merchant's right palm, where he had held it when he tried to shoot his now-captor between the eyeballs. Balanced on his chest, and out of his reach, sat a bag of gunpowder, as if to mock the young man for his stupidity in the heat of the moment.

"A' las', yer awake," came a growl from behind and above him. With clomping steps, the grizzly dwarf from before came into view, strangely enough, towering menacingly over Leon. "Here be th' deal, lad. This shipment isn't goin' ta Knife's Edge annehmore. Th' first plan were ta take 'er ta Corone, ta fuel th' civil war there, but even that ain't happenin' now." He picked at his scraggly beard as he surveyed his captive's response while he explained the situation. "We be headed fer Raiaera now. There's a pow'rful mage there named Semsa-...Sendzu-...ne'ermind 'is name. 'E's tryin' ta take o'er tha country wit' an army o' tha dead. We're goin' ta sell these 'ere weapons ta the bards ta fight this whojamacallim."

He paused and picked up the gun from Leon's hand, loading it properly and pointing it at Leon's head before he continued. "I here tell ye got a good head on yer shoulders, lad. I also here ye got uncommon charm to ye, and yer tha heir to a trade comp'ny. Ye can 'elp us, and share tha profit, or ye can fergit all o' that inher'tance." He cocked the hammer with a deafening click. "What'll it be, lad?"

Through the entire speech, Leon lay there listening intently, trying to figure out the best way to make it out of this alive and, better yet, live to profit from it. He hated to break a deal, but this necromancer, if unchecked, might turn next to Alerar, and then what? He'd be out of a home, probably dead, and if not that, incredibly poor and on his own in a harsh world. Besides which, the dwarf had made it clear that, should he not accept, he would have a little ball of metal lodged in the back of his brain.

There was only one thing to say. "How much for my assistance, good dwarf?" he asked, smiling.

[Crimson Rose]

Brave...I don't know about brave... Mariah thought nervously, as she listened to the dark skinned youth's voice. More like frigid...and I desperately wanted to get out of the cold. If, I had my choice. I would have kept on moving until I reached a safe house. At least...there I would have found someone I could trust....I don't even know this boy.....how can I be sure...he won't do anything... biting her lip, Mariah tried to resist the urge to leave the warmth of the wagon.

Her heart was telling her to get out, leave before she got herself hurt; but her brain was saying something entirely different, her mind was telling her to stay and not risk the cold. Starting to chew nervously on her lower lip, Mariah's eyes studied the dark pair that briefly looked at her. He was handsome...in an innocent sort of way, with his dark hair and soft eyes. His voice was strong too, similarly his stance and authority reminded her of Seth.

Pain was tingling slightly on her tender lips, as she released her teeth from them. A sigh escaped from her mouth as she thought If I can trust Seth....then I can trust him. I don't think he'll hurt me.

With her mind made up, Rose gave the boy a slight smile, in a soft voice she murmured "First off, I am Mariah, and second I have a proposal for you. If I help you with this weapons trade...I want a cut. I won't do this for free." She then moved to make her way towards the first wagon. A slight smile on her face as she felt confident for once.

As she traveled over the cold ground toward's the driver's seat of the wagon she shivered. The wind had grown colder, as if a storm was fast approaching. Wrapping her cloak to guard herself from the freezing winds, she soon spots a short dwarf leading four horses. Moving to sit next to him she smiles wearily at him saying "Hi...I'm Mariah, Djaraka Fraye sent me to sit with you.

"Ah lass welcome. I am guessing your another hired hand for this weapons deal?" The dwarf said in a low voice.

Mariah nodded as she settled herself down on the wooden seat. Her eyes traveled slowly to the four chestnut horses. Their manes gleamed against the frigid climate. She could see their breathe as they plodded along the frozen path. Looking at them she softly asks 'Are they used to long travels?"

Brownstone nodded as he said gruffly "Yes they are. Don't worry your pretty head. They'll get us to where we are going."

Mariah nodded as she pressed the soft material of her cloak closer to her body. She felt nervous around all these men. She hoped that she'd be able to get to a safe house safely, and that no harm would come to her. As she looked over the caravan wagon, her eyes counted at least two other men aside from Djaraka. Beginning to chew again on her lower lip she thought worriedly I hope I'll be ok.....and that I didn't get myself into something that I can't get out of....

[Godhand]

If he hadn't seen it with his own fucking eyes he wouldn't have believed it. He had tried to slap some sense into the kid, let him know that this was a job and that like any other job it needed to be completed quickly and efficiently with as many unforseen variables avoided as possible. And yet there he was, not two minutes after Godhand had told him what was who he was chatting up some broad that had just walked up to the scene of a horrible massacre and asked for shelter like that's what made sense. And lord, the flirting. The gunrunner had just witnessed a dozen people murdered in cold blood and yet he was still ready and willing to get intimate with some strange girl. Fucking teenagers.

And then, yes, we're weapons dealers. Why don't you come on in? Godhand couldn't believe his ears. Why didn't Djakara just say yes, we're commiting a war-crime on both Alerar and Salvar. We're shouldering all of the considerable risk but please, take a nice big cut out of the whole thing. I don't mind. If he hadn't been paid to protect the wagons and as an irritating aside his employer as well, the mercenary would be beating him across the neck and shoulders with the nearest blunt object. But, and though he was a filthy Goddamn cretin for recruiting help in the middle of the mission itself, at least he'd managed to lure in a capable warrior. The churchies around here...They didn't attack one at a time. They swarmed you like frenzied insects and though Godhand was tough, a nest of hornets could still kill a lion. It was nice to have somone watching his back. Still, he needed to make sure the new guy knew what was what.

"You! What was the kid's first mistake?"

"He brought me in without asking anyone."

"Good answer. I'm glad to know at least one of his employees besides me isn't an idiot."

Godhand walked forward and shook the new mercenary's hand. The swordsman had seen him work out of the corner of his eye; not as strong as him but fast. That counted for a lot in this business. You could wear size 30 boots and punch harder than the devil but if you couldn't get close enough to lay someone out before they got an arrow off then you might as well be four feet tall and still have your baby teeth.

The mercenary turned out to actually be pretty sharp for his age. Knew how the game was played at least, and that was good enough for now. Godhand went from wagon to wagon checking to see how many dead there were and what kind of losses they had suffered. There had been none despite their leader's outburst, which suprised him but was pleasing all the same. After he had finally gotten rid of the bodies and sat up front in the leading wagon Godhand told the rider to get moving.

It was a long way to Knife's Edge.

[Call me J]

Jame was glad that he spoke with the older silver haired mercenary. They had yet to exchange names, and the half dragon still thought he was far more reliable than Djakara. Had this been a mission he was undertaking for profit, Jame would have had no objections about taking what he could carry and leaving. However, after what had happened in Eluriand, Jame knew he couldn’t afford to do that. There was far too much at stake here, the weapons needed to help in the fight against Xem’zund.

Once everything had been settled and the wagons were moving again, Jame made his way to the first wagon. From the talk they had had, Jame had got the impression that if someone was going to speak to Djakara it would have to be him. The silver haired mercenary had either made his peace or was content to stew in his anger. With that, Jame made his way up to the first wagon, where Djakara was continuing to chat up the red haired girl.

“Oh hell… that’s where his mind is now,” Jame thought irritably. He knew Djakara’s look well, for he had wore it many times himself. Normally, the half dragon wouldn’t have had a problem with it. It was less than an hour ago that he was flirting with Maia in the Schools of Magic in Eluriand. However, now, the situation was out of control. Djakara hadn’t really even checked up on anyone, and he was supposed to be the leader.

The two of them were in the wagon, talking to each other. Djakara was offering her a blanket, and whatever they were saying, it had absolutely nothing to do with getting weapons to Knife’s Edge. Jame could tell it by the slight, meaningless lilt that had appeared in Mariah’s voice when she laughed. Their conversation was meaningless.

“Djakara, I need to talk to you,” Jame called out. Djakara paid no mind. Jame shouted it again, only to be ignored once more. With that, Jame started to move more purposively, putting his anger into his walk as he climbed up into the wagon.

Once he was in the wagon, Jame tapped Djakara on the shoulder, but he was brushed off again.

“Just a minute!” Djakara complained, with his voice more resembling a child’s whine than that of a leader. The younger boy pushed Jame’s hand away.

“It’s something important…” Jame threatened.

Djakara only replied with, “I’m talking to Mariah.”

At that point, Jame decided he’d had enough. He took a step back, only to break into a light run. Before either Djakara or Mariah realized what he was doing, Jame’s forearm had caught Mariah in the throat, knocking her to the ground. He looked over her as she lay there fallen, the wind knocked out of her. “We can talk now,” he said darkly to Djakara.

Initially, Djakara was too surprised to say anything, but within seconds he managed some stammers and a single protest. “But she-”

That was when Jame cut him off. “For the sake of the Mya above, there’s a time and place for the women. If you’re smart about this, you’d impress her by actually doing something. Way you’re talking now, she’s running off with me or silver hair before this is through. Probably me, he’s too old, even after I gave her the short clothesline. Thing is, girls aren’t going to like you if you flirt around while Eluriand burns.”

Djakara was still angry, but he seemed willing to mollify Jame now, perhaps only because he had no other choice.

“What did you want?” Djakara asked.

“You’re losing your men…” Jame replied. “They don’t respect you, especially that silver haired man, the older one.”

“You mean Godhand?”

“Yeah,” Jame replied. “I guess. Silver hair, more ornery than I am?”

Djakara nodded. “Well, leave that business to me,” he replied indignantly, finally finding his spine again.

Jame just shrugged as he hopped off the wagon to go back and guard the rear. “It’s your funeral,” he warned as he left.

(bunny of Mariah approved by Crimson Rose)

[Dark Temptress]

As the last of the words were lost to the wind, the stench of sulphur began to permeate the air. Strong and choking, it filled her lungs with the disgusting smell, nearly making her gag and more than once lose her breath. No matter how many summonings she did, she never grew accustomed to the smell of rotting eggs that always accompanied a demons entry. She didn’t know why and she had never bothered asking, but she assumed it was residual energy from the transfer from their realm to her own. Perhaps some day she should question it, but today was not that day.

The summoning was far less dramatic than most, but it did the job. Within the circle a small fog began to emerge, dark purple in colour. It obscured the light and allowed nothing to penetrate inside, not even her eyes. It lasted for only a few moments, unchanging within the circle as the elements outside of it made no effect at all. And then it dissipated with a strong gust of wind that billowed her cloak around her body and made her wrap her arms around herself seeking just a little more heat. As her forest green eyes watched the fog shift away, she gazed upon the familiar form of Belial.

He had a basic humanoid shape with a few major differences. He was nearly seven feet tall and he had a set of obsidian horns upon his head that curled back over his black hair. Upon his muscular shoulders was another set of three spiked growths of bone that protruded upwards from his skin, skin that was black and coloured in crimson markings that quite possibly meant something to his kind but nothing to her. At the end of each one of his fingers was a long, claw that she knew was sharp enough to cut easily rend flesh and though he looked a bit on the small side for someone so tall, he was packed with muscle.

“Nice to see you again, Belial.” A’rai said with a smile.

“The pleasure is all yours, humans.” He grunted in a voice that sounded almost layered. He was so magnificent compared to the lowly shadow demon that she had summoned to kill that Priest.

“Now, now… no need to be testy and rude. I thought we’ve come farther than the whole demon and human thing.” She gave him a pretend pout that she knew he would see right through.

He growled the next words at her as he moved to the very edge of the circle, unable to actually leave it. “If you told me your name, maybe I could call you by that instead.”

She smirked as she took a step closer but didn’t dare enter the circle. If she were to so much as cross within an inch of those lines, he would rip her to pieces without a moment’s hesitation. “You of all people know just how powerful a name can be… don’t you, Belial?”

He snarled and barred teeth far too long and far too sharp at her, raising his fist and smashing it against the unseen force that surrounded him.

“No need to get all upset,” A’rai said to him as she began moving around to the other side of the circle. He turned his body with her and surveyed the area around him, as if realizing for the first time that she had summoned him outside and not within the chambers of Kings and Shadows. “I give you the choice of spreading your wings and using those muscles of yours.” He remained silent as she watched his eyes greedily drink in the Salvar wilderness. Apparently demons trapped in other realms just didn’t get to see very much of Althanas.

“Do you see that caravan over there?” She pointed, he followed and nodded his head with a confirming grunt. “I want you to tear it and all the people inside of it apart. Any way you want to. Have some fun, Belial and remind me why you’re my favourite.”

The scowl that had been looming over his angular face turned into a rather pleased grin. With a bow of his head, he disappeared leaving nothing but a faint mist in his wake that quickly went with the wind. Turning her eyes from the circle to the caravan, she watched as it began its move towards Knife’s Edge once more. Whatever had taken place upon it she didn’t know and didn’t care to know. Everyone would be dead soon and the shipment of weapons destroyed.

Following her orders, Belial appeared before the first of the five caravans, his form drastically standing out amongst the landscape. Though she could not see the details of his face from here, she knew he would enjoy this greatly. Without wasting a moment’s time, the demon called forth a large spear made completely of flame that he threw towards the four steeds pulling the caravan along.

[Djakara]

Though Djakara was looking back angrily towards Jame when the demon appeared, the sudden force with which Brownstone pulled the wagon to a stop alerted him to what was coming. “Damnit lad, a fire spear!” the dwarf said, running to the back of the wagon for cover.

Djakara didn’t have the time to worry about Jame or Mariah for a moment as he prepared to fend off the fire spear heading towards the horses. Immediately, he waved his hand, creating a shield of electricity over the horses. The fire shield collided with it and within seconds, the fire dissipated. Djakara smirked. “Took care of that,” he said, almost as if to imply that Jame and Godhand weren’t the only fighters involved with the convoy.

Though the boy took one last look at Mariah lying on the ground with the wind knocked out of her and decided that she would be fine. Instead, he had decided that he was going to fight this demon himself, if that was what the demon wanted. He picked up his personal bow, a weapon that he had taken from a vampire in Underwood, and pulled back on the bow string.

Though Djakara had not knocked an arrow into the weapon, a bolt of electricity soon appeared where an arrow was supposed to be. Figuring that he was speaking not only to intimidate the demon, but to get his team’s respect back, he didn’t call for any help, even though he didn’t doubt that all the warriors from the caravan had already taken their arms. Now, Djakara didn’t consider them allies, but as witnesses he was going to win back with his valor.

“You picked the wrong caravan to mess with!” he said. “I don’t care if you support the church or state, you’re not getting anywhere near these weapons. I have staked my reputation and my life in the pursuit of this task, and no demon is going to get in my way!”

Djakara smiled. He only hoped that Mariah had got her bearings back so that she could have heard him. With his smile becoming disturbingly more arrogant every second he waited, he finally let go of the bow, only to completely miss his target by a distance of five feet. “Shiiiiiit!”

Belial’s second attack now seemed to come without warning. Djakara had barely lowered his bow before he saw it heading his way. He was frozen, surprised by the deadly accuracy with which the demon’s attack had come his way. It was a quick fireball, and seconds later it hit him and he had fallen down to the caravan floor, embers dancing on his chest as he’d fallen next to Mariah. He was still conscious, and Brownstone immediately began to pat out the flames with a blanket, but still, Djakara realized that he’d failed. Belial was still out there, and someone else would handle him. Probably Godhand or Jame, the two whose respect he had all but lost.

(Bunny of Belial approved by Dark Temptress)

[Godhand]

Godhand was just settling himself in for a long and hopefully quiet ride when out of nowhere the creature had appeared. Big guy; tall. He was a bit thin, though. Most likely a capable lancer or scout but not much for one-on-one fist fights with others of his kind. The horns and spikes were a nice touch, but Godhand knew no bird preened his feathers like that unless he was serious about warding off predators. And topside in the tundra, with no lava or vampires or fellow demons to help the fellow out, that's just what the mercenary was.

And then, of course, came Djakara. He'd impressed Godhand by neutralizing the creature's spear before it could harm their horses and showing that he had more sense than your regular underhanded gunrunner. Nevertheless, all good things must come to an end. His employer had worked himself up into some sort of towering pride frenzy and was now loudly explaining how he didn't need help, how he was a real man etcetera. After the little display with the electric barrier he'd actually earned enough respect from the mercenary that he didn't mind letting him strut some of his stuff, but then he had to throw it all away by missing the demon with his arrow by a good four or five feet. And then the lancer had responded with some hellfire and that was that. The kid was out for the count.

Godhand muttered a curse and with his irritation renewed dismounted from the wagon. The swordsman walked up the demon in no hurry, easily swatting away the minor fireballs the creature summoned forth. Finally he was face to face with the demon, close enough to talk to him. The monster reared back and tried to appear regal or intimidating. Something. He probably expected that the mercenary would try to cut a deal with him and was most likely already rehearsing his haughty response in his head.

"Bit cold out here for your kind, isn't it?"

"How d-"

That was as far as he got. The mercenary had taken a quick step back and then hit Sweet Chin Music on the demon. He was a bit tall so he had aimed for his chest instead, but nearly fell when instead of the satisfying impact and thud he had expected the creature suddenly burst into smoke. Godhand stumbled forward awkwardly but quickly regained his balance by steadying himself with his other foot. Unfortunately this left him right at the center of the cloud of noxious fumes. He flailed his arms while coughing to drive away the sulfurous stench before quickly surveying the area around the wagons. When a demon didn't leave a corpse that meant it had been summoned and that meant somewhere around the convoy there lurked an enemy.

[Leon Adalbert]

Leon rubbed his wrists where the dwarf had bound them. The skin was still sore from the chafing ropes, and his ribs weren't in much better shape. Still, he wasn't tied up on the floor anymore, staring down the barrel of a single shot pistol, and that was good. The caravan was moving again, back on its way to Knife's Edge before going to Raiaera, where much gold was to be had. All things considered, the young man felt rather lucky for this turn of events.

"Say, dwarf, what's your name anyway?" he inquired. "I'd like to know what to call the first of your kind to lay me lower than himself."

"Ye can call me Aafo, lad. An' I'll be lettin' thattun slide. But, boy, you make anudder shor' joke, an' it'll be yer last." The disgruntled dwarf set the gun and two small bags down on the crate between himself and the Adalbert boy, pushing them across to his companion. "An' don' fergit ta load the powder next time, rocks fer brains."

Leon picked up the firearm, looking it over. He hadn't noticed what a nice piece of work the pistol was before, when he haphazardly grabbed it. The steel barrel and handle were encased in a smooth dark mahogany, with a piece of filigreed iron stamped on either side, between the trigger and the hammer. The base of the handle came to a knob, designed to allow it to hang loosely in the palm when not in immediate use, but rather at the ready. The angle of the handle with the barrel was perfect, as well, for comfortable aim by a swordsman, who would be used to holding his hand tilted slightly forward to guard, rather than straight up and down.

"It's a beautiful weapon, Aafo," he said as he tucked it into a narrow pocket inside his jacket. He then reached out and pocketed the two bags, one of bullets, the other the bag of powder that had sat on his chest as he dozed. Just as he did so, the wagon lurched to a halt once more, forcing Leon to catch himself on the crate in front of him before falling backwards into another. He spun around, looking to see what was going on and why they had stopped again.

Some sort of light show was taking place above the horses leading the first wagon, and the Freiherr was shouting something in an overconfident tone before he was struck down by a ball of flame. Ignoring the pain in his chest, Leon leapt over the crate and down onto the solid, if frozen, earth right behind the whinneying workhorses. He drew the loaded pistol, pointing it around as he surveyed the wintry countryside. He spotted the perpetrator just in time to see a large silver-haired man walking up to it. With a single kick to the chest, the horned beast disintegrated in a puff of smoke.

I don't want to get on his bad side, he mused, putting the weapon away.

[Call me J]

Jame had seen the demon but he had decided to let Djakara handle it. He was frustrated enough with the boy that he wasn’t going to put in any particular efforts to help him, especially after the young Freiherr had said he didn’t need any help. Jame suppressed a laugh when Djakara fell back into the wagon, lying right next to his red haired bimbo, but what was even funnier was how handily the mercenary known as Godhand managed to destroy the demon so quickly after.

The half dragon let out a light guffaw, despite the seriousness of the situation. He realized, after he laughed, that it was the first time he’d smiled since he had been teleported into Salvar. Immediately, he began to regret the way he had hit Mariah. She had been acting like a flirt in an important situation, and Djakara had no business bringing her on board, but he felt as though he had been a bit too harsh on her. Djakara, he would have been justified in hitting, but her, he shouldn’t have.

Still, Jame knew there was no way to undo the past. His father had already attempted that, and it had ended up badly for both of them. Plus, if Jame had any regrets, he cared much more about letting Maia down in Raiaera than hitting some slut in Salvar. Godhand might have taken care of the first demon, but Jame feared that there might be others yet to come.

Since he was closest to the second caravan, Jame barked out a few quick instructions at a blonde haired man and a dwarf who were just emerging from the second wagon. “Any more demons come, help Godhand. Take orders from HIM, not Djakara. He’s the one who actually knows what he’s doing out there.” And then, without any more explanation, Jame began his transformation into a dragon. It was a shape that he did not use particularly often, he was somewhat ashamed of his bestial nature that he tried his best to keep it hidden.

Now though, was no time to worry about whether or not he’d win a beauty contest. With a few flaps of his wings that he was careful did not hit the wagons or any of the other mercenaries involved, Jame took off into the sky. He was surprised how fast he flew, but he assumed it had to still be the benefits of Aglarlin magic working for him. He wondered how long they would work in his favor, whether or not he’d have them long enough to get the weapons to where they were sorely needed.

As he flew overhead, he barely noticed a little dot in the landscape. It was the size of a single person, and Jame paid it little attention. If it was just another single demon, then he doubted there was much to fear. The way that Godhand had handily dispatched the first suggested he’d have no more trouble with the second.

Instead, Jame was looking for something bigger. He hadn’t expected the church to assault with demons, and he knew that on their own, there were no creatures of the kind that Godhand had killed that lived in Salvar. Even if there were, they didn’t turn to smoke upon being beaten.

There was something else at work, someone who knew of their presence, and Jame feared the worst.

[Dark Temptress]

No… that’s impossible, that’s impossible!

A’rai watched with utter amazement and shock colouring the soft features of her face as the human dispatched her demon in one simple move. Just one move! Belial had been more than enough to complete some of the more dangerous missions she’d sent him on, but this man, he had merely sent her demon back to the underworld in a matter of seconds. She couldn’t believe it, she didn’t want to believe it. But it was true. One moment he had been doing well enough to please her and the next he let that silver haired freak just walk up on him and land such an attack. Belial didn’t even end up doing any damage to the caravan that could slow it down or hinder it in any way. His fire spear had been blocked by some kind of electrical shielding which been followed by an electric arrow that missed her demon by quite a distance. Clearly there were some rather unskilled warriors in this caravan, but not him. Not this man. If only she could find a demon that would be powerful enough to stop him, but right now she only had the proper skills to summon demons of a relative strength, going beyond that was dangerous. Then again, everything she found herself doing today was foolhardy and dangerous.

Looking down at the chalk drawn circle, the seductress began erasing it by digging the heel of her boot into the semi frozen soil. It wasn’t easy because of how hard it was, but within a moment or to she had the area clear once more and the book was flipped over in her hands. Quickly she began turning the pages, looking for something that would suite her needs and she would need it quickly too, lest the caravan begin it’s move once more and leaving her no time to drawn the necessary incantations and actually begin the spell. She was not going to let this be all for naught.

Finally, something caught her eyes, a demon she had seen in here before but had decided was of too great a strength for her to chance summoning into this world. Now she found herself considering it once more.

Dantalion…

His circle was intricate, simple and yet complex all at the same time and her eyes quickly began memorizing the shapes and the words of the incantation. Kneeling on the hard ground, A’rai began drawing the design upon the soil, her fingers quick yet diligent as they worked their magic upon the ground. A minute or two later, she slowly stood up and stretched out the sore muscles in her legs as she surveyed her handiwork. Her eyes went from the book to the circle and back again a dozen or more times, making sure everything was correct. Thrice she had fixed something small that may have spelled disaster for the summoning and only when she was sure it was perfect did she begin the incantation.

As the last of the words left her lips, once more the circle filled with a dark purple fog that concealed the demons entrance from her eyes. Only after it cleared was she able to look upon Dantalion for the first time. His form was magnificent, perhaps even beautiful in a brutal and savage way to her eyes. Like Belial he too had a myriad of blue markings covering his darkly tanned skin and his horns were much shorter and in a different abundance sweeping back across his temple line and into his short, black hair. He was of roughly the same height, but of a much greater build and his eyes were a deep green that reminded her of the colour of pine trees.

The seductress was only able to note the bone armour covering his left shoulder and upper arm before she felt him press his will against her in such a shocking manner that she nearly stumbled back. Grimacing, she narrowed her eyes upon him and threw her own will towards the demon and for a few moments the two of them merely stood there starring at one another while a battle raged in their minds. There were times when A’rai thought she was about to lose too, but they quickly passed as she renewed her resolve and eventually the demon submitted to her.

“What do you want, human?” The demon snarled at her in a rather rough sounding voice.

There was a lot she wanted, “You to destroy that caravan over there. And don’t disappoint me Dantalion, one of your kind already has and I don’t take too well to disappointment.”

The demon merely continued to glare.

“Go!” She practically snarled at him, something her class shouldn’t do.

Like the demon before him, Dantalion vanished, leaving only a light black mist in the air that was blown away rather quickly. Once she was gone, A’rai pressed her hand to her forehead to alleviate the pressure on her skull. His will had been incredibly strong, she had nearly lost to him and battling him had given her a massive headache.

Down at the five caravans, the demon appeared just a few feet off to the side of the second one. Where before his arms had been empty, they were now replaced with his mythril gauntlets and in his hand was his spear, Adremmelech. Outside the caravan were two people, a dwarf and a human and the demon’s quick and long strides were quickly bringing him towards the two. The dwarf noticed his appearance rather quickly and pulled an axe from around his belt. The demon merely smiled as he used his speed to close the distance between the two of them. His form was nothing more than a blur and before the dwarf could even register that Dantalion was now standing directly in front of him, the spear was already through his chest and out the other side.

A misting of blood permeated the air as more began to drip off the end of his weapon, leaving that wonderful metallic taste in the air that he loved breathing so much. Oh, it had been too long since he had been out of his own dimension and within that of the human’s.

Ripping the spear from the body of the dwarf and allowing it to fall to the hard dirt unhindered, the demon set his eyes upon the blonde man.

[Djakara]

As Djakara lay on the ground, the front of his shirt in smolders because of the flame, it took him a few seconds to remember how to breathe. For a moment, he even considered if he wanted to. The entire operation was falling apart on him, if he hadn’t had Godhand’s respect before, he knew after the demon, he wouldn’t have much of a chance of getting it back.

Still, Djakara’s pride was wounded more than he was, so he knew that he would have to lead. As he sat up, he saw the second demon charging, and though it was heading for the second wagon, he looked at it eagerly. The young Frieherr smiled. There might be some carnage as a result of the attack, but Djakara knew that he had been given a second chance to recover the respect of his men. If a few people were killed and a few weapons destroyed in the process, Djakara thought that was a fair trade.

Now, he knocked his bow a second time, though this time, he promised himself that he wouldn’t miss. He avoided the theatrics as he pulled back his drawstring this time, and the moment that his arrow of electricity appeared in the bow, he fired. This time, the arrow flew true. It wasn’t a perfect hit, but the blow hit the demon in the middle of his right flank. The demon seemed little worse for the wear and barely altered its course, but it was still a direct hit.

Djakara smiled. He dropped his bow and unsheathed his spear scythe and prepared to charge forwards. As he made his way towards the demon, Djakara’s entire body began to hiss and pop as his lightning magic became a light coat covering his body. With determination so great that it caused him to bite his tongue, Djakara moved with an explicit mission.

“Don’t screw this one up,” he told himself. Though determination might have been all that anyone else could see, on the inside, he was little more than a scared little boy. He was practically petrified of what might happen to him if he were to fail, whether or not he’d even make it out alive. He had been in battles before, but he had been in nothing that had compared to this. The only time before he’d really drawn a weapon in anger was in the Citadel, but there, violence was not truly real.

The demon’s next action confirmed how high the stakes were. Before Djakara could have even reached the dwarf to aid him, he had been run through with the demon’s spear. Djakara looked on for a moment, frozen with shock. He saw the way that the dwarf first gagged on his blood, how the eyes suddenly went from shining with fear to blank and glassy, and how the poor creature twitched for a few seconds before finally falling still, a symbol that , in the end, everyone goes gently.

Djakara could practically feel his heart pounding inside him now. He felt guilty about seeing the demon. In the abstract, people dying didn’t frighten him, but they did when it was so close. Now, he didn’t just want to get his standing back, he wanted revenge. Without considering his attack through, the young Frieherr attempted to catch the demon on its right arm, hoping to use the sharp curved edge of his scythe to sever the demon’s arm from his body.

“Leon!” Djakara managed as his weapon flew through the air. “Help!”

(Leon Adalbert, determine the impact of the hit on Dantalion)

[Leon Adalbert]

One second, Leon was scanning the field for any sign of trouble, then the demon was right on top of him, and Aafo lay dead on the ground, a spear through his gut. A bolt of lightning flashed in, lancing into the beast's flank, followed almost immediately by the young Freiherr Fraye. The dark-skinned boy swung a strange scythe-like weapon down at the demon's arm, the blade sinking deep before catching on tightening muscles.

A deep throated rumble issued forth from the monster, and it reached around to swat at Djakara with the spear head. "Leon! Help!" could be heard from the young leader, and before he could think, the merchant's son loosed a round ball of lead directly between the demon's eyes with a deafening shot. The beast screeched in pain before turning his attention again to the dirty-blond pistoleer, and the spear came in again, this time aimed at his own gut with electric fury.

The head lanced past him as he twisted to dodge, though it caught in his leather jacket. A powerful jolt wracked Leon's limber frame as he fell to the ground twitching. His eyes fell on the fallen Aafo. In the end, he stood tall.

That idea firmly in mind, Leon struggled to control the random jerks of his electrified body, pushing himself up as he put the pistol away and drew his rapier. With his blade in hand, he lunged at the hulking beast. He aimed the point of his sword at the spot where it had been struck by the lightning bolt. For his efforts, however, there was little reward. He struck, but to no effect. His sword glanced off the demon's skin as if it were the toughest of armors.

[Crimson Rose]

Ugh...my head...it feels as if a two ton weight was dropped on it.... Mari thought groggily as she saw the canvas bottom of the wagon dancing in front of her eyes. Her body...it felt light...almost weightless...the pain from the blow to her face had traveled quickly to the soles of her feet. Making the thought of getting up difficult. She knew from experience what it was like to be knocked up, getting up was like climbing a very craggy mountain.

But, she wasn't knocked out, she merely was in a great deal of pain. But what had hit her...she had been talking with the dark skinned youth before, and then she had been talking with the short dwarf Brownstone and next she had been lying face first on the wagon floor. Groaning a bit, as with a great deal of effort she pushed herself into a sitting position, she stared groggily at the front of the wagon. It seemed a battle had taken place here, she briefly saw Djarkara lying face down with flames dancing over her chest, before he had risen to protect the horses from an oncoming demon.

Her eyes widened as she murmurs "Shit..." turning swiftly her eyes started to scan the weapon crates, before a sharp stab in her side reminded her of her pain. Rubbing her side, Rose closed her eyes recalling just the moment when she had been knocked out I was talking with Djarkara...trying to make a deal with him...so I could get weapons for the Guild. Then this white haired warrior said he shouldn't be flirting....he should be leading this mutiny...then a man with red eyes...tried to talk to him...I recall his voice...the dark haired youth didn't listen...so the man asked again..and then... her red white flecked eyes darkened with fury, she had been struck...hit by another man.

Grinding her teeth against each other, her mind begin to rage Oh hell no....I won't stand for this...where is that man! I'll kill him! I'll hit back....I swear to god! I won't stand for any man treating me like I'm nothing more then a common slut to be smacked around! With her small fists clenched, Mari whirled away from the weapons crate, her eyes searching for the man with red eyes. All she saw was a dragon circling the skies. The man who had hit her was no where to be found. Making a mental note to give him a piece of her mind when she saw him next, her feet pivoted around and she moved to pry open one of the weapon cases.

Moving aside dark black machine guns, and a few steel pistols, her eyes soon felt the cold metal of swords and daggers. A grin lit her face as her hands touched these familiar weapons. Pulling out twin daggers that were inscribed with an eagle, she tested them in her hands. They seemed to be good solid weapons, made from damascus she could only guess. Taking these out, her eyes soon lit also on an automatic crossbow. A frown lit her face as she thought Daggers..or crossbow? Which would be more efficient? Eh...daggers....I'm better at melee combat...

With her choice made, Mariah gripped the daggers tightly, she then moved off the wagon, her feet landing on the ice cold ground. She eyed the demon warily, her hands tighten on her weapons. If a demon was like a zombie dragon...then she'd have to watch her back.

Moving with the speed of her training, the red haired thief aimed a double slash at Dantalion's chest. The demon barely moved from the slash, its eyes blinking a bit from the tiny bite it had recieved. Barely fazed it aimed one of its large clawed hands at Mariah's belly, the thief was knocked back once more from the strength of the demon's claws.

Screaming as stars struck in front of her eyes once more, Mariah tried to rise whoozily from her slumped position. However, pain answered her efforts as she looked down. Bright red was blossoming from her stomach, the demon had wounded her in near the exact same place the zombie dragon had. Whimpering a bit, Mariah tried to pull her strength together as she thought weakly What is a demon doing here? They don't belong here...ugh..I have to get up...if I don't....this demon is going to kill me...

[Godhand]

"Stop screwing around with those swords and bows! Open the crates and get yourselves a real weapon! Better they get devalued than we killed!"

Godhand didn't understand why Djakara hadn't instructed the guards to switch their standard armaments with their cargo the moment he'd assumed control of the convoy. The young...Let's call him an "entrepreneur", seemed greedy so he had probably been afraid they'd break them by mishandling them or something along those lines. Still, now was no time to be stingy. Even if they somehow managed to compromise every single firearm they used which was statistically unlikely, at least they would live to sell the rest. Besides, when your merchandise is stolen everything is profit.

The mercenary gave up on finding the summoner. He assumed whoever it was had been feeling them out; seeing how they handled the scout. If the convoy appeared weak they would attack, if it appeared strong they would fall back. And though Godhand wasn't usually too cocky, he believed he'd handled the demon with enough ease that whoever had sent him out would at least be discouraged for now. No such luck. It seemed like no sooner than he had dispatched the creature he heard screams from some of the farther wagons.

The mercenary struggled to find a better view only to see their resident dwarf get run through by another one of the things he had just killed. Djakara had bravely rushed it and to his credit actually seemed to do a bit of damage, and luckily one of the soldier's had wised up and used a gun to shoot it in the head. It was a regrettable choice of firearm, however, and the flintlock hadn't managed to do as much harm as he'd hoped. The attack went on and the slight girl from earlier had actually worked up the courage to attack the creature, though she was quickly swatted back. Things looked grim for the entourage engaging the enemy, and what kind of a man would he be if he let his employer die in the middle of a mission?

"ENOUGH!"

Godhand leaped into the air, easily clearing several dozen feet and landing near the monster. His previous shout had gotten his attention, and he had ignored the girl in favor of him. Good; another proud one. With any luck he should be able to finish it quick. The mercenary gestured for the demon to come closer and try to attack him, to which his adversary merely grinned. They began to walk toward the other, a sense of purpose and individual strength radiating from each. Things seemed to become tenser the closer they got as they both readied themselves. Finally, when they were in range they both lunged forward and locked up.

Their hands locked together and their fingers intertwined as each tried to display their dominance, but it wasn't even close to a competition. The demon was a master in many other areas but there was nearly nothing, human or otherwise, that could match strength with the mercenary. His hands instantly crushed the mythril gauntlets and he started to turn up the pressure on the demon's hands, the bones splintering under the assault. The creature roared in pain and collapsed to it's knees as Godhand began to increase the strength he used. He wasn't the fastest and he couldn't use magic, but very few people could stand up and go with him in these conditions.

Dantalion's jaw suddenly tightened and he lowered his head; instantly a wall of stone jutted from beneath their arms and separated their hands. Godhand snarled as he heard the creature gasp in relief from the other side. He decided to make a statement by instead of walking around the relatively narrow wall choosing to burst through it and with any luck surprise the demon long enough for him to strike. The stone immediately gave way to his rush and he attempted to tackle the creature through the dust the crushed stone created. Unfortunately he met no resistance and instead dove into the snow; the demon had already retreated several feet away from him, deciding that attacking him from a distance was probably wiser.

[Call me J]

As the battle with Dantalion raged on, Jame continued his search for the demon’s source. The farther Jame flew, the more he wanted to double back. He saw no signs of demons, or any form of life at all, for that matter, until he reached a giant church. Out in front, there were a number of people, presumably soldiers of sorts, going through basic training. Jame recognized it well. It was similar to the quick version he had been given in Carnelost. There were people working with swords, doing calisthenics, and a few even working on target practice. Even in dragon form, the size of that large of an army was unnerving.

“What the hell could some kind of church want with these kinds of people,” he thought. He decided to swoop in closer to investigate. Though he doubted that a church would be the source of a demon, he had never seen a religious building that had been turned into a place of war before either. While he knew well enough that warrior priests were part of the Ethereal Sway, he knew that the outward focus of the religion had always been towards love.

Jame didn’t want to waste much time, but he really wanted to find the source of the demon. He knew he couldn’t have missed it, the land he had covered had been mostly flat, they were close enough to Knife’s Edge that the weather mage’s aeromancy kept the snow from falling. He flew over the church at a height, flew far enough away not to be noticed, and then flew level to the ground as he waited by the back of the church, for he had noticed there was no one there to detect him. From there, given his big dragon ears, he could hear the shouting going on the other side.

“They bring their armies, but they can’t stop the will of the People! The will of the Ethereal!” a voice boomed. “We have shown them, time and time again, they can’t bring their immoral ways in from the city and have us just accept it. We’re not pigs, so we won’t eat slop! And the city knows that now, so they’ve brought in their friends. I had a vision, brought to me by none other than the Saint himself, and he told me, coming down that road is none other than the devil himself, dressed in the garb of Alerar soldiers, coming to help the city’s cause.”

Jame gulped. He had seen a sizeable force assembled, and while he didn’t know much about the capacity of the soldiers that had been gathered, he assumed that they were at least some kind of a challenge. That they knew about the caravan just made matters worse. The only question left was whether they sent the demons. However, the voice had moved now into empty rhetoric.

“Will we let them?” it cried.

“No!” the crowd boomed.

“Will we take it!” the voice now asked.

“Yes!” the crowd declared.

“Then it is settled,” the voice concluded. “We will launch our attack within the hour.”

There was another roar of approval from the audience, and that was all Jame needed to hear. Deciding that it was worth it to give the people a fright, he made no effort to conceal himself as he rose up from the back of the church. The crowd gasped when they saw him, and save for a holy bolt thrown by the orator, everyone else was too scared to mount an offense. Even the holy bolt fell back to the ground without getting anywhere near him.

This time, Jame flew purposefully. He knew now that it had to be the woman who was responsible for the demons. He transformed back into his human form shortly before reaching her, in hopes that he might catch her by surprise. However, a few seconds before he reached the woman, he came up with a test that would determine whether or not she was really behind the summoning.

When Jame approached her, he put on his most noble face. “Miss,” he began. “It is not safe out here, there have been demons. The church nearby is a safe place, where you can go and be protected. I was sent here to make sure that you’re safe. Please, come with me.” The half dragon was surprised with how innocent his voice sounded as he spoke, impressed that he was able to act that well and be that incredibly cunning. “It’s for your safety,” he insisted with faux earnestness.”

[Dark Temptress]

A’rai spun around at the sound of the soft voice. She had been so busy going through the satchel on the side of Firnin that she had not heard nor seen anyone approach and for once the look of surprise on her face was completely genuine. At first she thought it was one of the warriors who had somehow spotted her and come to kill her to get rid of Dantalion, but his words apparently spoke otherwise. He spoke of demons, he spoke of safety and he spoke of a church nearby that could shelter her. It all seemed very well and good, the only problem was he was lying and she wasn’t sure if that calmed her fluttering heart or made it beat even faster. It took a liar to spot a liar and sadly he may be good at lowering his voice and making it sound gentle and comforting, and his face may be twisted into something calm and quite handsome, but his eyes gave him away. And his body language as well, he seemed a little too tense for a man merely speaking to a lady.

Who is he and what does he want?

He was not with the church and even if he were she wouldn’t go with him. The seductress and the church did not get along that great, even though she could put on her façade and pretend to practice their religious bullshit as best as any of them.

For a few seconds the two of them stood there in silence as she merely surveyed him, not sure what to do. The most likely case was that he was from that convoy down below and though he was lying to her, he might not yet know that she was the one who had summoned the demon. He was probably testing her somehow, gauging her reaction and then judging for himself if she had any involvement in this. The problem was if she left her circle and it was destroyed, Dantalion would immediately go back to the demon underworld and she would have to risk summoning someone else. She could not summon the same demon immediately after he had been dismissed, it didn’t work. The circle could be perfect and the incantation precise, but nothing would happen. Demons too needed time to recuperate from their wounds.

Playing off the surprised look that was already marking her features, A’rai tried to formulate some kind of plan quickly within her mind. She was at a loss though.

“Demons? Near to here?” She kept her voice soft, but sounding worried. As if she were genuinely concerned for her own safety, as if she weren’t controlling the demons. “I understand, you may lead me to the church then…”

She took a few steps towards him, closing the small distance between them. If she were lucky, his eyes would not stray from her and he would not notice the chalk pattern upon the ground, the one that was a few feet to her right. He was rather handsome looking, and if the situation were different she probably wouldn’t mind manipulating him in a completely different way. But it was not of her favour today. One of her demons had already been beaten and possibly killed and now she couldn’t even check on the progress on Dantalion, though she assumed he was doing much better. And now this stranger.

When she reached his much taller frame, she allowed a small, polite smile to gently pull at the corners of her lips. Then without warning she brought her knee up into the stranger’s groin a hard as she could. A’rai may not know how to fight, but every woman knew of that particular weakness that all men had and though it was a part of their body she usually preferred not to injure, she didn’t exactly have a choice right now.

Her knee slammed into his groin and she watched the look of shock and pain cross over his face as he almost doubled over.

“Sorry, but I’m not going anywhere with you.”

Turning her back on him, the seductress turned to move towards her horse. Maybe she had something she could tie him up with, she would prefer not to have to kill him. Death could be so very messy and exhausting. It was best to merely keep him alive and release him once this whole thing was over with, once those weapons had been destroyed.

[Djakara]

As Djakara’s weapon cut into the demon, he couldn’t help but smile a bit. A poke with the spear followed, but this time Djakara was ready for a counter attack. He pulled his spearscythe away from the demon and let Mariah come in undetected and try to get her blows in. Uncourageously, he let her face the demon on her own rather than jumping in to intervene, hoping that Leon’s blow would have been enough to let him regain his faculties before getting back into the fray. There were too many emotions and ideas running through the Freiherr’s young brain for him to process them all at the same time, forcing him to grasp desperately at straws.

Instead, Djakara wanted to settle down, make better use of his thoughts and skills. The electric barrier around his body began to fade. There were a couple final crackles, but then it disappeared completely. Djakara heard Godhand mention something about opening through the crates, and instead of being angry, he felt foolish. It wasn’t that he was trying to maximize profit, the young entrepreneur had been so pleased with the potential margin that he hadn’t hesitated in adding more people to the group, let alone concern himself with how much they would cost. Instead, the reason he had never told anyone to open up the crates was that he had forgotten to suggest it, and his men, most much more loyal than Godhand, lacked the nerve to suggest it themselves.

“One more reason to blame myself for Aafo’s death,” the young Freiherr thought solemnly. He swore that moment that he wouldn’t let his focus linger any longer. He was going to be focused singly on his goal. He realized now why Jame had been so angry and had taken it out on Mariah, there was too much at stake. He had sensed the half dragon’s desperation over the plight of the Raiaerans, why was it that he had failed to feed off it? Solemnly he bit his lip and prepared himself for another attack.

Godhand seemed to be holding his own in melee combat, and Djakara worried that another person in so close would do nothing but confuse the situation. Between himself and Adalbert, the Freiherr knew he was much better equipped for ranged warfare. He didn’t know enough about Mariah, in their earlier discussions that had not been one of the subjects broached. Now, he focused his energies on creating one of the more powerful attacks he had ever managed, as a large ball of electricity began to shine in his hand. He looked at it greedily for a few seconds, confident that, if targeted well, it could score a direct hit.

With no hidden agenda anymore, Djakara knew he had to be careful not to hit Godhand. The veteran mercenary and demon were locked up quite closely, and the Freiherr didn’t want to risk an attack that would cripple his most reliable soldier.

Suddenly, it dawned on him that Jame was nowhere near. Djakara wondered if the half dragon had abandoned him in his disgust, but he quickly dismissed those fears because he knew he needed a singular focus if he was going to find his opportunity to throw his projectile without hurting his ally.

Soon, he had his opportunity. Godhand’s strength had been too much even for the demon to overcome, so Djakara took advantage of this and threw his electric ball. Dantalion, however, was quick enough to dodge. It took a bit of creative side stepping, but the demon was able to mostly avoid the attack. Djakara cringed. He had so desperately hoped for a hit.

As he looked on dejectedly, Djakara's eyes met with that of Dantalion. Though the demon didn't utter a word, Djakara could tell from the look in the creature's eyes that it meant to say, the moment it was done with Godhand, he would be next.

[Leon Adalbert]

His last attack having been completely ineffective, Leon decided to try and avoid the demon's attacks for the time being to reload his pistol. This was made much easier by the large mercenary named Godhand, who took over the fight to grapple with the beast, easily overpowering it. The merchant took the opportunity to slip into the cover of a wagon, leaning against the canvas as he sheathed his blade and took his gun in hand, pouring a little bit of gunpowder in before pushing a small ball of heavy metal into the mouth of the weapon.

His sidearm readied, he popped his head out from behind the canvas screen, his arm following as he took careful aim at his target. Watching for an opening in the demon's defenses that was unlikely to be blocked by the strongarm, Leon stepped down slowly onto the ground again. One shot, yet again, he reminded himself. Gotta make it count.

Then a wall of stone shot up between the two combatants, separating them while the nearly defeated outsider retreated several long steps, preparing for a ranged assault on his opponent. Leon cocked the hammer, aiming for the beast's already injured and strained shoulder. Now or never. Squeezing the trigger, he prayed to whatever gods would listen that this shot wouldn't be wasted.

[Godhand]

The whole caravan, especially the areas closest to the battle, were a swirl of color and activity. Rocky brown, electric blue and gunpowder black. All through the wagons the Freiherr's hired hands were scrambling to find a useable weapon within the crates, hoping that whatever they were shipping was powerful enough to topple the behemoth. With any luck they'd find something, but the mercenary wasn't counting on it. If they wanted to vanquish the demon and move on, something had to be done here and now. Godhand crouched and readied himself for the summoned creature's attack, his heels dug into the ground and ready to pounce at any second. A vicious smile crept it's way unto his features.

He loved to fight.

The monster sweeped his arms methodically in some sort of kata, his expression having turned from glee at the opportunity to take their lives to outrage that they had managed to cripple him. Godhand could feel the air change around him and the ground shift almost imperceptibly around him. The demon seemed to be in deep concentration; whatever he was preparing was big. He was never afforded the chance to unleash his magic, however, as their employer hurled an impressive ball of lightning at it. Dantalion was forced to break his stance to dodge it or risk getting vaporized. It turned to Djakara and raised it's arm, a row of stone spires springing from the snow and lining up behind him. The tips seemed to be aimed at Freiharr and the wagon's themselves, ready to impale them. But it wasn't given the chance to use them either as Leon sprang up from behind one of those very wagons and landed a bullet right in the monster's shoulder. It roared and retreated a couple of steps, but that had been the beginning of the end for it.

All of it's momentum had been neutralized. Godhand rushed forward and before Dantalion could gather the presence of mind to summon a spike to impale him or a wall of stone to block him off, the mercenary had already reached it. The swordsman drew his arms close to his chest before executing a high-angle double palmed thrust that launched the beast into the air. He instantly caught it by it's ankles and poured all his might into slamming it to the ground. It burst into smoke the moment it's back reached the stone. This time Godhand rolled face first into the snow after his inertia was displaced, having nothing to steady himself with. He slowly pulled himself up, bits of ice and snow dotting his face. The mercenary wiped them off on his sleeve with no small measure of irritation and scanned the countryside once more.

Someone had to pay for this.

[Call me J]

Jame cringed for a moment. His hands had been seconds too late to save him from what was a very painful attack. Still, he managed to stay on his feet, though it took him a few seconds of deep breaths before his mind could center on anything other than the pain. The half dragon was just happy that the blessings of Aglarlin had come with an increased pain tolerance. However, the only advantage that it had given the woman was a chance to get to her horse and grab some rope. Jame smiled. She had given him just what he needed to tie her up.

“I’d have had to tear off the bottom of her dress…” he thought. “Shame really…”

With that, he leapt into action. Jame moved as quietly as possible, hoping that the woman would still think that he was knocked out from her blow. Once he was behind her, he quickly grabbed a hold of her neck and sent her crashing down to the ground. The rope fell out from her hands only to end up caught by the half dragon. With that, he began working on the woman’s legs, smirking as she shouted and insisted that he had no right to treat nobility that way. He tied her legs together quickly, and then, in a subtle stroke of genius, did not cut the rope, but tied her hands together using the same thread.

Once he had tied all four of her limbs together, Jame took a look at the once proud princess. She still spit at him and cursed him, but the half dragon didn’t care. Her attempts to bite him had been enough to deter him from putting a gag into her mouth, especially since he could have cared less if she prattled on about the proper way to treat noble women and how much he was going to pay for his insolence. It made him chuckle.

“Well, your majesty,” he began, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he addressed his new captive. “I hope you would be willing to answer a few questions about how someone of your royal pedigree would deign to attack a group of cads and ruffians…”

Her answer was less than satisfying. “I will answer none of your questions, filth. And I demand that you untie me at once.”

Jame smirked. She was pretty, but that wasn’t enough to get him to acquiesce to these demands. “Now I don’t do things just because rude girls ask me to…” he began.

The captive noble cut in immediately. “I’m rude and yet here I find myself tied and at the mercy of you.”

“You’re not really getting the mercy part, now are you?” he asked. Now, Jame just wanted to laugh. He had never seen someone who had been that incredibly impudent given the situation they were in. “She must be a noble,” he decided. “No one else could possibly be this thick.” Still, he had no intention of torture. Instead, he picked up the esteemed demon summoner by the ropes that bound her hands and legs, and began carrying her back, her horse in tow.

With a surprising smile, the noble looked up at Jame and said, “you cannot intimidate me, do your worst.”

Frankly, Jame doubted he could. He was desperate to get the weapons to Raiaera, but he couldn’t harm a woman he had already captured. He had been rough enough already. Between this capture and Mariah, he was starting to wonder if a side effect of the blessing of Aglarlin was a proclivity to hit women. But there would be others at the camp that could.

Still, the whole time he carried the summoner back towards the wagons, Jame couldn’t help but feel a bit amused by her. He held her in one hand so that he could look at her face from above, and watched as she continued to curse and yell at him. He only smiled. “You’re too pretty to go anywhere near Djakara,” he thought, looking at her elegant, but wrathful face. “If he fell for the dumb red haired girl, you’d turn his head in knots.”

As he moved nearer to the wagons, he could see that Godhand and the rest had just finished up with the most recent of his captive’s creations. They were tired, and some of them, including Mariah, were injured. One dwarf was dead. The amused smile on Jame's face faded. “I got the girl who did this,” he said solemnly. “We’ll throw her in one of the wagons… and anyone who wants a crack at getting at what she knows, its fine by me. With that, he set her down only somewhat roughly among the crates of weapons in the second wagon.

(Moderator note- Dark Temptress wrote all of her character's dialogue)

[Dark Temptress]

The seductress glared at the retreating back of the warrior as he none too politely placed her on the wooden crates and then left. She couldn’t believe that he had the nerve to do such a thing as tie her up and then leave her in this place. She was a noble; she was not some commoner that he could just do as he pleased with, even if he was strong enough to do it. That rather hard kick she’d landed on his groin had barely done anything to him but piss him off apparently, as she had so roughly learned when he’d grabbed her by the throat and threw her on the ground. Under other circumstances, she may have enjoyed the ropes he’d bound her with, it brought a certain thrill to the pit of her stomach even though it had definitely not been the proper time or place for such a thing. Not to mention she highly doubted she could try and seduce him after kneeing him in the crotch. The man would be more than protective of that part of his anatomy when she was near now.

Shifting in her position, A’rai found that she could not move her hands much at all without the rope pulling on her legs rather uncomfortably. Sadly it didn’t give her the opportunity to move around very much and she highly doubted she’d be able to reach the crate next to her either, not to mention open it and fish out something that would be useful to her. She did of course carry one weapon upon her person that she just might be able to reach if she were lucky. She had placed it upon her person shortly before she’d left the estate, just in case anything happened. The seductress wasn’t too sure how pleased she was about having the chance to finally use the item though.

Bending forward, she stretched her hands up as far as they could go as she tried to move her head under them. It pulled along the muscles of her back and she could feel a rather sharp and annoying pain growing in the centre of her spine as she uncomfortably twisted her body around. Reaching around to the back of her head, A’rai’s thumb brushed up against the hard corner of her ornate hair decoration. Wrapping her fingers around it, she pulled it from her hair, revealing a small four-inch blade intricately made and almost too ornate looking to cause much of any damage. But she knew otherwise, the edge was sharp, perhaps not as sharp as the blade of a warrior, but sharp enough to cut these ropes.

Once the blade was in her hand, she stood up straight and relaxed the tensed muscles in her back. Flipping the blade around in her fingers, she began to work on the rope, but she didn’t have much movement from her wrists. It was going to take her a few minutes. She needed to get out of here quickly though. There was a small army on the way here to break up this happy little caravan she had unfortunately found herself apart of. A caravan with warriors in it strong enough to kill two of her demons. She still had a hard time believing that one man could so easily dispatch of her demons, he must be incredibly strong and skilled. She wondered if there was any way she could get him to turn to her side, after all, money was not a huge issue to her.

[Djakara]

Djakara was a bit surprised to see Jame return with a tied up woman with blonde hair, but he smiled broadly. He was impressed that the warrior had managed to return with the source of their troubles so quickly. The Freiherr hadn’t even begun to consider the possibility of looking for a source. Given the sour note their last meeting had taken, Djakara figured he should scold Jame, or at least do something to make amends to Mariah, but he was a bit more versed in realpolitik than to do that.

The young entrepreneur knew that if he yelled at Jame now after that big of an achievement, he would just look bitter and jealous. Shaking his head, he cursed the situation, all of it. He hadn’t expected things to get so complicated, with multiple people joining his party with different agendas, demon summoners appearing out of nowhere, and perhaps the worst was the cold. Now that the adrenaline of battle no longer fueled him, Djakara’s teeth had begun to chatter again. He wondered how Jame and Godhand could tolerate the freezing temperatures.

“Good work Jame,” Djakara offered. “But you shouldn’t have brought her back, you should have killed her where she was…” He began to summon a little ball of electricity as if to finish the job. “Hopefully, I’ll get a little credibility this way…” he figured.

However, before Djakara could finish off the summoner, Jame put a hand to his shoulder to stop him. “If I wanted her dead, I would have killed her myself,” Jame said. “I left her alive because I need to know what she knows. When I flew up ahead to find her, I also found that there was an army waiting up ahead for us. About one hundred odd soldiers, and we’re already too close to avoid them. Unless we act soon, we’re going to be killed…”

Djakara shook his head. “So why keep her alive? Barter?”

“She might know something,” Jame shot back. “Maybe barter too, we need all the advantages we can get.”

The Freiherr let his new electric ball dissipate. He was quite frustrated, but he bit down on his lip before saying anything else to Jame. He just didn’t understand how his mercenaries seemed to be so adept at making him, their employer, look so utterly foolish. The worst part was, Djakara could come up with nothing to criticize either the half dragon or Godhand for, so any criticism he would have made would have just sounded petty. He hated being in that situation.

“Well we better get everything ready,” Djakara replied. “Everyone, open the crates, take what you need. Like Godhand said, better some of the weapons get there than we all end up dead.”

Jame nodded. “We’ll come up with something,” he said. After a quick pause to look around, Jame began to bark out orders. “Godhand, handle our guest, the rest, if you’re not driving then ride in the first with Djakara, we’re going to need to talk strategy.”

The young entrepreneur’s face hardened. He was just about to suggest that before Jame had stolen the words from his mouth. Still, he said nothing. Instead, he reminded himself of how welcome it would be to be out of the cold.

[Leon Adalbert]

Watching as the demon disappeared in a burst of smoke, Leon slumped against the side of the wagon in relief. Shortly thereafter, The younger-looking silver-haired man, Jame, returned with a prisoner. Blonde hair, fair skin. She's pretty, alright, he mused. Not my cup of tea, though. The young merchant had a taste for the dark, sinuous beauty of the Alerarian elves, and he would settle for no less if he could help it.

Following the orders given by the now-returned mercenary, Leon made his way to the front of the caravan, clambering into the leading vehicle. Discharged pistol still in hand, he sat down, reclining on a crate. His back against the canvas, pressing slightly, he held the firearm above his head, cocking and uncocking the hammer over and over while he waited for the others to arrive. Click, click. Click, click. Click, click.

As the next couple of people filed in, he leaned forward, letting his forearms rest on his slightly spread legs, hands hanging between his knees. "Who's the girl?" he asked when Jame arrived, eagerly anticipating his response. Whatever reason he had for bringing a Salvaran woman to a rogue caravan, supposedly headed for the capital of her country, he wanted to hear it.

All through, his active hands kept busy. Click, click. Click, click.

[Crimson Rose]

Why me? Why do I always get hurt? Whimpering in pain, the red haired thief removed her hand from her stomach, blood caked her soft skin, making her hand appear as if it was coated with thick paint. Clenching her hand weakly together she thought I have to stop....stop this pain...If I keep getting hurt like this, I won't be a proper thief. Mother said to me the reason why she hid inside the safety of the guild...she feared getting hurt again. I have that same fear yet...I still go out. Still try to do my part..but the results? Just pain...and more injuries...

Coughing heavily, Mariah could feel her body weakening. She knew she had already lost quite a bit of blood, and the reason why her wound was not healing, was that her blood was not clotting properly. My bag? Where is it...I have healing herbs in there. I know I have something in there to clot blood. her heart was beating weakly against her chest, her leg was moving slowly against the chilly ground, searching for that familiar feel of leather.

Her vision was blurring, she knew if she didn't get her bag soon. She wouldn't have the energy to apply the medicine she had. Closing her eyes and praying desperately, the young thief soon felt the cold feel of leather against her weak leg. Moving her uninjured arm downward, she soon found the strap of her leather satchel.

Moving it in the snow was hard, her body felt freezing cold. As if the ice was seeping into her veins. As she pulled her bag against the soft powder she could still hear the vague sounds of the demon battling against the other members of the caravan. Though these sounds felt as if they were further away from her. Shivering as she finally managed to lug the bag into her lap, she soon heard the agonizing scream of the demon as one of her comrades vanquished it.

Not knowing who it was, and not caring. She begin to rummage through her bag, soon she felt a familiar foil wrapper. Pulling out a dark chocolate bar with candied ginger inside, she quickly bit into it. From her brief training she knew that the proprieties of the ginger and dark chocolate would help her blood clot and heal her wounds.

Relieved, her head fell back against the wagon's cold wheel as she saw the man with red eyes appear again. This time with a woman in his arms, blond hair and a pretty pair of arrogant eyes. Mariah's lips thinned immediately as she thought a noble....I"d recognize that arrogant look anywhere... nothing bothering with the woman, Mariah tried to struggle to her feet as she shouts weakly "H...HEY! YOU WITH THE RED EYES! I GOT SOMETHING TO SAY TO YOU!"

Jame scowled. "No you don't," he said.

Fury welled up inside Mariah as she saw that the man hadn't even turned to look at her. Trying to ignore the pain, the red haired lass tried to struggle to her feet. Slipping against the snow she let out a yelp as she landed on her butt once more. Closing her eyes, she tried to regain her balance as she uttered primly to the man "Didn't your mother ever teach you any manners? Its polite to respect a lady's wish to talk. You don't brush her off with the cold shoulder!" She then cut her speech off with a round of hacking coughs as she moved a hand to stop the bleeding from her wound.

The medicine should have started working by now. Shaking her head as she pressed her shivering body against the cold wagon's wheel she thought Why isn't it working? I ate the proper dose...the bleeding should have stopped by now! with her eyes still hotly on the red eyed man's back, she waited for his response and for her wound to begin to heal. She knew one thing, she didn't want to die, not yet, not when she had so many more things to accomplish with her life.

[Godhand]

Godhand was still a bit wired from that last fight. Too many Goddamn surprises. Demons in the snow. Who the Hell summoned demons in the snow? Someone seriously unbalanced, that's who. And here she was. Jame had turned out to be a shapeshifter, which was lucky for them because otherwise his prisoner would still be up in the hills conjuring up God-knows-what for them to fight. Two of those rotten things were more than enough for the mercenary to get his fill of the underworld for today. They seemed to be escalating in power, too. Whoever she was, she was talented. They probably wouldn't have been able to handle the next one. Suddenly the young dragon took charge and started ordering people to regroup, get their shit together and go meet with Djakara in the front wagon. Then he left Godhand with the nebulous and euphemistic order of "take care of our guest". What the Hell was that?

"What do you think I am, a torturer? Because I am. I don't appreciate you calling me out on it, though." Jame was quick with a response, "Well it was either you or Djakara. And you have a brain." "Get your nose out of my ass, kid. Dogs do that," Godhand leaned forward with suspicion,"You're not a dog, are you?"

There was a slight pause and then they both chuckled. Godhand squeezed the young man on the shoulder before shaking him a bit. Just a couple of boys. The swordsman hated leaving Djakara to his own devices but he knew James (he refused to call him Jame) had a good head on his shoulders. He wouldn't let their employer do anything too bone headed while he was busy with the girl. Godhand walked over to the wagon where the girl had been placed. They'd moved some of the crates to make room for him to "work", and neatly arranged the tools he had asked for. James had done a good job with the ropes, but he'd been in the same situation enough times to recognize the slight shifts in position and distracted body language. He walked over to her and stuck his hand out.

"Give it here."

"What?"

Godhand leaned down and took knife from her hands, earning himself a bite on the forearm as he was pulling away. He hissed for a second before smirking at her.

"I love it when you hurt me, baby." She was quick with a retort, "Untie me then, and I'll show you what I can really do." The mercenary walked over to the tool tables and began running a knife and what appeared to be a whetstone on a handle against each other, making that extremely unsettling screech that every torture instantly recognized.

"You're cute. Unwise, obviously. But cute. Now why oh why would you ever try to sic those things on me?" She leaned back against the crate, her face hardening as she watched the knife in his hands. "You're the unwise one here. You're making a big mistake, you're not going to succeed in getting these weapons to Knife's Edge, so why not just switch sides and let me go. I can easily pay you more than what you're getting now." He grinned at her and made the old a-ha-ha finger wave that nearly all naughty children were familiar with.

"You don't know what I'm getting paid now, do you?" He put both the butcher's knife and the whetstone over the fire, watching as they slowly became red hot. This served two purposes: the first was that it disinfected each of them. Godhand didn't want any of his hostages dying of an infection. How embarrassing would that be? The second was merely to scare the victim. The whetstone had a circular edge which was unusual but served an end, as she would soon find out. "Pretty dress, straight chin and a bad attitude. You're a noble alright. Rich enough to hide your kinks, too. Demon conjuring isn't quite as regal a hobby as polo. I'm sure you could pay me an enormous amount of money. But it would be quite unprofessional of me to switch sides in the middle of a job. And if there's one thing I pride myself on being, it's professional."

She narrowed her eyes on him as she tried to back up on the crate, her eyes going from his face to the red tools in his hand. "In less then fifteen minutes, you're not going to have an employer left to worry about being loyal to. "What? More of those animals? The second one was a bit more impressive but bottom line: I don't think they can beat the folks in this caravan, with or without my help. But that's enough talk sweetheart, it's time to get to work." He set the blade on the edge of the torch he was using and approached her. The swordsman had removed both his gloves before the "operation" and had taken care to wash his hands. He didn't want her to be uncomfortable. His free hand ran through her silky tresses before settling rigidly on her scalp as his thumb gently but firmly pulled her eyelid back, the way one would prepare for eyedrops.

"Now, the reason this tool I'm using is circular is quite simple. You see if it was a square or a rectangle or really anything with angled edges, your eyeball would tear and deflate the second it made too rough a move against it. Not this. This will gently burn out your corneas without causing any damage to the eyeball itself. I imagine it won't hurt nearly as bad as you think. Blinking will be Hell, though." He spoke in the sweet and quiet voice of a distracted doctor. Godhand slowly pushed the tool closing to her iris as she futilely struggled against the ropes.

Her breathing increased into shallow gasps for air, her chest rising and falling as she watched the red hot whetstone descend towards her eye. Instead of giving in and telling him what he wanted though, she raised her legs up and kicked out towards his stomach. "Get away from me!" The kick didn't even move Godhand but it had caused the tool to shake and that was completely unnaceptable. This was a delicate procedure, after all. He sighed and walked over to the torch to retrieve his butcher knife.

"The problem with cutting someone's hamstring," he began as he approached her, "is there's always a big mess. They usually pass out from bloodloss and die before telling you anything, unless you know what you're doing. I know what I'm doing." He flipped her over without much hassle and pulled her dress up to her creamy thigh. "On the other hand, this wagon is giving us a bit of a bumpy ride. I think I can manage, but do you have any last words just in case?"

"Go to hell, you barbarian!" She yelled as she clenched her eyes shut and waited for whatever came next. "Well, more coherent than most I suppose." The swordsman made a big show of pulling back his arm before driving the knife into the wood just beside her leg. A'rai blinked several times as she heard the knife impact on the wood instead of feeling it's bite in her leg. The heat from the still hot blade beat against her exposed an sensitive skin, but she didn't move an inch, too scared to try. "You... you were trying to trick me..."

Godhand sighed once more before removing the knife wagon's floor. "You're the gutsiest noblewoman I've ever met, that's for sure." Godhand walked over to the torch and puts his hands next to the fire for warmth. "Thanks..." She said as she tried to shift her awkward position. The wood was digging into her stomach. After a few seconds, she ended up fall off the crate and landing unceremoniously on her behind with a bit of an umph. "Are you going to let me go now, please?"

He chuckled quietly. "Hahaha, what? Hell no. You tried to kill me." "A misunderstanding... I was only after the weapons." He waved his finger at her in mock admonishment once more, "Greedy greedy greedy. Now what would a noble want with weapons? You making your own little militia? Wouldn't surprise me. Not in this war." She smirked, "Answering that would just be giving you the information you want. Now, I'm sure there's something I can offer you to release me..." He looked at her incredulously,"Really? You're going to try that? That thing you just summoned killed one of our men. You're lucky I wasn't that close to him or you'd be in bad trouble."

"You're the one that tried to torture me!" She growled at him. "Shame that demon didn't kill you." she said with a smile. "I didn't try to torture you. I pretended I was about to torture you. One's a crime, the other is a...Well, let's call it a prank." "Split your hairs... I don't care." Looking down at the half cut rope wrapped around her wrists, A'rai began to try and wriggle her hand out of it. Godhand looked up at her in annoyance. "Okay, if you make me re-bind you I actually will hamstring you." She huffed in annoyance before giving a slight pout. She was adorable. It was a shame she was crazy.

Such a shame.

[Call me J]

“It’s the summoner…” Jame repeated, hearing a question about who the blonde he’d brought in as a captive was. It was a stupid question, he had already made it clear who the woman was, but if he needed to repeat it, he didn’t mind, as long as he could repeat what he was saying quickly.

However, there was one voice that the worried half dragon did not want to hear. He could put up with Godhand’s mercurial antics, Djakara’s incompetence and even the summoner’s unexplained intentions to destroy the caravan. He had no patience for Mariah. He considered her to be so completely self centered that she was oblivious to the needs of others. “She’d been chatting up Djakara about Mya knows what when we were trying to get weapons where they’re badly needed,” Jame thought irritably. “Raiaera, Maia, Tel Aglarim, they’re waiting on this for me…”

The series of fights since the stand at Carnelost had been exhausting. Now that Mariah had spoke to him, it felt as if Jame’s very last nerve had been frayed to its breaking point. He snarled at her, caring little for the wound that still gushed blood despite her best intentions to stop it.

“Know what, you need to shut up now…” he said, not even bothering to answer her question. His voice was fierce and the words spit out of his mouth quickly like a firing squad shooting bullets in sequence. In fact, many of his words may have cut as hard as bullets. “I’m really tired of you, Mariah. You come in here, and I remember the first thing you did. You didn’t thank anyone for the warmth of the wagons, you didn’t volunteer to help, instead, you withheld all that until you could ask for what they’d pay you. Is that how ladies behave? Shut up now, or I will beat you until you learn to be humble…”

Fear laced Mariah's red and white flecked eyes. Her anger quickly evaporated into fear. Dropping her hand from her stomach, instead she used them to try to shield her face as she said in a tiny voice. “Please no... don't hit me again! I...I will be quiet. I apologize for not remembering my manners! I am grateful for the warmth of the wagon and for Djarkara's hospitality. If anything... I should have been more humble! But please...just don't hit me!”

Jame’s face softened. He didn’t smile, and he still looked stern, but he now seemed willing to tolerate Mariah’s existence. With the situation settled, Jame realized just how bad the poor girl’s wound had been. Rolling his eyes, he realized that she was far too wounded for him to leave her as she was. Fatigued, he unsheathed his delhar claymore and held out the blade in front of him. “I won’t hit you…” he said, before blowing a quick bit of fire. “Hold your hands above your head, I’m going to cauterize the wound.”

Mariah blinked, her hands lowered from shielding her face as she asked cautiously. “You won't?”

Jame exhaled an exhasperated sigh. “I could’ve already if I wanted to.”

Seeing that his words were genuine, Mariah raised her arms above her head as she whispered “T...thank you...”

“This’ll hurt a bit,” Jame replied evenly. With that, he put the flat end of the heated blade on Mariah’s stomach just long enough to cauterize the wound. Once he’d completed the task, he looked at what he’d managed and was pleased with it. Mariah’s stomach still didn’t look very pretty, but the blood loss was gone. Still, with the cold weather, Jame was concerned about her welfare.

“Go to the back of the convoy,” he offered, his words finally offering a hint of kindness to them. “I want you to the back, look through the crates, see if they have any strengthening supplements. Ask one of the drivers, they’re going to be more useful than Djakara. Otherwise, when the next fighting happens, get yourself a gun. Shoot any of those nuts that come near you, but otherwise, stay down. You’re not much good unless you get your strength back and there’s no sense in dying needlessly.”

Given how concerned he was with the looming battle, that was the closest Mariah was going to come to an apology. With that, he made his way over to the first wagon, his face wrinkled in worry. He hoped Godhand would be able to extract the information they needed. Otherwise, they were looking at a long road ahead.

Jame looked out in the distance. The church ahead was little more than a dot on the landscape. A dot, that he feared, was becoming just a little bit bigger. “A long, hard road…” he muttered to no one in particular. “A long, fucking hard road.” It would be worth it though, to get the weapons to Raiaera.

(Moderator note- Mariah’s dialogue was written by Crimson Rose)

[Dark Temptress]

A’rai could feel her calm slowly calming within the confines of her chest. The organ had been beating widely against her rib cage the moment she saw the weapons that the warrior had with him and the flame he’d decided to run through them. She couldn’t believe she’d actually stood up to him, she couldn’t believe he’d been trying to fool her the entire time and she hadn’t even realized. Sometimes it took a liar to know a liar, but this time she hadn’t even suspected. Perhaps it’d had something to do with the fear that had coursed through her veins, clouding her mind and her senses. She didn’t know and she didn’t plan on repeating the situation in order to find out. There was only a small amount of doubt in her mind that if she truly did struggle out of her bonds he’d hamstring her as he called it, and that doubt was not large enough to take the chance. Personally, she liked her body just the way it was.

The only problem was that little army her church had formed—without her permission mind you—was going to be descending on this little caravan any moment now. She’d rather not be caught in the crossfire, especially considering she wasn’t sure which side was going to win. The church had numbers in their favour, but it appeared that the caravan had sheer power behind it, after all they had defeated two of her demons and the last one she wasn’t even too sure how. She hadn’t been able to see it, but she had no doubt in her mind that it was most likely this man who’d done it. If only she could get him to switch over to her side and just release her, but he seemed set in his way.

She couldn’t seduce him, not in this situation. The seductress had made an imply that she could basically offer him almost anything and his mind had immediately gone to that. Funny how men were always drawn to a woman’s body, no matter the situation. Tied up, she just couldn’t work her manipulation on him well enough and her words seemed to have little to no effect. Not to mention she had one hell of a time figuring out his personality. She couldn’t really tell where to shift her own in order to appeal to him, it was almost like the ruffian didn’t even know himself what his ideal woman would be. Interesting and annoying all at the same time. Had the circumstances been different, she would have enjoyed playing through different personalities to try and find the perfect one to suite him, but the situation was not reversed and she was still tied up.

Sighing, A’rai leaned back against the wooden crate as she curled her legs up close to her body. Her long skirt had gotten twisted and turned around during the man’s interrogation of her and her legs were peeking out, leaving them exposed to the cold air of Salvar. As much as she was used to the weather of her home region, even she wasn’t immune to the cold.

Hearing the sound of tapping filtering into the silence of the caravan, A`rai turned her eyes to the silver haired warrior. He seemed uneasy and a little bit uncomfortable, as if he was unsure of what to do next with her. Perhaps he was trying to figure out how next to trick her or contemplating whether or not he was actually going to torture her now. Without warning he drew a large gun from his person, the business end of which he pointed directly at her head. Her hearts topped beating for a moment as her wide eyes looked down the black barrel of the weapon and then to his stern and unforgiving face.

"Alright, I don't have the time to mess around anymore. Tell me what we're up against now or I will shoot you in the head. And I do mean it this time." Then he leaned in closer to her.

Her lips parted but her breath caught in her throat and for a few seconds she could do nothing but sit there and look at him. There was no doubt in her mind that he really would use that on her she should try to play him this time or even keep her mouth shut.

“There’s a church up ahead, The Salaturn Church of the Ethereal sway.” She said to him, her voice a little shaky. “The soldiers there are preparing to mount a strike on the caravan even as we sit here and talk about it. Though I don’t know their exact numbers, I believe it is roughly 1000 people.”

[Djakara]

Djakara Fraye looked out despondently on the setting ahead. He wanted to tell the driver to move ahead, he was so nervous about what lay ahead he couldn’t help but to want to get it over with. For some reason, he hoped that Jame and Godhand would be able to do something to get them past, but he didn’t know if even that was possible. From the way Jame had spoken, it seemed like the army, peasants or not, that was gathering by the church was going to be a formidable foe.

“You scared Brownstone?” Djakara asked.

The dwarf looked at him blankly, like asking the question was in and of itself, a stupid act. “Well?” Djakara nudged.

“Aye lad…” Brownstone replied.

Djakara nodded. He knew it was weak to admit his fears in a situation like this, especially as a leader, but he couldn’t help himself. He may have been a Freiherr and an aspiring black market arms dealer, but beyond anything else, he was just a boy. Wunderkind or not, he still had the fears of a sixteen year old. He was just glad he could get that feeling off his chest without having either Godhand or Jame around. He was certain that at least one of them would have mocked him.

With a despondent sigh, he began to think about his option. His men were going for their weapons, and he figured the best chances the five wagons were if they spread out horizontally instead of being in a vertical line. It would let them cover ground faster with the guns and other advanced technology that was in Alerar’s shipment. That probably wouldn’t be enough of a strategy by itself, but he didn’t know what else he’d be able to come up with.

Just as Djakara was going to announce the beginning of his plan, Jame entered the wagon. “Hey,” the half dragon said, before beginning to rifle through one of the crates. A half shut crate of daggers was thrown aside with a bit of abandon as the Jame began to look for the high tech weaponry.

Though Djakara was somewhat displeased with the way Jame was rifling through the crates without caring for the contents inside, he didn’t want to get into that argument. Instead, he continued beaming with pride and told Jame of his intentions to have a front of five wagons.

“You can’t do that…” Jame said, brusquely, like the idea need not be discussed in any further detail. “Mariah’s in the fifth wagon, she’s hurt and she’s healing and I think she’s going to be the only one there but the driver. It won’t be of much use to you at all… Four and one in the back is beter.”

Djakara’s mouth was practically agape. “You’re sticking up for Mariah?” he asked incredulously. “After what you did to her, now she’s your best friend? What, mad I came up with this first?”

“Sure…” Jame replied sarcastically, without even looking at Djakara. “That’s it, I’m jealous your plan is going to get one of the wagons destroyed for no real purpose. With the prisoner, we can really only man for wagons well. Better to stack as much of the weapons in the fifth and leave it back with Mariah. She can wait back there with a shotgun or something. Make sure the weapons get to Raiaera…”

Djakara frowned. “We’re going with my plan,” he said. “Unless Godhand says otherwise.” Though the Freiherr knew he was being adamant for its own sake, he was sure that Jame was as well. “He doesn’t even care about Mariah,” the young entrepreneur reminded himself. “He knocked her to the floor right in this wagon…”

Jame frowned. “I’ll go up ahead then,” the half dragon replied. “You’re a fool, but if your plan even has the slightest chance, you’ll need to catch them by surprise. I’ll take care of that.”

“Whatever you want,” Djakara replied tartly, as if he just wanted to dismiss Jame so he could get along with the business of the battle. He was frustrated enough with the half dragon’s insistences now that he felt that they would be better without Jame. “Just don’t come back here saying you care about Mariah, because you don’t.”

“I really don’t,” Jame shot back as he left. “Though it’s clear that you don’t either.”

Djakara went mum. Shaking his head in frustration, he just watched as Jame began to walk away.

[Godhand]

Godhand gave a small smile to the girl and reholstered his Magnum. No matter how you sliced it torturing someone was always lousy work. He knew the ins and outs and what hurt and what made someone black out but to him it was still just a job; like climbing up a steep muddy slope. Back home they were people who majored in information extraction but when you were on the move you needed to know the right way to put screws into somebody's thumbs. You needed to be versatile - smart. These new kids, man. They did it all and they did it for cheap. You had to read up. Study the literature. All to keep up with a bunch of guys that got an earlier start than you. You had to. When was the last time anybody ever saw a hitman in a retirement home? No way to retire in this business. No way at all. Once you lose your step you're just like an old dog that gets sick; they take you out the back and shoot you in the head. Lousy way to go.

The mercenary was glad it didn't have to come to the really nasty stuff. He was losing his stomach for that sort of thing. No, that was untrue; he was still vicious when he needed to be. Godhand just didn't want to do that sort of thing to a girl. Never could handle that. Different animals, he guessed. A man just sort of bites down and takes it. You hack away but there's a sort of quiet dignity in your role and his and it's spiritually acceptable for both men. A woman, though. She just looks at you. Big doe eyes staring at you. Staring. Nobody could work under those conditions. Well, some men could but not Godhand. In the end she'd sensed that he really didn't want to have to go to work on her and fessed up. No use arguing with a gun. He crept out of the covered wagon and strode over to Djakara's jury-rigged meeting room. Pulling back the thick cloth tarp shielding the occupants from the cold, he spoke.

"She says we're going up against about a thousand people. I'm tough and James knows his stuff, but I don't know. If you got anything special stashed in the caravans Djakara, now's the time to say so."

[Crimson Rose]

Mariah was still shocked that Jame had healed her wound. She knew from experieince that it wasn't fully healed. But the pain had dulled enough for her to move. Looking up at Jame retreating back gratefully she called "Thank you! I appreciate your kindness!" The red haired thief then rose to her feet. . She paused testing her balance as she held onto the cloth tarp of the wagon.

She felt a bit dizzy and woozy from the blood loss, but her vision wasn't blurry anymore and she was at least able to stand. Taking a few slow steps forward, Mariah felt glad that she did not tumble down. She had seen in her time as the Guild's healer, thieves whose injuries were so severe that even after cauterizing and medicating the wounds they had, they still could not leave their beds weeks after.

She considered herself lucky that she was able to walk. Though she still felt very weak, as she used the tarp as a balancing measure, she soon carefully scooted her way off the first wagon. Landing in the cold snow, she begin to trek her way towards the last wagon. Her steps were heavy though, and her wound felt slightly itchy. Which meant that if she took one wrong step it might break open again.

As she passed by the third wagon, she paused, her throat feeling as if it was going to cough again. Waiting as a snowflake fell on her noise, she felt nothing. Shaking her head she murmurs "I just have to get to the last wagon, then I can rest. If what Jame said was true and an army is near, then I need to stay out of sight. I can't risk fighting and opening my wound again..."

She then continued her careful steps, passing the fourth wagon, she paused leading against the cold cotton tarp to catch her breathe. Each step had taken all the energy that she still had, it felt as if she couldn't walk anymore.

Panting a bit as she gulped in airfuls of the icy air, she wished that she had someone to carry her. Her love of romance novels had always told her that in times of need, a hero will appear to help out the lady in distress. But now, nothing of the sort had happened. In fact each time she had been injured no hero had appeared.

Groaning at her luck, Mariah pulled together all her remaining energy, pushing her hand off the cold cotton tarp, she soon had made her way to the fifth wagon. A burly looking dwarf was leading the horses there. He took one look at her and said sharply "I"m Leaves lassy and you don't look so good. Get yourself in the back of the wagon and hide. Master Djarkara told me the situation and he told me you should get yourself rest!"

Nodding Mariah ambled weakly into the back of the wagon. Her eyes fell on more weapons crates. Sighing she murmurs "I can't just be a lump to the rest. I have to try to help out against the on coming trouble."

The dwarf simply shook his head and murmured "Your crazy lass, but if you want to help there should be a shotgun in one of those crates! Find that and sit tight, don't use it unless its absolutely necessary!"

Mariah nods as she pries open one of the crates, throwing the lid aside with a dull THUD, she begins to search through it. Pushing aside simple pistols and a steel crossbow, she soon comes up with a twelve gauge shotgun. Pulling it out, she checks it and smiles murmuring "I can use this." She then grips it against her chest as she turns to lay gently on her stomach. Looking at the dwarf she murmurs "Just give me a sign when trouble is near us ok?"

Leaves smiled warmly at Mari as he murmurs "Sure thing lass."

[Leon Adalbert]

Click, click. Click, click.

Leon sat listening as the Freiherr and the mercenary discussed the tactics of the battle, and upon hearing Godhand's proclamation of the enemy's numbers, he looked up sharply, wide-eyed. He ceased his fidgeting and stared around at the other three.

"A th-thousand?" he stuttered, fear shaking his voice and his resolve. Can we stand against such a force? he asked himself. He knew the answer didn't matter, however, because whether they could stand or not, an army was coming. Leon Adalbert was not a religious man, far from it, but he hoped he would be forgiven for that by whatever divinity might be watching.

Looking down at his new weapon, he wondered how effective it would be in a full-scale battle. Pistols like this one were designed for duels. They took time to load and could only fire one round before being reloaded. He didn't like his odds running into such a force with just his rapier, either. No, he needed something special, a trump card to make the firearm more effective, despite the reload time.

Jumping up, the opportunistic merchant looked around at the crates in the wagon, noting the labels on each one in turn. Finally he settled on a smallish one marked Enchanted Ammunition, DO NOT JAR OR OVERTURN. Prying the lid open, he found ammo for all sorts of guns, including revolvers, the state-of-the-art automatic pistols, bandoleers full of crossbow bolts, and more. He dug through the box, grasping hands finally taking hold of a small box, no larger than his fist, and pulling it free.

He cracked the lid, and found three tiny orbs of some strange material that resembled glass. He looked at the label on the side, and read aloud "Kiramaini Blast Bullets." He grinned, taking the red, blue, and yellow orbs and stowing them in a small pocket of his jacket, away from his other bullets.

This pistoleer had his trump card.

[Call me J]

Right before Jame left, he overheard Godhand’s mention of there being 1000 men waiting for them. He nodded. That sounded much larger than what he had seen, and made their chances of any kind of a retreat even less likely. Even if they tried to head backwards towards Alerar and to approach Raiaera by the Twilight Mountains, their chances wouldn’t be too good. Jame wondered how long it would be to Knife’s Edge, and how many more challenges there would be to getting the weapons where they belonged.

As he transformed, he wondered if he’d be able to negotiate with the church soldiers. They may have been eager to see that the weapons didn’t reach the monarchy, but Jame doubted they would want to expend the same energy to stop them from reaching Raiaera. By the time he had transformed into a dragon, he realized that as ideal as a negotiation might have been, it wasn’t going to work that way. There would be no way that he’d be able to prove he was telling the truth, and with an entire force in the dozens, he knew that a thousand people wouldn’t negotiate. The only thing they could do was fight their way through. People might not have been afraid of a small army, but they might fear a giant beast.

“We’ll see what happens…” Jame thought. Regardless, he knew what he’d need to do. He couldn’t afford to wait for the rest of them. Jame was going to have to start the attack first. With the blessing of Aglarlin on his side, Jame was confident that he could hold out indefinitely. However, he didn’t know how much he could protect the rest of the caravan. Though they were no great allies of his, they would be needed.

More than anything else, Jame couldn’t forget the look that Mariah had given him before he had walked away. It was a desperate appeal, as if she was begging him to do something, because she was so desperate that she didn’t want to die. Jame wasn’t sure if there was some guilt there over the way she had reacted when he’d threatened to hit her. The utter terror in her eyes may have compelled him to help her just a little.

The face of Maia Kristel was even heavier in his mind. He regretted having left her in Eluriand, especially after he had been called on to help her. When they had left Aglarlin, he had been told the key to defeating Xem’zund had been with Maia. To save the entire world, he was supposed to have saved her. He’d failed there, and he was frightened that she wouldn’t survive because he’d ended up teleported into Salvar.

As he flapped his wings to take off into the sky, he took one last glance as the dead dwarf who had been gored to death by Dantalion. Everyone had been so concerned about the battle oncoming, he hadn’t been offered a proper funeral. Jame looked on regretfully as he rose up to the sky. By the time he was in the air, it had begun to snow.

[Dark Temptress]

The seductress let out a long and slow breath that she’d been holding the entire time the man had been pointing that large gun in her face. She just couldn’t argue with that and she couldn’t even move fast enough to get away from it. All he would have had to do was pull the trigger and then her brains would be splattered all over the carts of this caravan and as much as she didn’t want these weapons in Salvar, her life was more important than they were. Not to mention living to fight another day. By Solomon, what had she gotten herself into?
As the warrior strode from the tarp-covered caravan with his precious information, A’rai began looking around. There were crates piled all over the place, their pale wooden construction covering the contents from her peering eyes. Not that they would do her much good right now. As she searched, she realized that the mercenary had left the flame and all of his little torture implements on a crate just a few feet away from her. If she could get over to it, she might be able to break herself free and then get the hell out of here and leave them to their fate. It was too late for her to try and summon any more demons, that window of opportunity was gone. Now all that was left was for her to retreat.

With her hands and her legs bound and connected by a long piece of rope, moving was much harder than the noble wanted to admit. After all, she didn’t exactly have practice getting out of tightly knotted ropes. But still, wriggling across the rough surface of the caravan floor, she slowly began heading towards the other crate. If the mercenary came back before she could free herself, she had no idea what he’d do to her, but she didn’t plan on being around when he returned.

Ruffians, the lot of them…

At the crate, the seductress reached up and wrapped her fingers around the blade of the knife, the same one he had threatened to slice open her hamstring with.

Bastard, tricking me like that. If I ever see him again, he’ll regret his actions.

Attempting to turn the blade around in her fingers, A’rai ended up slicing open her palm with the sharp instrument. Gasping, she nearly dropped the blade as a warm flood of blood began to seep through her hands and drip to the caravan floor. Ignoring the pain as best she could, she began cutting away at the ropes. This knife was much sharper than her own and ended up cutting through the coarse, braided material with relative ease. Once her hands were free, she cut the rope tying her ankles together and then quickly removed them from her person.

Standing, the seductress held on to the blade as she moved to the thick, flap of material that consisted of the entrance to this place. Pushing on it a little, she peered outside just in time to see a large dragon take off into the sky. Allowing the material to close and cut off the cold and the sight, A’rai moved to one of the crates and removed the top, leaving a trail of bloody fingerprints on everything she touched. Inside she found a number of different kinds of guns, most of which she had never seen before and couldn’t even fathom how to use. After a few seconds, her hand came to rest on one of the new automatic weapons. She had seen one in Markus’s house before and he had been more than pleased to show the weapon off to everyone in Kings and Shadows. Wrapping her blood smeared fingers around the handle, she picked it up, surprised by just how heavy such a small thing was. Then she reached inside and grabbed a few black… things that were sitting beside it. She knew that within them were bullets, but she wasn’t entirely sure what to do with them. Markus had shown her once, so she knew they loaded into the handle, but there appeared to already be one inside and she didn’t know how to get it out.

Stuffing the black things into an inner pocket on her cloak, the seductress once again moved towards the flap of material and peered outside. Snow was beginning to fall from the sky, too gentle and soft looking for what was happening around her. Taking a deep breath, she jumped down from the caravan, her forest green eyes glancing all around her to see if anyone had noticed her departure, but it appeared they were busy elsewhere. Spotting her horse Firnin not too far away, A’rai smiled and began running towards the animal. Her long skirt and cloak dragging against the dirt and the rocks on the ground as her hurried feet took her closer to closer to a possible freedom.

[Djakara]

Djakara blinked in disbelief. He didn’t know how one thousand peasants could have been assembled that quickly, even in the middle of a Civil War. He shook his head in disbelief, and could barely say anything as both Godhand and Leon Adalbert asked him for a plan. Now, his idea of spreading the five wagons apart from each other seemed completely petty, and that instead of working on a plan for them to win, they should have been working on a plan to survive.

“Maybe we can move all the goods out of one cart and send it loaded in with dynamite,” Djakara thought. “That Mariah seems simple enough to do it without knowing what was in it, she’s naïve enough to make it work. No sense wasting one of the better fighters on a suicide mission when she’ll do.”

Before he could verbalize his thoughts, he didn’t much care for that idea. It might have had some potential, but by the time it would take to assemble the dynamite wagon, the church’s soldiers would already be upon them. He looked at Godhand and Leon Adalbert regretfully, glad at least that the pistoleer had found some expensive bullets that might give him a slight advantage.

He knew he needed to say something, even if he didn’t have a complete plan just yet. “Jame has gone ahead to scout,” he said. “He’ll be able to tell us if there are any weaknesses out there that we’ll be able to exploit. Until he does that though, I’d sit tight. It’s hard for us to know what we need to do, so let’s just find the weapons we need…”

Suddenly, he remembered something that might make the job a great deal easier. It was in the fourth wagon, and over half of the crates there were a part of this large weapon. Djakara smiled. He was glad that he had suggested that Alerar include the Gatling gun. He smiled appreciatively, using it was going to be fun.

“There is this really large machine gun,” he began to explain. “It needs to be assembled, but I’m sure I know how to do it. It’s a rather large weapon, none of us will be able to carry it, but we’d be able to mow down people without even needing to try. It has this crank, and it spits out bullets really quickly. I’m not sure really how to explain it better until you have a look at it, but trust me, once we get it going, it’ll work. We’ll have to pull one of the wagon’s covers off and then we’ll mount it on there, we’ll have a driver and then one of us can shoot. It’ll have to be someone who can aim, because the weapon is tough…”

Djakara was trying to position to be the one shooting the weapon. He figured of all the people who’d be involved in the fight, it would be that gunner who got the most kills, while being one of the safest people involved in the fight. That met both of Djakara’s requirements, it was a chance for him to get his respect back, and it would be easy enough for him to survive.

[Crimson Rose]

"Lass?" Leaves said as his dark brown eyes scanned the snowy backdrop. "I think I see something through these flakes, a glint of gold. I can't be sure, but it might be a person."

Mariah blinked as she had finally settled herself on top of a soft cloth bag, her wound was nestled in just a way where it wouldn't open. Frowning she murmurs "Are you sure? I didn't see any blonde person in the caravan."

"Yes lassy. I.." squinting his small eyes, the short dwarf saw the shadowy silhouette of a person trying to sneak off the second wagon. A thick cough escaped his lips as he grunted "Yeah looks like a person, might be another lass like yerself. But, I know you be the only girl Master Djarkara took in. She might be a prisoner that someone caught."

Mariah's heartbeat quickened again. Gritting her teeth she moves to unlock the safety on the shotgun. If this person really was a prisoner to the wagon, then that meant that they had information that was necessary for their survival. Moving to cock the shotgun she aimed it at the shadowy female. The snowflakes obscured her vision so that she had to readjust again to make sure she was aiming at the woman who was trying to sneak away under the cover of snow.

Pressing her finger firmly against the trigger, Mariah steeled her heart as she shouted in a firm voice "FREEZE! OR I SHOOT!" Just to make sure the woman knew she was serious, she gave the trigger a little pressure so that the barrel made a small sound to let her know the bullet was ready to fire.

Grimacing as she had to do this cruel act, inside Mariah's heart she thought This is so cruel..to hold a woman hostage. But... recalling the demon that had mercilessly injured her, her pity for this woman lessoned as a new thought came to mind she might have been the one who sent that horrible demon after us. So in reality she may deserve being held prisoner, someone who attacks people just for the sake of killing does not deserve any pity or solace. With her heart steeled she waited for the woman's reaction. If she tried to flee still, Mariah would shoot her where she stood, it would do the caravan no good if the woman got away and managed to alert the army to their presence.

[Godhand]

Godhand wasn't really in any sort of condition to help with apprehending an escaped prisoner. You hear shit like "a thousand men" and the number doesn't really dawn on you right away. You understand it, of course. You understand it on a vague conceptual level. But the visceral feeling of knowing you're stacked up against a thousand people doesn't get you until later. You're polishing your knife or reloading your gun or something and it just drops on you like a piano from a window. No way of fighting a thousand people. That shit was silly. There was the obvious comparison of a bear getting taken down by a pack of wolves but the numbers were so disparate that that wasn't even the case. It was more like a scorpion getting killed by a nest of fire ants.

A nest? Is that the right way to call that shit that's like a big dirt mound? You step on it and then a whole fleet of those horrible little bastards spring out. Oh God I'm rambling.

It was true. He was. Djakara was talking about a gatling gun but apart from maybe The Paris Gun or perhaps an array of naval cannons there was nothing that could really turn the tide. Doesn't matter how powerful the scorpion's venom is if he haves to take the ants down one at a time. Too many. It would be like trying to punch out the ocean. Before his employer was even asking him for his ideas he was already trying to figure out a way to get them the Hell out of there. Screw the gun shipment and making money; there were better off just breaking the caravan and sneaking it out of Salvar piece-meal then try to take on an army of religious nuts. Those guys kept coming at you no matter what. You could have the biggest gun in the world, a license to kill and infinite ammo and it didn't matter because God was on their side. It was almost fascinating to see how far they'd go to kill you. It was a lot like tearing the legs off a cockroach. No matter how much shit you pulled out of it it just kept struggling. Now they were staring down an army of the Goddamn things.

"We need to get the Hell out of here. These guns aren't worth dying for; Hell, they aren't even worth risking it for. There's probably a better way to ship the damn things but it's certainly not through that stampede of lunatics. Now a force that big can't move that quickly and it sure as Hell can't move for more than maybe two miles before losing interest. I figure we can leave them a wagon to play with, take out the good stuff and take whatever's more than, say, fifty times it's own weight in gold with us. But if this is gonna work, we need a decision now. Your call, chief."

[Dark Temptress]

A’rai stopped dead in her tracks as the words echoed throughout the cool air and rang in her ears. Her heart stuttered within her chest as if it were some kind of frightened creature that stared death in its face and knew there was no escape. The gun she had stolen from the crates was still in her hands, but if whoever had yelled that was prepared to shoot her first, there was no way the seductress could react fast enough. Or even if she would be able to aim true enough. She had never used this kind of weapon before and though it seemed simple enough, she doubted it was. Swords seemed easy enough, swing, cut, kill, but there was a lot of skill behind each stroke that each warrior put behind them and guns were most likely the same way. Instead of skill though, one just needed to have really good aim, which A’rai doubted she possessed.

Releasing the stilled air within her lungs in a puff of smoke, the seductress turned in the direction the yell had come from. Large flakes of snow were beginning to softly fall from the overcast sky above her, obscuring her vision but she could still just barely make out the two people in the caravan. Though she could not exactly see the weapon that the woman held in her hands, it was quite clear from her position that she was indeed pointing something at her.

Knowing it was a long shot, but possibly the only way she had to get out of this mess with all her parts still attached and no new holes in her body, A’rai tried to appeal to the girl in the only way she could in such a situation.

“P-please… don’t hurt me!” She changed the sound of her voice, making it come across as shaky and fearful, which wasn’t very hard considering what she’d just gone through. “I… I just want to leave, I don’t want to cause any trouble, please!”

Funny part was, that was more or less the truth now. She could care less about this caravan and its contents now; she just wanted to get the hell out of here intact. Her window of opportunity had passed and now she could only retreat. The outcome was not supposed to have been this; her Belial should have been able to take care of the humans, if not him than Dantalion. But that silver haired freak had been too strong for both of them.

“I didn’t do anything… I don’t know anything, but that silver haired, red eyed barbarian doesn’t believe me and I don’t want to be tortured anymore!”

Or tricked into thinking that she was being tortured. Smart bastard, but A’rai was bleeding from the gash upon her hand. The thick, crimson liquid was dripping from the end of the gun she held, and falling to the ground and the pristine snow that was beginning to gather there. If the woman thought that it was a by-product of this torture that she had received, than A’rai was not going to correct her. She just hoped that her words would be persuasive enough to let her go; otherwise she didn’t know what she would do. Standing out here in the open and arguing was only going to get her caught sooner or later and she’d rather take her chances running then go back to that caravan. They’d probably only kill her in the end anyway, after all she’d told them everything she knew, well except for the fact that they were currently on her property, the church belonged to her family and with a single word she could probably call them off. But probably was not a certainty and she didn’t plan on doing that anyway. These men had made their beds; it was time they laid in them, possibly forever.

[Leon Adalbert]

Djakara took a long exhale, as if he was delaying the decision for as long as possible. "Yeah, I don't know," he said. "Lets just get out of here, if you think we can. We'll send one wagon forward to buy us time, load it with some dynamite. We'll send the red haired girl to lead it, she hasn't been of any use and she's hurt, she might as well buy us time now..."

Leon looked up upon hearing this, eyes wide. We're just going to leave her there to die? he thought. True, she hadn't been much help thus far, and she likely wouldn't be any help in the battle, but that didn't mean she needed to be left behind to be devoured by those wolves. The dirty-blonde merchant pushed himself to a stand, his eyes narrowed in anger and hatred at Godhand and Djakara. Godhand...I respected him...and now this. His left fist clenched, his right tightening around the hard, curved handle of his gun.

Then he remembered the way those two fought. Godhand's immense strength and seemingly unbreakable resolve to win. It was obvious he had earned his name, with near-divine force. He had heard rumors, too, about the young Freiherr who could command the power of electricity, but Djakara was beyond what was told of in those myths. Going up against those two was suicide, and he knew it.

That girl's only hopes now lay in the possibility of good news from the shapeshifter, Jame. Fly fast and come back to us, he thought, turning to stare out the front of the wagon at the dark skies full of white flecks.

(Bunny of Djakara Fraye approved by Djakara)

[Call me J]

As Jame flew out into the snow, he wondered if this was going to be his last flight. He had officially said he was going scouting, but that wasn’t the truth. He was going to go on a rampage. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to destroy an entire army of peasants, but he felt, as a dragon and with the blessings of Aglarlin, he’d be able to strike so much fear into them, that they wouldn’t be able to attack.

“I’ll put the fear of God into them,” he resolved as he flew through the air. “Not their damn Ethereal Sway, but God!” Jame knew that there were different kinds of fear. There was the fear that lay in people’s hearts in good times, and then there was the fear in times of danger. The fear of the church was only in good times, Jame knew, the moment these peasants were attacked by a dragon, a greater, more visceral fear would grip them harder than the passions that would have occurred by false religion.

Jame knew there was nothing about the Ethereal Sway that amounted to anything more than showmanship. After all, his fate had already lead to him meeting Mya, twice. They hadn’t answered many of his questions, and he had skepticism as to whether they really cared to help him at all. Even then, the half dragon knew enough of their intentions to know there was nothing about the Ethereal Sway that was holy, or even wholesome.

The half dragon’s wings began moving faster than they needed and his heart raced faster the closer and closer he got to the church. The first thing he did, before the peasants even had a chance to see him, was unleash his firebreath down towards them. He could only extend it about twenty five feet, so it meant being vulnerable to their archers and mages, but he had flown so fast towards them that they didn’t even have a chance to scream in terror, let alone knock arrows into their bow.

A huge clowd of smoke shot out of Jame’s mouth, followed by a mushroom cloud of fire. Jame could barely see the onslaught of his attack, the mess of flame and smoke barred him from seeing how anyone had reacted. He flew upwards immediately, both to get a better sense of the battlefield and to move out of the range of arrows. The peasants, they were panicking. At least fifteen of them had been set on fire, and they were so frightened they were just running around and panicking. A volley of arrows, fired haphazardly and without any coordination shot out towards the half dragon, but they all failed to reach him, some of them even ending up landing in the eyes and throats of the other peasants. There was a genuine sense of panic, Jame had helped create it. Now, he knew at the very least, if the caravan was going to try an escape, there weren’t going to be enough peasants brave enough to follow.

Before Jame could capitalize on the chaos he had created, another group had charged forwards. Jame looked on bug eyed, he couldn’t believe his luck. An army of the state was heading towards the Salaturn estate, presumably with the same motive as him. Jame didn’t know if they had been lying in wait, or if they had decided to take advantage of his attack, but they were now charging forwards at a double speed.

A toothy grin appeared on Jame’s face. He realized now why the dot he had looked out on the horizon seemed to be getting bigger. Salvarian soldiers were on their way.

“We’re going to get this through…” he realized. He unleashed another breath of fire, and without waiting to see what its result was, he flew back towards the caravan, eagerly hoping to give them the good news.

[Djakara]

Before Djakara could send out Leon and Godhand to implement his plan, the older mercenary spoke up, criticizing it. “Jesus Christ, you go from hot to cold pretty damn fast. We're not leaving the kid out here to die. What the Hell is wrong with you?”

The Freiherr seemed proud enough of his plan, so the reaction he received from Godhand angered him. He had expected the mercenary to be pleased with the mention of the gun, and he had been certain that his new plan, though cold hearted, ensured the maximum chances that their shipment would reach the target and they could all get paid. “She wanted to come aboard,” Djakara replied coldly. “Now, she’s going to have to do the job. Who else would it be? She even got hurt when it was four of us on a demon? Think she’s going to be of any use to us at all?”

However, any further debate on the subject of using Mariah as a sacrifice Djakara saw a green dragon hit the ground running, and it turn into Jame Kaosi without even missing a beat. The young Freiherr had no idea what had brought about the strange grin on Jame’s face, but he knew it could only be good news. Jame had spent far too much of the mission brooding and angry for the smile to have not been a harbinger of good news.

“What is it?” Djakara asked, practically pushing his driver Brownstone out of the way to talk to the half dragon.

“It’s great…” Jame said, his words interspersed with heavy gasps for air. The half dragon’s entire body was shaking from excitement, an excitement that had affected Djakara even before the young entrepreneur knew what it was about. “There are Salvar soldiers now…”

Djakara knew exactly what that meant. He and Jame exchanged a wordless smile. “Plan’s back on,” he said. “We’re not going to run, we’re going through.” This was his new call, and it was one that he wanted to make. His face was beaming with pride, once again, he could envision himself with the Gatling gun, mowing down his foes without any regard for their safety and well being. It would be an even better scene than the explosion he had planned for Mariah.

“Change of plans!” Djakara declared triumphantly. He began to speak about the half dragon in the third person, repeating details as if neither Godhand nor Leon had heard the conversation the first time. “Jame just came back from the church, and he says that the Salvarian army’s there too. We have our best chance getting through. We’ll go with this plan, four caravans leading up the front, the last caravan in the back will have the stationary gun…”

Jame nodded, seemingly willing to let Djakara have his smug moment. “We need to get moving fast,” the half dragon added. “I didn’t see the exact numbers, but I think there are more of the peasants than there are soldiers. If we pull this off, it'll be because we moved fast…”

“Exactly,” Djakara chimed in, as if Jame was just repeating the Freiherr’s instructions. “Jame’s right, move now, move quick, let’s get to work on the gun…”

(Moderator note- Godhand's dialogue written by Godhand)

[Crimson Rose]

Unaware that Djarkara had been planning to use her as a sacrificial lamb, the red haired thief's only thought was to stop this woman from escaping. She did not want to look like a fool again, she wanted to at least show to Djarkara and the other men that she was capable of doing something right. Gritting her teeth as she heard the woman shout, her eyes widened as she heard the fear in the woman's voice. It sounded as if the young woman had been in pain, hearing the word torture, grief filled Mariah's heart. She very well knew how that felt.

Moving to rise from her position, Rose gingerly got up from the soft cloth she was laying on, Moving to dismount from the wagon, she kept the gun cocked and ready, in a warning voice she shouts "Don't make a move!" She then moved just an inch away form the wagon to get a better look at the woman.

Through the flakes she could see long blonde hair, skin that was the color of porcelain, the woman's eyes were faint, but she could see genuine fear in them. Confusion filled the young thief's heart as she shouts "If you say your tortured? Then how is it that you can stand?" Knowing from her experience, when that arrogant prat of a man had raped and tortured her, she had not been able to walk.

After she had shot her questions at the pale skinned woman, she heard the lady fire her own. Pursuing her lips, her mind begin to turn its wheels [/I] Red- eyed, silver haired barbarian? He sounds familiar, oh no...[/I] Compassion begin to leak into Mariah's heart.

Not willing to lower the gun she is about to shout "Give me proof!" but, the words don't come. She could still feel the sting from the slap Jame had given her. From the evidence that she remembered, she knew that the red eyed mongrel was just as capable to do it again. However, she still didn't want to let the woman get away. She didn't want to be a fool. Fool me once..shame on you, fool me twice! Shame on me... This saying played over and over in her mind as she tried to come to a decision.

So far since she had sought shelter in this caravan, she had been slapped around by that silver haired jerk, she had been flirted with by Djarkara and she had been severely injured by some overly powerful demon. Her score card did not bode well in her favor. Now though she had a chance to point her marks in the right direction, but which way was right?

As a flake of snow touched Mari's nose, pain soon followed. Wincing a bit, but stifling it, the thief shouted tersely "Fine, just go. But, if you cause any trouble, know that I'll shoot you without hesitation!" I'm making this threat...but how much of it can I back up? I practiced once with a pistol...though the mechanisms seem to work the same way. Knowing that she'd made her choice, Mariah begin to back step her way to the wagon. She kept her sights on the woman as she shouted "Go now! Just leave before I change my mind!" She hoped she hadn't just scored another point for suckers, if she did, she knew that she'd be in trouble with Djarkara once he found out.

[Dark Temptress]

Relief flooded her mind and her body. The tension that had grown in her muscles and tightened nearly to the point of breaking, ebbed and calmed and she could feel it leaving her in a sudden wave. It left her legs feeling like jelly, weak and wobbly and unable to support her small weight. It was almost enough to send her sinking towards the ground, but instead she somehow remained steady on her feet. Keeping her eyes on the woman, she gave her a genuine and thankful smile. She didn’t care to congratulate herself on being able to fool her into letting her go, she didn’t even care about how easy it had been to do so, she was just glad that it had worked.

Turning her eyes from the woman, A’rai quickly made her way towards her horse. Firnin was only a few more feet away from her. Absently, her eyes noted that all of her belongings were still upon the beast, but even if they weren’t she wouldn’t go back for them. Her summoning book was nearly irreplaceable, but it wasn’t worth her life or possibly recapture. No, she could get more of those, different kinds with different demons and summoning procedures, luckily though she wouldn’t have to. The man may have pegged her for the summoner just because of her actions, but he certainly made no effort in finding the proof to back that up. And it was sitting right before his eyes the entire time.

Placing her foot in one of the stirrups, the seductress hefted herself up into the saddle of Firnin and then reached down and grabbed the dangling reigns. Up ahead she could see movement from one of the tents and knew that if she didn’t hurry, her opportune moment was going to pass her by and leave her tied up and quite possibly much worse.

There is no way in Hell I am going to let that silver haired freak of a man touch me again.

Digging her heels into the side of the horse, A’rai spurred him on immediately into a fast run. His powerful legs cut down on the hard soil of the Salvaran wilderness and pushed the two of them forward. Snow lashed out at the exposed parts of her body, but she didn’t care to draw her cloak in around herself, only to get away as quickly as she could before anyone realized her escape. She knew that it would be a long hard ride back to her estate and that the closest place for her to go for shelter and to get her hand possibly treated would be the church, but they were preparing to assault the very caravan she had just left. Not to mention it might not be the safest place to go. None would dare touch her there, it was her land and her property after all, but she still felt a small knot of unease rise in her stomach as she hurried on towards the building.

The closer that A’rai got to the church, the more the sounds carried on he wind disturbed her. It sounded like a cacophony of voices all mingling together into something intangible and completely and utterly unintelligible. Once she got closer, she realized why. There was a battle taking place before her very eyes. Men from the church and the peasants that they had gathered were going up against a smaller force from the state, filled with soldiers who were actually trained in the art of killing.

Feeling her eyes widen in fear, the seductress pulled sharply on the reigns of Firnin and ground the horse to a stop, hearing him whine and complain in the process. She didn’t care though, not when this was going on. Knowing the church was no longer a safe place for her to go, A’rai turned her beast around and began heading towards her estate, the only place left she could go to, the only place that was close enough to flee. Hopefully the army would not come there. If they raided her home thinking she had something to do with the Sway then she would have nothing to fight back against them with and no proof that she hadn’t organized that small army. It was after all on her property.

[Godhand]

"That's not the point, Goddamnit!"

Godhand was about to go off on Djakara and educate him on the finer points of not being some sort of damn sociopath but before he could a tremor shook the wagon. The mercenary peered outside the canvas flap to see the large dragon morph back into James. It was kind of a big deal for him seeing somebody do that again; he hadn't had the time to really appreciate it when he was going toe-to-toe with Dantalion. But to see the skill he thought he had created and perfected being improved upon by another person was quite a thing. Even though he'd long since discarded the ability he still felt a surge of nostalgia at his young co-worker's display. The kid was really flying though, he'd hit the ground running. Seeing him so damn jumpy put him a bit on edge. No news was that good, he figured. The half-dragon was damn near shaking when he finally reached them.

He tried to talk but his mad dash for the convoy had left him out of strength. James ended cutting it down to a couple of short but meaningful words. Salvar soldiers. That was pretty much it but James and Djakara acted like this changed everything. They were practically making faces at it each other it was so ridiculous. Just then he turned to Godhand, still excited like he was expecting him to join them. He considered mocking them by starting in with "Oh my God, can you believe it!?" and giggling like a child but he understood now was neither the time nor the place. That didn't stop Djakara though. He swept back the canvas with a regal gesture and stepped out in what the mercenary guessed was an imitation of those old God-Emperors from the East, beaming and magnanimous and acting like the entire world was hanging off the tip of his dick. He loudly claimed how they were going to simply power through their ranks and get the shipment to the other side. Like it was that Goddamn easy.

"What is wrong with you people!? Don't you understand where you are!? This is a warzone! This is going to turn into a massa-oh what's the fucking use?"

Godhand shook his head and walked to the wagon Djakara had pointed out, ripping off the canvas with one strong motion. At least they had a gatling. No better weapon for a big showdown like this. Hopefully they had enough ammo to really get on a good roll. With any luck at all the sheer firepower of the thing would scare off any Sway-monkeys from attacking them. As Godhand quickly got to work assembling the weapon, he didn't even notice their prisoner making off on her steed.

[Call me J]

As Jame listened to Djakara, he couldn’t help but feel excited. He was going to have a second chance at war. He had failed in Eluriand, but this would be his chance to succeed. There had been a fight there among impossible odds, but the elves of Tel Aglarim had stood stalwart against their foes, even though Jame could tell that many of them had expected to die. Part of Jame had feared he would die with them at Carnelost, and the fact that he had survived had brought him a sense of both hubris and invulnerability. It was a dangerous combination for a warrior, but Jame was too inexperienced to know better. There were a few things he’d learned along the way, but Jame didn’t know enough to keep his emotions in check.

Instead, Jame was hurrying, confident in his plan. He noticed the blonde girl escaping, but was too concerned with preparing for the real battle to bother with her. Whatever information they had needed from her, they had probably got already. He doubted that she would tell anyone about her little incursion with their caravan, and even if she did, Jame didn’t mind. If the government of Salvar knew that the shipment had been hijacked from within, that was Djakara’s problem, not his.

Still, Jame thought it best to offer some token resistance. As Godhand and Djakara went to work on the gun, seemingly unawares of the blonde who had already moved far away, he called out to Leon Adalbert to fire a few shots off for good measure. At the very least, he wanted to make the demon summoner work for her escape.

Instead, Jame was going to prepare himself for the battle. He didn’t much care for advanced technology, having really never had the opportunity to use it, but he figured this would be a good day to start. The one real tangible edge that the half dragon could sense that the caravan possessed was their weaponry, so that was an advantage they were going to have to take use of. The delhar claymore strapped across the half dragon’s back would have to wait for another time, even though the blessings of Aglarlin had made it so incredibly easy to wield.

Since the fourth wagon was being converted into a mobile gun station, Jame made his way to the fifth caravan to look for armor. The dwarf welcomed him politely, and he noticed the red haired Mariah waiting there, armed with her shotgun. “That’s right,” Jame remembered. “I sent her here to look for something to heal her…”

“Doing better?” Jame asked flatly, though it was abundantly clear that he didn’t really care. He practically pushed by the dwarven driver out of the way as he stepped over the first few crates to look for something labeled as armors. He was just glad that it was still bright enough out, many of the crates were labeled in drow, and that was a language that the half dragon struggled to speak. A few of them had tradespeak labels, some of them as blatant as weapons, but he was having trouble finding armor.

Eventually, Jame found a crate full of chainmail. He put a shirt on himself and then called out to the driver. “Ey, you dwarf?” he called. “What’s your name?”

“Leaves, lad,” the dwarf replied.

“Catch…” Jame said. He tossed the chainmail over to the dwarf. “And by the way, did you see how the blonde woman escaped?”

Leaves nodded. “Mariah granted her clemency,” the dwarf replied. “I thought it was only proper to let her leave after that.”

Jame’s eyes opened wide when he heard that. He stumbled to words, unsure as to whether she was devious or just stupid. “Uhh…” he finally stammered. “Why?” His eyes were boring straight into Mariah’s.

[Djakara]

Once the crates were open, Djakara realized he wasn’t as sure as he thought he was about how to assemble the weapon. The last time the young Freiherr had seen a Gatling gun, it had a motor. This one, from what Djakara could gather, used a crank. It didn’t take him too long to figure out the differences in terms of assembly, but what had made him more nervous was that he didn’t know what the differences would be in terms of firing.

It was just another thing that could have gone wrong. Back on Djakara’s homeworld, it was considered standard for every child to learn how to use the stationary Gatling gun in their home, just because there wasn’t much else by way of protection given the way that the war between the Republic and Aristocracy had ravished the land. Now, that skill was going to be of limited use, because the young Freiherr had no idea how to turn the crank properly. All the experience he had with the weapon was going to be essentially useless.

Angrily, he sighed. “And they’ll all just think it’s because I’m young,” the Freiherr thought bitterly. “They wouldn’t think for a minute that these problems might be because I’m from a technologically superior race… all these people look at me and they see age. In Alerar and here too…” Still that anger fueled Djakara, it was what motivated him to pursue his dream of an idyllic life in an Istraloth resort, despite the dangers he’d face. He had expected trouble when he’d made his plans, but he had believed that his determination would have been enough to get him through.

Now that Djakara heard that the Salvarian army was practically taking care of his enemies for him, he couldn’t have been any happier. Had he been a more religious man, he would have thanked providence. A devout opponent of the tenets that had lead to the repeal of the Ethical Law on his planet, he was content just to thank his luck, but even then, Djakara felt as though he deserved it. He had worked too hard, come up with far too elaborate of a plan for it to have been foiled by a girl summoning demons and a local magistrate.

However, Djakara’s anger didn’t just give him his sense of confidence. It also gave the young Freiherr a bitter edge, one that was particularly unbecoming given his age. Djakara knew it lurked in him, and that it wasn’t normal to think of the life of a girl he had been trying to bed as nothing more than a strategic chip in a larger game when that definition better suited his purpose. He just tried not to let it bother him.

Now, the weapon was almost assembled, so Djakara readied the bullets. In their searching for the parts, he had discovered one crate half full of bullets, and now he made sure to look around at the other ones still left on what remained of the wagon. There were four of them, and three of them were filled with bullets. He tied them down with twine, and then called for the driver of the fifth wagon to carry over the remaining box to that wagon.

Once the gun was all assembled, Djakara beamed brightly. He might have not known how to use the crank, but he figured he would learn quickly. “We’re off to war!” he crowed. “Everyone to your stations, first two caravans on the left, third and fourth on the right. The gun goes in the middle!”

[Crimson Rose]

Mariah's face flushed lightly at Jame's heavy stare, his question however made her sigh heavily. Averting her eyes from Jame's intense red ones, the thief quietly said "She claimed that she was abused, tortured..." biting her lip, Mariah looked up again as she said blatantly "She claimed she was tortured by a red eyed, silver haired man. The only person that came to my mind was you Jame. You hit me, and I couldn't help but believe you had done the same to her..." Seeing Jame's angry look, Mariah held up her hands as she said lightly "I"m sorry, I know now that you only hit me out of anger. Torture, I don't know if your capable of. I.."

Her red white flecked eyes closed heavily, as her voice grew light and sad "have had a bad history with men.. When I first left my parent's home, I thought to rebel against their rules. I grew up raised as a noble man's daughter, he taught me to be a lady and to accept my duties. My duties," her eyes grew hot with anger, as she ran a tongue over her lips to lesson their dryness, as she looked up, her eyes appeared both pained and angered as she continued " were to be a lord or duke's wife, to cook for them, clean up after them. Basically do what my mother did, please her husband then go to tea with the ladies while the men did all the work and the woman just got stuck with chores and boring tea. I did not like that, I had more spunk, more spirit then my father thought proper. He tried to tame me, but he couldn't." She then took a few deep breathes, this was the hardest part to tell, she still remembered how it felt, how Raelyse had taken advantage of her innocence and her fear. Shaking a bit, her voice cracked as she finished up her tale "So I left, became a thief to live by my own will. But, that didn't work out to well either, I tried to steal from this arrogant man, he seemed to be a noble and he looked rich. He caught me, and.....he, he raped me..." Tears welled in her eyes as she finished this.

Moving to pick up the shotgun, she let the tears fall on the soft thick cloth she was using to prop her body up with. In a quavering voice she stated "You can hate me for letting that woman go Jame. But I understand how it feels to be tortured, to be brutalized. It is why I let her go, I was sympathetic to her pleas, that is why I let her go..." She then fell into silence, her eyes staring straight out into the falling flakes. She knew that she needed to be alert, to be aware if any of the army that had been reported were to attack.

But, right now the red haired lass was lost in the path. She hated her luck, her bad dive with men, her only bright spark had been when Seth rescued her. Her hands gripped the smooth metal of the gun as she thought I hope I get a lucky break again, I don't want to be forever lost on this path. This path that only leads to pain and misfortune...

[Call me J]

Jame could tell that Mariah was frightened. He had no idea what had scared her, and in truth, he would have preferred to ignore the entire situation. However, he knew that he didn’t have the choice. It would take time to punish her, time that he didn’t have. The wagon had already begun to move, and they were heading straight for war.

The same impulse that had made Jame hit Mariah earlier was causing his blood to boil again. “I can’t believe she’s this stupid,” he thought disparagingly. “Did she even think that we might still need the blonde? What kind of person asks to be taken into a caravan, and then blatantly ignores the things they need to do. She told me that she’d be grateful, but she really wasn’t there…”

Still, there was only so much anger that the half dragon could have for a girl that was blubbering in tears in front of him, especially when she had confessed to having been raped in the past. Immediately, Jame thought of Rainee, the cat girl he had met in Anebrilith on his way to Carnelost. She had been brutally victimized by a cruel man, to the point where she loved him even though he had wanted her dead. The similarities between the situations softened his heart.

While Jame still couldn’t shake the thought of Maia in Eluriand without his protection, he knew that being cruel to Mariah while waiting for battle wouldn’t do anything to help Maia. He shook his head, wondering why it was that women seemed to always cloud his decision making in ways that men weren’t capable of. With a sigh, he sat down near Mariah and looked out on the blizzard, knowing that within minutes, it would be the beginning of their war.

A long time had passed between since when Mariah had initially spoke, and Jame could feel her fidgeting uneasily as she awaited his response. She continued to sob, and though the half dragon hadn’t felt compelled to stop it, he knew that they would need whatever help the wounded thief could offer. “You were an idiot to let her go,” Jame said. “It was her demon that got you in the condition that you’re in.”

The half dragon waited a minute before he said anything else, his temper did not allow him to forgive Mariah without letting her suffer a bit. Mariah looked up, wiping the tears from her eyes, shock replaced her pain as she hissed, “What? Really?” Smacking a hand to her forehead she bemoaned, “God, I am a fool!”

Now that he’d seen that reaction, Jame was willing to forgive. “You are a fool,” Jame replied. “But you’re a fool who has suffered enough.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and squeezed it, more because he knew she needed human contact than due to any genuine sense of affection for the runaway noble. “Admitting your foolishness won’t bring the girl back,” he continued. “But it’s in the past now. Just don’t do anything like that again, and for the Mya’s sake, just use your head. There aren’t enough people out there for you to get by this dumb…”

Even in the blizzard, the battle was becoming clearer. There were flashes of fire and electricity, emerging presumably from the mages that both sides hired. The sounds of people screaming were becoming more and more apparent.

Jame took his arm off Mariah and got up. “Stay careful…” he warned her. “Shoot anyone who comes near you, regardless of their story. We need to get these weapons to Raiaera.”

With that, he jumped out from the back of the wagon and began running for the battle, transforming into a dragon and rising up into the air. In the storm, he hoped that he might be able to launch a second attack with the element of surprise on his side.

[Godhand]

Godhand finished making the gun without too much trouble. He'd manned enough of the things to know which part goes where. The mercenary chuckled at the thought of the last time he'd used a Gatling Gun. It was a raid on the bazaar: all masks and coats and gloves, nobody knew who was who. They'd parked the wagon out front while they ransacked the joint and when the guards showed up he'd dived into it and started the getaway. They followed of course, but when Godhand pulled back the tarp over the gun the look on their faces was priceless. He started turning the crank and they were Hell on wheels; nobody in the city had ever seen anything like it. A mobile artillery station drawn by wild horses being chased by the mounted cadavers of Corone's finest. Can you imagine such a thing? They talked about it for years and rightly so. Nowadays that sort of thing could never be done; smuggling in a weapon like that even piece by piece was impossible. Everything was checked and inspected and taxed.

But out here in the sticks anything went. They were attacking a stronghold on a nobleman's land defended by the antagonists in a war that had nothing to do with them using weapons that they had stolen and were planning to sell wielded by non-union mercenaries. Perfect. If their horses had been stolen then there'd be no law they weren't breaking. What did that add up to anyway? Something like thirteen life sentences plus six death penalties. He almost regretted that he wasn't having more fun with it.

Godhand had gotten back to his wagon a while ago. They had been rolling for about four minutes at full bore and had finally reached the keep. It seemed to be a large church, looked more like a castle to him, who's courtyard was protected by large stone walls about fifteen feet tall. They could hear the roar of battle from the other side but were blocked off by the palisade. That was a problem. Godhand could clear it with a single bound but he'd be leaving behind all their weapons and most importantly the Gatling.

He hopped off the wagon and inspected the large stone fence. It wasn't built too solid; it looked like it had only been built recently. It was unstable thanks to being built in a hurry. He could tell just running his hands over the uneven stones they'd chosen. Rookie masons, too. Godhand took a deep breath and retreated from it a few steps before rushing forward and tackling the palisade. Even poorly made, it was still several tons of stone cemented to each other. His muscles strained under his coat and a small vein became visible on his neck. He took a couple of steps back and with a final roar he lunged forth, spearing it. The stone shook and a large section of the wall collapsed, falling forward and crushing a couple of stragglers fighting on the other side. When the dust settled the stones had sunk into the snow, making a handsome walkway for the convoy. Godhand's chest rose and fell with exertion, but he quickly recovered and pumped a fist into the air. The Alerarian guardsmen behind him roared and the convoy rushed forth.

[Crimson Rose]

Mariah's tears were slowly drying on her cheeks as she smiled wanly at Jame. In a soft voice she joked "First you hit me, then you heal me, and now you comfort me; what can I do to repay you Jame?" Hearing his sage words of advice, the red haired thief nodded. His words were correct, if she was not going to suffer, and not get the short end of the stick, she would have to use her head from now on. Her smile grew warmer as she thought From now on, whether I'm on a mission for the guild, or just in need of shelter, I'll use my head. It isn't always the greatest idea to rush head first into things. I'll end up more in boiling water, then in a safe, and secure shelter...

As she turned to watch the blizzard, she felt Jame's hand leave her shoulder. Blinking she turned to look at him, but he was already gone, her mouth fell open as she watched him transform into a dragon. So, that is why he was no where around, he isn't fully human... still in shock, Mariah hadn't yet picked up her shotgun. Jame had told her to prepare, but she had not expected him to turn into a dragon right before her eyes.

"Miss!" Leaves had halted the horses, as the grey haired warrior in front of them smashed through the brittle fence. The dwarf had noticed that the red eyed lass had not heard the noise. Poking her shoulder he shouted "Pay attention! Grab that shotgun lass, we're approaching the enemy!"

Shaking her head clear of its dazed state, the thief moved to grasp the cold gun in her hands. She could feel the freezing temperature getting to her. Her cloak was not warm enough for this, her chilled hands grasped the butt of the gun, and she slid her finger into the trigger. Getting settled again, her eyes then turned to the vast courtyard in front of them.

Humans, many of them, were yelling and screaming. Swords, and spears clashed against one another, as the Alerarian government and Parisians of the church fought each other. As the caravan blazed through, Mariah shrieked and fired off a shot at a soldier who noticed her approaching. The bullet caught the man by surprise and he fell softly into the icy snow.

As flakes begin to turn the red haired thief's hair white, Mariah clicked to reload the gun. Her eyes were slanted as she prepared her next shot. She was fearful, inexperienced at battle. She wasn't sure how well she could do, but she prayed that by the end of this, she'd be safely through here and on her way back home to the guild.

[Djakara]

The snow was very cold, but it was a different kind of cold than before. With adrenaline surging through his body, it barely fazed him and the shivers that it caused only added to the excitement. Djakara commanded the driver forward, waiting expectantly as he approached what he believed was the right range.

As he moved closer and closer to the battle, he could practically feel the violence on his skin. It was a tingling sensation that came all over him and he became more and more eager the closer and closer he got to the fighting. On his home world, war had always been an abstract concept, a reason to rally around the flag and support the soldiers, but he had never experienced war this way. The violence was like a party, a massive orgy of weapons and blood in which all the rules of propriety were forgotten.

There was electricity in the air, and this time it wasn’t Djakara creating it. He looked on eagerly, firing the first round of bullets early in his eagerness.

“Ey, lad, ye said ye wanted to keep as much of them,” the dwarven cartmaster said.

Djakara only replied with a snide expression as he hurriedly reloaded the weapon. The war itself might have been dazzling, but firing the weapon was even better. The young Freiherr knew that Godhand was stronger and Jame had a number of powerful abilities, but none of them were behind a weapon as powerful as his.

“Gilead, don’t you give up on me…” Djakara said. “We’re going for the kill this time.”

The dwarf nodded.

As the wagons grew closer to the battle, they began to diverge. The Gatling gun was in the center, and now it was exposed. From a strategic standpoint, this might have been disastrous, the one equalizing asset that his band of weapons shippers had was now being exposed without protection. However, Djakara didn’t see it that way. He was far too excited. He wanted his enemies to see him, he wanted to see the looks in their eyes as the gun mowed them down.

The Gattling gun had been reloaded. Djakara began to work the crank, certain now that he was doing it right as he had already fired off one round. It was fortunate now, the certainty he possessed made him feel invincible.

“Now it’s my time to shine,” he figured. “After all of that, it’s finally my time.” He imagined telling the story back in Alerar about how with nothing more than a few dwarven drives and guards, he was able to mow down an army with the gun he had assembled.

[Leon Adalbert]

The marksman felt justified as he fired off a round at the demon summoner in the distance. Still, he felt something just wasn't right with shooting at such a pretty young girl, even if she was so much paler than he usually liked them. Nonetheless, he had aimed badly to begin with, and the jolt that the wagon took as it rolled over a misplaced stone made the bullet fly wide.

His shoulders slumped and his gun arm dropped to his side as he shook his head slowly in distaste, dirty blond locks falling over his eyes. He turned away from the opening at the rear of the cart, leather boots tapping on
wood as he strode towards an opened crate. His eyes caught on a glint of steel in the wooden box, and the merchant kneeled to look inside. Armor, he thought. Ought to make some use of what we've got. As is, I've got little to stop an arrow or a sword. Leon shrugged off his longcoat, the metal studs in the shoulders clinking against each other as it fell. Searching through the crate, he found a simple chain shirt, all the ringlets made of polished steel so that it shimmered as he handled it. A smile parted his pursed lips, pearly whites glinting like the metal before them. "This'll do."

He pulled the rattling shirt over his head and replaced his studded leather longcoat. As he reloaded his pistol, using the glowing red marble of kiramaini he'd found earlier, he heard a loud crash from outside, followed a minute or so later by a shotgun blast and the rapid unloading of a gatling gun. He crept to the rear of the wagon, pulling back the flap and poking his head out. Satisfied that he would be safe in his climb, he clambered into his precarious position on top of the cart, his stance wide to keep him from falling off the moving vehicle.

"Lily," he whispered to the flintlock, naming his new pet weapon, "it's about damn time you got a proper christening." With that, he pointed the gun at the heart of the church's forces, cocked the hammer, and squeezed the trigger.

(It's up to the next poster how powerful the blast is from the gun. It should be a small fiery explosion.)

[Call me J]

Now that Godhand had broken the walls down, Djakara and Leon Adalbert had gone on the offensive. Jame wanted to get into the action as soon as possible. As a dragon, he was the weapon himself, but he knew, against the odds, he would need to be careful. Even with the blessings of Aglarlin, his dragon scales were still relatively tender, and they could be pierced by swords rather easily. The issue of how the wounds would translate to humanoid form was another concern for him.

With his face stern the half dragon let out a long breath of fire, picking off the back of the lines of the church forces. They were mostly peasants, haphazard in their organization, and when they saw Jame, they began to panic. The Salvarian soldiers were much more disciplined, and while a few of them looked on in awe, as a group, they were able to take advantage and work more efficiently. Jame was glad he could give them this advantage merely by flying around, and the few people mowed down by Djakara and Leon Adalbert only helped to add to the peasants panic. The explosion from Leon's pistol had left over twenty peasants dead, and far more wounded and confused.

Jame took no joy in burning the peasants. He had felt bold earlier when he had been fighting the undead, but the way that fate had dealt him such a sudden twist loomed in his mind. Fate had taught him a hard lesson, that even in moments of supreme power, the distance between success and failure was not all that much.

The parallels between the assault on Eluriand and this battle at the Salaturn Church would have been unnerving if Jame thought about them too much. In both cases, Jame was fighting alongside a state that he didn’t really have much attachment to, for reasons that he couldn’t put into words. Both times he was running on a mess of feelings, the comparisons between himself and his father, the women who stirred feelings in him, and the things that he hoped to do. The parallels were chilling, especially since Jame had failed in Raiaera.

The air was becoming thick with tension, and the battles between peasants and soldiers had become so encompassing that he could no longer use his flames. He was just as likely to harm his allies as he was his enemies. He knew this wasn’t going to help Djakara and the rest that planned on using their firepower. Scowling, the half dragon scanned the area, hoping that with his vantage point, he might be able to take out the church leaders.

Inside the stone church, Jame could see a few shadows from behind a stained glass window. There was nothing he was able to discern about the people it concealed, other than there seemed to be a heated debate among them.

“Control center,” Jame realized. Without any hesitation, he flew towards it, crashing his claws against the glass, shattering it as a volley of arrows came his way. A few bounced off his scales, but most of them fell back down to the ground harmlessly.

Quickly, Jame unleashed a breath of fire. By the time it had dissipated, the people who had been behind the glass had disappeared. He cringed and flew back up into the air to get out of the range of a second volley of arrows.

[Godhand]

Godhand remained stock still and with a perfectly calm expression on his face while his comrades roared and raced past him. The mercenary had served in many wars all over the world and he had the scars to prove it, but being back in an honest-to-God battlefield really made him nostalgic. He'd spent the better part of a decade doing wet work for the mob, the quiet jobs where you snuck around some guy's house before popping him in the back of the head when he leaned down to sip at a spoonful of tomato soup. Lousy work. All that creeping really shot the Hell out of a man's nerves. Those new electric alarms Alerar was making were probably the worst thing that ever happened to Godhand.

But out here there was no need for that sort of thing. No hiding or stalking or sneaking around; he was back in his element. Power! He rarely got a chance to show off, usually trying to play it cool and quiet and keep his true strength a mystery. And it was a good thing, too. Just look at Letho. Probably one of Althanas' greatest heroes and yet he couldn't go one day without some upstart trying to make a name for himself by taking him out. Godhand didn't have that problem. But protected by the guise of anonymity, he was free to really "open her up". He couldn't wait.

The swordsman burst forth from where he was standing, moving through the battlefield at an astounding speed. Anyone that got in his way even by accident was instantly decimated; it was like watching a cannonball getting fired through a horde of pins. When he reached the area where the battle was thickest he ground to a halt before making his presence known with a savage crouching palm strike to the person who was faring the best in the fight. He entered the horse stance, the frozen earth shattering and sinking beneath his feet when he grit his teeth and tensed his body to it's maximum. His forearms began to shake like overloaded beakers before he roared and swept his arms around himself. Using that same momentum he drove his left elbow into the abdomen of a churchie that had tried to charge him before lunging forward and driving his fist into a man's throat. More and more men began to charge him but he never moved from his position or turned his head; his arms were a blur and his face a strained scowl as he flung back attack after attack and zealot after zealot. Finally they seemed to take the hint and formed a circle around him about six feet in every direction.

Godhand shifted his eyes before stepping forward resolutely, never breaking stance. The soil collapsed under his right foot and he lunged forward again, making wider movements this time and moving all around the circle. He seemed to batter their ranks and the circle around him grew exponentially until he had to quickly unsheathe, slice, and resheathe his Muramasa to get at those that were just out of his reach. All his movements were vicious and circular, always seeming to lead back to the center of the circle. More men got swept up in his strikes; he moved through them like a tornado.

He was home.

[Djakara]

Even though Djakara was shocked by the amount of raw carnage his convoy had already caused, he wasn’t discouraged from his dream of having the most kills. He wanted to collect them now, to the point where he had all but forgotten about the causes of the war. Instead, the young boy just wanted to be counted, to be seen as tough, an equal in the eyes of Althanas’ toughest warriors. Djakara noticed the way that Godhand respected Jame, and he assumed that was because of the half dragon’s martial prowess. Now, with the Gatling gun, Djakara knew that he could change everyone else’s estimation.

All but the most basic actions had faded away from Djakara. He still breathed, but he didn’t notice it. His hands no longer shook, his mind had been completely purged of fear. There were just two things that Djakara did, wind the gears and fire the gun. He had become a part of the machine, just as capable of thought and emotion as a trigger and a crank shaft. He didn’t care that peasants were screaming in pain, that stray bullets had hit some of the soldiers, or that any of these people wouldn’t be returning home to their families.

Most of all, Djakara didn’t remember his parents, the early demonstrations on his home planet, or the end of the Ethical Law. He didn’t think enough to realize he was becoming just like the people he despised. First, when Djakara had come to Althanas, he swore that he’d put the life of Faraiaera behind him, and that the brutal ways of his planet would end when he escaped the Water’s Edge. When he’d first come to ALthanas though, he’d found this planet was hardly better than one he’d left. Slightly more civilized, but technologically primitive. Djakara couldn’t cope with that, so he’d struggled for comfort. He’d found none, no opportunities, save for the sale of weapons. He’d assured himself that it was alright, that he wasn’t the one doing the killing, even when he spoke to none other than the current High Graf of Alerar about the necessity of starting a civil war.

Both Djakara and Schynius had decided that the Salvarian civil war and rise of Xem’zund were not a massive waste of life, but a godsend for Alerar. They provided the optimal diversions from national politics, and Djakara had welcomed them. At the time, he’d rationalized his guilt by reminding himself that it wasn’t him who had done the killing, that the wars were going to happen any ways, and that he was only trying to profit off a situation that would have been terrible regardless of what he did. The opportunity to give Jame the weapons might have been humane, but the whole time that the young Freiherr had lead Jame along, because he expected to charge Raiaera a particularly dear price for the weapons.

Now, though, he was killing, and morbidly, Djakara was keeping count, mentally listing every corpse he had felled. After the battle, he would puff up his chest, and brag about his killings to the red haired girl, who would be awed, and to Godhand and Jame, who would still be impressed. He doubted that both of them would be able to match him, both of their energies were finite, but the machine gun had no limits.

“Move in closer,” Djakara shouted to his driver. With the walls broken down, he wanted to continue the onslaught. He wanted to see the people he felled closely, and he wanted the people who he had felled to see him and know him as their death dealer.

“Sure lad?” the dwarven driver asked.

“Do it, damnit!” Djakara shot back like a petulant child. The dwarf complied.

Djakara unleashed another volley of bullets, this one targeted at the archers. He grinned eagerly, watching as they began to duck in cover after the first few had been slain. Later, Djakara would find a way to rationalize the killings, but for the moment, he was content just being known as a monster.

[Dark Temptress]

The steady beats of her horse’s hooves took her farther and farther from the battle. From the screams of pain, the shouts of victory and the battle cries that reigned, rose and fell. Their sounds a cacophony, an orchestra of death that was oddly quite beautiful to her ears in the way that it travelled through the air. And the farther she travelled from it, the safer she began to feel. Once she felt a good enough distance away, she pulled on the reigns of her horse, bringing Firnin to a stop and turning the beast around to once again watch the battle unfold.

It was a beautiful sight, stunning evening. It was a macabre dance where those in it fought for the most basic thing; their life. They shouted and cried, they lived and they died and she had nothing to do with it. No blood was upon her hands this time, for her plan had never come into fruition, but she was suddenly without care for that. The battle was far more interesting and in the end, she wasn’t sure whom she wanted to win or even cared to win. No one down there knew who she was and only what she looked like, just a face amongst a crowd and at the end of it they might not even remember she had ever existed. That was of course if they survived the entire ordeal.

Their strength was impressive, far beyond anything she could have imagined a human capable of. And their fighting prowess could have been legendary, especially from the one man who could turn himself into a Dragon. Never before had she seen such a thing and she doubted she ever would again. The man who had threatened her with torture had a breath-taking beauty to the way he fought. If ever she were to hire a mercenary, surely she would look for someone as powerful as him and loyal to his employer as well.

For a few moments she watched, as large bullets from a stationary machine gun tore through peasant and soldier alike, she watched. The ground was soon becoming stained with blood, splattered in all directions as the bodies of those who had fallen hampered those who stilled lived. There was still time for her to enter this battle. She could always summon another demon, one that would enjoy this carnage, but it would be pointless. They had already beaten two of her demons and rather easily at that, she was not about to summon a third just so he could be killed as well. It was a waste of a perfectly good and powerful demon, one sadly not powerful enough to go up against these men, these titans.

With no more left for her here, A’rai once again turned her horse around and began heading towards her home. It was a ride from here, less than an hour but one she would take comfort in knowing she would be safe and had done her best in this altercation. The wound upon her hand throbbed and though the bleeding had stopped, the wound was aggravated and she would need to treat it whence she was home. Hopefully, she could minimize it and leave barely a scar upon her skin.



((SPOILS:

Glock 17: The Althanas equivalent of the earth known Glock 17. It’s a 9mm pistol with a magazine capacity for a standard of 17 rounds, though the magazine can also hold 19. There is a safety along the side of it which allows the gun to be handled without fear of it being accidentally triggered. The entire gun is made from Titanium, a metal well known for resisting heat and fire. During A’rai’s escape from the caravan, the slide was somehow jammed and an unspent bullet got stuck inside, making the gun unusable until she can get it fixed. She also acquired three magazines from one of the crates with the gun, each magazine holds 17 rounds. ))

[Crimson Rose]

Mariah's eyes widened as she saw many men, soldiers and peasants alike, fall before her eyes. So far in this battle she had only slain one man, a peasant, whose green eyes had filled with shock once the bullet pierced his heart. The blood that fell form his body had stained the snow red, like a crimson flower. After this, she had aimed her shotgun at a mass of soldiers and peasants whose weapons were clashing together loudly, but, before she could fire off a shot, they had been killed by the stationary machine gun that the dark skinned youth was operating.

Watching the bodies fall like toppled dominos, Mariah sighed, as she swiveled to point the gun at a mass of more peasants and soldiers she thought This is a bloodbath...worse then anything a thief can do! They call us monsters, for taking what isn't ours...but look at what they are doing! They kill and slaughter for gain! We at least don't kill if we can avoid it! gritting her teeth, Mariah felt like pulling out and pulling back, as she swiveled to disappear into the wagon, a hand touched her shoulder.

"Lass, that won't do ya any good," Leaves said his broad shoulders hunched as he drove the wagon past the bodies, tugging the reins to a halt as one of the soldiers got trampled by one of the frightened horses, he continued " we need to fight our way outta here lassy. Or else we'll die!"

Mariah groaned, her eyes were closed as she gripped the cold metal of the shotgun, the cool weapon made her remember where she was. She was in the middle of a war, in the middle of a smuggling deal. She had to keep going, the red haired thief had to make it out of here alive. Or else, she knew that the guild would mourn her death, much as they had mourned Mother's.

With this thought in mind, the young thief turned now resolute, she had only one way out of this mess; and that was to fight. Cocking the trigger back, Rose let lose another bullet as she aimed it at a peasant that was over powering a young brown haired soldier boy. The peasant moved to stab his iron pitchfork into the boy's stomach, but shock filled his eyes as blood blossomed from his own stomach. Turning as he fell to the ground, his slowly dying eyes caught sight of the red haired girl reloading her shotgun. The soldier boy just stood dumbfounded, as Mariah prepared another shot to fire at whoever got near her. She was getting nearer to the church, and as she stared at the glassy windows, she wondered just who waited inside.

[Call me J]

With fierce hand to hand combat practically making it impossible for anything but the most precise breath of fire to be successful, Jame didn’t know what to do. The original arrival of the convoy had completely unsettled the inexperienced peasants, but it seemed that the entire strategy of the soldiers had been torn asunder as well. Godhand in particular was moving as if he also had the Blessings of Aglarlin on his side, and between Leon’s explosive bullets and Djakara’s tremendous gun, the tide was beginning to turn in favor of the vastly outnumbered soldiers, but at an important price. They could no longer use their advantage of being the better trained force.

Jame shook his head, he hadn’t realized this unintended side effect. Though the status of the Salvarian army didn’t directly relate to his goal of getting the weapons to Raiaera, they were too important to be killed because of haphazard strategy. Since his fiery attacks were of little use and there was really no where he could land all that well, the half dragon began to scan the area for the soldiers’ commander.

Soon, Jame found the man. He was riding on a horse, brandishing an older flintlock rifle bravely as he shot at an oncoming hoarde of peasants, only just able to hold them at bay. Jame could tell the man was the leader because there were disheveled maps strewn on the ground all around the man and his horse, presumably knocked out from the saddle bags by the conflict.

“If we’re going to combine our strategies, I’m going to have to act fast,” Jame realized. The man was doing a great job fighting off the peasants, but there was only so long that he’d be able to survive. The numbers game was working against the soldiers far too much at the Salaturn church.

Quickly, Jame scorched through the sky, swooping past all the carnage to reach the soldier captain. Once there, he began to scoop up the attacking peasants in his mouth and throw them away like they were little more than rag dolls. He worked fast, and even though one of them had managed to scratch his face with a sword, the half dragon had managed to free the old battle grizzled warrior.

“Thanks,” the grey haired soldier said gruffly. “Captain Sean Flynn. We’re here to escort your convoy…”

The terse introduction was likely all the situation could afford, and so Jame replied only with, “jump on my back.”

Though there was a bit of reluctance from Captain Flynn, he climbed up Jame’s neck and sat on his back, moving quickly to avoid the sudden volley of arrows that were aimed at the half dragon now that he had lowered himself back into their range. Jame didn’t even wait until Flynn was properly seated before he lifted himself back up into the sky. Once they were hovered over the battle, they exchanged a few more words.

“There are no hills here,” Captain Flynn declared, rubbing his chin testily. “I could barely see what was going on…” From new vantage point on Jame’s back, the veteran fighter was reassessing the battle, and from the tone of his voice, Jame could tell that he wasn’t pleased with what he saw.

“They’ve lost any sense of direction,” Jame said. “They’re just killing whoever’s near. There’s no place for me to really even get in there…”

Captain Flynn snorted. “Your people aren’t helping much either there,” he said. “That boy with the gun’s behaving like something else, just a dumb boy with a gun.”

Jame suppressed a guffaw at Djakara’s expense, as he flew back towards the church, now that he’d shattered the glass window, he figured that Captain Flynn could use it to coordinate the efforts. Jame would wait with him for the moment, and the two of them could plot together before the half dragon conveyed his message back to Godhand and the rest. The situation on the ground was delicate, practically hanging on the edge of a knife, and Jame feared that acting too quickly could hurt them even worse. Even if it took him out of the battle for a bit, the worst that could happen was that the soldiers would be able to regroup.

With that, the half dragon broke on through the window, destroying some of the frame itself as he bust into the church with more force than he had used just to cast fire earlier. The room on the steeple had seen better days, a long line in the carpet had been burned out, and there was just burned floor and ash. In the panic with which they had left, a few vases had been knocked over. However, everything else had been spared from Jame’s breath of fire, and the ornate vases and elaborate drapes created a strange juxtaposition with where the war below had touched.

Immediately, Jame turned back into his humanoid form. A few drops of blood fell from his cheek, most likely from the wound he had suffered rescuing Captain Flynn. He wiped the blood away quickly and was surprised how easily it healed, leaving little more than a faint scar on his cheek within a matter of seconds.

“That’ll be a mark of courage,” Captain Flynn said appreciatively before he stepped out to the large opening Jame had created to get a better view of the battle. “You going to relay messages for me?”

Jame nodded, but he was a bit surprised by the mention of a mark. The Blessings of Aglarlin had heretofore protected him from any injury being severe. In Raiaera, shortly after receiving the gift, he had been injured, only to have the wound seal without a mark. Now, as he felt his cheek, he could sense the slightest hint of a scar. The blessings were beginning to wear off, he was no longer invincible.

“I’ll do what I can,” Jame said, suddenly speaking with considerably less certainty than he had moments ago. Mortality had returned, and now he was very glad that he had grabbed the chain mail earlier from the wagon.

[Leon Adalbert]

Screams of pain and fear reached Leon's ears, sending a chill up his spine as he watched the deaths of the peasants his blast had taken. He didn't like killing, but this was war. Kill or be killed. Him or them. And the young trader's son wasn't about to let it be him.

Dropping down into a crouch atop the wagon, he poured a little more gunpowder into his Lily, rolling a small blue bead in after, its surface seeming to suck heat from the very air around it, replacing that with chill mist. Once he had loaded and cocked the pistol, he stood and made several leaps forward, standing on the foremost supporting arch of the wagon's canvas. He peered down on the battlefield, where the Freiherr's gatling destroyed rank after rank of churchgoers, and the large mercenary Godhand had cut his own swathe into the crowd. A dragon roared and flew straight into the steeple, flames billowing from its toothy maw, and the dirty blond man grinned. Good to see everyone having fun, he thought as he turned his attention back to picking his new target. Time for a little fun of my own.

He searched out the best blast point for the second of his enchanted bullets. There! A large man stood amongst the pikemen, pushing his way towards Godhand in heavy armor, presumably to take out the most visible and accessible threat to his army. He was coming dangerously close to the caravan, large buster sword in hand as he shouted orders. Must be in charge of the forward assault, Leon surmised. He aimed carefully at the officer, squeezing the trigger just as something struck the side of the wagon, ruining his shot. The glowing blue bullet sailed past its intended target, missing by only a few inches, and struck in the dirt behind him. A spire of ice burst from the ground, and a pale mist formed on the skins of the minutemen before freezing and killing them. The large man's armor protected him from the brunt of the attack, and he cringed through the rest.

"Prevalida," cursed the son of a merchant, recognizing the qualities of that metal in the warrior's armor. "Damn that stuff!" There was only one way to do this, and he had the means. He quickly reloaded, sliding the final, yellow orb down the barrel, its crackling filling his ears and making his fingertips tingle as he held it. Drawing his rapier, he crouched down, then leaped off the top of the wagon. Landing in the middle of a bunch of pitchfork-wielding conscripts, he began slicing and stabbing his way to the commander, a few prongs catching on his longcoat or grazing the chain shirt as he went. But he was too quick for them, having spent his youth dancing and dodging whippings, he knew instinctively how to twist to avoid the telling blows. As he closed in, he called out to the soldiers, "Form up around me! Hold off these peasants and I'll handle the commander, or my name isn't Adalbert!"

[Godhand]

Godhand was looking good out there. He was a young man; hard man. He wasn't pretty and he couldn't dance but out here he was still the former number one contender for the light heavyweight championship of the world. It was twenty years ago and he was back in the streets, the vicious son of a whore with a right hook like you'd never seen. The people milled about cautiously, and right then he nearly smiled. It was a rough spot; guys going down all over. That and the clack clack clack of the Gatling gun. But for right now he was on top.

Still, the whole fight had reached a standstill. At least around him, anyway. They weren't sure how to handle the mercenary. A long range attack made the most sense but with James having taken care of the archers that was out of the question. They'd tried getting him with spears but Godhand had dodged the tip and pulled the lancers into striking range. Nobody wanted to go toe-to-toe with him but they knew that their only chance was attrition. He was tough but there was only one of him and about a thousand of them. Something had to give and God was on their side, right? Right?

Someone shouted charge and they were back on the offensive. The circle shrunk back to it's original size and then Godhand was knocking back swords from all sides. It was a good thing he'd put some steel bracers on before the battle to shield his forearms because already his sleeves had been slashed to Hell. Not only that but between all of their attacks they had already worn deep grooves in them even though they hadn't been used for more than fifteen minutes. There were truly no limits to what you could achieve when you had an endless supply of expendable troops.

It was finally too much for Godhand and he crouched and shielded his body with both arms as at least a dozen blades crashed down on him. Almost immediately a swarm of churchies climbed on the backs of his assailants and dove on top of him. More and more ran up the sides of their comrades until finally the mercenary was buried beneath a veritable Goddamn mountain of the Sway monkeys. He could feel them breathing hotly in his ears, sweating all over him even as more joined the fray.

Godhand's knees shook as he slowly began to rise and as if on cue his enemies began to press down in an attempt to crush him. He thought about the way honey bees protected their hive from an Asian giant hornet. The hornet was several times their size and weight and could sting as many times as it wanted; individual bees were as nothing to it. So to protect themselves when a scout arrived at their hive dozens or even hundreds of bees swarmed it so that it was buried beneath them. Once it was immobilized they furiously vibrated their muscles to raise the temperature of the mass of bees to just over a hundred and ten degrees, about five degrees more than the hornet could take. It ended up being smothered and suffered heat death. Sure, a few of the bees died because of the heat too but the hive itself remained safe. The swordsman couldn't help but draw a comparison to that situation and this one. What a horrible way to go.

"ENOUGH!"

Godhand tensed his muscles before unleashing all his strength in a startling burst of sheer power. He extended himself to his full height and threw his arms to the side; all those on top of him were flung away as if by some invisible force. Some of the men that had climbed they highest broke their necks in the fall and the others were too stunned to continue fighting. The mercenary took quick breaths and rested his hands on his knees, trying to keep upright.

"Is that the best you got!? I'm the Goddamn-"

As soon as he turned around to address his opponents he was savagely speared by one of the Church's leaders.

[Djakara]

Djakara kept pushing his driver on, despite the dwarf’s worries about how close to the peasants they were getting. It didn’t bother the Freiherr much. He knew that no peasants would reach him before they were mowed down by the gun. He kept firing, cranking and reloading with a machine like efficiency, and the action itself was intoxicating to the point where he believed he could do no wrong. Now that his driver was insisting that they hesitate, and Djakara didn’t want to hear it.

“Are you a real man?” Djakara asked coldly, his eyes fixated on the mass of peasants he was gunning down.

“Ye shud know not to insult the ‘onner of a dwarf like dat, lad,” the dwarf replied, clearly upset by the question, but unwilling to do anything beyond that given the situation. “Norm’lly, ye’d have one in the kisser, jus’ fer thinkin’ that…”

Djakara paid little attention to the threat. “Move forward then,” was all he said.

The dwarf, noticeably irritated, flicked the reigns of the horse. “As you say Freiherr,” the driver replied.

The modified wagon surged forward, mowing down peasants left and right as others even dived out of the way of the weapon. Djakara now turned his attention away from the peasants nearby, there was far too much of a cluster of soldiers and peasants for his gun to be all that effective. Instead, he wanted to target the church archers, the one group of soldiers that both Jame and Godhand had left ignored. Already, Djakara could envision the benefits of attacking them.

“Hold steady now!” Djakara said.

The dwarf looked up at the young Freiherr as if he had never heard something so preposterous before. The battle was taking place all around them. Leon Adalbert was taking on one of the church’s best soldiers, a knight clad in prevalida armor, while Godhand was in the middle of a fight with a man of equal strength. The moment they stopped, it meant the battle would catch up to them. Or even worse, the horses could be killed and the entire gun rendered useless.

“Do it, Gilead!” Djakara shouted through gritted teeth. A thin buzz of electricity began to hum around his ears as he stared angrily at the dwarf.

The dwarf cringed, and Djakara, watching another volley of arrows fly up into the air and rain down around him, decided that he was going to take matters into his own hands. Now it was an issue of survival. He might have been able to mow down the peasants without letting them get close, but a stray arrow could hit him. He wanted to stop the motion of the wagon so that he could take aim properly, and Gilead wasn’t letting him.

Seconds later, the wagon stopped. Djakara smiled, Gilead had listened to him. Carefully, the Freiherr locked the archers in his sights, and after only a single reload, he had mowed all but a lucky few down. He smirked arrogantly. “How about that, Gilead? You doubted me, but the archers are dead!”

There was no response from the dwarf. “Damnit Gilead!” Djakara insisted, kicking the dwarf’s shoulder lightly. “Be a man and admit I was right.”

The dwarf collapsed to the ground. There was an arrow lodged in his throat.

[Godhand]

Godhand felt the air rush out of his lungs as he was tackled by Vidash, the general's shoulder getting driven into his stomach. It was rare someone was capable of rocking the mercenary like that but in these turbulent times filled with both miracles and catastrophes it seemed anything was possible. Even as he lay on the ground, too shell-shocked to move, he wondered how he hadn't heard of the man. Godhand kept his cards close to the vest so you couldn't find him unless you were looking, but out here in a warzone someone with his power and no compulsion to keep it under wraps should have already become famous. Maybe he had killed anybody who saw him in action and that's why word hadn't gotten around yet but it was still suspicious. Can't go around popping everyone who sees you fight; it was impossible in a war. So how?

The mercenary didn't have too much time to wonder though. Before he could even get his bearings Vidash had already grabbed a fistful of Godhand's hair and was starting to pull him up. The swordsman was still dizzy but once his opponent had gotten him to his feet he grunted and cracked a good one across the churchie's ribs. The man screamed and retreated, clutching at his chest. Apparently he wasn't used to someone hitting back that hard. Godhand couldn't blame him; if he hadn't spent most of his life boxing with some of the toughest guys in Corone the impact of that spear would have got him down for good.

Now was no time to rest on his laurels, though. If Vidash recuperated there was no telling what he was capable of doing, so the swordsman pressed his advantage. He lurched forward and grabbed the Sway monkey's head to keep it steady, then unleashed a savage right hand into his face. The man recoiled and Godhand did it once more, but he was too slow on the last one. Vidash smacked away his arm before landing a big right of his own on Godhand. It went back and forth like that, each one trying to knock the other out. None of the soldiers, neither the Church's nor the State's, dared approach as the entire battlefield shook after each one landed a hit. This was out of their hands and they knew it. They didn't fight each other, however. They were too entranced by the scene before them. It wasn't often a person got to see two titans try to batter each other to death, after all.

What they didn't know is that their power came from very different places. Godhand had earned his strength through blood and pain and hard work. He'd taken beatings from some of the meanest men skid row had to offer and had almost died more than a few times in his life. Vidash on the other hand had led a safe life in the monastery. He'd trained with wooden swords and prayed to his Goddess everyday for thirty five years. His strength had been given to him, not earned. And in some way this battle represented a sort of eternal struggle. Dog versus tiger. Man versus God. Each one of their blows was an argument for each side.

Suddenly Vidash put a hand on either side of Godhand's face before driving his head into the mercenary's. Blood began to flow down the swordsman's face and he grabbed his head and turned away, dizzy once again. The church's champion took the opportunity to drive a fist into the back of his head, sending Godhand to his knees. The man snarled and grabbed the mercenary's forearm, dragging him over to an abandoned wagon that had apparently spent many a winter slumbering outside the church. So invested did the soldiers become in the fight that they actually started cheering for one side or the other. The churchies began to chant Vidash's name as he threw the mercenary unto the wagon and grabbed both his ankles, isolating them by dragging them through the railing standard in every wagon. He then turned to the wall Godhand had broken down and picked out a large cinderblock. He easily picked it up and walked back to the swordsman, lifting the quarter-ton brick above his head. He smirked at Godhand before shattering it on his leg, dislocating his knee and probably fracturing his bones. The mercenary roared in agony.

The crowd went wild.

[Call me J]

Captain Flynn and Jame stared out over the battle below, watching uneasily as Djakara’s driver was slain and Leon and Godhand were occupied with some of the church’s best fighters. The entire situation had now been torn asunder, and while it looked like the soldiers had a slight advantage, both Captain Flynna and Jame could tell that it wasn’t an advantage that would hold. The soldier’s discipline and rhythm would need to recover from the sudden shock of the convoy, but mad peasants were too absorbed with their obsession over a god that didn’t exist.

“Go out and bolster the left side,” Captain Flynn said. “That’ll give our guys the chance to recover.They need the help.”

Jame nodded. He didn’t exactly see what the veteran soldier saw, but he knew that he was better off trusting the expertise. The only time the half dragon had been in charge of soldiers, it hadn’t ended well. He was about to begin his transformation back into a dragon to obey Captain Flynn before they were interrupted by a strange voice.

“We’ve been waiting for you Jame,” a voice declared. It was an elderly voice, but still laden with a surprising amount of temerity given the likely age of the speaker and the situation under which it was uttered. Jame was just confused. The voice didn’t resemble any of the dwarves from the convoy, and it was certainly not Godhand, Leon or Djakara. The half dragon could see all of them fighting below.

A small man dressed in a white robe appeared. He seemed to carry himself with an unbecoming serenity. His hands were wrinkled, with prominent veins visible as the man rubbed his hand over his closely trimmed bearded cheek. With red eyes, he stared at Jame, almost as if Captain Flynn didn’t even exist. Jame reached for his sword, but decided against it at the last moment. “I should have roasted you earlier,” the half dragon said.

The white robed man let out a small, heartless laugh. “But then again, it was my friends that brought you to Salvar…” he said.

The two eyes met. Jame licked his lips in anticipation of a fight now. He didn’t care why he was brought to Salvar at this point, or what this man had wanted. He just wanted a fight. Thoughts of Maia trapped in Eluriand, unable to save herself because of he had been teleported into Salvar were now in the forefront of his mind. With his sword drawn, Jame looked at his white haired foe, ready to do battle.

“You shouldn’t have said that,” Jame said, before lunging forwards with an attack.

Bursts of electricity shot out from the white haired man’s eyes, sending Jame careening against one of the side walls. A vase heretofore undamaged by the battle was rattled off its pedestal and crashed down to the floor. Captain Flynn began to load his flintlock rifle, but seconds later, another series of lightning bolts shot his way, sending him flying down from the building. Jame couldn’t see where or how he landed, but doubted, all things considered, that he might have been able to survive. It would have been almost miraculous.

“Now that’s settled, let’s get down to business,” the white haired man continued. “Don’t get up, I could shock you much harder than I did. The little blessings you got earlier, they don’t count for that much anymore, do they?”

Jame shuddered. He wondered how much this man knew. He now could see the sharp incisors on the robed man, a definite sign that he was dealing with a minion of the Patriarch. The half dragon tried not to show it. He knew the only security he had from the almost invisible siring demon was his anonymity to him. Now, he feared that was in jeopardy. Too frightened and stunned to say anything, he wondered if his entire effort to kill the other minions without being seen had gone in vain.

“I represent an organization interested in you,” he said. “One of our operatives noticed the gifts you’d received from Aglarlin, and we wanted you. Any son of a Kaosi who makes a name for himself in Aglarlin means something, especially when they’ll pin the hopes of Maia Kristel’s letter on your shoulders…”

The mention of the letter reignited Jame’s anger. He got up, and as the second blast of lightning came, he blocked this one with the blade of his sword. The delhar blade, resistant to magic, dissipated the shock. As Jame grew closer, he took a swing, sure that whatever this man had to say, he didn’t want to hear it. Now, weapons be damned, he wanted to get back to Maia and save her.

Jame’s blow was dodged handily, but before he could ready another one, he heard the sound of a grunt. He looked towards the window, and he saw a hand grabbing desperately on to a shard of broken glass still stuck in the window frame. “Flynn!” Jame realized.

“Go get your friend,” the white haired man replied. “But remember this, my people want you, and you’ll want to take our offer.”

Jame highly doubted that, but he didn’t say anything, as he pulled Captain Sean Flynn back up to safety. The veteran soldier, now without his rifle, looked on at the white robed man in scorn. “A Magistrate should know better than to tempt an ally of Salvar’s crown…” the veteran soldier declared. “Mikhail Lehn, your days are numbered now. You’ve chosen the wrong side this time.”

“You have no idea what side I’m on,” the Magistrate replied, cackling loudly. He eyed Jame as if they shared a private joke between them. With his eyes turned to the half dragon, Mikhail spoke again. “Though of course, you could join…”

[Leon Adalbert]

As the Salvaran troops gathered around him, Leon forced his way through the rioting theists, twisting and stabbing when a farm implement came too close or a bumpkin took a swing at him. The swashbuckling merchant was almost to his opponent, who seemed to be taking a keen interest in this dirty blond challenger, now mere yards away.

"Stand aside or get a nasty shock, you filthy dirt eaters!" he shouted, as he pointed Lily straight at the officer's plated chest. The trigger was pulled, and a bolt of lightning slammed into the warrior's armor, and he was forced to stagger back a few steps from the force. Snap! Snapsnap! The binding straps on his prevalida shell broke, the protective plating falling to the ground around him, leaving him with only his woolen clothes, a pair of greaves, and his gauntlets to shield him from attack.

Electricity arced across the man's body, leaping, too, to the idiots who had remained near their dear captain. Loyalty or bad hearing, one or the other killed them, and it didn't much matter which. Leon's only concern at that moment was the dark haired man with a sword as big as he was.

"You're lucky, heathen," he grunted, the muscles in his face twitching involuntarily from both pain and the electric charge. "You'll be killed by none other than John Kreskin, chosen acolyte of the Sway." He raised his buster sword -- more a club than a sword -- and readied for a great horizontal swing. "Yield, and your death will be easy. Who knows, the Sway may even take note of your obedience and grant you clemency in the afterlife."

Leon sneered, lunging in with his rapier, which was easily sidestepped in his haste. Unexpected, however, was the slap across Kreskin's face by one Lily, the pistol connecting soundly with the brute's cheek. "Not a chance, churchie," he jeered, egging on the ape.

[Djakara]

Seconds later, the horses buckled, and the peasants, as if smelling blood in the water, began to swarm around Djakara. Immediately, the young Freiherr called upon his electric abilities, coating his entire body in a screen of electricity. He unsheathed his spearscythe, but didn’t expect it to be any good. If he got involved in melee combat, Djakara knew he was good as dead. There were too many crazed peasants charging at the gun station, desperately seizing at the advantage of Gilead’s death. They had seen too many of their comrades felled by the weapon. The state soldiers rushed to help Djakara, but the Freieherr’s position left him particularly vulnerable.

Now, Djakara was going to have to act quickly. The gun was going to be destroyed, no matter what he did. At this point, he knew that he just needed to find a way to fade back into one of the other caravans, where he’d be protected by the members of his convoy and the advanced weaponry that they had there. Instead of fighting everyone then, he was going to have to be strategic. Djakara resolved to use his electricity to forge a way through, one that would let him get closer to the soldiers that had, for whatever reason, given up on fighting. Though the Freiherr couldn’t explain why they had, he knew that would be safety, especially compared to the got crazed crazies that swarmed around him now like the undead.

A chunk of ice seemingly flying out of nowhere nearly hit Djakara’s head. It landed in the stationary gun instead, wedging itself in between the machinery, rendering it useless for the time being. The entire wagon began to shake, though the young Freiherr was fortunate enough to leap off before it capsized. He shot electricity in every direction as he landed, shocking peasants and soldiers around him alike. With his screen of electricity still buzzing around him, Djakrara began running, watching as people darted out of the way so as not to be shocked.

“That gun there was worth at least 5000 pieces of gold in profit,” Djakara realized. “It was a house in Istraloth in and of itself.” He made it to the soldiers standing around. Fortunately, the Salvarians were standing to one side, and the church people to the other. It was a bit unsettling how they had managed to organize themselves so peacefully when they were tearing each other to pieces just minutes away.

However, once Djakara saw the spectacle, he could understand why. It was a fight of champions. Godhand, against a man who might have even been stronger. The rarity of a single man such as Godhand was strange enough, the idea that two of them might meet each other in a battle was a duel for the ages. It was the kind of thing that could make all else stop, just so that the people could watch could appreciate their part in history.

Naturally, Djakara wanted to get involved, especially as Godhand’s leg was getting crushed. He hesitated, knowing the way everything else he had done had turned. Now that he had managed to get out of danger and was surrounded by his temporary allies in the Salvarian state, he realized Gilead’s death was his fault. More to the point, the loss of profit was his fault. He supposed he would have preferred to have the dwarf alive, but the loss of the weapon that would have been his equalizer and his source of his wealth stung harder.

Later, he’d have to accept the costs of his actions, but now, even with everything stood still, he was just going to watch. He didn’t dare to do anything else, given the way that everything else around him turned to shit. In the mess of carnage, he could barely find any of the wagons still intact, save for Mariah and Leaves, careening out of control.

[Godhand]

Godhand's world was pain. You don't really know what's important in life until a deranged church zealot breaks a concrete block on your leg. What is important in life is not letting a deranged church zealot break a block of concrete on your leg. The mercenary clutched his knee in agony while Vidash simply beamed at him. As far as he was concerned this was a triumph. The titan turned to the crowd and held out his arms to get their attention. He paused for a moment, savoring the look of child-like admiration from the peasants and the distraught horror of Salvar's soldiers. They knew that if he was capable of defeating Godhand then there was no way any of them could beat him. He began to address the crowd.

"My children, do you see!?" They cheered, "Do you see the fate that befalls all those who fight against the will of the heavens!? And you, sinners, you are next! Or do you repent!?"

He pointed and the entire line of soldiers tensed. After that display they feared that even an exclamation on his part was capable of destroying them. Some of them even reconsidered their side in the battle. Surely, they had just witnessed a miracle? The intervention of the Goddess? Even the hardiest soldier was shaken. Finally, the first few of them dropped their swords and fell to their knees in prayer. The peasants welcomed these men with open arms, claiming that the Goddess accepted all.

But Godhand still heard. And he could still be moved to violence. With a pained grunt he rolled off the wagon and fell to the snow, finally getting to his feet after much effort. And even though he favored his left leg, he could still move. The peasants jumped back and shouted warnings to their champion when they noticed the mercenary approaching him, but he was too entranced with their adoration. The swordsman finally made his presence known with a roar and Vidash turned in surprise and horror only to receive a vicious clothesline for his trouble.

The soldiers cheered as Godhand went down along with his quarry. He got up to one knee and pulled up Vidash's head by his hair, landing a string of vicious right hands to the man's previously unmarred face. The blows rained down and the mercenary grit his teeth as the churchie's blood spilled unto the snow while some even splattered on his own face. All through it he never let up until his fist was slick with the man's blood and Vidash's face was a broken mess. His previously sharp nose was shattered and he had cuts above both eyes; even some bruises were starting to leak blood out after being grazed by his knuckles. Every breath Godhand took burned his lungs but he knew he couldn't stop. He got back to his feet and dragged the man over to the wagon before throwing him on.

He looked to the wall next to the wagon and tried to jump on top, but before he even got off the ground there was a flair of pain from his knee. Godhand grit his teeth and instead grabbed two cobblestones and began to pull himself up the palisade to the cheers of the soldiers and the horror of the church-goers. Some even approached the wagon and tried to urge Vidash to get back up, but even they were still afraid to get too close. The mercenary finally reached the top of the fortification and turned to look at the acolyte. As soon as the Sway monkeys noticed his gaze they retreated. Godhand looked around the battlefield, drawing in one last frozen Salvar breath and shutting his eyes. He then jumped forward, sailing through the air towards the wagon. The soldiers and peasants alike exploded in bewilderment, unsure wether to scream or cheer. As he approached Vidash with increasing velocity, the mercenary turned in the air before finally hitting a Swanton Bomb on their champion.

The wagon imploded with the impact and no one could see through the debris the swordsman had kicked up. When the dust finally cleared the one standing was Godhand. Blood masking his face, he turned to look at Vidash. All that was left was a corpse that wasn't even recognizable. The ribcage had been shattered and after the number he had done on his face even his own mother wouldn't be able to say who it was. His legs threatened to give out but he turned to the people, soldiers and peasants alike, and for a moment did nothing. His chest rose and fell with heavy breaths and the whole battlefield seemed quiet. Finally he pumped his arms in the air, looked up and a stream of blood-red fire volcanoed out of his mouth. There was nothing magical about it; after such an exhausting his fight his hyper-powered muscles had increased his body heat to an extraordinary level and as a natural physical reaction the mercenary had stabilized his core temperature by unleashing all the excess heat from his mouth. The churchies took it quite differently, however.

"HE'S THE DEVIL!"

The mess of them erupted in horrified screaming and almost mass hysteria. That entire section of the peasant force retreated. Godhand looked at the remaining Salvar soldiers, each breath burning more than the last. With no energy left he fell to one knee. They gasped in unison almost comically and the bravest of them rushed forward to help him up. Blood flowed freely from the cut on his forehead as he was carried to safety, one arm upon either conscript to help him keep steady. The soldiers cheered with wild abandon; they would have chanted his name if they had only known it.

[Crimson Rose]

Snow was falling thick in the young thief's eyes as she readjusted her shotgun, she could see many battles going on. The man called Godhand had apparently managed to take down another man, though this time it appeared that the silver haired titan had trouble with his opponent. As she watched him being carried off by some of the Salvarian soldiers, she shuddered. Pain was evident in the man's rigid body posture as he was carried over the snowy hill.

Furthermore, quite near her she could see the dark haired Djarkara being overrun by a mass of peasants. As he tried to fend them off, she saw that the Gatling gun that had been picking off the peasants like flies, was destroyed. Wondering just who did it, Mari strained her red hued orbs to see a large chunk of ice stunk next to the crank that allowed the large gun to fire.

Shivering a bit, Mariah couldn't help but feel fear dancing gently in her heart. She sensed that something was wrong, that some bigger power was controlling the raggedly clothed peasants. As her eyes drifted to the church, she wondered just who was inside it. Turning to Leaves she said loudly "To the church."

Leaves brown eyes were wide as he said "You have a plan lassy?"

Mariah nodded mutely as she kept her eyes on the church.

"Fine then." Leaves then turned to coax the horses to move, but his eyes froze when he saw a group of twenty peasants standing in front of their path. Groaning the little dwarf shouted "Out of the way you blimey pests!"

One of the peasants gave the dwarf a toothy grin, in his hands he held a clear glass battle, that was filled with a murky liquid. A young boy next to him was putting a dirty white cloth inside the bottle, and a third one was scraping a match against a piece of wood, the match was then placed underneath the rag which lit quickly. The one that was holding the bottle then gave the small dwarf a toothless grin and mimed tossing it. The other one then laughed a short, dry laugh and grabbed the bottle from his companion and quickly threw the molotov cocktail at the wagon's tarp.

A scream left Mariah's lips as the cloth caught fire quickly, rolling out of the way as a bit of flaming material fell near her, she screamed as the wood jarred her stomach wound. She whimpered, but clenched her teeth, as she used her instincts to get out of the wagon.

Rolling quickly into the ice cold snow, Mariah cried again as her wound was aggravated. Closing her eyes as sharp spirals of pain danced across her body. With dread she looked down at where her wound had been cauterized, luckily their was no crimson flecks spurring from the white bandages. Relief filled her heart as she looked to see if Leaves had made it out of the wagon.

Unfornately for the dwarf, his thick leg had been caught in his horse's reigns after the peasant had thrown the cocktail at his wagon. Struggling to untie himself, he soon found that the burning wagon was surrounded by the very peasants who had ignited it. Baring his teeth down at them he yelled "Ugh you blimey louts!" he understood their low down tactics, but he knew that if he didn't do anything, that the entire caravan might not make it out of here. Without any regrets he yanked his horses to their sides, the whole wagon then tipped, igniting the nearby peasants bodies with flames. As the flames begin to reach his small frame, his last thoughts were At least I did my job....

Mariah screamed again, despite her pain, she wanted to help the dwarf. In all her life she had never seen death, she had always helped anyone in pain. But, here and now in this cacophony of death and sorrow, she could do nothing, all she could do is survive. Gritting her teeth, the thief rose shakily to her feet. With her steps unsteady, she begin to limp her way towards the church. It seemed her only place of safety in this chaotic battle zone. As she neared it she thought hopefully Maybe I can hide here, wait it out until everything is over. the cold metal of the shotgun was still pressed in her hands, wincing as she shakily kept a hold on it she finished her thoughts [/I] Or I could help out, help to end it and make sure no body else dies....[/I]

[Call me J]

Jame knew the sides of the conflict far too well. Down on the ground, he could hear the faintest of chants, picking up in strength, a cheer of victory for one of the sides. He didn’t know what it was for, and at the moment, he was too numb and confused to care. One of the wagons, the weapons for Raiaera, Jame’s chance at redemption, was all up in flames right at the foot of the church. Captain Sean Flynn of the Salvarian army had been rendered all but helpless. He was still speaking bravely, but between the Magistrate’s lightning and the blood he’d lost just surviving, there was only so much more that the old veteran could do.

The last bits of his martial energies flickered over the veteran soldier’s face before he turned so pale he had no choice but to collapse. Captain Flynn was alive, and cagey enough to tie his own tourniquet and bandage to wrap his severed palm, though a piece of glass had also jutted itself into his side.

Now, Jame was alone. His strength was waning. He didn’t know how long it would be before the entire blessing of Aglarlin faded away from his body. As Jame stared into the eyes of the Magistrate, he could tell that the false holy man knew the same thing. Jame readied his claymore, unsure of what good it would do against the Magistrate’s electric eyes, but it was the only thing he could think of.

“Join me…” the Magistrate began. “You don’t know anything about this civil war, how many strings are being manipulated… you, the Aglarlin headmistress, your friend Maia, you think you’re all a part of something, that even if you’re just the smallest cog in it, you’re still part of a machine that means something… that you’re a part of history…”

Jame could only wonder what Flynn was thinking, but that wasn’t what motivated him. He had been angry before, he had even been desperate, but never before had they combined together with the sudden rush of meanness within the half dragon that he was feeling right then. It had started when he had hit Mariah, it had felt so wrong, but it had felt so good too. It was as if chains that he never knew had existed had suddenly been released.

Now, he wanted to release a bit more. Without bothering with a reply, Jame let his sword to the talking. He made a bold swipe forwards ducked underneath by the Magistrate. The old man was remarkably spry, and Jame could just barely pirhoutte around and block another oncoming attack of electricity, by the time the Magistrate had launched his counter. Jame didn’t smile or pat himself on the back for his quickness, though he might have at other times. Instead he moved forwards, the lightning still dancing off his blade as he took a swing for the Magistrate’s head. The magistrate ducked.

Jame smirked. “I was hoping you’d do that,” he said coldly as he unleashed a harsh kick straight at the Magistrate’s face, catching the older man right below the nostrils. As the Magistrate staggered back, Jame moved forwards, his last shred of caution holding him back from trying to shove the Magistrate out of the window with a running tackle.

Instead, Jame charged forwards with his sword, ready to parry another lightning strike, only to find himself practically lifted off his feat as the Magistrate ducked underneath a blow and attempted to pin him down against the ground. Jame fell, dropping the claymore as he found himself mere inches away from the jagged glass edge at the bottom of the window. The Magistrate was on top of him, and the supposed holy man’s eyes were glowing as his sharp incisors looked desperate to bite into something. Jame, acting now on instincts alone, didn’t look to Captain Flynn, hoping that the veteran soldier might be able to summon a last bit of aid for him. He grabbed the Magistrate by the throat, and with a surprising bit of strength he hadn’t realized he had inside him, threw the magistrate from his position out of the window.

Wide eyed, Jame only realized the magnitude of his strength when he saw Mikhail Lehn’s broken body lying on top of the burning embers of what used to be a wagon. He blinked once, and then a second time as he looked out over the expanse of severed sinew and sweat. The eyes of the peasant church goers showed him everything he needed to know.

They were at the end of the battle.

[Leon Adalbert]

Leon's audacity hadn't gone unpunished. The gorilla of a man named Kreskin grabbed the young man who dared strike that handsome face of his, chain shirt rattling in his meaty grip. He tossed the pistoleer to the ground, before making a downward slice at him with a huge sword encased in ice. The lithe swordsman rolled quickly to avoid the club of a blade, the frozen sheath shattering on the snowy ground, sending chunks of ice in every direction.

A sliver of it cut Leon's cheek, marring his own handsome visage. A cheek for a cheek, he thought, feeling Lady Karma's chill touch as a bit of blood seeped from the small wound. But where in the King's name did that ice come from? "Sway monkeys and their magic," he spat, pulling himself to a stand. Kreskin was still pulling his sword from its overheavy landing while Leon spun in for another thrust at his exposed chest.

Ksh-Clang!

Steel bounced off of frozen prevalida as the churchie brought his gloved hand in to guard. Leon twisted a little more, following the rebound of his blade to push it into another stab at his foe's flank, the blade biting shallowly into flesh. It would have gone deeper, had he struck on the first attempt. The merchant took the small victory, however, as profits would add up just as much as debts. His only hope was that the balance would be greater than zero at final audit.

Kreskin finally jerked the weapon free, and Leon danced away. He stowed his pistol in an inner pocket of his longcoat as he retreated. Heavy blade came in on a level swing, and he tucked and rolled, grabbing the dirk he had tucked in his boot with his free hand. As he came out of the tumble, his left hand flew out at his opponent, now open from his attempted assault, and a length of steel sheathed itself in the brutish acolyte's right breast, pushing Kreskin's shoulder back an inch or two from the force. He had no choice then but to obey pain's commands and release the bulky blade, letting it slam against the ground.

"You'd do better with your fucking fists anyway, ape," Leon chided, a grin splitting his lips as he launched himself forward, rapier leading with the force of his entire body. The blade sank much deeper this time, going into Kreskin's gut, and out the other side an inch and a half. Leon pushed himself up to the behemoth's face, wrenching at his sword in the process. His nose nearly against the brute's, he told him, "Remember that in your next life, fucker."

He grabbed both blades, twisting them as he freed them, kicking the acolyte to the ground to bleed out, his faith lying in the snow around him.

[Djakara]

As Godhand emerged victorious, Djakara was suddenly mobbed by Salvarian soldiers begging to know more about the grey haired mercenary. They begged, pleaded with Djakara to give a name, but given the true nature of the business he was running, the young Freiherr wanted anonymity. Still, Djakara couldn’t help but want to hear the chants that were just about to break out from the surface of the buoyant soldier crowd.

“What’s your hero’s name?” another soldier insisted.

“Hardy,” Djakara replied. He wasn’t sure why he came up with that name, but it somehow seemed to fit the way that Godhand had transcended the difficulties and had fought through an amazing amount of pain. Only a truly hardy warrior would have been able to do what the mercenary had done.

Seconds later, chants of “Hardy! Hardy! Hardy!” erupted from the battlefield, only to be interrupted by the sight of the Magistrate of the Salaturn Church falling down from the spire onto a burning wagon and the last of the Sway’s heroes, John Kreskin was downed by Leon Adalbert. It was somewhat embarrassing for Djakara to realize that he had failed where even Leon had succeeded, but he hoped amidst the “Hardy” chants that his failure would be able to fade away.

The battle was over now. There were a few pockets of the most ardent church zealots still fighting, but even some of the peasants who had pledged their lives to the sway less than a few hours ago were now breaking rank. There was just something about seeing three supposed heroes all meeting grizzly deaths so quickly after one another that would cause all but the most ardent supporters to give up their allegiance. Now, that was happening, and Djakara watched as a tired, somewhat wounded Jame looked out over the battlefield from the spire, a pale Salvarian army captain standing near.

Though Djakara would have expected Jame to be the one giving the victory speech, it instead was the Captain. “The trouble on the Salaturn estate is now officially over,” the soldier declared. “Our battle has been won. If you are hurt, get medicine. We will make this church into a fortress now, to serve as a message to the rest of the world.”

“And they’ll probably want our weapons to do it,” Djakara realized. He scowled. Mariah had been useless as far as defending her caravan. He scowled to remember that he had paid her in advance, and figured that at the very least, he could recoup whatever it was that she had taken from a crate. Of the other wagons, one of them was intact, but the Freiherr could already see the Salvarian army captain eyeing it.

The most bitter realization came to Djakara as he thought it over. The Salvarian army that he had been so happy to see, was now the one that was going to undermine his profits. He was sure that Jame and Godhand would have been clever enough to abscond with the things they had wanted for their various concerns, but Djakara doubted after everything that happened, whether he would see any of the profit at all. He couldn’t claim any of the weapons, it would have been a strong sign in Alerar that something had gone awry. Without the wagons and his forces in shambles, Djakara couldn’t get very far. In fact, the young Freiherr worried about even getting back to Alerar, considering he’d have to transverse back through war torn area without nearly as much of the armaments that he’d had getting in that far.

With a sigh, the boy resigned himself to his fate. Djakara had failed this time, but he, unlike the corpses littered around him, would live to show the world.

[Crimson Rose]

As Mariah reached the threshold of the church, she could faintly hear that the battle had stopped. There was no sounds of any one dying in the air, it seemed that all the leaders of the battle had...a crash from above jolted Mariah from the silence that reigned over the battlefield.

Shards of glass littered the steps of the church, as the body fell, it landed with a sickening CRUNCH right on top of the burning wagon.. Its body oozed crimson red blood. Curious despite the fact that she knew this man to be dead, Rose crept cautiously closer to examine the body. All she could see was that the man wore white priest robes and a red sash. it seemed that no fatal injuries had been done to him. He had died due to the broken angle of his neck. As flames continued to lick across the man's body, Mariah could soon smell the acrid smell of burnt flesh. The flames also were making it harder to examine the body, as the heat was threatening to burn Mariah as well.

With the peasants,the flames and this new body, it was almost unbearable for the young red haired thief to remain. Covering her nose with the hem of her sweater sleeve, Mariah quickly went to take refuge in the church. Upon entering, Rose could see the furnishings of a church. There was three rows of pews on each side, the benches made from oaken wood. On a raised podium stood a shining cherry wood stand, that the theif could only assume, a priest had used to speak his sermons.

There seemed to be a chill in the air though, it felt to Mariah as if the icy coldness that was outside, had seeped its way into the very core of the church. Shaking a bit, as she walked delicately over a simple cotton rug that made a bright path between the podium and the aisle that separated the pews. She soon reached the priest's speaking podium, moving to study it, she soon saw a decoration that could only be the symbol of the church, though it seemed like it wasn't a normal arms of a holy place.

Sighing as Mariah's eyes drifted over the podium, she soon found a small button, pressing it, a yelp came from her lips as a ladder slowly lowered from a small alcove. Blinking as she looked at the steel ladder, she wondered why it was hidden. Licking her lips, which were now dry from nerves she thought This place is strange, it doesn't feel holy. It feels...as if evil was worshipped here...

Biting her lip as her hands grasped the first rung of the ladder, she slowly made her way up. Her eyes looking left and right as she climbed, she saw one angel, its wings broken and chipped off, it seemed someone had desecrated the more holy aspects of the church. Blinking as her eyes turned left and she saw the remains of what could only be another angel, the base chipped and graying as it seemed its partner mourned the loss of the other one.

Fear was in her heart, as the young thief finally made her way completely up the ladder. She was scared because she feared that at the top, she would meet some demon that had been hidden here. Much to her relief however, she saw Jame staring out of what was a broken window. Realization came to Mari's heart as she planted her feet firmly on the second floor of the church.

Clearing her throat, her eyes were big and wide as she asked Jame lightly 'What happened here Jame? This church...it feels like evil was present here..."

[Godhand]

Godhand didn't really have the energy or the presence of mind to know what was going on. With all that bloodloss from his head he sort of felt like he was at the barber's, like when he puts a warm towel around your neck and starts working on your beard and you can just sit back and think about the afterlife. The throbbing of his leg was more noticeable than his heart beat. He was in a bad way but once someone pressed some cloth against the cut he knew it'd be fine. The mercenary had taken far worse beatings than that and from far worse men, too. Real hosses; tough guys that even the devil didn't want on his hands.

The whole damn thing seemed pretty surreal, too. They'd ended up supressing a revolution so they could run some guns past the border only to have them stolen by the Salvarian soldiers they'd saved from almost certain death. The swordsman probably would have been a lot more angry if he hadn't been so damn tired. On the other hand, he'd fight off anybody that tried to take what was his and as far as Djakara was concerned, hey, the kid got what he deserved. He'd worked with some rotten sons of bitches before but never had he encountered such a rare mixture of such high criminal ambitions and such dismal leadership skills. The dumb bastard was behind one of the biggest guns in the world and had still only barely managed to get out of there alive.

"Who the Hell is Hardy?"

The soldiers around him laughed and some Goddamn miscreant poured some piss-poor champagne all over him. Godhand gagged at the combination of bubbles and blood he was taking. "Get the Hell away from me!" He pushed a couple of jubilant Salvarians out of his way and hobbled over to one of the last wagons that still had four wheels, cargo and two horses that were till alive. Hauling himself up to the driver's seat, he addressed the crowd and particularly the joyous general while still holding the rag up to his cut.

"Alright, I'm taking this wagon and getting the Hell out of here. If anybody has a problem with that," he scanned the army suspiciously, "You just let me know right now." There wasn't any answer but the silent grin of the soldiers. Clearly most of them had expected to die. Godhand smiled back, to his surprise, and grabbed the reins. He mushed the horses out unto the main roads and headed back to Corone, away from this country and all it's damn problems.

((Spoils: None. Godhand gave all the guns to his boss, Giacomazzi, upon his return to Radasanth. If I get gold from this quest, just shift it over to exp. OOC Note: Call me J has my permition to assimilate my Pheremones, thus bypassing Godhand's wendigo immunity.))

[Call me J]

It took a long time for it to sink in, but Jame had bested the Magistrate. The move he’d used to defeat the Patriarch’s minion had been more visceral than thought out, and the half dragon was certain he’d surprised both himself and his foe. Now, he looked on as Godhand absconded with what the mercenary probably considered his bounty. On principle, Jame both felt he should have applauded and chased after the mercenary who had done the lion’s share of the work, but was now leaving with practically all the profit they’d have fore Raiaera. Jame’s mouth had opened agape when Captain Flynn had suggested that his people would take a cut.

Now, of all people Mariah arrived. Jame wasn’t particularly happy to see her. He had found her tolerable when she was pathetic, only because he wasn’t so heartless that then she couldn’t elicit some sympathy. Now that the real danger was gone, he didn’t want to have to talk to her. Jame was willing to protect her in her time of need, but he wasn’t going to befriend her.

“The evil is burning down there,” Jame replied succinctly, pointing to the fallen body of the burned magistrate. Only then, did the half dragon realize that the noble dwarf Leaves had fallen there too. He sighed. Leaves had been a good driver, surprisingly compassionate to Mariah, and brave enough to lead a wagon into battle with only her and her poor shotgun skills as his support. There was a certain injustice to see someone like that lying in the same pile of burning matter with church raving peasants and a minion of an evil overlord. “Don’t worry about it now…”

Mariah’s reaction was somewhat surprising to Jame. The half dragon had half expected that she would have said something incredibly impudent, completely oblivious to the lives lost around her. Instead, she seemed reflective, as if the suggestion that she had nothing to worry about was in and of itself a fallacy. Mariah sighed as she looked down, her mouth opened once, then shut. Jame could see the pain in her eyes as she slowly whispered, “I know I didn't do much. I know I caused death...” Her eyes looked over at where she knew Leaves was resting and in a soft voice she finished. “I won’t worry as you said, but let me do something to help. Anything, I-” Her eyes fell upon the wounded Captain Flynn, and slowly the white flecks of her eyes deepened in the red as she offered softly, “I can help him, my main use is as a healer....I could heal him, if you ask it of me...”

“If you can heal, go do it…” Jame replied tartly, glad to have Mariah doing something constructive where she would be out of his hair. He figured that he could, in good conscience leave her with Captain Flynn, even if there was a civil war still brewing. At the very least, the Salvarians would need a healer for the time being, especially if they were trying to consolidate a fortress here on the Salaturn estate. “Stay here with Captain Flynn and the rest of his men, and they’ll get you to safety when you’ve done your job,” he said, unsure if he really shouldn’t feel a bit more guilty about passing off a burden.

Without waiting to give Mariah a chance to refuse him, Jame began to walk away, heading down the same secret compartment that the girl had revealed when she’d arrived. If Flynn was going to be getting his weapons in order, then Jame was going to make sure that something got to Raiaera. Defeating a minion of the Patriarch, was satisfying, but it didn’t redeem him, even if it was the minions who had brought him into Salvar in the first place. Unless he brought weapons back with him, Jame didn’t know what he would say to people like Caine Raienbark and Maia when he returned.

Though the flaming debris from the cocktail had damaged most of the goods from Mariah’s wagon, a few crates had been spattered haphazardly that were now being ignored. Jame stacked them together. There were five in all, and while the half dragon couldn’t know for certain what they contained without opening them, he was certain they were at least arms for a garrison. With so many new recruits into Tel Aglarim, supplies had become scarce, and even these would be welcome. Jame gathered them and a few pieces of chainmail that he had found lying near the wreckage that were in mostly good condition. Stealing a bit of twine from one of the Salvarian soldiers, he tied his bundle together, transformed into a dragon and began to fly away. Given what had transpired, he was content to cut his losses.

(Mariah's dialogue and expressions were written by Crimson Rose)

[Leon Adalbert]

So much for staying out of trouble.

Leon's shoulders rose and fell with each breath, the air clouding before him. His blades hung in his hands, wrists limp from exertion. It was done. The bastard was dead, and his conscripted troops were surrendering. A Salvaran soldier clapped him on the back in congratulations, and his stance shook absentmindedly. He stared on at the corpse lying in the snow.

The son of a merchant had killed a man. More than that, he had enjoyed it. It was a rush. His heart beat faster than it had since leaving the City of Lights. He'd killed a demon and over fifty peasants, but the personal investment in killing John Kreskin was more than any of those. He'd killed him because he wanted to, and he liked it.

And he hated himself for it then.

Leon managed to stumble over to the nearest wagon and climb aboard. He sat there on a small crate, staring at his bloody blades. Dropping the weapons, his gaze then turned to the hands that did the deed. His hands. His hands that now filled with tears. The salt water stung as it dripped off his wounded cheekbone. Several minutes he spent like that, sobbing quietly to himself at what he'd done, before he wiped his face on the sleeve of his jacket and stood.

Finding the young Freiherr Djakara, he had only one thing to say: "When can we go home?"

((Spoils: Lily- A flintlock pistol named for its wielder's favorite bloom. The functional portions are made of steel, though it is decoratively encased in wood. The base of the handle is a knob, preventing it from falling easily from a loose grasp, and there is a filigreed plate of iron stamped on either side of the barrel, where the hammer access sits. With it, Leon has also pilfered about fifteen bullets and enough gunpowder to fire them as well as a few blanks.))

[Crimson Rose]

Mariah's deep red eyes widened, she had expected Jame to at least acknowledge her revelation. Her acceptance that she had practically been useless in this large fight against this supposed brain-washed army of peasants. The young thief had hoped that Jame would at least understand that she was admitting to a weakness she had, instead however, he told her tartly to do her job and be done with it. Anger wanted to swell inside her fragile heart; but instead, she pushed it back for a neutral expression.

Words wanted to come, the thief wanted to express her thanks to the half dragon, but before she could he had flown off. A sigh escaped the red haired teenager's lips. Turning she was meant with the old veteran's eyes staring at her. This disconcerted her for a moment, soon though she saw that he had been badly injured.

As a cold wind blew through the broken window of the church, Mari was pulling her leather satchel towards her, she knew it was a lucky break that her satchel had survived the wagon bursting into flames. Rummaging through it, the young healer pulled gauze, bandages and some healing salve. Moving to organize them, she groans as she thinks I am going to have to pick up more...this is going to wipe out my supply...

As she was organizing her herbs and her bandages, the captain's grizzled voice spoke "T...thank you miss." seeing the girl's wary eyes, he tried to reassure her "You will be paid for your services."

Mariah smiled, though the smile wasn't a full one, in a light voice she muttered "Don't worry about it captain...this is the least I can do."

The captain's weathered face creased, shaking his head he replied "Do as you please then." he then tried to shift across the church's cold floor, the movement caused him to wince in pain, but he managed to move so that his head was resting against the still intact wall, he waited for the girl to begin her healing ministrations.

Mariah's eyes narrowed, in a strict voice she yelled "Don't move! You'll open your wound more!" She then begin to smear the cooling salve across the wound in the man's chest. He winced a bit as the salve begin to work. Sighing as she moved to wipe her hands on her pants, she then moved to begin to wrap gauze around the wound. As she worked, she hummed quietly her hands business with the process of measuring out the proper length of gauze to stablize the wound.

The stinging from the medicine caused the old captain to grit his teeth, in a soft voice he said "Your good at this.."

Mariah laughed, once she had his first injury wrapped up securely she stated "Thanks, but in all honesty I am better at this then fighting."

The man's stern eyes softened, as the young thief begin to put salve on his wounded hand he said "Everybody has their place in the world..."

Rose smiled, in a grateful voice she replied "Thanks...your words mean a lot." She then quickly finished up her work. Moving away from the captain, she begin to pack her bags. Moving to sling it over her shoulder she rose and mrumured "I'll stay for a few days, then I'm going to return home."

The old war veteran nodded as he moved to close his eyes, before he drifted into a peaceful rest he murmured "Very well then miss, we have a deal then."

Mariah smiled as she sat down on a broken stone statue, moving to cross her arms over her breasts she thought Good, then after I'm done with this. I'll head home...hopefully when I get back Darith won't have some other crazy mission left for me to do...

(Spoils- Damasacus twin daggers- Daggers that are finely made from Damascus. They have the ablity to absorb magic that is sent at the blades. Inscribed in the fine and shiny metal is an eagle, its regal wings taking flight across the silver expanse of the blade. That is all the spoils that I request from this thread and thanks ^_^)

[Djakara]

“There’s no more we here when you want to loot my property,” Djakara replied coldly. He didn’t care for the way Leon had taken a pistol for his own, as if the fluke killing of the armored warrior had turned the merchant from Ettermire into anything more than an insignificant bug in the face of a greater history.

Still, the Freiherr couldn’t be too hostile. Everyone else who at one time had been an ally of his wasn’t around anymore. The Freiherr would have wanted to stop Godhand from leaving with what little profit he had, but he knew better. Then Jame, more like a bird of carrion than a dragon, took the scraps that were left over, leaving Djakara to just stand around as the Salvarian soldiers equipped themselves with the weapons that were supposed to have provided him with a private island in Istraloth. “Just keep it,” Djakara said, resigning himself to his failure. “Enjoy the damn pistol...”

The whole situation had spiraled out of control so quickly that the young Freiherr still wasn’t sure how he’d lost control. He wished he could have taken some kind of a redemptive lesson from the adventure, but there was nothing that he could remember that he had done wrong. Though he wanted to curse the fates for their cruelty to him, he had to think there was something more to it, that somehow, he couldn’t get the weapons where he needed them even with people like Jame and Godhand on his side.

With a sigh, Djakara wondered if he had set himself up to fail, if he had not been the victim of poor management but the unbridled nature of his own imagination. Both Jame and Godhand were gone, so the Freiherr couldn’t have asked either of them, even if he hadn’t been afraid of what their answers would have been.

Scowling, Djakara looked at Leon. He didn’t want to admit it, even to himself, but he was jealous of the way that the young merchant had been able to step up in a way that he hadn’t. Though he knew he was going to need aid in getting back to Alerar, he didn’t want to stay around the merchant than was necessary.

The only consolation that the young Freiherr had was that at worst, he was still alive. There was some consolation for him in the fact that he wasn’t the only loser on the day. Jame wouldn’t get the weapons he wanted to Raiaera, Godhand undoubtedly had a bad mark on his career as a mercenary, Leon Adalbert would leave without a profit margin. Djakara considered doing the same, but he decided it wasn’t worth the effort.

He debated checking up on Mariah. Everyone else from the caravan was either dead or had fled. However, he had little desire to talk to her, even though he knew he would have been able to intimidate her into surrendering whatever share of the winnings she had claimed for herself. At this point, it would have been petty. While Djakara wasn’t always above pettiness, after the loss of the gatling gun he now just wanted to leave with what little of his dignity he could still muster.

“Let’s get out of here,” Djakara decided. “Keep what you got, to hell with the rest.”


~A few days later, Ettermire~

Djakara was sweating visibly in the palace of Valshath d’Isto. He wasn’t accountable to many, but the High Graf had enough power to squash the young Freiherr like a bug. The reaction to his failure had been something that he hadn’t expected. Djakara expected that he’d get a few claps on the back of consolation, but that otherwise, he would have escaped with his status intact. Instead, he had barely had the time to get cleaned up before being shuffled to the office of the High Graf Schynius. Now, they had spent what seemed like an eternity staring at each other. So far, the only words they had exchanged had been awkward niceties.

Eventually, the High Graf spoke, though it was clear that he had enjoyed watching Djakara sweat. “You were supposed to be my teenaged phenom,” Schynius began. “I would have expected something better, if you want to be known around here for miracles, you’re going to have to step up.”

Djakara nodded. “I’ll do better next time…” he said, hoping he could avoid as much of a dressing down as possible.

“Next time isn’t now,” the High Graf replied. “This time is. What are you going to do to fix it?”

With an exhale, Djakara didn’t know what he’d be able to say in his defense. He couldn’t explain what had happened. For a moment, he considered pointing out that they’d managed to build a base of sorts at the Salaturn church, but he didn’t know if that would be enough to satisfy the High Graf’s anger. After all, in terms of weapons, that had come at a very high price, especially since the Gatling gun had been destroyed.

“Well, the Salvar army isn’t what it was,” Djakara replied. “Neither is the church. My people crushed them, to the point they were chanting our names. I don’t think you can blame me. The thing is, Salvar isn’t worth our alliance any more. Neither side is really all that powerful, at least in terms of ever coming to help us… if we need troops to help us against Raiaera, we’re better off looking elsewhere.”

The High Graf nodded. He drummed his fingers on the desk in a way that had them dancing with excitement. “So you’re saying Salvar is weaker than it has been in a while, even with the buildup of their civil war?”

“Uhh… yeah,” Djakara replied, unsure of what the High Graf had meant.

“Interesting,” Schynius concluded. “You can go for now.”

Spoils= Rudimentary military strategy. Consider this the knowledge Djakara gained from observing Godhand and Captain Flynn.

[Call me J]

Anebrilith: A Day Later

The weapons were a hit in Anebrilith. There was some uncertainty within the city over what Tel Aglarim’s next move should be, some were suggesting that they fortify the city to launch a counter offensive to retake Eluriand, but those who had been anywhere near the city when it fell knew that course of attack was foolish. The city was somber, but still full of chatter. Jame could hear people talking, veteran soldiers and novices alike, both suggesting that had they been in Eluriand, things would have ended differently for Xem’zund and his forces. Still others wondered what kind of immorality had lead to the return of the Forgotten One. Very few were somber and contemplative, and these were the people Jame considered the jewels. He wasn’t sure if they had acquiesced to the cruelty of their fates or were scheming desperately for solutions, but Jame liked them because they were the only ones that gave him a moment’s peace.

The half dragon knew that his experiences had mellowed him, because for the first time in his life, he truly appreciated silence. He had left the weapons he had been able to gather in Salvar at a makeshift headquarters for Tel Aglarim, and was now waiting for orders to get back in the fight against Xem’zund. He had tried to find if anyone knew anything about Maia, but neither the name nor description seemed to mean anything to any of the people he met.

Turning frantic in worry for Maia was a luxury that he couldn’t afford. Jame had seen first hand how Djakara’s lack of focus had compromised the convoy, and now he didn’t want to fall into the same trap. Both Xem’zund and the Patriarch needed to be defeated, and while the battle against Xem’zund may have captivated the attentions of all of Raiaera, the pit of Jame’s stomach suggested that the Patriarch might have been the greater threat.

Still, there was no time to play balance of threat with the two evils when he needed to get back to Eluriand. Aware that it would be near impossible to move through the land once he’d exited the black desert, Jame had arranged for a riverboat to take him up the Escaldor river towards Eluriand. Now, he waited impatiently at the Anebrilith harbor, trying to pay no attention to the tall tales he was hearing from the sailors as he waited for his boat.

It wasn’t too long before the ship came to harbor. However, before Jame could board, he was interrupted by an unexpected ally. None other than the headmistress of Aglarlin, Itarildë Vanimedlë, had stepped off the boat, and she looked on Jame with the same kind of dissatisfied look that she had first given him when she’d caught him in the bathroom of Aglarlin standing above two corpses. “You just can’t leave well enough alone, can you Jame Kaosi?” she asked.

“Maia’s back there…” Jame replied.

“She isn’t,” Itarildë replied. “General Findelfin took care of it after your sudden dash of magic induced valor. I’m glad that you seemed to survive it, I was much more concerned about your welfare than I was of hers…”

Jame smirked embarrassedly, because he didn’t know how to reply. “So what now?” he eventually asked.

“Get out of here,” the Aglarlin headmistress replied. “Your battle is not with the Forgotten One. Remember that. Whatever Xem’zund does from here on out, know who your real enemy is.”

Though she didn’t say the word “Patriarch,” Jame knew that was who she was talking about. He was tempted to mention what had happened in Salvar to her, but realized that the area must have been compromised somehow. Either that or the risk of mentioning the name of the siring demon was too great around strangers. “Alright,” Jame said. He didn’t really like what he had been told, but he knew it was for the better. Plus, even though he didn’t want to admit it, Xem’zund and Raiaera had been Damon’s battle. The Patriarch could be his and his alone.

“The boat will take you out to Corone,” Itarildë continued, having paused only just long enough to get Jame’s agreement before giving the half dragon the rest of her instructions. “Do what you want until then, when I need you, I’ll find you.”

Jame nodded. “Even go after Xem’zund?” he asked, even though he knew what the answer was going to be.

“Not that…” Itarildë shot back with limited humor. “Stay safe…” She reached into a satchel she had been carrying and revealed a small stone ring. It was smooth grey stone, with an engraved dragonfly on it. “If necessary, you’ll find out how to use this.”

The half dragon accepted the ring with a smile. He was going to would appreciate this new opportunity for what it was, an honorable out of a conflict in which he had been able to contribute little more than failure. The battle against Xem’zund was no longer his arena, instead, Jame was going to fight a different battle, both for the people of Raiaera and Althanas. He’d transcend Tel Aglarim, and though, his limited record would suggest he served with distinction, the half dragon would be able to take some consolation in the idea that he had never fully given his heart to Damon’s cause. Now, he’d found his own, and he was going to show that he was more than the bastard progeny of a hero, but a man of his own right.

It was all going to start once his boat hit the shores of Corone. “I brought some weapons back for you,” he said as he boarded the boat. “They should help you some.”

By now, it seemed that Itarildë just wanted to see the half dragon leave. “Thank you,” she said.

Jane nodded, climbed into the boat and then watched from the deck as he left the shores of Raiaera, unsure if he would ever again return to the land of the elves. With a tired expression on his face, he wondered how posterity would think about the arms of gold and the convoy that had brought them to their destinations. They had hardly been heroes, but they weren’t villains either. Instead, they were a strange mixture of people brought together by circumstance and the situations played out to the dice of fate. History would be kind to the generals and to the politicians with time on their side to posture and revisit. For a person like Jame, too weary to relive the past to ever write it, he’d have to settle for the accounts of court historians. The story of the convoy and the arms of gold would be lost to the ages, in as much as it would ever be a story of truth.

Spoils= Stone Ring with the dragonfly. This ring holds a golem on it, but the power of the ring is uknown to Jame at the moment. Additionally, Jame's association with Godhand, led to the mercenary's pheramone ability rubbing off onto him. While Jame was not exposed to the pheromones enough to be seen as uncontrollably irresistible, he still has that outsider's edge. Requested with Godhand's permission.

[Skie and Avery]

Quest Judging
MQ: Arms of Gold

My goodness what a long quest. I’m going to be sparing with the comments here, and keep with the important stuff. If there are any questions, feel free to PM me or to catch me on AIM. RestitutionSpork, though I believe each and every one of you knows it already.
STORY

Continuity ~ 8/10. Absolutely phenomenal here with you guys. The only person who gave me next to nothing was Leon Adalbert. I have no idea how you got to be in league with Djakara, or anything really about your character’s past other than his daddy was a merchant too and he wants to bone a Drow chick. Leon, not his daddy.
Setting ~ 6/10.
Pacing ~ 4/10. Repetition crippled this. There were so many posts that started out with a character reacting to everything that had happened in the last five posts while they waited their turn (or more in some cases). If you’re going to do that, take the very last thing that happened directly relating to your character and make your reaction less of a recap and more of progression for the thread. I don’t need to read what amounts to the same post three times in a row before something new happens.

CHARACTER

Dialogue ~ 6/10.
Action ~ 6/10. Crimson Rose, you really need to pay more attention to what’s going on. There were times when I felt you were completely oblivious. If you character had been played up to be an “absentminded thief” it would have been cute and fit. However, she is supposed to be a competent member of a guild where noticing details is necessary. Not only is the action of the thread detrimental to this score, but playing your character’s actions well is also a contributor. This was a high action thread. There were 6 people in it, and I think that there might have been too many cooks in the kitchen. For as strong as his end was, Leon was a pretty useless character to the overall story, as was Crimson Rose. I’m not even sure if Dark Temptress had much of a use. It would have been better to cut this thing in half. End the first thread after the demon attacks, when DT had been captured, link and go into the next thread, which would have been the “torture” and fight against the Sway.
Persona ~ 9/10. I did see some lovely character development here. Call Me J/Djakara and Godhand overall really stole the show here, and I like what I saw at the end from Leon. Until post 70, Leon could have not even been there and the score wouldn’t have changed, but you really stepped up at the end and impressed me. Dark Temptress and Crimson Rose are best showcased in Persona here. While I know I’ve already brought up some issues with your in character actions, CR, the rest of the thread you kept your character consistent. Everyone likes to play the hero, but the faults that were spotlighted in everyone really brought this thing to life and kept me interested.

WRITING STYLE

Technique ~ 7/10.
Mechanics ~ 6/10. There were 6 proofreaders in this quest. It should have been spotless, but I saw a lot of mistakes. Not only were there things like “then” and “than”, “through” and “threw” jumbled up, there were sometimes what I can only assume was small groups of words left out. It was a rare thing, but still. Crimson Rose, one thing you should definitely look out for is changing from writing in past tense to present tense. There were a couple of your posts where it went from saying “she did this, she said this,” to “she does this and says this.” It’s awkward, and while the wording might be just the same except for a silly verb tense, a sudden change in a post or paragraph suddenly disguises your writing as far more inferior than it might have been.
Clarity ~ 8/10.

MISCELLANEOUS

Wild Card ~ 7/10. From start to finish, I’ve invested a little more than 6 hours in this thread, after subtracting time spent on distractions like AIM people poking me and little breaks to eat and such. For all that time, I still can’t decide if I like this thread or if it could have been done better. I will say this, for having told a story with so many different twists and players to it in only a month, you all have my respect.

TOTAL ~ 67/100. <commentary here>

Rewards

I’m honoring Godhand’s request to transfer GP to EXP. As for the rest of you who are not getting GP, you are getting your requested spoils - at a price. Not only do you not get gold, but I’m downgrading your spoils. When I give those spoils, I will state my reasons for bringing them down. If there are any further questions, please get in touch with me.

Djakara gains 3584 EXP and 570 GP
Call Me J earns 3292 EXP and 570 GP
Godhand earns 3481 EXP
Leon Adalbert gains 806 EXP
Crimson Rose gains 1536 EXP
Dark Temptress gains 710 EXP

Other Rewards

Djakara is granted his spoil of rudimentary military strategy.

Call Me J is granted the ring and exceptionally subtle charisma enhancing pheremones, with a note that people who spend a lot of time around him become immune to the pull over time.

Leon Adalbert is granted the steel flintlock, though with all the battling, some of the shots fall out of his pocket. He is left with Lily, 10 bullets, and a small bag of gunpowder.

Crimson Rose gains her Damascus daggers - however I would like to note that they are weak against magic, therefore I cannot grant you the magic absorbing ability with them.

Dark Temptress - I’m afraid that I am going to have to downgrade your spoil the most. You put in the least amount of posts in a quest that didn’t score nearly high enough to warrant what you’ve asked for. You will still receive a gun, and the “Althanas version of a Glock” but it is crafted in steel. The gun is both jammed, which is easy enough to fix in a quest, and made with a faulty firing pin. I am placing a stipulation on this gun. The gun is of a unique make, and therefore the only way to get a new firing pin is by traveling to the maker. There are markings on the gun that hint of Kachuk origin, dwarven make. The wholesale price of such a rare and delicate part to your gun is placed at 9,000 gold. The mod who judges the quest where you gain it must be made aware of that when you claim the spoil to better help them to gauge whether or not it’s a deserved spoil. While you did make it away with three magazines, alas, two of them are empty. The remaining one is full, at 17 bullets. I am placing a wholesale price of 4,000 gold on a magazine for this particular gun, unless a bazaar moderator reappraises it for a different amount. Reappraisal is not an option for the firing pin.

[Witchblade]

EXP and GP added!

Godhand, Djakara, Call me J, Dark Temptress and Crimson Rose all level up!