Northern Winds [NC-17] (IC)

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel saw that the cubi had not moved from the ground, she was still slumped against the building. "What's wrong, Keaton?" She knelt beside the jackal, neatly tucking the skirts of her coat behind her. The girl didn't need to answer, Mel could see the lump on her head "A bad headache, I'd guess." She brushed one slightly cool hand over Keaton's forehead, then around and between ear and headwing. The coolness of her hand seemed to linger for moments after it passed as the healing settled in. "While you look quite appropriately roguish with that burgeoning black eye I'm sure that you'd rather get rid of it." The hand moved down, gently closing the eye then almost immediately pulling away. "Do you hurt anywhere else Keaton?"

[Boog]

Having located his tail hanging on part of the Dragon's Grin, Richard slung it over his shoulder and hobbled over toward Aisha. He needed help too, yes, but doubted that anyone here had a needle and thread or any of the numerous other objects that would be found in what the baboon preferred to call a second-aid kit. He'd be more useful offering a hand anywho rather than wasting the healer's time.
"You looked like you knew what was going on out there," he said, inclining his head in the huntresses direction and shifting his grip on his makeshift crutch, "Think there's any of 'em left?"

[Aisha deCabre]

Her arms crossed as she watched the scene unfold, including the dragon's calm way to oblige prying the piece of bone from out of Somber's back.  For a moment Aisha wondered just how good it would be to even stay here for a little longer...with so many dead bodies around, it wouldn't be long before someone would come to investigate, especially if they were on the mercenaries' side.  Her head hung slightly.  Someone's going to be pissed, I just know it.

She quirked an ear however on hearing Richard coming around to where she was, tilting her head with a somewhat amused look at the undead's appearance before turning serious again.  "If you mean more idiots to cross us, there are no more from what I could see.  I think we might have finally been given the blessing of a break tonight."

The last part, however, she said with two fingers of her right hand crossed.  She wasn't the superstitious sort, but at this point avoiding jinxing their luck was a good idea.

[Cogidubnus]

Seeing his own reflection attack him was unnerving if nothing else, and behind shaded lenses Cog narrowed his eye for just a moment before whirling into action. Even as the reflection began its draw, Cog shifted on his feet and prepared to dodge. As soon as he saw the sheath of the sword twist down, then a little further, he threw himself to the side and sucked in a breath of air as the blade whistled past his nose.
Trying to imitate his fighting style. Really.
Cog smoothly raised his hand as he finished his spell, and the ensuing lightning bolt tore from his hand to slam point-blank into his clone. It hit him with a wet sizzle, and threw the thing back several yards into a convenient treetrunk, where he lay still.
Cog blew some smoke off his hand. "I think not." he said, taking a brilliant golden coin from out one of his pockets and placing it on his open palm

[Stygian]

The larger dragon just chuckled at Mel, giving her a warm sidelong glance while tending to Somber, and then turned to look over the rest of the party. Then, when he received the inquiry as to his name, he turned and looked down the considerable span in height between him and Somber, putting his arms behind his back, one large fist inside his other palm.
   "Rauth Mörkesorm, miss. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, I believe," he said, taking her hand. He could easily have fit three of them in his own. Now smiling just a bit, he looked to Gareeku, and then glanced to Aisha as well.
   "I would gladly lend you a room for the night, if you were indeed attacked as it would seem. However, I will have to charge you extra for the damage that has been caused to my property." He didn't gesture, didn't look aside or even change face. He was just stating something that was clearly obvious to him. And there was no indication that he was about to start inquiring into their business. His eyes told that he would be prepared for any eventualities. His gaze was clear and deep enough that he might as well have known everything that had happened to them that evening, for all he gave sign of.
   Without any further words, he turned toward the tavern, and started walking up back to it. The hyena wasn't exactly glaring at him, but neither was her look pleased with how he had dealt with the whole business. Her jaw was still set, and her cheeks flushed a bit, looking at the adventurers from down the balcony with stark disapproval.

- -

Stygian kept his mind level through the feline's almost petulant words. If he couldn't see further than that... His expression almost went back to smooth and disconcerned. But then, Cogidubnus' voice called out from below, and for an instant his eyes turned from the cat before him, narrowing dangerously. Then he looked back, only to see how the cat had taken on his own appearance. And his eyes widened again. The sheer insolence...!
   He lost it. His calm seething away as his anger heated to the point of boiling, Stygian's expression froze, his dark eyes wide. And when the tendrils of inky blackness came lashing for him, the shadows shifted. The bat wasn't fast enough to escape an attack from so close, no matter his speed, and the barbed coils slashed through him as if he had been made of...
   Shadow. It was only shadow. The bat before his 'twin' was ripped up like paper, splitting into quickly dissipating pieces of darkness, falling and crumbling and seeping away.
   "I'm so flattered," came a voice from behind the false Stygian, "Really. Please, go ahead!" Then came a hand, closing around the 'bat's' face, the grip hard as a vise. The fake felt something closing up behind him, grabbing those tentacles and ensnaring them, twisting them so hard that it felt as if they were about to rip apart. They were only a mimicry of the real thing, after all.
   Over his shoulder, a face not dissimilar, but far more fearsome than the fake's own came into view. Disfigured into a middle-thing between a snarl and a horrid grin, this other Stygian's fur had paled to an unhealthy off-ivory color, and his teeth and mouthflesh contrastingly turned glistening, oily black. From the corners of his black eyes, now positively glowing in some manner hard to describe, thin lines of veiny darkness were creeping out.
   The false bat's ears numbed as he heard the roar, a bestial one that could not have been uttered by any natural throat. He felt something tear into his back, and those tendrils of blackness were twisted and broken. Claws dug into his side as the grip on his face tightened, and then he was thrown around like a toy. He hit the trunk of the tree hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs and make his back go numb, and then he was ripped from there just as fast, tumbling into the ground headfirst.
   Stygian took enough of a pause to rise to his feet, standing lightly on the branch from which he had thrown the cubi, glaring down at the figure sprawled down beneath. Shadows seethed and snaked behind him, slowly drawing in from having entwined all of the canopy around him, to form a shape that was almost like two great, dark, twisted wings, the second he remained still. Then, he dove, turning into a dark blur once again.
   To Edge, the world tumbled around again as he was torn off the ground, and again his back met a hard surface rather violently. Cogidubnus on the other hand saw as the bat hit his double as if shot from a cannon, ramming into his duplicate, and then flipped over and gripped his neck, throwing him around as if the other had not weighed more than a child, smacking him into a tree and pressing him up against it.
   "You can have that face if you'd like. But first I'll peel yours off!" Stygian fumed, his free hand slowly closing with the fake's face, black-tipped fingers with claws half as long as themselves playing through his fur. "Maybe that will be a good lesson. I'll destroy your looks, and you'll have to wear mine. Forever!" Again, in that hideous manner, he grinned.

   To Edge who was, unfortunately, still conscious through the beating, despite the pain and the several blows that came close to knocking him out, several sensations and thoughts swirled through his head. The first was that there was simply too much of that darkness. The second was that he could finally feel something from the bat. Rage. Indignation, hatred and spite mixed into it, but mostly just pure rage.
   The grip on his throat was constricting. If it went much further... But the bat stopped. His grin went away, replaced by a scowl. Then, he drew his hand back, and a second later, everything was dark.

   Cogidubnus saw Stygian take his hand away from his double, and lift him up. Then, he swept it into the fake's neck, right below where the spine joined with the cranium. Not as hard as he could have, but more than hard enough to knock the impostor unconscious. Slowly, the bat dropped the doppelganger to the ground.
   Those wings, black as night, and much larger than a cubi's, came into sight again as the darkness snaking around the bat took form. For a second, the wolf thought he could also see something around the chiropteran's head, like an aura. But before he could take a closer look, both faded, the darkness seeping and crumbling away. Stygian's appearance once again returned to normal, save his eyes, which were still gleaming black as he turned to Cog.
   "We're going back," he stated, just to have something to say in a normal tone. Then, he turned, reaching for 'Edge's' neck.
   Perhaps most odd was that for a second, Cogidubnus thought that, though very faintly, he had heard music from somewhere.

[Kogitsune]

Kiri couldn't help but smile as she walked down the road. Her baby sister was making friends at school, Kiri got her own room now that Shona moved out, and Kiri had high hopes of getting a new job. Her mother definitely wouldn't approve of a fifteen-year-old working in a tavern, but Kiri was old enough to work, and she'd feel like a burden if she just hung around the house all day.

The small brown feline sighed as she stopped to look at the glass half-sphere she wore around her neck.

"Hey dad? Can you hear me?" She whispered. "I'm gonna try to get a job again. For good, this time. No more screwing up." She turned to little glass pendant around in her paw. "I wish you were here to tell me what the heck this is. A charm? Doubt it."

She continued walking towards her hopefully soon-to-be job.

"A patch? Maybe, but what would you want to hi--"

Kiri stared at the mess in front of her. Outside of the bar the ground was covered in blood, broken windows, an angry hyena, and a dragon? There were some other beings too.... And creatures?... Exhausted and wounded sitting around. From a ways off you could hear some fighting still going on.

"What the hell...?"

[Gareeku]

Listening to what the dragon head, Gareeku nodded his head slightly.
"Thank you. I will of course be paying for some of the damages." the wolf replied, his voice calm, yet there was an essence of flatness about it. It was then, however, that Gareeku turned to see a new figure in the area. Upon first laying eyes on the figure, the wolf gripped his blood-covered sword. However, seeing that the stranger was a teenage girl who held no ill will, Gareeku relaxed somewhat.
"I believe I need to clean myself off." the wolf stated as he turned back towards the entrance to the inn, before heading inside.

[Kogitsune]

"Um..." Kiri said to no one in particular, staring in shock at the scene around her. "Not that it's any of my business but..... Would someone please tell me what's going on?" Her shaky yet quiet voice hid what was going on inside her head.

Oh my gods, what happened?! Why is there all this blood?!  Why did someone hurt them?! Oh gods, there's undead? Oh gods...

[Tezkat]

Darkness.

The impostor fell. His form flickered. The body that crumpled to the ground was no longer a white-furred bat, but an obsidian jaguar once more. There was no sign of his weapon. His black suit, its once-fine material torn and frayed, offered mere hints of the damage that lay underneath. His tongue lolled out of a half-open jaw, dripping a staccato patter of blood and saliva onto the leaves below. A brief gust of wind picked them up and scattered them off into the shadows of the night.

+ + +

Edge!

                  Are you okay?

                                    Wake up!     

                                                      Please?     

                                                                        I'm scared...

[Boog]

Richard turned to the newcomer, nearly falling over. He never got the hang of crutches, and this wasn't exactly hospital regulation.
"What happened is that we're a bunch of people of the type your parents warned you about talking to, and we're in a situation you don't want to be involved in," the undead said, his words coming out half rasp and half gurgle. Another reminder to patch up those ribs soon.

[Stygian]

Gareeku had just passed into the tavern, and the dragon followed to give him a key to a room, the hyena shifting her gaze between the ruined walls and windows, and the adventurers, clearly not intending to help out with serving them. Elsewhere in the main building, someone else was stirring. Toward the edges of the blast crater a few things were still smoking, and some trees and bushes were still burning. But mostly the place just seemed eerily still against the pandemonium of a few minutes earlier.
   Then there was a bit of a rustle, and the sound of footsteps, carelessly not minding silence as they crunched through sticks and crackled on stone and gravel.
   "Mel! I'm going to need your help here. This asshole needs a tune-up," Stygian said, trudging out from below a couple of trees and holding a badly beaten melanoid feline roughly by the neck, half carrying and half dragging him along. "I think we should get a room so we can interrogate the bastard too. Or has that already been taken care of?"
   The bat glanced up against the hyena, and somehow, her face soured further, before she turned and walked hurriedly through the door and back into the tavern.

[Aisha deCabre]

Aisha hummed slightly as she listened to the dragon's reply to their situation, nodding along with what Gareeku had said about helping to pay for damages.  It wasn't the worst situation to be in at that moment after all, and she knew that saving money from her bounties would be good for something.

Her arms crossed, she had started toward the entrance of the inn when an ear swiveled to catch a new, unfamiliar voice.  The panthress had to cringe just a bit.  The newcomer sounded scared, coming upon a sea of bodies and a group drenched in blood...no doubt the kind of sight that would turn into dislike of the adventurer kind.

Glancing toward the felid, Aisha uncrossed her arms.  "However rude it sounded, the corpse has a point," she smirked as if joking, but the emotion in her eyes was nothing but serious.  "Wherever we go we are seemingly attracting some trouble.  But you needn't fear us.  Just keep out of our way."

With that, she stepped back into the inn to see about finding a room for herself, despite the feeling that she might not get that much sleep.

[Cogidubnus]

 Cog silently put the coin back into his pocket and followed the bat back to the party. It wasn't much in his nature to leave enemies alive, but...the bat seemed to have it well in hand. Perhaps he would die after they asked him their questions.
They would see.
The rest of the party seemed to be somewhat worse for the wear, although the wounded seemed to be getting quick treatment. The demon-rabbit in particular had a ghastly wound - a dragon he hadn't seen before was tending it, however. She would survive.
In point of fact, he thought, they had all survived. He nodded to himself and brushed some dirt of his clothing before brushing past the bat to follow the barkeeper woman up the stairs. No point in staying out in the open, after all.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

At the sound of the child's voice Mel stopped watching the dragon go up the stairs. She heard both the baboon and Aisha speak to the child in turn. "Perhaps the wrong one is being warned. Looking young and innocent means nothing."  Her face, currently snow leopard, shifted just slightly until she seemed younger than the newcomer, then back to adulthood. "Someone make sure she isn't another assassin."

She had just turned to Somber to inquire about her injury when Ignatz's voice rang out. She called back, "The owner has agreed to let us rooms, at the unsavory customer price. And the demon is wounded. Who has priority?" Then she smiled at both the rabbit and the baboon, "We really ought to finish the introductions."

[Boog]

"Richard Trochoufski... Mel right?" The baboon smiled good naturedly at the ice dragon, hoping he'd gotten it right, "Good point. Alright girly," Richard hobbled toward the newcomer, dragging his broken leg along the ground, "Being the most expendable person here and all, I'll be making sure you're not out to kill us this evening," some manner of detection spell began to form in the hand not clutching the crutch, "Hands up, please."

[Sunblink]

Keaton allowed Mel to heal her without any notable reactions, other than a slightly surly gaze about her expression, even as the soothing, cold sensation started to ebb away at her injuries. Only when Mel commented on her black eye did Keaton's discourteous look falter, if only in slight shock. She hadn't realized the skin around her eye had swollen. With that burgeoning bruise removed and all traces of dizziness swept away from her aching mind, Keaton stretched slightly and inspected her body. No further ostensible injuries or adverse responses from her body. Apparently all of her wounds had been healed, although considering the state of Richard, who was finding pieces of him scattered about, and Somber, who had been skewered with a bone, she had got off lucky.

Common sense demanded that she thank Mel, putting away all traces of tense history. So she did, albeit somewhat begrudgingly, as Keaton climbed to her feet. "Uh, thanks," she muttered, turning around to stare at Catastrophe once she had finished looking over her glasses. The frames were dented and the glass about to fall out of the outline, but she assumed it would be easy enough to fix via magic. For now she turned to her mace.

It was still impaled right in the wall. Grabbing it by its elaborate handle, she extricated the mace after a momentary struggle.

A younger voice. Keaton's ears swiveled upright and she automatically glanced at the youthful, tawny feline female standing there. A kid? What was a kid doing here? Good thing the danger was already over (hopefully), otherwise Keaton would've probably went out of her way to try and protect the child from anything and everything remotely dangerous-looking. Cursed religious chivarly. As this passed through her mind, Stygian returned with Cogidubnus in tow, the body of a sable-furred feline dangling from his grip by the nape of his neck. Everyone else was leaving to either be tended to or to rest, so Keaton decided that she should as well.

Not that she needed to sleep. She just needed to digest what had happened and possibly repair her glasses. Because of her monochromatic vision in one eye, it would be rather cumbersome to walk around without them. Thanks to the bewitchment held over the glasses, she was able to saturate color into her vision.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Kogitsune]

"What? But I..." Kiri took a step backwards instinctively.
Do you have any idea how that makes you look either more suspicious, or like a stupid brat? said a little voice inside her. Kiri gulped, and looked at the undead. "I-if you have to check, that's fine. But I assure you, I am not an assassin and I have no wish to kill you." The small feline glanced at the hand of the undead baboon. "Um... how exactly do you plan to make sure?"
I really hope this doesn't hurt... Will it hurt? Oi, why didn't I pay more attention to those magic books?

[Boog]

Richard chuckled, "A little number for detecting anything on the subject's person that they think of as a weapon. You'll only get hurt if I find something. Now then, unless there's something you'd like to tell us beforehand, hands up," not waiting for her to comply he began passing his hand near Kiri, not unlike one checking the direction of air currents.

[Gareeku]

Having headed inside, Gareeku turned to see that the dragon had followed him in. A few moments later, he wanted handed a key to one of the rooms.
"Thank you." the wolf said with a slight of his head before heading off to the room that the key allowed his access to. After a little while of searching, Gareeku found the room that was to be his, and after unlocking the door, he headed inside.

Closing the door behind him, Gareeku immediately got undressed, and after dumping his clothes in the sink in the en-suite bathroom, climbed into the shower, taking his sword with to wash it while he was in there. Very quickly, the water that was originating from the shower head had turned a shade of crimson by the time that it had reached the shower floor, the blood that had been on the wolf's fur and the blade, as well as the sword's sheath, mixing in with it as it was washed away.

It was then as he finished his shower, however, that Gareeku's ears pricked up. Someone had entered the room. Quietly climbing out of the shower, the wolf grabbed a towel from the bathroom rack, wrapping it around him before grabbing his. Flinging the door open, Gareeku was then met with a rather startled woman; the maid.
"Oh! Um...g-good evening sir!" the maid stammered, a look of shock and apprehension as she eyed the katana in the wolf's hand. "I was sent to get your clothes to be washed."
Looking the maid up and down for a second, Gareeku then turned and reached for the clothes that were still in the bathroom sink, handed them to the maid who looked at the bloodstained clothes with a mix of worry and slight disgust. "Thank you, sir. Enjoy your stay..."
"Thank you." the wolf replied gruffly, before shutting the bathroom door behind him.

A few minutes later, Gareeku emerged from the bathroom with the sheathed katana, his fur now dry. Glancing at the bed, the wolf found that the maid had left some clothes for him to wear while his normal outfit was being washed. Upon closer inspection, Gareeku found the outfit to consist of a black t-shirt, a pair of blue denim jeans, and a pair of white sneakers, as well as a set of underwear. Putting the clothes on, the wolf found them to be a surprisingly accurate fit for him, though the t-shirt seemed to be quite tight, but from the looks of the design, that was intentional. Taking his sheathed katana with him as well as the keys he was given, Gareeku then headed out of the room.

[Stygian]

"As if there was the need or the time..." Stygian replied to Mel, not stopping as he walked past her, still dragging the feline along like a sack of potatoes without any particular show of strain. He stepped up on the stairs before he turned his head to look back at her.
   "Patch him up, so we can interrogate him. You can heal the bunny while we do," he said. To speak so brusquely, he had to be in a foul mood, though his face revealed little of anything such. He turned back just as quickly, and then made his way up to the tavern, the cat's shoes bumping over the steps after him. He did spare an odd look to Richard, who by all indications seemed to be interrogating a small feline girl, but hardly anything meaningful, opening the door and stepping in.
   The bat passed the entry hall, and then stopped in the middle of the floor, gazing around as if searching for something. He looked decidedly odd standing as he did, before he took a seat in one of the chairs in the common room, waiting, all the while behaving absolutely plainly, as if he didn't have a limp man hanging in his hand. Occasionally, he moved his grip, or shifted his look elsewhere. Otherwise, there was no indication of any sort of activity from him.
   After a while, a llama girl in a maid's outfit came scurrying down the stairs and went into the back. She was followed after a while by Gareeku, who had changed clothes, and Stygian looked up. He stretched his hand out and glanced over the keys, and the wolf threw them over. Catching them from the air, he looked to the cat in his hand, and then made a bit of a frown. Straightening, he then looked to the door, waiting for Mel to enter.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel nodded acknowledgement to Richard, both of his introduction and of his actions with the girl. Assuming that the rabbit would follow at her own speed Mel made her way back up the inn's stairs and inside where Ignatz was just getting keys from Gareeku. She followed him down the hall to a rather nice room. The unconscious feline was tossed onto the bed like a ragdoll. Mel immediately started work on healing lungs and other organs damaged by the shattered ribs, but she only partially healed the ribs themselves. Leaving them broken would keep him from getting too energetic during the interrogation. At the same time she was performing the healing Ignatz was searching the feline and muttering to himself. It sounded as if he was saying, ""Where are you, you little bastard? Come on... It's got to be there..." Mel managed to spare him a bit of a look as she concentrating on the healing. "What are you looking for?"

[Tezkat]

The prisoner lay unconscious, sprawled across the bed. His chest rose and fell with shallow but even breaths as Mel worked to repair his damaged organs. His ponytail had loosened. Locks of silky golden hair matted with blood and dirt fell across his face. The black feline sported boyishly handsome features and looked barely out of his teens.

His torn and battered suit, obviously custom work by a skilled tailor, offered no clues as to his identity or origin. It had no tags. The pockets were empty. No wallet, no ID, no cell phone, no keys, no hidden weapons of any kind... The feline was clearly traveling light. Aside from the golden rings in his ear and the band around his tail, he wore no jewelry, either. Not even a watch.

[Stygian]

Stygian didn't stop the search, just kept scanning the cat's body, occasionally running an outstretched hand close over his fur, his look irritated and his still black eyes narrowed.
   "Don't want..." he began, then made a face and spoke back to Mel, still not taking his eyes off the feline. "I'm looking for an Aci. If I'm right, then this guy is a cubi. He was doing some tricks out there that didn't make much sense. Which fits cubi on the spot. And they always keep one close, presuming they've learned that portion at that accursed colle..."
   He stopped abruptly. Then, without warning, he pushed the cat over sideways ungently. In a flash of a movement, he had grabbed his tail ring, and roughly pulled it off, clenching the little thing in his hand.
   "Gotcha, you lousy little critter...!" he snarled, his claws extended and his grip tight. "Now, don't you dare try something, or I'll peel you to pieces, layer by layer. And you won't go back to your comfy little home dimension after that..."

[Tezkat]

The captive stirred as Stygian shoved him over to snatch his tail ring. He rolled back onto his back with a soft thud. Wincing, he let out a light groan. A small twitch in his fingers made its way up his arms to the rest of his body--as if he was trying to make sure that all of his parts were present and accounted for.

The feline's deep blue eyes blinked open and darted about, scanning his surroundings. They widened in horror as he watched Stygian yell at the ornate golden band. Gradually, his expression softened into a more of a bemused fascination.

"While I do appreciate that victors are entitled to spoils, would you please be gentler with that particular item?" His voice was weak but steady. "It's been in my family for years--priceless sentimental value, you understand."

[Stygian]

However much the feline managed a good face, Stygian was pretty certain of his suspicions. And while keeping up the pretense was the cat's only option in a situation like this, presuming he wanted to last, the bat wasn't really in the mood. His face went expressionless, while his eyes locked on the cat with a dangerous gleam. Then, slowly, he stepped over to the side of the bed. Very quickly, he reached down and grabbed the man by the neck, jerking him up and pressing his thumb in under his larynx, squeezing his airway, not to shut it but to keep him from speaking and to give him a seriously uncomfortable sensation.
   "Let's get one thing straight first of all, kitten," Stygian hissed into the feline's face. His breath smelled of blood, acerbic and metallic. "I'm a guy who usually tries to keep things nice and polite. 'S why I don't just let Mel here rip the information we need from your head. That and some technical issues." He wasn't too sure how she did with cubi minds after all. "But that means that I expect the same courtesy from you. And bullshitting me isn't going to help you a single step."
   He stopped, and then didn't open his mouth again. Instead, he spoke out with his mind, piercing that dead blackness that had been there before. The words and thoughts that came through were dark, pained and twisted, distorted in some way that made them seem more like nightmares than thoughts, but fully recognizable.
   "You practically gave yourself away out there. I know what you are. And I can smell your fear. So unless you want me to work these a bit more," he thought, and jabbed a finger into the cat's broken ribs, "I'd suggest you level with me."
   Abruptly, the thoughts cut off as jaggedly as they had sounded, and Stygian let go of the feline's throat, moving back a bit. His hand was clenching harder on that golden band now, nearly starting to bend and crumple it. But his eyes were firmly on the cat, waiting for his response.

[Kogitsune]

"Bye, honey, good luck!" Laurel Carver had called that morning when Kiri had started down the road. "Thanks!" Kiri had shouted over her shoulder, than began jogging.
"Kiwi! Kiwi!" Emi shouted, running up to her sister, a fox beside her. "Linda an' me are gonna play hide 'n seek, will you count?" The older feline shook her head. "Sorry, Emi. I'm going out. " Emi and Linda, the fox, hung their heads sadly. "Well, will you at least tell us if there are still hornets in the shed? I can't remember." "Nope," Was Kiri's reply. "chased 'em out last week. I have to go now, okay?" She started walking again. "Have fun!"

Kiri sighed as she remembered what happened earlier that day. For some reason, it felt like a long time ago. She looked at the baboon. "Um... are you done yet?"

[Boog]

The spell winked out, finished. "Yeah, I am. Sorry about that, had a rather paranoia-inducing day," with that Richard turned and went inside, "Hey, Mr. Mörkesorm, what was that about a free room? More to the point, which one?"

[Aisha deCabre]

As the panthress stepped further into the inn, the scent of death on the wind outside started to wane until finally it was only present on her clothing.  In the hall she paused for a moment, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed in thought.

Not for the first time that night, she wondered where everyone was set to go from their point.  Soon enough the bodies will be discovered, there were just too many to try hiding...and Aisha in truth didn't want them to be hidden.  It would be a message to anyone else coming after their particular group...deadly and forthright, penned in blood.

She sighed and would have continued walking, but heard as Stygian and Mel came walking back through.  The felid's gaze curiously passed over them dismissively, as they seemed to not wish to linger...and she quirked an eyebrow at the prisoner they had with them, near as melanistic as herself.  A smirk formed.  Well.  Right now we seem to have the better hand.

Letting them pass without a word, nor even a spare thought of curiosity, she pushed herself from the wall and started forward again, nodding to Gareeku upon passing him in his new attire.  With another quick pause, she went to find the dragon owner.  At least there was enough peace left to also get cleaned up.

"I wouldn't so loosely use the word 'free'," she joked, coming up behind Richard and facing Rauth as well with a polite nod.  "Spare a room key for me as well?"

[Sunblink]

Having resorted to more magical means to slay her enemies, Keaton didn't have any unsavory stains of blood on her clothing or fur, for once, but she found that the entire experience left her exhausted. A remarkable accomplishment, since she didn't need to sleep. Her clothing probably needed a good washing, too, as it had been pelted with gobbets of debris and encrusted with dust and dirt. Still rotating her glasses in her grip, Keaton trudged up the stairs to the Dragon's Grin, trailing behind Aisha.

Stygian, Mel, and Gareeku had already left for their rooms, the former with the body of their shadowy attacker in his grasp. Richard was still talking with the youngster, hopefully persuading her to go elsewhere rather than remain in their company. If they were being targeted by assassins, then she would be in danger as well. Chances were, though, that he was reinforcing their safety by checking to make sure she didn't intend them harm. If she did, however, and he was going to make any movements to attack, Keaton probably would've interfered rather violently. Nobody was going to hurt any children when she was around.

Though that was a worst-case scenario. Logic speaking, it likely wouldn't happen.

"I need a key too," Keaton said to Rauth as she walked up beside Aisha. "Got one?"

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Tezkat]

Your thoughts taste almost like his did.

The captive's face was a strange mix of pain and euphoria while Stygian tortured him. His eyes half closed in ecstasy as he fell to the floor. The feline pulled himself into a sitting position with his back resting against the bed. He clutched his injured chest with one hand and looked up at his captor.

His gaze slid down to focus on the object in the bat's hand. For several seconds, he stared silently. The golden tail ring melted in Stygian's hand, slipping through the bat's fingers like smoke.

"You're a big meanie! Jerk!"

The wisps of darkness began to coalesce in midair. The dark mist came alive, surrounded by an aura of rich indigo. Then it darted under the bed.

The feline sighed.

"You'll have to excuse my counterpart. A little too much excitement for one day..." He chuckled softly. A mistake. He started coughing up blood.

He wiped his mouth. "My name is Edge, by the way, not kitten. Please forgive me for not standing, but someone appears to have broken my ribs, and it's more comfortable down here." He smiled but didn't risk laughing at his own joke again.

"Now, presumably, you desire more from me than my charming personality and winning smile." His expression turned serious. "What do you want?"