Northern Winds [NC-17] (IC)

[Tezkat]

The Edge who had caught Stygian's final gaze rolled his eyes. He slid his blade back over his shoulder and into its sheath. The other two raised their swords and adopted more aggressive stances--but did not advance.

"It sounds like you're not taking me very seriously." Edge crossed his arms. "Besides, you hardly need my help to find a man who spent all day throwing money around to have you killed." He sighed. "And here I thought you'd be a bit more fun..."

[Somber]

Somber didn't expect him to run, and she also didn't expect him to be done just yet.  Demons rarely had the psychological ability to be craven and cowardly.  The strong lived and killed as they would until they were killed it turn.  Some day, Somber had no doubt, something stronger would come for her and when it did she would die.  A demon who died of old age was an abberation like snow in the desert.

So when he fell back wounded, she felt little elation.  And when he withdrew the flask, she didn't share Richard's mockery.  Whether explosive, magical, or poisonous, she had little doubt that the contents were likely deadly.  "Freeze it, Richard!  Freeze it now!"  She shouted as she stepped back.  She longed to question him alive, but that wasn't going to happen.  Demons didn't surrender unless it was part of a plot.

Instead the rabbit did the most curious little... well... hop.  She turned and landed all crouched before him... facing away.  It seemed to be a rediculous position until her fingers tightened on the grass.  Her arms were strong.  They could tear flesh and bend steel, but they were nothing compared to her legs.  The limbs were almost twice as long and their muscles made up half her body mass.  The double footed donkey kick was like a bolt of lightning for anything she happened to use it on.  That it was tipped with diamond hard claws didn't hurt either.

[Boog]

"On it!" the undead barked, lunging for the flask and readying another flash freeze spell. He wasn't so worried about killing the demon; after all, if Richard acted fast and bit Illat before he finished dying, interrogation was still an option.

[Aisha deCabre]

Flash after flash of metal and cleave after cleave of bodies, Aisha's sword had gone through many of the mercenaries around them easily, Gareeku and herself the only ones that were needed to take care of them it seemed.  She was thankful that for some of them their spellcasting was more for long range and they had little to use as weapons when they were suddenly up close.  The panthress was charged with adrenaline and soon almost as covered in blood, darkening her melanistic fur all the more.

When all was done, it was the wolf who caused the last body to fall in the sea of death.  She came out of it with enough scratches and burns that would have made a common person want to fall over on the cool ground and rest there, and for a while she was tempted to do so.  By the actions of the bracer on her right arm, however, those wounds were slowly closing.  She got up on her feet again and surveyed the field with little remorse shown.  Briefly lowering her head in a solemn gesture, she wiped the blood from her sword clean onto her cape with one swipe through.

Aisha turned then to see where some of the others were gathered.  Illat was now defending against an onslaught from two of the party, and from the way Gareeku was striding towards them, perhaps a third.  She snarled upon noting his countenance...demon.  Of course...

Instead of darting towards that fight, the panther leaped up the trees and onto the balcony again, placing her sword back in its sheath, more than content to watch how this was going to end, and yet ready in case any kind of backup was needed.

Knowing my comrades, I wouldn't count on it... she smirked to herself.

[Stygian]

The demon saw both Richard and Somber coming for him, and growled, glaring defiantly at them. As quickly as he could, he slapped his burning hand to the bottle. The problem was just that Richard managed to hit it with the freezing spell at the very same time. And then came the lapine demon's attack.
   Illat's head flew, perhaps a twenty, twenty-five feet. His body just shuddered. Then, it collapsed, still clenching its hand around the flask, spilling dark blood in a quickly growing puddle. The demon was downed, and the fight was at an end. Unfortunately, the battle was not.
   There was a small, bright, cracking sound, and slowly a warm, orange light began to spread, as a small chink in the flask in the gator's hand began spreading...

- -

The bat scoffed, and slowly slipped out a slim cigar, as if from nowhere. He put it in the corner of his mouth, and then flipped out a silvery lighter, drawing in small puffs until he got smoke. Breathing in once on it, he slipped it down between his fingers, then crossed his arms and sighed a blue cloud before looking up at the feline with a boorish expression.
   "Money isn't the issue. Neither is whether I'm taking you seriously or not. You wanted to play a game? Fine," he said, his blacked-out eyes like hot coals. "I'll play with you."
   Both fake Edges were impaled, through the heart, just an eyeblink in between. Even more alarming, the shadows had started twisting like that again. And the feline felt how they began going... slippery, somehow, growing more difficult to control.
   "White gets the first move!" Stygian roared, lunging at the bounty hunter with mercurial speed, one hand drawn back, sharp claws glinting and the teeth in his grin like knives. He would test this one, to see how far he could go...

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Finding no more movement around her Mel started back towards the sounds she could hear, the site where she had left the undead baboon and the gator. As she crested a small rise she could look down and see the crowd standing around the gator's decapitated body. But she also saw something else, unstable magic and lots of it. And the instability was growing. It only took her an instant to decide this was not the place to be. "Run!" she shouted at the three by the body before taking her advice for herself.

[Boog]

Richard swore loudly at the sight of the gator's head leaving. One, because it was inconvenient, and two, because it was freaking scary. In retrospect, that was a damn stupid idea, the undead thought, fleeing at Mel's urging. He ran as fast as he could in the direction of the head. We need answers. If I can get to that damn thing within eleven seconds...

[Sunblink]

As Richard and Somber mercilessly attacked Illat, Keaton watched with silent enthusiasm, cheering the two on, only for her fervor to be extinguished once she noticed his blaze-enveloped hand ghost toward the bottle grasped in his grip. Hoisting her mace, Keaton was just about ready to attack when Richard's ice spell smashed into him simultaneous to the moment his hand rested on the flask.

Explosion. Illat went flying, his head landing a good distance away. Atramentous blood spread beneath his decapitated corpse like an inky, oozing halo. Wincing slightly, Keaton's slight grimace soon turned into an expression of satisfaction. However, she should've learned by then that nothing is as easy as it seems.

She realized it as soon as she heard the crack and saw the orange light on the urn radiate outward, threatening to explode...

"Oh JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!" Keaton exclaimed, immediately shrieking in Richard and Somber's direction, "Run! We gotta run!"

Vaulting herself over the disembowled cadaver of a long-deceased ursine, Keaton scrambled as fast as she could away from the destruction area, hoping that her companions could follow at the same pace.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Tezkat]

The two "fake" felines, if that was indeed what they were, appeared dazed and frozen for a second. Then they clutched their chests from the unexpected attack and collapsed to the ground. The remaining Edge cocked his head.

He didn't even blink when Stygian shot towards him. Indeed, he barely moved at all. Then his form flickered for an instant. One moment, he was standing with his arms crossed and his blade sheathed. The next, he was almost in front of Stygian with his sword in motion, prepared to meet claws with steel. He grinned like a kid with a new toy.

"Don't send the king to do a knight's job."

[Cogidubnus]

 From his vantage point in the shadows, Cog watched the battle between the Stygian and this strange swordsman with varied interest. Some might have been awed by the spectacular display of power by the both of them, and perhaps have done something foolish like cry out, but Cog merely kept himself quiet and still as he leaned against the tree trunk. His black clothing and his unmoving stance left him unnoticed by the both of them, their attentions drawn to the more pressing issues of trying to kill each other.
Cog took notes on the various techniques of the both of them. The split-swordsman technique in particular interested him, as did the bat's strange ability to blink in-and-out of the shadows. As the bat lit his cigar and summarily killed two of the other felines, Cog carefully let one of his hands slide to his side.
He pushed himself forward as they charged each other, and balled his hand into a fist. After seeing the cat's skill with arcane magics and enchantments, he didn't dare risk an attack of an eldritch nature. He flinched when the feline teleported, and drew his fist back. He was running out of time, and in any case, he had grown tired of hanging back. He'd seen more than enough.
Concentrating and stilling his mind, he took careful aim at the running swordsman and threw his fist forward, a wave of force flowing out and streaking towards the cat, distorting the air and breaking tree limbs here and there as it clawed its way through the forest.

[Somber]

Follow?  She was a rabbit.  She didn't follow anyone.  The curious thing was that instead of running and leaving the others to live or die, the demon instead grabbed the slowest of the three, Richard, and carried him at great haste in the same direction as Keaton.

"Please don't tell me that's a sunwell flask," she muttered as she glanced back at the light creeping from the fissure.  It was pretty simple magic.  Take one enchanted bottle, leave it undisturbed to fill up with sunlight for a century.  Cap, and uncork whenever you wanted to blast some one with ten years worth of sunshine all at once.  Of course for the truly suicidal, you could break the bottle open and let it all out at once.  Some how, that seemed like a thing that would appeal to Illat.

[Stygian]

Illat, while alive, had not been one for such patience-requiring methods as collecting sunlight for decades on end. Though he had been quite a study of alchemy. And even the most grubby and unskilled alchemist knew how to create manageable and powerful chemical compounds. The bottles and vials that he had carried were such good bombs for three apparrent reasons; firstly they were small and manageable, secondly they were safe, as the explosive compounds in them were so separated and hard to trigger by accident, and thirdly, they were powerful and cheap. A bomb that was made mostly out of hydrogen, iron, magnesium and compressed nitrogen, and some magical charge, could be made basically out of anything, and devastatingly powerful.
   This bomb that had just set off though, had happened to be one of those he had created as a safeguard, and for his own wicked fun. And so, it applied mostly to the manageable and the powerful parts, and not the safe one. It was why it was in a glass flask, rather than a steel tube or the like. And while containing mostly air, it had been made using more rare and volatile chemicals than just ones that could be gleaned from basic compounds like air and dirt. Because that was something that all alchemists knew as well; how to create nuclear reactions in even the most basic elements by feeding energy into the atoms and setting up chain reactions. And nuclear reactions are much, much more powerful than chemical ones.
   The blast that hit the adventurers in the back after they had run for what seemed a damn long time, though not nearly enough, threw trees, rocks and bodies around as if they weighed nothing, and left a smoldering crater that cut into the road up to the tavern, sixty feet wide and quite deep, and smoothed down. It had been a hot explosion. Keaton lay flung up against one side of the tavern when she came to, and Somber upside down on top of Richard almost on the road. Around them lay smoldering debris, and a thick fog of acrid smoke that had resulted after the blast, rather than been blown away by it.

- -

Stygian's prepared hand slashed out and parried Edge's blade, just a bit of sparks striking. But only once. As the bat closed up with the feline, he actually grabbed the blade and pulled the cat close in, and then stared deeply in his eyes, iridescent blue meeting gleaming black. His fangs were exposed in a grin.
   "Unless you can actually get an attack through, it doesn't matter what piece I strike with," he snarled, and then swiped with claws out against Edge's neck. "Nor does it matter what you do for a counter!" The feline twisted, and parried the attack, turning it into a quick, needle-like thrust for the bat's head in a movement to the side, which Stygian in turn easily dodged by going low and displaying his agility by sweeping his leg out at the cat, and then spin and move up on his hands so that the sweep turned into two handstanding kicks against the feline's head before he completed the spin and came back up on his feet, already flashing claws, which Edge leapt to avoid and parry, and then counter with his sword, aiming for the bat's gut, as it was hardest to defend with claws like that.
   Then, suddenly, a wave of force cut between them, and ran into the bat's shoulder and left arm, as they had both spun to the side at the exact right, or wrong, moment. For a moment, there seemed a stunned look on his face. Then his outline grew shadowy where it did not turn colorless, as if light passed through him like nothing, and he turned into darkness that seeped away and vanished like smoke.
   "May I ask why you're interrupting our game?" Stygian said, standing with his arms folded and leaning against a tree not five paces to the side from Cogidubnus. His face and tone were both smooth but irritated, and his sideways glance toward the wolf somewhat heated. "As much as I appreciate that you know to strike at him when he's distracted and I'm out of the way, that was really not neccessary. And I did say that I would play with him." That was a pointer, if anything.

- -

After the air had torn with the blast, and dust and mud and various other things had flown up on Aisha as she was pushed back, and Gareeku had gotten to his senses after being tossed a short way, and both their ears stopped ringing, they heard a loud smack and then the violent, agitated sound of a female voice shouting. The hyena stood out on the balcony next to a broken window and in dirt and rocks, loudly and in no gentle words exclaiming her thoughts on the whole deal.
   "ARE YOU PEOPLE FUCKING INSANE?! I TOLD YOU, AND THEN YOU GO MESSING UP THE WHOLE BLOODY PLACE ENTIRELY! I SWEAR, WHEN I GET..."

[Sunblink]

Keaton only realized that the explosion was closing in on her when her feet departed the ground and she was flung ahead like she were as light as a feather. If it weren't for the deafening, thunderous roar that split the sky and rocked the shredded earth, her comrades probably would've heard her shriek a very foul expletive at nothing in particular. Pieces of foliage, chunks of boulder, and burning blades of grass whipped past in a buffeting bombardment of debris, some incinerating on the spot, some disintegrating gradually, or others smashing into other soon-to-be projectiles and uprooting them.

Before she knew it, the jackal was sprawled against the wall of the tavern, eyes rolling in the back of her head and wings splayed in a ragged heap around her. Too disorientated to think properly, Keaton lolled her head to the side, head-wings and ears drooping, and looked around at the devastated field. An enormous, craterous groove engulfed the smoldering earth, exuding towers of noxious fumes from it. Groaning, Keaton idly wondered where her mace was as her right hand twitched to life, only to notice that its handle was embedded into the wall a few inches away from her head.

Well, wasn't that fortunate. Or unfortunate. As her vision started to clear and the curses slipped in a steady stream from her mouth, Keaton looked around in search of her companions. Somber and Richard were nearby, but she couldn't find Gareeku, Aisha, Mel, Cogidubnus, or Stygian. Suddenly realizing the presence of a nasty headache throbbing in her mind, Keaton slumped, clutching her scalp. She wondered if she had gotten beaten on the head by an errant chunk of debris, but further inspection revealed that there was no blood on her head.

Then there was the yelling of the hyena on the nearby balcony. Narrowing her eyes in a sour "oh, I am NOT in the mood for this kind of shit" expression, Keaton stared up at the hyena, directing a furious, but weary glare.

She just couldn't catch a break.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Boog]

"Let me down!" the baboon yelled as Somber dragged him along, "I gotta get to the head! One bite and we can interrogate at will! Let me-!"
And then, insofar as the senses could ascertain, the world exploded.
Richard curled his arms around Somber as he hit the ground, making sure the impact was a bit more pleasant for the demon. After all, he was dead anyway and wouldn't feel it.
"Remind- uh oh," his voice had taken on a slight gurgle, "That never means anything good. Anyway, next time someone pulls out a flask of whatever the hell that was, I'm calling 'not it.'"

[Aisha deCabre]

Aisha watched the fight closely from her point on the balcony, silently cheering on her comrades, however hasty they were in their attacks.  It was inevitable however that soon there would be an end to it, much to her relief and probably to the others as well.  Then it came almost too quickly, the reptilian's body falling to the ground and his head flung away.  The panthress had to cringe and avert her gaze.  Did not wanna see that.  Her eyes however fell back upon the destruction that she and her group caused.  Any of this.

But a shout had suddenly caught her ears, followed by several more, and the huntress caught the running figures out of the corner of her eye.  When Aisha looked up to see what they were running from, only then did she remember how Illat caused the whole thing...

The panthress had thrown herself to the floor of her platform as an explosion rocked the ground and seemed to shatter her hearing for a few moments.  The very air became awash with heat, and she could feel debris and mud pelting her so quickly that her skin soon felt numb to the blows.  She was knocked over onto her side and stayed there until things felt quiet again, wondering if she was buried under something.

Standing up and shaking her head to get rid of the annoying ringing, she peered over the edge of the balcony, trying to see if everyone was in one piece.  But when Aisha could hear again the first thing she caught was the hyena owner nearby, in a voice that wanted to make her cringe after just getting used to an explosion.

Dizzily, Aisha stood up on her feet and approached the angered barkeeper with an annoyed, overly blank glare that would have silenced most anyone's such rants.  Most.  "In case you haven't noticed..." she snarled lowly.  "We messed up the place while defending our lives."  She gestured to the bloodied sea of mercenaries below.  "Be thankful that your establishment didn't go up in flames just as where we had run from.  There they had more than a window to replace."

With that, the panthress leaped from the balcony and landed with less-than-perfect grace on the ground, snorting derisively while her cape changed back to its black, shadowy color and she approached where her comrades had landed.

Perhaps that was a little more harsh than Aisha was usually.  But after everything that's happened, everyone certainly had a right to be.  "Everyone in one piece?" she said with a sigh, brushing off the dirt on her arm.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel had been far enough ahead of the others that she had made the inn's grounds and a small service shed. Ducking behind it she had added a layer of magic for further protection. She hadn't taken time to analyze the magics she had seen on the gator's corpse, but they looked particularly nasty and she wasn't taking chances. First there was the concussion and a hail of debris then something knocked her to the ground. When everything settled and she looked up Mel saw that her paranoia had been justified. A tree branch had gone entirely through the shed and still hit her shield hard enough to push her over. She got up and looked down at herself. Her spell-laden outfit quickly shed itself of dirt and tiny tears closed. Looking around at the mess she decided that the best view would be from on high. Leathery white wings, larger than a demons, spread from her back and in a quick movement she was on the roof of the inn to survey the extent of the damage. And it was extensive. She had only just landed when she heard the hyena screaming and looked down to see most of the rest of the party, relatively whole. Further out she could sense more than see the other fight. "Everyone make it?" she called down to the ground.

[Cogidubnus]

 Cog gave Stygian an irritated look and set one hand atop his sword hilt. "Didn't mean to interrupt your game, good sir. But have a care your opponent doesn't flip the table upon you." he said, yellow eyes sliding over the bat and back to their opponent.
Cog kept his feet spaced slightly apart, at slight angles to each other, the shape a sort of half-triangle pointed away from his opponent. He arm kept the still sheathed sword low, and though his hat obscured his face, his eyes still gleamed past the brim to stare at the feline swordsman. He was on a wire trigger, and the strange grace-beyond-effort suffused his limbs, making him seem to waver even as he stood still.
It had been a long time since another swordsman had attacked him. Then again, he doubted anyone had heard of him this far from home...

[Gareeku]

Seeing the body as he heard the call to run, Gareeku knew what was up, and so did just that. The force of the explosion still tossed him aside however, despite the distance between the body and Gareeku. As the explosion subsided, the wolf rose to his feet, coughing slightly from the dust thrown up by the explosion. Turning to hear the hyena screaming, Gareeku narrowed his eyes. Contemplating giving the hyena a few hard knocks, the wolf decided against it. He had had enough excitement for one evening.

[Stygian]

The hyena kept her snarling and growling up, against the comments and looks of the adventurers. Her look focused upon the panthress first though, as she was the first one to respond.
   "It's not my establishment, you moron! I'll ge..." she began, and then stopped suddenly as a deep voice sounded from behind her.
   "What seems to be the problem, Charlize?"
   Out of the door a towering shape slowly moved, arch-necked and hunched down low as the door would not accomodate him. Slowly, he rose to a height of surely seven feet and more, while taking smooth steps toward the stairs down off the balcony, tall, slender, heavy and muscular, dressed in a formal suit of smooth blue and black, with grayish scales tinged with just a slight golden gleam under a black pattern, and flowing black-tipped golden frills between a pair of curved black horns. His deep azure, star-pupiled eyes were like awls over his pointed snout.
   "Are you the ones responsible for this?" the dragon asked, his voice a melodious rumble that was as hard to read as his face. The only thing that hinted danger was the way his eyes glowed, and the continuous snakelike movements of his tail.

- -

Stygian sighed, and breathed another smoky cloud, slowly turning and standing, looking down as he took the cigar from his mouth and tapped the ash off the end of it.
   "I appreciate your concern, as I do your candor. But it so happens..." the bat murred, and turned his face against Edge. He didn't even slide into stance before he suddenly appeared behind the feline. In fact, the Stygian next to Cogidubnus was still there, even, just fading out into shadow. Neither the cat nor the wolf had felt anything. There was just the slightest seething sound, easily missed in the rustle of the trees and the wind.
   "I have an advantage here. A significant one," he murred, smoke slipping between razor teeth in his grin.

[Somber]

"Only by... refusing to simply lay down... and die, sir."  Panted a voice out of the smoke and chill air.  Somber limped into view of the inn.  The adamantine plates she wore had actually been bent by the force of the blast.  "Those who... came here to start.... the violence have been... felled by it.  Un... unfortunately I... doubt... they're in much condition to... make... reparations."  She said between gasps as she looked up at the dragon and coughed hard, spitting a mouthful of blood to the side.  Her ear cocked as she looked to the side.  "There might still... be one... around.  You can... ask him... about the bill."

Gods she hurt.  She fell on to hands and knees.  She'd shielded Richard from the blast as much as possible and was paying for her good deed.  At least evil's punishments were for deeds more fun.  Complecating her bent armor was a demonic bone that had pierced right through the adamantite plate and was now lodged in her back, a few inches of femur jutting from the wound.  "C...could you... l...lend me a hand... and... pull... that... out... sir?"  She said as she coughed again.

[Tezkat]

Slash. Parry. Thrust. Dodge. An opening! Edge lunged forward to slice at the bat's midsection. His ears perked up and flicked towards the approaching danger, but his gaze remained fixed on the bat. This was not the type of opponent to take one's eyes off of. One good strike, and...

He leapt back at the last moment. A moment too late. The edge of the blast caught him across the side and spun him in midair. The wave of force continued unabated until it smashed into the fallen treetop beyond with a sickening crack. A shower of splinters and leaves rained down around him. As the dust settled on the clearing, his two fallen clones faded into nothingness. Had they ever been more than a mirage?

Edge swiveled into a ready stance to face this new threat. He relaxed only slightly when Stygian disappeared to speak with the wolf. He brushed the dirt from his hair and shook his arm as if to regain feeling after the numbing impact.

He froze when the bat reappeared behind him.

"What an interesting technique. I shall have to learn how you do that."

He called out to the interloper. "As you can see, your friend has the situation well in hand. Still..."

"...you thought that the infamous Stygian would need help against poor little me." Edge's soft voice floated down from behind Cog. But he was still standing out there with Stygian... wasn't he? "I must graciously accept the praise as offered."

The feline crouched like a gargoyle on one of the branches above the wolf--one hand curled around the bough, the other leaning his sword against his shoulder. The black on black panther's form was barely a shadow against the dark backdrop of the midnight sky. Only his moonlit sapphire eyes and pearly white Cheshire cat grin gave him away. He studied his new opponent intently.

"I don't understand why you're siding with this criminal, however." He leaned forward on his perch. "You do seem like a nice enough fellow. Surely you must know that your friend here is a notorious fugitive with a price on his head the size of--"

The brilliant flash of a not-too-distant explosion filtered through the trees. A second later, its thunderous report roared through the woods. Moonlight scattered across a cloud of smoke and debris rising above the treetops.

"Ah..." The dark feline glanced towards the direction of the blast. "I believe that would be Illat turning your partners in crime into small chunks of charred flesh." He sighed. "The idiot reptile has all the finesse of a sack of bricks."

[Boog]

Richard's first attempt at getting up resulted in his right shin snapping and sending him right back to the ground with a bellow of "Bloody idiot reptile!" After he'd managed to crawl his way over to a suitable tree branch thrown away by the explosion and reattached a few fingers he hobbled over in the direction Somber had gone.
"And if I may add to that?" The undead raised the hand that wasn't grasping his makeshift crutch to catch the dragon's attention, "Let me know if you see my tail anywhere."

[Stygian]

Growling, Stygian stepped past the replacement Edge, and shook his head. He looked up at the feline with a scowl, promptly ignoring the one behind him. The cat was quick, but...
   "You shouldn't speak too much yourself. You're ripping trails in the pattern like a blunt shear through canvas. Who taught you to twist the shadows?" he said, almost snarling but not quite. He was getting irritated with the feline. Sarcasm and criticism and even plain foolishness were all part of how even the most understandable people behaved, but smugness and imagined superiority...
   The bat didn't bother with any more shadow clones. This time he just waved his hand to the side without even looking. And the oddest, worst thing about it, to 'Edge' at least, was the sensation as his duplicate was ripped up. It didn't look like it was, really. Rather, it just looked like it blurred, startling back, and then turned into black smoke, waved away by the bat's big hand. But the feline had felt it. First, the shadow in it had suddenly started crawling and stinging, and then the magic had been stripped asunder, piece by piece, as if ripped up by thousands of tiny claws and teeth.
   "Games are not tricks. And when you don't play by the rules, you're not allowed to play," Stygian said calmly. His thoughts were heated though, as much as they were amused. Next, all he would need was to get the cat to try and run again.
   And so, an eyeblink later, Edge was faced with the bat's face turned upside down as he swung from the branch above. He was snarling.
   "So keep on the board, kitty!"

- -

The dragon only waited a second, raising an eyebrow, before obliging Somber's request, slowly making his way down the stairs and slipping around behind her. He took a look at the piece of bone lodged in her back, and tapped it lightly with a clawed finger, then looked up to the hyena.
   "Bring whatever medical supplies you can readily find, Charlize. The guests will hardly leave so soon now, I think," he said smoothly, and then went back to studying the lapine. He took a look over all of her, before focusing at the bonepipe again, and then examined it clinically. Then, very suddenly, he grabbed it with the tips of his fingers, and pulled it out quite easily and quickly. There wasn't so much as a rasp or a sound. And Somber herself hardly had time to react before he gripped her firmly, and pressed his large hand against her wound hard.
   "It's not going to bleed through, but we will have to open it and see if there are splinters," he said, as calmly as if he had been talking about the weather.

[Gareeku]

Watching the arrival of the dragon by the hyena, Gareeku stood his ground; he was not one to be intimidated. Seeing him tend to Somber's injury, however, made it clear that he was not looking for a confrontation. Walking up to the two of them, Gareeku nodded his head slightly in greeting.
"I wish to use your shower to clean myself off." the wolf said, referring to the fact that he covered head to toe in the blood his fallen enemies. "Please."

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel stepped off the roof peak, her large leathery wings and a bit of an air spell giving her a delicate, silent landing near the others. She looked at the big grey with a bit of a smile as she commented in draconian, "I'll present your bill to the authors of the violence when we find them." Then in common, "Since the demon is being tended, how are you three? Any healing needed?"

[Cogidubnus]

Cogidubnus scowled. The situation was becoming less than optimal - there was far too much teleportation going on around him than he was comfortable with. That was to say, hi stomach didn't sit so well when his opponent translocated and started staring at him from the treetops.
On the other hand, having an ally who could do the same wasn't so bad.
Cog called back to the assassin. "Help you? You tried to blow me up first, good sir. Your enemies are my allies and all that."
Shadows seemed to be the specialty of both the bat and the feline, which put him in a nice bind. He couldn't eradicate the advantage of his opponent without also disabling his ally – light, the usually weakness of shadow-users, was out of the question.
There were alternate routes he could take. Raising his hand, Cog uttered a short, sharp syllable and clenched his fist. From out the sky and seemingly nowhere, a thundercrack rent the air and echoed throughout the woods, a deafening boom that echoed through the forest. Cog began to chant, the mystic words burbling out of his mouth softly as the air began to increasingly smell of ozone and dirt.

[Aisha deCabre]

Hearing as the others voiced that they were unharmed--mostly--Aisha nodded with content as she picked the last of the mud that had caked onto her clothing and embedded in the free strands of her hair.  When the hyena called back after the panthress, she chose to ignore her...after being hunted and cornered into a massacre, she didn't feel at all like dealing with anyone overly-angry.  "I'm fine, Mel," she answered back with confidence and yet a flat voice.

She couldn't ignore the next individual however, whom she regarded with a quirked eyebrow in surprise.  A dragon, and a suspicious one at that, confronting the adventurers.  The panthress couldn't help but become a little more respectful as the owner showed himself, and was about to answer his question when a rasping voice answered for her.

Somber, the only one who took a good amount of damage from the blast, it seemed, had answered his inquiry and was asking for help.  There was a part of the huntress that felt a bit of satisfaction from the blood-covered demon's plight...but Aisha discarded those thoughts quickly.  The lapine fought on the group's side, after all, and perhaps didn't deserve as much pain as a demon would have had against them.

Her gaze then wandered to where Illat's corpse lay strewn in two clean pieces before the explosion.  Definitely not.

Aisha then sighed and stood with her arms crossed in front of the entrance, thinking that she too needed a bit of cleaning up.  No sane adventurer walked into a town covered in someone else's blood.  "We would appreciate it," she muttered politely.

[Sunblink]

Reorganizing her disarrayed and scrambled mind back into relative order, Keaton listened to Aisha snap angrily at the hyena who had wailed at them from the balcony with slight satisfaction, feeling too disorientated and too bruised to contribute to the verbal assault in some way. She made a mental note to personally applaud Aisha later...

Just as soon as the world stopped doing cartwheels, that was. Maybe she should take a nap. Yeah, a nap sounded really good at the moment...

Just as Keaton was about to oblige her body's commands and let herself close her eyes, Somber limped up. Keaton winced graphically at the size of the bloodstained bone jutting out of her mutilated back. That was certainly enough to jolt her out of her daze, if in a rather gruesome fashion. Glancing back up at the sound of a new, more thunderous--yet somehow melodious--voice, Keaton's ears lay flat as she saw a tall, bulky dragon storm out from within the bar, joining his hyena companion. So this was the owner of the bar. Somehow the epithet of the tavern made a lot more sense to Keaton other than just an artistic inclination.

Thankfully the dragon didn't seem interested in driving them all away or, even worse, exacerbating the situation by fighting them, but instead walked over and after instructing the hyena to deliver some medical supplies, extricated the bone noiselessly from Somber's back. Sighing with relief, Keaton let her head fall back again and was about to let herself sleep--or pass out, same thing--against the wall when she heard a familiar voice. One she wasn't too happy about hearing.

Mel was walking around, inquiring the trio on whether or not they needed to be healed. Keaton probably would've countered with a rather vicious retort if she could, but another, sudden abrupt revolution of the world made her consider otherwise. Perhaps she had hit the wall harder than she had previously assumed. "Yeah," Keaton said wearily, leaning foreward, "I think I need some help over here."

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Somber]

Predictably, Somber didn't cry out in pain.  She just gripped the wall hard enough to leave eight claw marks in the joist as the bone was extracted.  Her next breath had a sickening burbling noise till the dragon applied the pressure.  Coughing more blood she spat it to the side.  "Thanks.  If it doesn't kill me in the next hour or so I should survive."  Indeed the dozen nicks and scratches along her back and legs had stopped bleeding.  "So, what's your name, tall dark and scaley?"  She asked, forcing a smile as she tried to maintain her humor.  Despite her brave face there was no question she hurt like hell.  After all she'd been blown up twice tonight.  There was only so much a girl could take before she needed a nice long nap.

Glancing over her shoulder, back at the woods, she asked, "Where's that bat and the others?  I didn't see them near the blast..."

[Tezkat]

Edge's eyes widened as Stygian shredded his double. When the bat appeared in front of him, he wore an almost confused expression. By the time the snarling rebukes ended, however, his eyes had narrowed into slits. His lip curled.

"Oh, I see perfectly." Edge glared at the bat. "You are allowed to do as you please, but when I do it, it's a trick. That's what your kind calls playing by the rules."

He called down to Cog when the wolf replied, but his eyes never left the bat. "An ally, you say? When in doubt, follow the scariest one, I suppose. Nonetheless, it's not polite to interrupt a game..."

"Please, good sir," came an oddly familiar voice from the shadows. "Let's give the boys room to play, shall we?"

Cogidubnus--another Cogidubnus--emerged from behind a tree. "Your opponent is me. Or should I say... you." He charged the spellcasting wolf. As he closed the distance between them, he drew his katana and sliced upwards in a single motion. The blade whistled towards his twin with alarming speed.

"Now the teams are even. Is that fair?"

The figure crouched before the bat was no longer feline. Stygian might as well have been looking in a mirror, albeit upside down and backwards. Moonlit shadows twisted around this new "Stygian" in ways that defied physics. Razor sharp tendrils of inky darkness coiled around his body. Without further warning, they lashed out--midnight blades intent on removing the hanging bat's head from his body.