Mixing things up... (open)

[Silas Kilam]

Silas shifted in his seat. He had spent the night in the tavern, and the place was a wreck the next morning. But he made the best of it. After cleaning up a good deal of the room to pay for his stay, he took out all the items he had on him. Twenty vials, eight filled. Three roots from a Habiscus tree, his basic equipment, the two cases of Leaves, and - wait, where was his Jiral powder? He looked around for it, finding his way to a heavy set man carrying the box under his arm.

"Hey, you, put down my box of thinning agent please, I need that for something a customer ordered!"
"Yea, whatcha gonna do about it, shrimp? Beat me up?"
"Oh, you did NOT want to say that."
"Yea, why?"

"When I was eleven, I took on a group of boys who were armed and beat them down with minimal injury compared to the hell they went through.
"Yea, well, I am Marcus Fensar!"
Silas stared at him like he was crazy.
"Haven't heard of me?"

"Obviously not, Mr. Fensar, but unless you give me my thinning agent back, you shall have to make do with several serious injuries."
"Oh, look at the little man isn't afraid of the strongest mercinary in town!" this Marcus said to everyone in the room, mocking Silas.
"You have five seconds before I drag you outside and put you through hell on earth."

"Bring it on, Shimpy, Wimpy kid!" Mr. Fensar shouted, picking up a table and pitching it at Silas.

Silas saw it coming and was ready. He dodged the table and lunged at the man, who was so busy laughing at how puny and weak Silas was that the attack caught him off guard. Silas made contact, inflicted the necessary pain, and retreated to where he had been at the fights start. "Still think I'm a puny wimp, Barbarian? I can keep this up all day!"

"Urg, I'll get you for that!"
"You sure you want to keep going? I'm pretty sure you broke something."
"Stop patronizing me, you shrimp, I'll crush you like a toothpick!"
"Unlike some people, I don't need potions to be a good fighter!" Silas jabbed, striking a nerve.

"How dare you!"
"It's the truth! Without the potions you blow a thousand gold a week on, you'd be my size and digging ditches for a living!"
"Oh, I'm gonna, oh I'm gonna kill you!" the man Shouted, throwing the box of the rare powder at Silas, who jumped and caught it safely.

"Now that you have so graciously returned my powder, I seem to be left fighting a guy who has been spending huge amounts of money on elixirs to enhance is power... someone write that down for the memoirs I write later." Silas mused, putting the box down where it wouldn't be harmed. he then drew his shortsword. "On that note, could we take this outside? I don't want the next unfortunate soul who stays here on credit to have to clean your blood from the floors."

"How thoughtful of you." the enraged man screamed. "Only it'll be your blood on the floorboards!"

"You sure, barbarian?" Silas shouted back, bringing his sword in front of him, so that any charge made by this Marcus character would end in a bloody mishap. Personally, Silas didn't want to kill the man. No one, not even a thieving loser like him deserved death. Silas met the man's gaze and held his ground.

[sasquatch]

It was strange how he could still feel the sensations of warmth and chill even in death. Of course, dead people aren't supposed to feel pain either, he mused, rubbing his perpetually sore thumb from where he had jammed it three days earlier in a door.

The dead ain't even supposed to walk around! Since when are the dead supposed to do anything? Everyone back on Earth had thought the same thing -- that dead people should just lie there and, well, be dead, and look what happened! Hell, he was a "living" example! And it probably wasn't much different on Althanas. There were probably dead people walking around all over the place. But dead or not, the sun was still hot and uncomfortable, beating down on his neck like that, and Sid was getting "dead"-tired of carrying around his lumpy jacket and feeling the relentless (although admittedly reassuring) weight of the crossbow strap press into his shoulder.

He entered the first tavern he came across and sat himself at a table, ignoring the various reactions garnered by people when they noticed his face. The man self-consciously tugged at his beanie, for all the good it would do him. He didn't like it when people stared. Even in death...

"How dare you!"
"It's the truth! Without the potions you blow a thousand gold a week on, you'd be my size and digging ditches for a living!"
"Oh, I'm gonna, oh I'm gonna kill you!"

Sidney's head jerked around toward the sudden yelling, just by the hallway where the rooms were located. Two guys he hadn't noticed before stood there. It sounded bad. He looked around the main room, seeing that the same occupants who had distracted themselves so with his scars seemed to not have heard. Or chosen not to have heard. For a moment he couldn't hear anything further, only the soft white noise of bar patrons chatting and clinking glass against wood.

"How thoughtful of you," reverberated the larger's man's venomous roar. This time around several customers jumped uneasily.

"Only it'll be your blood on the floorboards!"

"You sure, barbarian?"

There was a glint of steel catching light. Something bad was about to happen and no one was doing anything about it! No one even pretended to care! Indeed, every living being seated in the tavern, including the barkeep, were busy occupying themselves with fierce determination. Apparently, the task of thwarting possible, unneeded violence was to be left with the un-living. Sid stood, shouldered his heavy arbalest, and strode without a second thought toward the two men where they postured and verbally pranced about, each trying to impress the opponent opposite him like cocks among hens.

"Hey, there's no reason to be spillin' any blood, here," he interjected quickly, his single unharmed eye flickering nervously between them. There was no reason for anyone to be spilling anyone else's blood, anywhere. If there was one thing Sidney truly detested, it was needless bloodshed. And as far as he could ascertain, any blood spilt on the account of these two brawling over potions or whatever it was would be beyond needless.

[Silas Kilam]

Marcus Fensar spun around and directed a swing at the intruder, only to be frozen solid. the mercinary feared nothing he could kill, but how could one kill they that were dead? Silas, on the other hand, had seen greater horrors than a reanimated corpse. He quickly put away his sword and put his full strength into a tackle, forcing the huge Mercinary onto the floor. Sadly for the dead one, he wasn't able to stop in time. He hit the undead soldier with a good deal of force, nocking him over, much to the patron's amusement. Silas got up and turned his attention to the huge man. Then he realized that the drunks around him were laughing at the underserving Skeleton. "What, you idiots never seen an undead being before? Go back to your drinks!" he shouted to the patrons. It worked. then Silas returned his attention to the small fight. he removed his shortsword and put it on a nearby table that was vacant, then shed his bright blue hat and coat. he then helped the Undead one up. "you okay?"

"No, I think I broke something!" the mercinary shouted, thinking that someone was asking him.
"Yea, I told you so!" Silas shouted back, he made sure the archer hadn't taken any serious damage before turning back to the mercinary, and helped him up. "Now, Mr. Fensing, I hope you learned not to take something that may impact another man's livelyhood."

"Man, that hurts." Fensin shouted.
"Yea, you broke your arm, but it'll be fine in two days, what with all the elixirs you drink. On that note, I didn't mean to insult you, but when one is being threatened, they say some rather insulting things."
"Yea, kid, you got lucky."

"No, Mr. Fensing, I got help. which brings me to you. thanks for the distraction, if you hadn't stepped in when you did, one of us might not be alive right now."
"Yea, well, this ain't over yet, kid. Believe me. I ain't never had someone beat me, and I ain't gonna start now. you got off lucky this time."
"Yea, I bet you did." Silas met the man's gaze, and the rage was back in Marc's eyes.

as the mercinary left rubbing his broken arm, Silas returned his attention to the undead soldier. he smiled as he gathered up his hat, coat, and weapon. "thanks again for the help, mind if I buy you a drink?" he offered a seat at the table he had laid his Alchemistry equiptment on.

[sasquatch]

The big man swung around, leveling his weapon at him, and Sid's hand went instinctively to his bow. He didn't have a chance to so much as load it.

Before the Turned could react, he was knocked over a chair, sent sprawling into a crowd of whooping patrons. An icy slip of metal slid into his back, between his bottom ribs -- he had landed on a person's rapier blade. The owner of said blade merely kicked him off, looking a bit stunned but not without a stupid, half-drunken smile tainting his stubbly features.

"What, you idiots never seen an undead being before? Go back to your drinks!"

Distantly he wondered if his condition was that obvious. Sidney sat up, cringing as the blade shifted within him. Son of a bitch. The black-haired kid who had defended him helped him up and inquired after his well-being.

"'M good," he mumbled, reaching a hand behind him and wrenching the rapier out of his back. The undead archer briefly examined the slightly bloodied steel before tossing it at the feet of the man who had accidentally stabbed him without so much as an apology.

When the angry mercenary stalked off, rubbing his injured arm, the vampiric youth turned his attention back to Sid, who was still standing there massaging the hole in his flank. Vampiric...maybe that's why he could tell what I am.

"thanks again for the help, mind if I buy you a drink?" said the kid, gathering his stuff. Sid nodded after a moment's hesitation. "Yeah, sure." He glanced back at the apology-bereft drunkard and grimaced again. "Geez, this is a friendly place, ain't it? Hey are you a vampire or somethin', by any chance? 'Cause you knew I was dead, I was just wonderin'..." Besides from being terribly scarred, there wasn't much that set him a part from the actual living. Or so Sidney liked to believe.

[Silas Kilam]

"Keep it down, my friend, the people around hereabouts scare easy. But yea, it had something to do with that. I don't think anyone could survive those kind of burns without being either bitten shortly after, or being undead. And I know the traits of vampires firsthand, so that left undeath." Silas mused, ordering the drinks. "If you don't know what dieing feels like, its a bit harder to tell." he turned around and stared at the many patrons who were afraid of the two now. He smiled and a little of the fangs showed. It felt good to, for once in his life, be feared. The bartender gave them the drinks and moved away. Silas began cleaning the empty bottles.

Silas finally got out a question, "ya got a name?"
"It's Sidney."
"Nice name. Mine's Silas." he said, spinning around and finishing his drink chosen drink: a glass of regular grape juice.
"You know something, Sidney? This may be as close as I ever come to drinking anything with alcohol in it?"

Silas then left the question at it. he heard someone enter the room. He looked over his shoulder to see who it was, then turned back to the bar, the color drained from his face. He quickly tossed the coat over the Archer's back, and the hat onto his head. "We may be in for trouble, there's a hunter 'ere, and I think that Marcus guy knew I was a Vampire. This might just be his attempt at revenge.

the hunter looked through the room. he finnally spoke out: "I'm looking for a Vampire and a skeleton. the Vampire is wearing a dark blue coat, and his companion carries a large crossbow. where are they?" nobody in the whole room fit the description besides the crossbow that Sidney had leaning against his chair.

Silas put away the empty bottles, and then took out a bottle filled with a white liquid, "I think that's our queue to disappear, Sidney. So it's your call. Do we stay here and wait it out, or try to run? If you say run, I throw this vial and we had thirty seconds of smoke to use as to cover out escape."

[sasquatch]

"Yeah, I know what diein' feels like," Sidney affirmed in a quieter voice. It was not a particularly pleasant memory. They sat down again at an empty table, and Sid had removed his bow and leaned it against his chair leg in a convenient position, as so he could get to it in a hurry if need be. He was not a paranoid man, although he had learned fairly quickly that it was wise to be prepared. Given that the tavern was crowded with various unsavory types, he wasn't about to let years of watchful habit die.

When the drinks came, Sidney thanked the 'tender (who shot him a suspicious look) and shuffled a coin across the table to the vampire in return for the drink.

"You know something, Sidney? This may be as close as I ever come to drinking anything with alcohol in it?"

Sid took a sip of his own order, a glass of blackberry brandy that didn't taste in the slightest of blackberries, and glanced at Silas a bit worriedly. He was about to reply to the off-handed comment when Silas glanced hurriedly over his shoulder at a new person who had appeared in the door. The kid's reaction was just as unprecedented as his comment had been.

"We may be in for trouble, there's a hunter 'ere, and I think that Marcus guy knew I was a Vampire. This might just be his attempt at revenge."

"Vampire hunter...?"

Taking cues from the charismatic young vamp, Sid ducked his head low, pulling at the collar of the jacket to conceal his face. Great. This place got friendlier by the second!

"I'm looking for a Vampire and a skeleton. the Vampire is wearing a dark blue coat, and his companion carries a large crossbow. where are they?"

"I think that's our queue to disappear, Sidney. So it's your call. Do we stay here and wait it out, or try to run? If you say run, I throw this vial and we had thirty seconds of smoke to use as to cover out escape," said Silas quickly.

There was silence. Then a voice -- the bartender's. "Aye, I know where they are."

Sid could sense that spindly spider's finger pointing in their direction, and the consequent iciness of the hunter's following sight.

"Run, definitely run," he whispered, managing to remain outwardly calm despite the tinge of alarm in his voice. He reached down slowly and grabbed the barrel of the bow in preparation for the fleeing that was about to take place.

[Silas Kilam]

Silas got his 'smoke grenade' ready, and was about to toss it behind him when the barkeeper pointed upwards. "Room 406."

"Come on old man, I know that's a lie!" the Vampire hunter exclaimed, taking out a silver throwing knife.

Better now then never... Silas spun and tossed the vial, hitting the man in the leg. Smoke billowed from the liquid and obscured the view of the Vampire hunter. Silas grabbed his acquaintance and ran behind the bar, shouting a quick "thanks" to the bartender before running outside.

"Okay, then, we have to get out of here, and that guys gonna be really mad, so now that we're outside, we need a plan to get through this. His knife gets into my skin deeper than one inch, I'm finished. As for you, I think he'll keep pounding you this way or that until either you or he are in hell or heaven. That hunter doesn't seem to be in the forgiving mood, so I think we should return the favor."

Silas kept running through the alleys in a strange pattern, so that if the Hunter was giving chase, he's have an annoyingly long track to follow. Paths crossed with paths, and then Silas ran for one of the run-down buildings in the slums. It was empty, thank Lord in heaven, and they were able to rest a bit. Silas looked out and hoped the maze of tracks kept 'Mr. Hellsing' busy for a while.

"Okay, Sidney, this seems like a good time to come up with a way to get this thorn out of our respective sides."
"Yea, so how we pull this off?"
"How should I know? I've been running on instinct for the last three minutes."

[sasquatch]

"Instinct, eh?"

He could hear make out quite a bit of commotion from down the street outside. More yelling. "I don't think we're gonna be safe here for too long." Sidney selected a bolt from the quiver hanging off his back and fluidly loaded it into the arbalest, swiping off a bead of perspiration from his brow. Wait a second...the dead couldn't sweat! He looked up as another droplet of water from the rotting rafters above splattered against his face. Murmuring beneath his "breath" he shuffled a few inches to the right in order to avoid any further barrage.

The yelling had disappeared, and the sounds beyond their poor hiding place had become strangely subdued. There was but the gentle thudding of a sole pair of boots against cobblestones steadily approaching their position.

"So what -- whadd'ja do in the first place to get that guy so mad at ya, anyway?" asked Sid, keeping his voice low and realizing that the vampire had identified the hunter long he had started asking after them. The undead removed his hat and gave it a flick, exposing a swath of messy greying hair that caught a loose beam of sunlight, turning it into silver flame.

[Silas Kilam]

'How'd I piss this guy off? I'll tell ya: I lived." Silas responded, then put a hand over the 'turned' man as the hunter passed the boarded up building. The two huddled into the darkest corner as the bandit-turned-vampire-hunter mythodically opened the doors, looked in, then left. "He was the leader of the bandit group that made me a vampire, albeit unitentionally." he let the thought settle in. "That jerk cause these." Silas finished, opening his undershirt and revealed several unhealed slash marks. "If it wasn't for the vampire that showed up at the last minute and offered me the bite. Its my only badge of honor, the four marks on my neck." Silas let down the undershirt, then cocked his neck to the left, revealing several tooth marks on his neck. "My guess is that he wants revenge for me living to tell people about him." Silas stiffened. the boots were back. The hunter opened the door, and this time tossed in several cloves of garlic. Silas left it be. he was getting a plan. it was risky, noisy, and it had long odds of working, but there were longer odds of making it in this slum building. he whispered to the man who was in a predicamant with him, "Okay, Sidney, listen: the only way out of this place is to either burn it to the ground, or dig our way out. burning the place down takes you with it, and digging out could permanantly damage your structure. If you'll cover the door, I'll dig us out. okay?"

[sasquatch]

"Don't worry, I got yer back."

Sid left the vamp and slowly padded toward a window by the door, much of it's pane reduced to a glittering stratum of shed teeth covering the ground. He eased his shoulder on the wall, the street beyond the door open for his surveying; arbalest loaded, looking hungry and alert. Sid held it by his knees with battered hands, head cocked for the essential view needed without volunteering his position, hat crammed into a pocket.

The hunter could not be seen. In fact, this entire portion of street was fairly deserted. Sidney glanced at his companion, brow furrowed. No, it hadn't escaped him that instead of enjoying the cool of the bar and a cheaply-bought drink, he was again stuck outside in the heat which could not, in his unusual case, be helped by sweat. He was also running a comparably higher risk of getting his head chopped off than he had before meeting up with this miscreant.

Maybe he'd be better off leaving. Let the vampire fight his own battle.

But...was that entirely fair?

He had been the one to intervene in the tavern, after all. It was his own fucking fault he was in this mess to begin with. If he hadn't said anything, chances were he'd still be there, enjoying the brandy that did not taste like blackberries. There was no helping that now, though. Pointless to regret what couldn't be undone in the face of a threat. Sid returned his unblinking attention to the menacing thoroughfare.

A silhouette broke the light ahead, down the street. It had that tall, loose-legged saunter he had quickly learned to associate with their tormentor. Sid raised his bow and delicately let the nose rest through a hole on sheared glass. "Someone's comin'," he alerted Silas, keeping his weapon trained on the figure.

[Silas Kilam]

Silas let Sidney take over, praying that he would be the only one to have to bear the torment of thinking. was it really fair that he was being hunted for what he was? he wasn't even this by choice? it wasn't his choice to become a vampire was it? well, maybe it was, but his choice was between life a vampire of death a human. anyone would take the latter, whoever they were. Undead seemed no different. they had been hunted as monsters almost as long - longer even - than vampiric beings.

"Someone's comin'" Sidney whispered, looking out through the broken window.

"you sure it's him?"

"Looks so"

"Make sure it's him and then doublecheck, I don't want you or me ending up with more enemies than we already do."

"Right"

it turned out not to be their enemy, but the building was hot. the hunter new they were there, now they needed to clear out, and Fast. but Silas wasn't sure weither or not the hunter was waiting for then when they came out.

"Sidney, we gotta get outta here, but I'm not in the mood to gamble with our lives. take your pick, stay, leave."

they weren't given the choice. finnally, the impatient Bandit was at his last line. he burst in, swining his weapon as he did so. Silas triped the guy, then pulled Sidney out of the building before anything else could happen. "We gotta get out of here, or kill him. I'd rather take the primary" Silas ran into another building, then out the back, than again and again untill he felt resonably safe. he ducked into another building, then shut the door, locking it this time. "well, thank whatever diety watches over us for this building. so, how do we deal with our little friend?"

[Taskmienster]

This thread has been sitting since before the beginning of this year (2009). Since no response has been made to create activity I am going to be moving this. If you would like it to be reopened please feel free to PM myself or another admin and they will be able to move it for you back to the Peaceful Promenade.