"I'd do what the man says. Otherwise we might get some practice," Aricla said. Savannah hadn't spotted her.
To his further surprise, the man with the knife charged towards him. He fired the gun but his surprise ruined his aim. The knife came towards his face and he only just dodged.
This one's better than I gave him credit for.
Getting under his guard, Savannah delivered a swift knee to the crotch. The man dropped his knife and cried out as he doubled over, staggering away. Savannah took the discarded knife, looked down at the man who was now lying in the foetal position and said,
"You should have taken heed of my recommendation."
He headed towards Aricla and asked her whether there were any threats to look out for, and what she thought should be done next, making note of the sirens that were now blaring.
Looking around the half-full Inn, Em could already see the others weren't there. Great, I'm in an inn I've never seen before, and I can't find anyone. She thought glumly to herself, before heading over to the barkeeper.
"Hi there!" She said cheerfully, getting a small nod in return.
"Do you know where my friends went from last night?" She asked, getting straight to the point.
"They left with another guy a while ago. I heard 'em say somethin' about the shoppin' district." He said, before turning away to serve a customer.
Shopping district? Did they go shopping without me? She thought to herself, heading straight for the door and out into the street. She was 2 streets away from the inn when she remembered she'd forgotten to ask where she was.
"Aw crap..." Em said out loud. She tapped a random person on the arm as they walked past her.
"Scuse me Ma'am. Do you know which way to the shopping district?" Em asked politely with a smile.
The woman scowled at her, looking at her shabby cloak with distaste. Begrudginly, she pointed east, then kept walking.
"Thank you!" Em called after her, sticking her finger up at the womans back. She ran off in the direction she'd pointed.
"Yeh, great story Nev..." Hammond was paying little attention now that his eye had been drawn to the arrows on the walls. They weren't there before, but now they were surrounded by them.
...This was bad. Moving was as bad an idea as not moving when he didn't have any idea what might cause the arrows to fire. Looking around, it seemed everyone else had cottoned on to the situation shortly after he had and were similarly unsure of the best move.
A few seconds passed. "Well... Since I doubt we'll be getting out of this one alive, it was nice working with you all. Except you Savannah. You were a bit of an arse."
Naz spoke up now, bringing his idea to the table, "How about up there? Do you think we can jump up?" He was pointing in some direction.
Hammond looked up, following the line from Naz's finger to the rafters of the 'inn'. "What? With this leg? You must be utterly insane, Dex..." Before his mocking could reach any kind of crescendo they all heard a cracking of wood and a familiar looking boy was walking across the room, as relaxed as could possibly be, before getting a drink from behind the bar. The adventurers were following him with their eyes, a little confused as to why he was here and how he had just waltzed across, before he pointed over to the door.
"You might want to look that way."
The door burst open with 5 people running in. No doubt these were the thief's friends. One with a shotgun, one with a sword, the other three left unarmed. Before they could gather their bearings Hammond had swung to attack one of them, the shotgun holder.
His sword glanced ineffectually off a metal guard.
Naz fires and arrow at the shotgun wielding thug only for it to hit the wall behind him. of all the times I could misfire He things as he looks around for a route of escape. "My life and some gold sounds awfully good" Naz says greedily as the man leads the way.
Savannah took a moment to evaluate the threat each thug posed and decided to fire on the one brandishing a shotgun. Just as he pulled the trigger he sensed movement in the corner of his eye and drew away from it, sending his shot into the ceiling. He saw before him a man slashing at him with a thick broadsword. Savannah had no time to dodge and it sliced diagonally across his chest.
He cried out and fell, the impact of the floor sending a further ripple of pain through Savannah's body. He felt water in his eyes and blood in his mouth.
"Bastard..." he seethed through clenched teeth, looking up at his assailant. He raised the pistol as high as he could.
Just as he had wheeled away from the shotgun holder, ready to attack again, he felt a foot connect with his shin. Hammond did his best to attack back but it's tough to concentrate on attacking many people at once.
Looking around he could see the situation growing worse and worse for them. Ari had been punched to the ground, Naz was running off, Savannah was getting pummeled and Hammond himself was almost literally on his last leg. Any longer and that shotgunner would be picking them off one by one. He had to act.
And act he did.
His hand went into his pocket, digging out the small coin with the crimson edge. He had seen Em use a coin like this before. She had been told to 'grip it and concentrate on what you want to do'. It seemed simple enough.
...For several moments, nothing happened. He thought he might have done it wrong. But then it happened.
The coin started to burn into his skin. He let it go, watching it fall gracelessly to the ground. A large tear suddenly opened, swallowing the coin, and in its place came an aged skeleton, a flaming scythe raised in it's bony clutches, rags covering it's body and a maleficent red glow in the sockets of it's skull.
Before any could react, it had sliced every enemy in the room into two pieces, without so much as a scream, and disappeared into the tear in the inn's floor.
"Holy..." He stood up, marvelling at the work. Apart from the dead thugs there was no evidence of it ever having been summoned, save for the weapon that had been planted into the floorboards.
He hobbled over, pulled the scythe from it's metaphorical prison in the ground, and looked at it for a moment. An ebony handle, the scythe's edge was razor sharp. The design was similarly decorative, skulls adorned the scythe's head and Hammond's name had been etched into the handle. Suffice to say that he thought instantly that he would use this weapon a lot.
"I don't know about any of you, but I think this was a worthwhile venture indeed." He started walking towards the exit, using the scythe as a semi-effective cane. It was better than a sword at least.
"Excellent idea." Hammond was holding the door open for them all. "Let's make our exit quickly. I wouldn't want to bloody this scythe just yet." The whatever-they-were[footnote]They aren't really a group or a team... I can't think of a proper word that describes succinctly what they are.[/footnote] started away, with Ari having to help Savannah to stand. In an unprecedented act of kindness, Hammond offered the sword he had been using as a cane to Savannah, but it was refused. He was probably just overly happy thanks to the killing of that annoyance and the obtainment of the new weapon that he had momentarily ignored his usual dislike of the green-suited man.
Outside they saw Em, the mysteriously never-present 5th member of their whatever-the-were. Naz seemed overly quick to introduce himself to everyone on the journey back, but otherwise it went fairly uninterestingly.
Hammond, as self-proclaimed leader of the whatever-they-were, went into the inn first. He intended to get some rooms, rest, steal everything that wasn't nailed down and then get the hell out of this town so that he would never, ever, ever have to spend even another minute in it. Of course, this plan was destined to fail from the word 'Go'.
He was about to start hobbling over to speak to the innkeeper but... he stopped. The man was smiling unnaturally and making a weird motion with his head. A sort of ridged sidewards nod, if you can imagine such a motion.
Em watched the barkeeper with interest, as he stared at them all in turn, still jerking his head to the side. He had seemed perfectly normal earlier that day.
"Hey guys... I'm just gonna use the bathroom real quick." Em said slowly, walking towards the stairs. She climbed halfway up until she was out of sight from the lobby, then activated the cloaking enchantment on her daggers. I love these things. Now I wonder what's got that guy all weirded out. She thought to herself, tiptoeing back down the stairs and slowly approaching the bar.
She stayed a few feet back, as she made her way behind the bar, she spotted a man croached down out of sight. He seemed to be jabbing a gun into the leg of the barman. Aha! Why didn't I think of that earlier.... Wait this is no time to be thinking of money. Em joked to herself, sneaking back around the bar and towards the others. She placed herself between Hammond and Savannah, speaking in a very low whisper.
"Psst.... Guys! There's a guy with a gun behind there. I think he's robbing the place." Em whispered. She saw Hammond give a small nod, to signal he had heard her, then she very quickly sneaked back behind the counter again.
Taking a deep, Em grabbed the crouched man's arm and pointed it upwards. Surprised, the man elbowed thin air, catching Em in the shoulder. She quickly grabbed the gun out of his hands and rolled backwards, just as her invisibility wore off.
"Ha! Got it!" She said triumphantly, rolling back towards the others then jumping onto her feet again.
That was Hammond's cue. The scythe in his hands separated into a smaller, yet equally deadly, scythe in each hand with just a thought and he vaulted straight over the bar. Before the would-be thief - or anyone else for that matter - could understand what was happening there was a metal spike protruding through his back and into his stomach.
Hammond removed the scythe and, with a disgusting wince, the enemy fell down.
"Holy shit, I love this thing!" The scythes transformed back to the original form and Hammond planted the recombinant scythe back on the floor. "Did you see how fast I was? There's no way I can lose!" He started laughing. He was so enthralled in the laughter that he almost didn't feel the small tap on his shoe. But he did, so he stopped his laughter.
He looked down, glancing for a moment at the man's hand upon his shoe. He kicked it gently away, revealing a small device. It had been attached to Hammond's shoe and was beeping rhythmically. It blinked green once.
Confused, Hammond bent down to take off his shoe and examine the device in greater detail. Taking the shoe off didn't activate it and when he brought it to eye level it didn't seem to do much. He looked at it quizzically, wondering quietly to himself about what it was. It was much too small to be an explosive, but some corrosive material in the device didn't seem out of the question.
And then it beeped again and blinked orange.
Judging by how quickly it went from green to orange, he didn't have long until it went to another colour. He doubted that it would spend much longer being harmless. Better an inn getting a bit of acid splashed on it than him, so he went to throw it.
Before Hammond could throw it the device beeped twice and its light blinked red. "Oh, fu-" Light engulfed the room.
[hr]
Oh Christ, my eyes hurt... His vision was blurry and covered in little white dots from the blinding flash. And then things started to get clearer, with several shocked man-shaped blurs - with equally shocked and blurred faces - in front of him.
He heard one of the man-shaped blurs exclaim, "You're not Smithson!" And then he heard a beep.
Light engulfed the room.
[hr]
Okay, it would be really nice if that stopped happening now! His vision swam with little dots again before clearing. Seriously. Oww.
When it eventually did clear, he looked around. It all seemed like a fairly normal inn bedroom. Of course, the last time he went into a fairly normal inn there was a gunman behind the counter with a teleportation device, so any suspicion he felt right now would be completely justified. He stood up and dusted himself off casually. He hadn't noticed there were people sleeping in here.
One man, one woman. He couldn't see much of them, dark and covered up as they were, so Hammond decided that his safest bet to get out of here would be to simply use the door. But no, that couldn't be allowed to work, could it? The floorboards creaked underneath Hammond and one of the sleepers stirred.
Crap! He dived to the floor, hoping that this would convince them that no-one was in the room.
"Who the hell are you!?"
He didn't look up for a moment, hoping that he was just imagining the yelling, before he finally had to look up. There, in a rather flimsy set of pyjamas, was the male occupant of this room. "Would you believe 'Room Service'?"
The man was clearly unimpressed with Hammond's answer. He reached under his pillow, pulling out a pistol, and gestured towards the door, "Out. Now"
That's just rude. Hammond stood up and then left, limping slightly as he did so simply to prolong the man's annoyance. He heard the door slam behind him.
"Well that was useful." He went downstairs and, when he did so, he came face to face with the people he had just teleported away from.
The confusion was palpable. Em was complaining loudly about her brain hurting.
He gestured towards the shoe still in his hand. "Oh. Teleportation shoe. It's the absolute pinnacle of pointless diversion technology." His voice had a hint of bemusement.
Okay, this is just a sticking point for me and my spelling neuroses. Is 'pajamas' an Americanisation of 'pyjamas'? I've always spelled pyjamas with a Y but my spell checker is saying that I'm wrong...
Well that was a vast understatement. Hammond had been braving the most ridiculous things day in and day out with these people for what felt like forever.[footnote]But it might have been a few days. I've lost count to be honest with you.[/footnote] The fates conspired against them, reality and continuity were in a constant battle with the forces that sought to destroy them. Suspicion had long since been replaced by grave paranoia.
So at least he had a good reason to do what he was about to do. *thunk* Oww....
"Are you okay, sir?" 'Sir'? Did someone just call me that? They must not know me. He looked up from the ground, for the second time in 'too soon', to a sight that was far better than the one he had been granted last time; a ginger haired waitress in a uniform.[footnote]It could have been a better view, if you get what I mean, but it didn't have to go nearly that far to beat the guy in the frilly pink jim-jams.[/footnote]
"Oh, yes. I'm fine...?" He tried to stand up, failing at first. But then he used part of a table and one of the waitress' outstretched hands to lift himself up.
"You dropped your walking... scythe?"
"Oh... Sorry about that... Takes a bit of getting used to." He looked around, intent to find the arrow that had been launched at him. He was sure that it had to be buried in a wall somewhere... But there was no arrow. Not a single one at all, nor any holes or marks in the walls. That was odd. At least no-one else had seen him do that. "There wasn't an..." He stopped his question, finding the answer to be apparent. "Just bring me some food, if you please." Somewhat contented with the lack of arrowheads in his head, he picked his scythe up from the floor, dusted himself off and then sat back down, intending to eat in relative peace. Hopefully he would be able to do so. He might be too suspicious of the food to eat it...
The waitress seemed entirely fine with being able to go away and talk to someone else.[footnote]Somehow. She has been near Hammond for a time greater than five seconds and has gotten lines of dialogue so by now she should be on at least three lists to die. She's probably not aware of her imminent Death by Plot.[/footnote]
After quickly agreeing with himself that this person was indeed Ari and then pushing away the urge to ask her motives for sitting near him, Hammond pushed a chair out for her. "Go ahead." He went straight to looking around for that waitress, wondering when his food would be brought to him and whether he would be able to eat it.
Naz was annoyed when Hammond pushed past him in excitement of his new weapon. So exited that he almost pushed him through a window. Luckily he grabbed a above crossbeam and steadied himself before walking down into the tavern. Naz asked politely for the location of his eager friends and after buying an ale he trekked off towards the direction of what seemed to be an inn. As Naz walks in he see's Hammond next to ari at a table. Naz walks towards the table and pulls up a chair.
He looked to Ari for a moment before returning his attention to the door which, presumably, led to a kitchen of some sort, "I'm not annoyed. At least, not any more so than usual. If that counts as alright..."
He hadn't noticed Naz sitting down at the table, so was still talking to Ari. "Since you're already up, you wouldn't mind getting Em up too, would you? I can't trust her to wake up by herself."
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