The Evrensel Conflict: Act 1 -- Chapter 1, Mission 1: Jaws of Oblivion

[Wade Von Doom]

HACKDIRT:

"Agh!... They're in the store nearby!" The innkeep admitted. "We found her unconscious on the outskirts of town and brought her to the caves down below."

"Why? What's down there?" Jin's question would be answered by the cellar door behind the bar smashing off its hinges and bouncing off the ceiling with loud thud, then falling back down onto the bar itself; bent and splintered by the impact. Reaching out from the open hole was the arm of a bloathead. Its body was too large to fit through, and only its and a small part of its head were able to come through before getting stuck.

"AH!" The barkeep shouted, trying to duck his head as the door flew above he and Erin. "You damn fools! They're not ready!" He told them, "You were better off in your cell than being eaten alive, now you'll be their evening meal!"

Jin, drawing his sword, pointed it by a few centimeters away from the innkeepers face. "What is that... creature?"

"A-A deep one. Or, at least us becoming one of them. It was only recently that their presence became more powerful, turning those who ventured too far into the caves into... such creatures." The innkeep looked back at the door. "They've been whispering to us in our dreams. A wanting for humanity, but there are only so many outsiders we can provide. But soon, soon they'll come out in full strength, and give us the vengeance on the Imperials who burned our town to the ground so many years ago!"

--------------------

IMPERIAL CITY

"Until all evidence presents itself for your case as to whether or not you speak the truth, you must still come with us and obey the law, or else be deemed a criminal of the Empire, and a conspirator to the death of Emperor Uriel Septim VII!" The guard shouted back to her, in all honesty, not believing a word she was saying, or just didn't care and needed some sort of excuse to justify bringing them both in.

Before she could say another word, Callintus put his hand out in front of her to speak on their behalf once more. "We will comply. But we wish for a fair trial to prove our innocence!"

"We will see. Now move!" The guard yelled once more, as the ones behind them with swords raised to their backs walked forward. "And keep your hands where we can see them!"

As told, Callintus raised his hands, and followed the guards, leading them out into the open and empty streets of the Imperial City. The quiet was almost unnerving, a city this size, and guard patrols rising in numbers as citizens vanished, in comparison to when they first arrived here. Yet, as they walked, Callintus whispered, "You wouldn't happen to know how to turn invisible, would you?"

 

[The Wanderer]

As Hay used metal rope thingies to do things that left Layyel mildly flummoxed, the giant did his best to keep up with his tiny friend.

Surprisingly, he was able to keep up with the professional tiny, and after dealing with a couple of twitchy guard tinies by flicking them on the face and accidentally scuffing some random archways, Layyel had managed to reach Hay just as he began to poke around with a door.

Squeezing his way into the alleyway, Layyel squatted alongside his much sneakier friend and watched him do... whatever it was he was doing. Truthfully, the intricacies of stealth were lost on Layyel, and after watching Hay do his thing for a couple of seconds, Layyel decided to just shove him inside the room with one of his meaty fingers before trying to fit into the doorway himself.

Unsurprisingly, Layyel couldn't fit inside of the doorway, and as Hei would recover from being pushed, he would see Layyel trying to force various bits of his body into the building, to no degree of success.

Erin

The bearer of the curse, despite being under attack, gave a victorious laugh as she rolled to pick up the club and brought it up in a swing, bonking the monster's disfigured head with all the pent-up fury and annoyance of a very pissed undead, especially excited at the prospect of getting out of the endless grimy dark tunnels and to somewhere she could actually see.

Charging forward, she'd leap on top of the bloathead's chest and begin hammering it's face until it stopped moving, thankful that the creature's arms were so disfigured that it couldn't fight back, before clambering off of it with a trickle of souls flowing into her, and beginning her climb up the ladder, singing a small tune to herself.

"What a thrill~..."

At the top of the ladder, when opening up the trapdoor, she would be blinded by light once again. It led to the back of the bar in the inn, with a shelf of jugs to her left, and a barrel of mead to her right, and the innkeeper himself still behind the bar, cleaning the top with a used rag. "What the--" he muttered at the trapdoor squeaked open from the rusty hinges. "What the devil are you doing down there?!" He shouted next, quickly marching over to her with rage and confusion in his face, not from the fact that she was down there, like he asked, but that she was trying to get out from down there.

Tsunade- Character Sheet

"Ha! Now stay down!" Tsunade exclaims at the now prone body of the assassin. That had been one of the more annoying bouts she has had in a long time. If it had gone any longer, Tsunade had had a mind to use her lightsaber to hack off one or both legs and used medical juts to keep her alive for questioning. She groans at the pain in her back, and follows Callintus' gesture to turn around, uttering a stifled groan when he extracts the blade. She weaves a few hand signs for a jury's that stops her bleeding and numbs the pain receptors.

"Just a flesh wound. I've been stabbed much worse." Tsunade assures her companion before lifting the assassin up from the ground to drape across her back and shoulders with no effort.

"Lead the way. I will treat her and we can interrogate her for answers." She tells Callintus, waiting and looking around for any other surprises.

"Even still, take this," he handed her a minor healing potion to help stop the bleeding and at least heal the wound enough to cauterize it. "We might need to head through the sewers. Who knows who we can--"

"HALT!" A guard shouted, as a dozen came running in from around the corner, having heard the fighting and swords drawn on the duo.

"Trust..." Callintus finished. "Ahhh.... Hello!" Callintus said to them next, changing his voice to be more cheery as he raised his hands up. "Apologies for the damage! We were dealing with this," he pointed to the unconscious assassin. "See, me and the young lady here, we were attacked by both this and several other guards--"

"Thrown down your weapons!" The guard demanded, "You are to be charged with murder of Imperial Watch guards and connections to the assassination of Emperor Uriel Septim VII!"

"Wait now, there's a misunderstanding--"

"Sir Cadorna, if you resist arrest, you and the Knights Divine will be considered enemies of the Empire!"

"We haven't murdered anyone! The guards attacked us, they're working with whoever is behind this, and their captain may be one of the conspirators!"

"Such accusations without proof--"

"We have proof!" Callintus again pointed to the assassin. "If you will just let us bring this woman to the prison, and talk with the other captains of the watch, I believe we can clear up this--" He turned around to see more guards had blocked them off from the opposite side, some of which were the ones that had attacked them earlier.

"It's them alright!" The one Tsunade threw into the pond shouted. "We saw them speaking with that assassin on his shoulders, and when we confronted them, they attacked us!"

As Hay used metal rope thingies to do things that left Layyel mildly flummoxed, the giant did his best to keep up with his tiny friend.

Surprisingly, he was able to keep up with the professional tiny, and after dealing with a couple of twitchy guard tinies by flicking them on the face and accidentally scuffing some random archways, Layyel had managed to reach Hay just as he began to poke around with a door.

Squeezing his way into the alleyway, Layyel squatted alongside his much sneakier friend and watched him do... whatever it was he was doing. Truthfully, the intricacies of stealth were lost on Layyel, and after watching Hay do his thing for a couple of seconds, Layyel decided to just shove him inside the room with one of his meaty fingers before trying to fit into the doorway himself.

Unsurprisingly, Layyel couldn't fit inside of the doorway, and as Hei would recover from being pushed, he would see Layyel trying to force various bits of his body into the building, to no degree of success.

Unfortunately for Layyel, in pushing Hei through the doorway, he also smashed the door itself off its hinges, both ripping it off the stone wall it was connected to, bending the wooden door with a loud crackling noise, and sending it smashing down onto the floor. Thankfully, no one was in the living room itself, but someone was sure to hear if they were home.

Hei/BK-201
Now in a room after being shoved in

Pleased that his efforts hadn't made that much of a ruckus, or lack of someone being in entrance at least, Hei let out of a grunt as he was shoved into the room by Layyel, the Contractor feeling some mild annoyance as he spun around and watched as Layyel tried to enter the building. Hei would wave his arms and made a shushing motion and hoping that'd be enough to make Layyel stop in his efforts.

Suddenly, the Contractor wished that the giant had been watched by one of the others instead, as it was evident that being stealthy was going to be a futile effort rather than the uphill battle he had originally thought.

Having already wasted time on dealing with the Layyel situation, Hei would begin to search the room for any signs of the book, first searching the desks for the target book.

@BazusoTheGrey @Wade Von Doom

 

[BazusoTheGrey]

With his right arm forced through the doorway, Layyel reared his left arm back to make another hole for his arm. He dropped his left arm however, when tiny friend Hay did the shushy hands after waving his arms around like a madman. Layyel tilted his head at this. The shushy hands meant that whoever was being shushed was being really loud, and Layyel thought that he was being pretty quiet right now.

Looking around the alleyway, he didn't see anything other than the sleepy tiny that was lying down here earlier. That must have meant he wasn't very loud as angry tinies start appearing if Layyel was loud. If that's the case, why was he getting the shushy hands?

Layyel untilted his head and refocused on Hay. He was gonna ask him about the shushing, but Hay had decided that opening tables was more important than the shushing he gave earlier. Layyel waited a bit for Hay to finish his table opening thing, before mentally shrugging and deciding to help him by opening the tables with the one arm he had inside the room. He achieved this by quietly tilting them over and letting their contents spill out.

Hay friend didn't seem to make too much of a fuss with the table tilting, so Layyel probably did a good job.

 

[Noble Scion]

Erin

With a frustrated sigh, Erin would release her grip on the innkeeper, allowing his arms to fall to his sides as she'd first give a wary frown at the trio, before turning to deal with the last problem.

She'd whip her club from one side to the other, smacking the bloathead across its namesake, followed by a downward strike, knocking it and whatever was following it back down the ladder.

"Told you. Now, I'm leaving." The knight would declare with an edge to her voice, shifting up in a smooth motions before making her way to the door, set on getting her weapons back from this 'store'.

 

[Amber Franklin]

Tsunade- Character Sheet

It is only the quick hand of Callintus that stops Tsunade from berating the guards. She only gives them a glare and a clenched jaw. This was not good. They would 'see about' giving them a fair trial? If they meant no harm, that would be 'you will receive a fair trial'.

They needed to get out of here.

"No, I can't do that." She replies to Callintus about the ability to become invisible.

"But I have an idea. Keep your eyes and mouth closed." Tsunade raises her right fist high in the air, and brings it down onto the street twice. The first chakra strike pulverizes a layer of the rock into a cloud of thick dark dust covers the area around them. A second punches the ground beneath her and Callintus open into the sewer below. Tsunade lands easily on her feet, still holding the unconscious assassin on her back, looks around to check on Callintus.


"Hope you know your way around the sewers. Otherwise we're running blind down here." She says looking up into the hole, where the dust has still not settled giving them moments to choose a direction and run.

 

[Wade Von Doom]

Tsunade- Character Sheet

It is only the quick hand of Callintus that stops Tsunade from berating the guards. She only gives them a glare and a clenched jaw. This was not good. They would 'see about' giving them a fair trial? If they meant no harm, that would be 'you will receive a fair trial'.

They needed to get out of here.

"No, I can't do that." She replies to Callintus about the ability to become invisible.

"But I have an idea. Keep your eyes and mouth closed." Tsunade raises her right fist high in the air, and brings it down onto the street twice. The first chakra strike pulverizes a layer of the rock into a cloud of thick dark dust covers the area around them. A second punches the ground beneath her and Callintus open into the sewer below. Tsunade lands easily on her feet, still holding the unconscious assassin on her back, looks around to check on Callintus.


"Hope you know your way around the sewers. Otherwise we're running blind down here." She says looking up into the hole, where the dust has still not settled giving them moments to choose a direction and run.

Doing as she said once he saw her fist ball up, he took a small breath, and clamped his eyes and mouth shut as the ground turned to dust; immediately blinding their captors and causing them to choke and cough. Though when the ground itself also disappeared into a massive hole for them to fall through, that's when he started shouting as he fell.

"AAAAHHHHHHH!" He shouted all the way down, loosing his balance and landing in the water back first, a 15 foot drop at least with enough water to break their falls.

​

The only light there would be down here was faint from the sewer grates above along the ceiling that reach back up to the main streets of the capital itself, and just standing in the dark, dank water felt like her shoes and any part of her clothing that got splashed could never be worn again by how disgusting it was. Say nothing of the smell. Callintus, rising out of the water, was drenched in it, and looked a little annoyed that he had to spit some of it out of his mouth in front of her. And pour out the water inside his helmet that was floating along side him.

"They went down there!" They would hear the echo of a guard shouting as they realized what happened. Quickly standing back up, Callintus would rush up the little stairs to get on the stone platform above the water, then turning down the sewer tunnel to their left. From there, the sewer twisted and turned, with Callintus rushing through it with Tsunade at hand to try and out maneuver their chasers if they jumped down the whole or tried entering through a grate. After several minutes of constant running, Callintus would stop to catch his breath; the old man gasping for it in this foul smelling depth of such a grand city.

"Pant.... pant.... pant..... OOOOOOOOHH, Divines, I'm too old for this." He told her, resting his hands on his knees as he bent over from a sore stomach. "You MUST teach me how you keep your strength at such an old age. Without this armor, I'd be more useless than an undead skeleton. At least they can carry a sword." He joked at his own expense, chuckling a bit.

As Hay used metal rope thingies to do things that left Layyel mildly flummoxed, the giant did his best to keep up with his tiny friend.

Surprisingly, he was able to keep up with the professional tiny, and after dealing with a couple of twitchy guard tinies by flicking them on the face and accidentally scuffing some random archways, Layyel had managed to reach Hay just as he began to poke around with a door.

Squeezing his way into the alleyway, Layyel squatted alongside his much sneakier friend and watched him do... whatever it was he was doing. Truthfully, the intricacies of stealth were lost on Layyel, and after watching Hay do his thing for a couple of seconds, Layyel decided to just shove him inside the room with one of his meaty fingers before trying to fit into the doorway himself.

Unsurprisingly, Layyel couldn't fit inside of the doorway, and as Hei would recover from being pushed, he would see Layyel trying to force various bits of his body into the building, to no degree of success.

Erin

The bearer of the curse, despite being under attack, gave a victorious laugh as she rolled to pick up the club and brought it up in a swing, bonking the monster's disfigured head with all the pent-up fury and annoyance of a very pissed undead, especially excited at the prospect of getting out of the endless grimy dark tunnels and to somewhere she could actually see.

Charging forward, she'd leap on top of the bloathead's chest and begin hammering it's face until it stopped moving, thankful that the creature's arms were so disfigured that it couldn't fight back, before clambering off of it with a trickle of souls flowing into her, and beginning her climb up the ladder, singing a small tune to herself.

"What a thrill~..."

At the top of the ladder, when opening up the trapdoor, she would be blinded by light once again. It led to the back of the bar in the inn, with a shelf of jugs to her left, and a barrel of mead to her right, and the innkeeper himself still behind the bar, cleaning the top with a used rag. "What the--" he muttered at the trapdoor squeaked open from the rusty hinges. "What the devil are you doing down there?!" He shouted next, quickly marching over to her with rage and confusion in his face, not from the fact that she was down there, like he asked, but that she was trying to get out from down there.

Tsunade- Character Sheet

"Ha! Now stay down!" Tsunade exclaims at the now prone body of the assassin. That had been one of the more annoying bouts she has had in a long time. If it had gone any longer, Tsunade had had a mind to use her lightsaber to hack off one or both legs and used medical juts to keep her alive for questioning. She groans at the pain in her back, and follows Callintus' gesture to turn around, uttering a stifled groan when he extracts the blade. She weaves a few hand signs for a jury's that stops her bleeding and numbs the pain receptors.

"Just a flesh wound. I've been stabbed much worse." Tsunade assures her companion before lifting the assassin up from the ground to drape across her back and shoulders with no effort.

"Lead the way. I will treat her and we can interrogate her for answers." She tells Callintus, waiting and looking around for any other surprises.

"Even still, take this," he handed her a minor healing potion to help stop the bleeding and at least heal the wound enough to cauterize it. "We might need to head through the sewers. Who knows who we can--"

"HALT!" A guard shouted, as a dozen came running in from around the corner, having heard the fighting and swords drawn on the duo.

"Trust..." Callintus finished. "Ahhh.... Hello!" Callintus said to them next, changing his voice to be more cheery as he raised his hands up. "Apologies for the damage! We were dealing with this," he pointed to the unconscious assassin. "See, me and the young lady here, we were attacked by both this and several other guards--"

"Thrown down your weapons!" The guard demanded, "You are to be charged with murder of Imperial Watch guards and connections to the assassination of Emperor Uriel Septim VII!"

"Wait now, there's a misunderstanding--"

"Sir Cadorna, if you resist arrest, you and the Knights Divine will be considered enemies of the Empire!"

"We haven't murdered anyone! The guards attacked us, they're working with whoever is behind this, and their captain may be one of the conspirators!"

"Such accusations without proof--"

"We have proof!" Callintus again pointed to the assassin. "If you will just let us bring this woman to the prison, and talk with the other captains of the watch, I believe we can clear up this--" He turned around to see more guards had blocked them off from the opposite side, some of which were the ones that had attacked them earlier.

"It's them alright!" The one Tsunade threw into the pond shouted. "We saw them speaking with that assassin on his shoulders, and when we confronted them, they attacked us!"

As Hay used metal rope thingies to do things that left Layyel mildly flummoxed, the giant did his best to keep up with his tiny friend.

Surprisingly, he was able to keep up with the professional tiny, and after dealing with a couple of twitchy guard tinies by flicking them on the face and accidentally scuffing some random archways, Layyel had managed to reach Hay just as he began to poke around with a door.

Squeezing his way into the alleyway, Layyel squatted alongside his much sneakier friend and watched him do... whatever it was he was doing. Truthfully, the intricacies of stealth were lost on Layyel, and after watching Hay do his thing for a couple of seconds, Layyel decided to just shove him inside the room with one of his meaty fingers before trying to fit into the doorway himself.

Unsurprisingly, Layyel couldn't fit inside of the doorway, and as Hei would recover from being pushed, he would see Layyel trying to force various bits of his body into the building, to no degree of success.

Unfortunately for Layyel, in pushing Hei through the doorway, he also smashed the door itself off its hinges, both ripping it off the stone wall it was connected to, bending the wooden door with a loud crackling noise, and sending it smashing down onto the floor. Thankfully, no one was in the living room itself, but someone was sure to hear if they were home.

Hei/BK-201
Now in a room after being shoved in

Pleased that his efforts hadn't made that much of a ruckus, or lack of someone being in entrance at least, Hei let out of a grunt as he was shoved into the room by Layyel, the Contractor feeling some mild annoyance as he spun around and watched as Layyel tried to enter the building. Hei would wave his arms and made a shushing motion and hoping that'd be enough to make Layyel stop in his efforts.

Suddenly, the Contractor wished that the giant had been watched by one of the others instead, as it was evident that being stealthy was going to be a futile effort rather than the uphill battle he had originally thought.

Having already wasted time on dealing with the Layyel situation, Hei would begin to search the room for any signs of the book, first searching the desks for the target book.

@BazusoTheGrey @Wade Von Doom

Hei, in his frantic searching, did find the book, lodged in a little shelf in the desk between some papers. However, he would also hear a moment later, "WHO GOES THERE?!" As a man with a sword came rushing down the stairs, and saw Layyel first breaking his door, then Hei with his book. "STOP!! THIEF!!!" He shouted with all his might, his face red with anger as he came charging down. There was still room between them that Hei could make a run for it without fighting back, but Layyel was still blocking the door.

Erin

With a frustrated sigh, Erin would release her grip on the innkeeper, allowing his arms to fall to his sides as she'd first give a wary frown at the trio, before turning to deal with the last problem.

She'd whip her club from one side to the other, smacking the bloathead across its namesake, followed by a downward strike, knocking it and whatever was following it back down the ladder.

"Told you. Now, I'm leaving." The knight would declare with an edge to her voice, shifting up in a smooth motions before making her way to the door, set on getting her weapons back from this 'store'.

A large, black blade pierced through the wooden front door when Erin got close enough to leave; stopping just an inch away from stabbing her in the face. The inn keeper cowered behind the bar, as Jin ran to Erin to pull her back before the sword tried stabbing her again. The sword struck it again like an axe, smashing it to splinters, and again and again until it was ruined enough for the attacker to grab and rip off its hinges in a tattered mess.

The inn would then shake as something hit it repeatedly, and the smell of burning wood would grow stronger. Back in the upstairs bedroom, it had caught fire. Someone had set it ablaze from outside. But, it was no ordinary fire. It was pitch black. The base of the flames as dark as the cave Erin left, with the edges pure white as they fluttered while growing across the rooms. The only visible exit left was the front door, with the attacker waiting for them outside, an ambush. Only one was visible, but there must've been more to set the inn on fire so quickly. It was not more bloatheads, or more of the townsfolk, or even the masked stranger Erin had run into back in the cave.

These would be more recognized by Erin. A legend from a time well beyond her, only learned from the tales of an armor set she had found in her travels back in the land of Drangleic.

The Darkwraiths.

 

[BazusoTheGrey]

Tsunade- Character Sheet

It is only the quick hand of Callintus that stops Tsunade from berating the guards. She only gives them a glare and a clenched jaw. This was not good. They would 'see about' giving them a fair trial? If they meant no harm, that would be 'you will receive a fair trial'.

They needed to get out of here.

"No, I can't do that." She replies to Callintus about the ability to become invisible.

"But I have an idea. Keep your eyes and mouth closed." Tsunade raises her right fist high in the air, and brings it down onto the street twice. The first chakra strike pulverizes a layer of the rock into a cloud of thick dark dust covers the area around them. A second punches the ground beneath her and Callintus open into the sewer below. Tsunade lands easily on her feet, still holding the unconscious assassin on her back, looks around to check on Callintus.


"Hope you know your way around the sewers. Otherwise we're running blind down here." She says looking up into the hole, where the dust has still not settled giving them moments to choose a direction and run.

Doing as she said once he saw her fist ball up, he took a small breath, and clamped his eyes and mouth shut as the ground turned to dust; immediately blinding their captors and causing them to choke and cough. Though when the ground itself also disappeared into a massive hole for them to fall through, that's when he started shouting as he fell.

"AAAAHHHHHHH!" He shouted all the way down, loosing his balance and landing in the water back first, a 15 foot drop at least with enough water to break their falls.

View attachment 226802
​

The only light there would be down here was faint from the sewer grates above along the ceiling that reach back up to the main streets of the capital itself, and just standing in the dark, dank water felt like her shoes and any part of her clothing that got splashed could never be worn again by how disgusting it was. Say nothing of the smell. Callintus, rising out of the water, was drenched in it, and looked a little annoyed that he had to spit some of it out of his mouth in front of her. And pour out the water inside his helmet that was floating along side him.

"They went down there!" They would hear the echo of a guard shouting as they realized what happened. Quickly standing back up, Callintus would rush up the little stairs to get on the stone platform above the water, then turning down the sewer tunnel to their left. From there, the sewer twisted and turned, with Callintus rushing through it with Tsunade at hand to try and out maneuver their chasers if they jumped down the whole or tried entering through a grate. After several minutes of constant running, Callintus would stop to catch his breath; the old man gasping for it in this foul smelling depth of such a grand city.

"Pant.... pant.... pant..... OOOOOOOOHH, Divines, I'm too old for this." He told her, resting his hands on his knees as he bent over from a sore stomach. "You MUST teach me how you keep your strength at such an old age. Without this armor, I'd be more useless than an undead skeleton. At least they can carry a sword." He joked at his own expense, chuckling a bit.

As Hay used metal rope thingies to do things that left Layyel mildly flummoxed, the giant did his best to keep up with his tiny friend.

Surprisingly, he was able to keep up with the professional tiny, and after dealing with a couple of twitchy guard tinies by flicking them on the face and accidentally scuffing some random archways, Layyel had managed to reach Hay just as he began to poke around with a door.

Squeezing his way into the alleyway, Layyel squatted alongside his much sneakier friend and watched him do... whatever it was he was doing. Truthfully, the intricacies of stealth were lost on Layyel, and after watching Hay do his thing for a couple of seconds, Layyel decided to just shove him inside the room with one of his meaty fingers before trying to fit into the doorway himself.

Unsurprisingly, Layyel couldn't fit inside of the doorway, and as Hei would recover from being pushed, he would see Layyel trying to force various bits of his body into the building, to no degree of success.

Erin

The bearer of the curse, despite being under attack, gave a victorious laugh as she rolled to pick up the club and brought it up in a swing, bonking the monster's disfigured head with all the pent-up fury and annoyance of a very pissed undead, especially excited at the prospect of getting out of the endless grimy dark tunnels and to somewhere she could actually see.

Charging forward, she'd leap on top of the bloathead's chest and begin hammering it's face until it stopped moving, thankful that the creature's arms were so disfigured that it couldn't fight back, before clambering off of it with a trickle of souls flowing into her, and beginning her climb up the ladder, singing a small tune to herself.

"What a thrill~..."

At the top of the ladder, when opening up the trapdoor, she would be blinded by light once again. It led to the back of the bar in the inn, with a shelf of jugs to her left, and a barrel of mead to her right, and the innkeeper himself still behind the bar, cleaning the top with a used rag. "What the--" he muttered at the trapdoor squeaked open from the rusty hinges. "What the devil are you doing down there?!" He shouted next, quickly marching over to her with rage and confusion in his face, not from the fact that she was down there, like he asked, but that she was trying to get out from down there.

Tsunade- Character Sheet

"Ha! Now stay down!" Tsunade exclaims at the now prone body of the assassin. That had been one of the more annoying bouts she has had in a long time. If it had gone any longer, Tsunade had had a mind to use her lightsaber to hack off one or both legs and used medical juts to keep her alive for questioning. She groans at the pain in her back, and follows Callintus' gesture to turn around, uttering a stifled groan when he extracts the blade. She weaves a few hand signs for a jury's that stops her bleeding and numbs the pain receptors.

"Just a flesh wound. I've been stabbed much worse." Tsunade assures her companion before lifting the assassin up from the ground to drape across her back and shoulders with no effort.

"Lead the way. I will treat her and we can interrogate her for answers." She tells Callintus, waiting and looking around for any other surprises.

"Even still, take this," he handed her a minor healing potion to help stop the bleeding and at least heal the wound enough to cauterize it. "We might need to head through the sewers. Who knows who we can--"

"HALT!" A guard shouted, as a dozen came running in from around the corner, having heard the fighting and swords drawn on the duo.

"Trust..." Callintus finished. "Ahhh.... Hello!" Callintus said to them next, changing his voice to be more cheery as he raised his hands up. "Apologies for the damage! We were dealing with this," he pointed to the unconscious assassin. "See, me and the young lady here, we were attacked by both this and several other guards--"

"Thrown down your weapons!" The guard demanded, "You are to be charged with murder of Imperial Watch guards and connections to the assassination of Emperor Uriel Septim VII!"

"Wait now, there's a misunderstanding--"

"Sir Cadorna, if you resist arrest, you and the Knights Divine will be considered enemies of the Empire!"

"We haven't murdered anyone! The guards attacked us, they're working with whoever is behind this, and their captain may be one of the conspirators!"

"Such accusations without proof--"

"We have proof!" Callintus again pointed to the assassin. "If you will just let us bring this woman to the prison, and talk with the other captains of the watch, I believe we can clear up this--" He turned around to see more guards had blocked them off from the opposite side, some of which were the ones that had attacked them earlier.

"It's them alright!" The one Tsunade threw into the pond shouted. "We saw them speaking with that assassin on his shoulders, and when we confronted them, they attacked us!"

As Hay used metal rope thingies to do things that left Layyel mildly flummoxed, the giant did his best to keep up with his tiny friend.

Surprisingly, he was able to keep up with the professional tiny, and after dealing with a couple of twitchy guard tinies by flicking them on the face and accidentally scuffing some random archways, Layyel had managed to reach Hay just as he began to poke around with a door.

Squeezing his way into the alleyway, Layyel squatted alongside his much sneakier friend and watched him do... whatever it was he was doing. Truthfully, the intricacies of stealth were lost on Layyel, and after watching Hay do his thing for a couple of seconds, Layyel decided to just shove him inside the room with one of his meaty fingers before trying to fit into the doorway himself.

Unsurprisingly, Layyel couldn't fit inside of the doorway, and as Hei would recover from being pushed, he would see Layyel trying to force various bits of his body into the building, to no degree of success.

Unfortunately for Layyel, in pushing Hei through the doorway, he also smashed the door itself off its hinges, both ripping it off the stone wall it was connected to, bending the wooden door with a loud crackling noise, and sending it smashing down onto the floor. Thankfully, no one was in the living room itself, but someone was sure to hear if they were home.

Hei/BK-201
Now in a room after being shoved in

Pleased that his efforts hadn't made that much of a ruckus, or lack of someone being in entrance at least, Hei let out of a grunt as he was shoved into the room by Layyel, the Contractor feeling some mild annoyance as he spun around and watched as Layyel tried to enter the building. Hei would wave his arms and made a shushing motion and hoping that'd be enough to make Layyel stop in his efforts.

Suddenly, the Contractor wished that the giant had been watched by one of the others instead, as it was evident that being stealthy was going to be a futile effort rather than the uphill battle he had originally thought.

Having already wasted time on dealing with the Layyel situation, Hei would begin to search the room for any signs of the book, first searching the desks for the target book.

@BazusoTheGrey @Wade Von Doom

Hei, in his frantic searching, did find the book, lodged in a little shelf in the desk between some papers. However, he would also hear a moment later, "WHO GOES THERE?!" As a man with a sword came rushing down the stairs, and saw Layyel first breaking his door, then Hei with his book. "STOP!! THIEF!!!" He shouted with all his might, his face red with anger as he came charging down. There was still room between them that Hei could make a run for it without fighting back, but Layyel was still blocking the door.

Erin

With a frustrated sigh, Erin would release her grip on the innkeeper, allowing his arms to fall to his sides as she'd first give a wary frown at the trio, before turning to deal with the last problem.

She'd whip her club from one side to the other, smacking the bloathead across its namesake, followed by a downward strike, knocking it and whatever was following it back down the ladder.

"Told you. Now, I'm leaving." The knight would declare with an edge to her voice, shifting up in a smooth motions before making her way to the door, set on getting her weapons back from this 'store'.

A large, black blade pierced through the wooden front door when Erin got close enough to leave; stopping just an inch away from stabbing her in the face. The inn keeper cowered behind the bar, as Jin ran to Erin to pull her back before the sword tried stabbing her again. The sword struck it again like an axe, smashing it to splinters, and again and again until it was ruined enough for the attacker to grab and rip off its hinges in a tattered mess.

The inn would then shake as something hit it repeatedly, and the smell of burning wood would grow stronger. Back in the upstairs bedroom, it had caught fire. Someone had set it ablaze from outside. But, it was no ordinary fire. It was pitch black. The base of the flames as dark as the cave Erin left, with the edges pure white as they fluttered while growing across the rooms. The only visible exit left was the front door, with the attacker waiting for them outside, an ambush. Only one was visible, but there must've been more to set the inn on fire so quickly. It was not more bloatheads, or more of the townsfolk, or even the masked stranger Erin had run into back in the cave.

These would be more recognized by Erin. A legend from a time well beyond her, only learned from the tales of an armor set she had found in her travels back in the land of Drangleic.

The Darkwraiths.

As the angry tiny yelled and charged, Layyel regarded him for a second, trying to figure out whether it was his fault for the tiny man's discovery of Layyel and Hay friend's sneaky shenanigans.

Then he threw a table at the tiny, hitting him and launching him backward onto the stairs he came from. As the man landed, he moaned out in pain and disbelief that he had just gotten a table thrown at him. This caused Layyel to throw another table at him, just to be safe.

With the now unconscious/comatose tiny subdued, Layyel retracted his arm from the door and face from the door, giving Hay friend enough space to exit the room.

 

[Amber Franklin]

Tsunade- Character Sheet

"Pant.... pant.... pant..... OOOOOOOOHH, Divines, I'm too old for this." He told her, resting his hands on his knees as he bent over from a sore stomach. "You MUST teach me how you keep your strength at such an old age. Without this armor, I'd be more useless than an undead skeleton. At least they can carry a sword." He joked at his own expense, chuckling a bit.

"Can't take all the credit. Strong genes from both parents. Unfortunately nothing I can teach you in that way." Tsunade tells Callintus when they stop running. She has had no issue keeping up with the knight and also holding their captive on her shoulders. Really the worst and most difficult part of this ordeal, so far, was the smell and aggravation she would have to endure to get that smell off her clothing and body.

"Let's not linger too long. We need to get somewhere safe before they start posting guards to cut us off. I'm not too concerned about them catching us down here." Tsunade tells her winded partner as respectfully as possible.

 

[The Wanderer]

Tsunade- Character Sheet

It is only the quick hand of Callintus that stops Tsunade from berating the guards. She only gives them a glare and a clenched jaw. This was not good. They would 'see about' giving them a fair trial? If they meant no harm, that would be 'you will receive a fair trial'.

They needed to get out of here.

"No, I can't do that." She replies to Callintus about the ability to become invisible.

"But I have an idea. Keep your eyes and mouth closed." Tsunade raises her right fist high in the air, and brings it down onto the street twice. The first chakra strike pulverizes a layer of the rock into a cloud of thick dark dust covers the area around them. A second punches the ground beneath her and Callintus open into the sewer below. Tsunade lands easily on her feet, still holding the unconscious assassin on her back, looks around to check on Callintus.


"Hope you know your way around the sewers. Otherwise we're running blind down here." She says looking up into the hole, where the dust has still not settled giving them moments to choose a direction and run.

Doing as she said once he saw her fist ball up, he took a small breath, and clamped his eyes and mouth shut as the ground turned to dust; immediately blinding their captors and causing them to choke and cough. Though when the ground itself also disappeared into a massive hole for them to fall through, that's when he started shouting as he fell.

"AAAAHHHHHHH!" He shouted all the way down, loosing his balance and landing in the water back first, a 15 foot drop at least with enough water to break their falls.

View attachment 226802
​

The only light there would be down here was faint from the sewer grates above along the ceiling that reach back up to the main streets of the capital itself, and just standing in the dark, dank water felt like her shoes and any part of her clothing that got splashed could never be worn again by how disgusting it was. Say nothing of the smell. Callintus, rising out of the water, was drenched in it, and looked a little annoyed that he had to spit some of it out of his mouth in front of her. And pour out the water inside his helmet that was floating along side him.

"They went down there!" They would hear the echo of a guard shouting as they realized what happened. Quickly standing back up, Callintus would rush up the little stairs to get on the stone platform above the water, then turning down the sewer tunnel to their left. From there, the sewer twisted and turned, with Callintus rushing through it with Tsunade at hand to try and out maneuver their chasers if they jumped down the whole or tried entering through a grate. After several minutes of constant running, Callintus would stop to catch his breath; the old man gasping for it in this foul smelling depth of such a grand city.

"Pant.... pant.... pant..... OOOOOOOOHH, Divines, I'm too old for this." He told her, resting his hands on his knees as he bent over from a sore stomach. "You MUST teach me how you keep your strength at such an old age. Without this armor, I'd be more useless than an undead skeleton. At least they can carry a sword." He joked at his own expense, chuckling a bit.

As Hay used metal rope thingies to do things that left Layyel mildly flummoxed, the giant did his best to keep up with his tiny friend.

Surprisingly, he was able to keep up with the professional tiny, and after dealing with a couple of twitchy guard tinies by flicking them on the face and accidentally scuffing some random archways, Layyel had managed to reach Hay just as he began to poke around with a door.

Squeezing his way into the alleyway, Layyel squatted alongside his much sneakier friend and watched him do... whatever it was he was doing. Truthfully, the intricacies of stealth were lost on Layyel, and after watching Hay do his thing for a couple of seconds, Layyel decided to just shove him inside the room with one of his meaty fingers before trying to fit into the doorway himself.

Unsurprisingly, Layyel couldn't fit inside of the doorway, and as Hei would recover from being pushed, he would see Layyel trying to force various bits of his body into the building, to no degree of success.

Erin

The bearer of the curse, despite being under attack, gave a victorious laugh as she rolled to pick up the club and brought it up in a swing, bonking the monster's disfigured head with all the pent-up fury and annoyance of a very pissed undead, especially excited at the prospect of getting out of the endless grimy dark tunnels and to somewhere she could actually see.

Charging forward, she'd leap on top of the bloathead's chest and begin hammering it's face until it stopped moving, thankful that the creature's arms were so disfigured that it couldn't fight back, before clambering off of it with a trickle of souls flowing into her, and beginning her climb up the ladder, singing a small tune to herself.

"What a thrill~..."

At the top of the ladder, when opening up the trapdoor, she would be blinded by light once again. It led to the back of the bar in the inn, with a shelf of jugs to her left, and a barrel of mead to her right, and the innkeeper himself still behind the bar, cleaning the top with a used rag. "What the--" he muttered at the trapdoor squeaked open from the rusty hinges. "What the devil are you doing down there?!" He shouted next, quickly marching over to her with rage and confusion in his face, not from the fact that she was down there, like he asked, but that she was trying to get out from down there.

Tsunade- Character Sheet

"Ha! Now stay down!" Tsunade exclaims at the now prone body of the assassin. That had been one of the more annoying bouts she has had in a long time. If it had gone any longer, Tsunade had had a mind to use her lightsaber to hack off one or both legs and used medical juts to keep her alive for questioning. She groans at the pain in her back, and follows Callintus' gesture to turn around, uttering a stifled groan when he extracts the blade. She weaves a few hand signs for a jury's that stops her bleeding and numbs the pain receptors.

"Just a flesh wound. I've been stabbed much worse." Tsunade assures her companion before lifting the assassin up from the ground to drape across her back and shoulders with no effort.

"Lead the way. I will treat her and we can interrogate her for answers." She tells Callintus, waiting and looking around for any other surprises.

"Even still, take this," he handed her a minor healing potion to help stop the bleeding and at least heal the wound enough to cauterize it. "We might need to head through the sewers. Who knows who we can--"

"HALT!" A guard shouted, as a dozen came running in from around the corner, having heard the fighting and swords drawn on the duo.

"Trust..." Callintus finished. "Ahhh.... Hello!" Callintus said to them next, changing his voice to be more cheery as he raised his hands up. "Apologies for the damage! We were dealing with this," he pointed to the unconscious assassin. "See, me and the young lady here, we were attacked by both this and several other guards--"

"Thrown down your weapons!" The guard demanded, "You are to be charged with murder of Imperial Watch guards and connections to the assassination of Emperor Uriel Septim VII!"

"Wait now, there's a misunderstanding--"

"Sir Cadorna, if you resist arrest, you and the Knights Divine will be considered enemies of the Empire!"

"We haven't murdered anyone! The guards attacked us, they're working with whoever is behind this, and their captain may be one of the conspirators!"

"Such accusations without proof--"

"We have proof!" Callintus again pointed to the assassin. "If you will just let us bring this woman to the prison, and talk with the other captains of the watch, I believe we can clear up this--" He turned around to see more guards had blocked them off from the opposite side, some of which were the ones that had attacked them earlier.

"It's them alright!" The one Tsunade threw into the pond shouted. "We saw them speaking with that assassin on his shoulders, and when we confronted them, they attacked us!"

As Hay used metal rope thingies to do things that left Layyel mildly flummoxed, the giant did his best to keep up with his tiny friend.

Surprisingly, he was able to keep up with the professional tiny, and after dealing with a couple of twitchy guard tinies by flicking them on the face and accidentally scuffing some random archways, Layyel had managed to reach Hay just as he began to poke around with a door.

Squeezing his way into the alleyway, Layyel squatted alongside his much sneakier friend and watched him do... whatever it was he was doing. Truthfully, the intricacies of stealth were lost on Layyel, and after watching Hay do his thing for a couple of seconds, Layyel decided to just shove him inside the room with one of his meaty fingers before trying to fit into the doorway himself.

Unsurprisingly, Layyel couldn't fit inside of the doorway, and as Hei would recover from being pushed, he would see Layyel trying to force various bits of his body into the building, to no degree of success.

Unfortunately for Layyel, in pushing Hei through the doorway, he also smashed the door itself off its hinges, both ripping it off the stone wall it was connected to, bending the wooden door with a loud crackling noise, and sending it smashing down onto the floor. Thankfully, no one was in the living room itself, but someone was sure to hear if they were home.

Hei/BK-201
Now in a room after being shoved in

Pleased that his efforts hadn't made that much of a ruckus, or lack of someone being in entrance at least, Hei let out of a grunt as he was shoved into the room by Layyel, the Contractor feeling some mild annoyance as he spun around and watched as Layyel tried to enter the building. Hei would wave his arms and made a shushing motion and hoping that'd be enough to make Layyel stop in his efforts.

Suddenly, the Contractor wished that the giant had been watched by one of the others instead, as it was evident that being stealthy was going to be a futile effort rather than the uphill battle he had originally thought.

Having already wasted time on dealing with the Layyel situation, Hei would begin to search the room for any signs of the book, first searching the desks for the target book.

@BazusoTheGrey @Wade Von Doom

Hei, in his frantic searching, did find the book, lodged in a little shelf in the desk between some papers. However, he would also hear a moment later, "WHO GOES THERE?!" As a man with a sword came rushing down the stairs, and saw Layyel first breaking his door, then Hei with his book. "STOP!! THIEF!!!" He shouted with all his might, his face red with anger as he came charging down. There was still room between them that Hei could make a run for it without fighting back, but Layyel was still blocking the door.

Erin

With a frustrated sigh, Erin would release her grip on the innkeeper, allowing his arms to fall to his sides as she'd first give a wary frown at the trio, before turning to deal with the last problem.

She'd whip her club from one side to the other, smacking the bloathead across its namesake, followed by a downward strike, knocking it and whatever was following it back down the ladder.

"Told you. Now, I'm leaving." The knight would declare with an edge to her voice, shifting up in a smooth motions before making her way to the door, set on getting her weapons back from this 'store'.

A large, black blade pierced through the wooden front door when Erin got close enough to leave; stopping just an inch away from stabbing her in the face. The inn keeper cowered behind the bar, as Jin ran to Erin to pull her back before the sword tried stabbing her again. The sword struck it again like an axe, smashing it to splinters, and again and again until it was ruined enough for the attacker to grab and rip off its hinges in a tattered mess.

The inn would then shake as something hit it repeatedly, and the smell of burning wood would grow stronger. Back in the upstairs bedroom, it had caught fire. Someone had set it ablaze from outside. But, it was no ordinary fire. It was pitch black. The base of the flames as dark as the cave Erin left, with the edges pure white as they fluttered while growing across the rooms. The only visible exit left was the front door, with the attacker waiting for them outside, an ambush. Only one was visible, but there must've been more to set the inn on fire so quickly. It was not more bloatheads, or more of the townsfolk, or even the masked stranger Erin had run into back in the cave.

These would be more recognized by Erin. A legend from a time well beyond her, only learned from the tales of an armor set she had found in her travels back in the land of Drangleic.

The Darkwraiths.

Tsunade- Character Sheet

It is only the quick hand of Callintus that stops Tsunade from berating the guards. She only gives them a glare and a clenched jaw. This was not good. They would 'see about' giving them a fair trial? If they meant no harm, that would be 'you will receive a fair trial'.

They needed to get out of here.

"No, I can't do that." She replies to Callintus about the ability to become invisible.

"But I have an idea. Keep your eyes and mouth closed." Tsunade raises her right fist high in the air, and brings it down onto the street twice. The first chakra strike pulverizes a layer of the rock into a cloud of thick dark dust covers the area around them. A second punches the ground beneath her and Callintus open into the sewer below. Tsunade lands easily on her feet, still holding the unconscious assassin on her back, looks around to check on Callintus.


"Hope you know your way around the sewers. Otherwise we're running blind down here." She says looking up into the hole, where the dust has still not settled giving them moments to choose a direction and run.

Doing as she said once he saw her fist ball up, he took a small breath, and clamped his eyes and mouth shut as the ground turned to dust; immediately blinding their captors and causing them to choke and cough. Though when the ground itself also disappeared into a massive hole for them to fall through, that's when he started shouting as he fell.

"AAAAHHHHHHH!" He shouted all the way down, loosing his balance and landing in the water back first, a 15 foot drop at least with enough water to break their falls.

View attachment 226802
​

The only light there would be down here was faint from the sewer grates above along the ceiling that reach back up to the main streets of the capital itself, and just standing in the dark, dank water felt like her shoes and any part of her clothing that got splashed could never be worn again by how disgusting it was. Say nothing of the smell. Callintus, rising out of the water, was drenched in it, and looked a little annoyed that he had to spit some of it out of his mouth in front of her. And pour out the water inside his helmet that was floating along side him.

"They went down there!" They would hear the echo of a guard shouting as they realized what happened. Quickly standing back up, Callintus would rush up the little stairs to get on the stone platform above the water, then turning down the sewer tunnel to their left. From there, the sewer twisted and turned, with Callintus rushing through it with Tsunade at hand to try and out maneuver their chasers if they jumped down the whole or tried entering through a grate. After several minutes of constant running, Callintus would stop to catch his breath; the old man gasping for it in this foul smelling depth of such a grand city.

"Pant.... pant.... pant..... OOOOOOOOHH, Divines, I'm too old for this." He told her, resting his hands on his knees as he bent over from a sore stomach. "You MUST teach me how you keep your strength at such an old age. Without this armor, I'd be more useless than an undead skeleton. At least they can carry a sword." He joked at his own expense, chuckling a bit.

As Hay used metal rope thingies to do things that left Layyel mildly flummoxed, the giant did his best to keep up with his tiny friend.

Surprisingly, he was able to keep up with the professional tiny, and after dealing with a couple of twitchy guard tinies by flicking them on the face and accidentally scuffing some random archways, Layyel had managed to reach Hay just as he began to poke around with a door.

Squeezing his way into the alleyway, Layyel squatted alongside his much sneakier friend and watched him do... whatever it was he was doing. Truthfully, the intricacies of stealth were lost on Layyel, and after watching Hay do his thing for a couple of seconds, Layyel decided to just shove him inside the room with one of his meaty fingers before trying to fit into the doorway himself.

Unsurprisingly, Layyel couldn't fit inside of the doorway, and as Hei would recover from being pushed, he would see Layyel trying to force various bits of his body into the building, to no degree of success.

Erin

The bearer of the curse, despite being under attack, gave a victorious laugh as she rolled to pick up the club and brought it up in a swing, bonking the monster's disfigured head with all the pent-up fury and annoyance of a very pissed undead, especially excited at the prospect of getting out of the endless grimy dark tunnels and to somewhere she could actually see.

Charging forward, she'd leap on top of the bloathead's chest and begin hammering it's face until it stopped moving, thankful that the creature's arms were so disfigured that it couldn't fight back, before clambering off of it with a trickle of souls flowing into her, and beginning her climb up the ladder, singing a small tune to herself.

"What a thrill~..."

At the top of the ladder, when opening up the trapdoor, she would be blinded by light once again. It led to the back of the bar in the inn, with a shelf of jugs to her left, and a barrel of mead to her right, and the innkeeper himself still behind the bar, cleaning the top with a used rag. "What the--" he muttered at the trapdoor squeaked open from the rusty hinges. "What the devil are you doing down there?!" He shouted next, quickly marching over to her with rage and confusion in his face, not from the fact that she was down there, like he asked, but that she was trying to get out from down there.

Tsunade- Character Sheet

"Ha! Now stay down!" Tsunade exclaims at the now prone body of the assassin. That had been one of the more annoying bouts she has had in a long time. If it had gone any longer, Tsunade had had a mind to use her lightsaber to hack off one or both legs and used medical juts to keep her alive for questioning. She groans at the pain in her back, and follows Callintus' gesture to turn around, uttering a stifled groan when he extracts the blade. She weaves a few hand signs for a jury's that stops her bleeding and numbs the pain receptors.

"Just a flesh wound. I've been stabbed much worse." Tsunade assures her companion before lifting the assassin up from the ground to drape across her back and shoulders with no effort.

"Lead the way. I will treat her and we can interrogate her for answers." She tells Callintus, waiting and looking around for any other surprises.

"Even still, take this," he handed her a minor healing potion to help stop the bleeding and at least heal the wound enough to cauterize it. "We might need to head through the sewers. Who knows who we can--"

"HALT!" A guard shouted, as a dozen came running in from around the corner, having heard the fighting and swords drawn on the duo.

"Trust..." Callintus finished. "Ahhh.... Hello!" Callintus said to them next, changing his voice to be more cheery as he raised his hands up. "Apologies for the damage! We were dealing with this," he pointed to the unconscious assassin. "See, me and the young lady here, we were attacked by both this and several other guards--"

"Thrown down your weapons!" The guard demanded, "You are to be charged with murder of Imperial Watch guards and connections to the assassination of Emperor Uriel Septim VII!"

"Wait now, there's a misunderstanding--"

"Sir Cadorna, if you resist arrest, you and the Knights Divine will be considered enemies of the Empire!"

"We haven't murdered anyone! The guards attacked us, they're working with whoever is behind this, and their captain may be one of the conspirators!"

"Such accusations without proof--"

"We have proof!" Callintus again pointed to the assassin. "If you will just let us bring this woman to the prison, and talk with the other captains of the watch, I believe we can clear up this--" He turned around to see more guards had blocked them off from the opposite side, some of which were the ones that had attacked them earlier.

"It's them alright!" The one Tsunade threw into the pond shouted. "We saw them speaking with that assassin on his shoulders, and when we confronted them, they attacked us!"

As Hay used metal rope thingies to do things that left Layyel mildly flummoxed, the giant did his best to keep up with his tiny friend.

Surprisingly, he was able to keep up with the professional tiny, and after dealing with a couple of twitchy guard tinies by flicking them on the face and accidentally scuffing some random archways, Layyel had managed to reach Hay just as he began to poke around with a door.

Squeezing his way into the alleyway, Layyel squatted alongside his much sneakier friend and watched him do... whatever it was he was doing. Truthfully, the intricacies of stealth were lost on Layyel, and after watching Hay do his thing for a couple of seconds, Layyel decided to just shove him inside the room with one of his meaty fingers before trying to fit into the doorway himself.

Unsurprisingly, Layyel couldn't fit inside of the doorway, and as Hei would recover from being pushed, he would see Layyel trying to force various bits of his body into the building, to no degree of success.

Unfortunately for Layyel, in pushing Hei through the doorway, he also smashed the door itself off its hinges, both ripping it off the stone wall it was connected to, bending the wooden door with a loud crackling noise, and sending it smashing down onto the floor. Thankfully, no one was in the living room itself, but someone was sure to hear if they were home.

Hei/BK-201
Now in a room after being shoved in

Pleased that his efforts hadn't made that much of a ruckus, or lack of someone being in entrance at least, Hei let out of a grunt as he was shoved into the room by Layyel, the Contractor feeling some mild annoyance as he spun around and watched as Layyel tried to enter the building. Hei would wave his arms and made a shushing motion and hoping that'd be enough to make Layyel stop in his efforts.

Suddenly, the Contractor wished that the giant had been watched by one of the others instead, as it was evident that being stealthy was going to be a futile effort rather than the uphill battle he had originally thought.

Having already wasted time on dealing with the Layyel situation, Hei would begin to search the room for any signs of the book, first searching the desks for the target book.

@BazusoTheGrey @Wade Von Doom

Hei, in his frantic searching, did find the book, lodged in a little shelf in the desk between some papers. However, he would also hear a moment later, "WHO GOES THERE?!" As a man with a sword came rushing down the stairs, and saw Layyel first breaking his door, then Hei with his book. "STOP!! THIEF!!!" He shouted with all his might, his face red with anger as he came charging down. There was still room between them that Hei could make a run for it without fighting back, but Layyel was still blocking the door.

Erin

With a frustrated sigh, Erin would release her grip on the innkeeper, allowing his arms to fall to his sides as she'd first give a wary frown at the trio, before turning to deal with the last problem.

She'd whip her club from one side to the other, smacking the bloathead across its namesake, followed by a downward strike, knocking it and whatever was following it back down the ladder.

"Told you. Now, I'm leaving." The knight would declare with an edge to her voice, shifting up in a smooth motions before making her way to the door, set on getting her weapons back from this 'store'.

A large, black blade pierced through the wooden front door when Erin got close enough to leave; stopping just an inch away from stabbing her in the face. The inn keeper cowered behind the bar, as Jin ran to Erin to pull her back before the sword tried stabbing her again. The sword struck it again like an axe, smashing it to splinters, and again and again until it was ruined enough for the attacker to grab and rip off its hinges in a tattered mess.

The inn would then shake as something hit it repeatedly, and the smell of burning wood would grow stronger. Back in the upstairs bedroom, it had caught fire. Someone had set it ablaze from outside. But, it was no ordinary fire. It was pitch black. The base of the flames as dark as the cave Erin left, with the edges pure white as they fluttered while growing across the rooms. The only visible exit left was the front door, with the attacker waiting for them outside, an ambush. Only one was visible, but there must've been more to set the inn on fire so quickly. It was not more bloatheads, or more of the townsfolk, or even the masked stranger Erin had run into back in the cave.

These would be more recognized by Erin. A legend from a time well beyond her, only learned from the tales of an armor set she had found in her travels back in the land of Drangleic.

The Darkwraiths.

As the angry tiny yelled and charged, Layyel regarded him for a second, trying to figure out whether it was his fault for the tiny man's discovery of Layyel and Hay friend's sneaky shenanigans.

Then he threw a table at the tiny, hitting him and launching him backward onto the stairs he came from. As the man landed, he moaned out in pain and disbelief that he had just gotten a table thrown at him. This caused Layyel to throw another table at him, just to be safe.

With the now unconscious/comatose tiny subdued, Layyel retracted his arm from the door and face from the door, giving Hay friend enough space to exit the room.

Hei/BK201
Hastily making a retreat

As Layyel threw two tables at the man, Hei went to check on the unconscious man to make sure he wasn't dead as that'd invalidate their whole purpose for going on the misadventure. Checking for a pulse produced a steady beat of someone who was simply unconscious, so Hei positioned the man in such a way that he wouldn't swallow his tongue and choke.

So book in hand, Hei exited the house and would call to Layyel. "Time to go back, remember the way?" He asked him as he led Layyel back, slow at first to avoid stumbling into guards. Hoping that there wouldn't be any other surprises, and to ensure no swift grabs, Hei wrapped the book in a wire so if someone attempted to run and grab the book, they would get a couple feet before falling on their ass.

@Wade Von Doom @BazusoTheGrey

 

[Birdsie]

Corvo Attano

As the mysterious assailants set fire to the building and repeatedly stabbed the front door, Corvo wasn't reticent; he calculated his actions. It was certain death to stay inside; certain death to rush outside. He would have to carve open reality's guts and make a third option from its entrails, then.

The forsaken power of the Outsider opened up within him like a firework in the heavens, or an edelweiss among the fields, or a fractal portal into the impossible. Corvo dashed, a dark nocturnal blur of a man; the flow of time warping and twisting obsequiously under his footsteps, making each of his motions supernally nimble and swift; filling him with a furious acceleration without surcease; actions stacking upon one another in a dizzyingly hypnotic way, much like those of an otherworldly spirit or ephemeral faerie seen only in myth.

He primed a rounded metal shell. The air filled with clicks. Corvo moved his arm back and lobbed the grenade, and with his other hand, fired a crossbow bolt into its center of mass, further propelling it right into the face of the Darkwraith standing behind the door.

He leaped back to avoid being in the explosion's range, as time's normal flow resumed.

 

[Wade Von Doom]

HACKDIRT:

Erin froze in place as the sword nearly struck her through the face. It wasn't until Jin pulled her away that she snapped out of her trance, and returned to her oh so cheerful attitude as she saw what exactly nearly killed her through the broken doorway. A big ol' sigh of annoyance.

"Not these things," she muttered under her breath, to which Shakira overheard.

"You know them?!" He shouted, though didn't get an answer for, as Erin was quick to rush out the building as soon as Corvo did first. The Darkwraith took the brunt of the grenade blast, being knocked backwards onto its behind, but rolling back onto its feet with quick motion. It's armor, while smoldering slightly with smoke, was undamaged. Erin would pass by him, rushing directly towards the store to get her things, before the Darkwraith charged back at him, and once close, tried slashing at him with several quick attacks; its broadsword double the size and width of his.

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As Hei turned the corner to escape their, rather loud, break-in, who should he literally bump into? Callintus!

"Hei!" He said with that usually cheeriness in his voice, yet his armor was stained slightly by a green tint, and it smelled as foul as a back alley garbage dump. It didn't stop him from giving Hei a large hug, with Tsunade right behind him. "Oh, my boy, we've been looking for you for hours!.... Am I interrupting something?" He noticed the large broken doorway behind Layyel, while the giant himself still have bits of debris on his helmet and shoulders.

 

[Amber Franklin]

Tsunade- Character Sheet

"Finally!" Tsunade exclaims coming in behind Callintus, nodding at Hei but smiling at Layyel. "Someone else can carry this." She heaves the unconscious assassin off her shoulder and holds them by the collar. Said assassin had woken up once in their run through the sewers, only to be quickly knocked unconscious again before they could do anything to escape.

"Carry. Be careful. Don't let go." Tsunade instructs Layyel in very slow words as she holds up the prone person to him. Her nose is crinkled and eyes narrowed due to the awful smell that has soaked into her clothing and probably hair and skin at this point.

Hours of running and carrying their prisoner had, and Tsunade was hesitant to admit, taken some small toll on her beside her hygiene. Just as old Onoki of the Hidden Rock showed, you could be a shinobi in top shape for only so long before things like your spine start to give out. While one hand holds up the assassin for Layyel to take, the other massages her lower back.

 

[The Wanderer]

Hei/BK-201
Talking to some allies

Keeping the mask on, Hei would stop in his steps as Cal and Tsunade approached. "I see you two were busy." He commented as he observed the assassin unconscious on Tsunade's shoulders before said assassin was passed to Layyel.

"Yes, we're doing an initiation for the Guild. Figure if there was one person who knew the death of the Emperor, it'd be the Fox. So right now, we need to get going before the owner wakes up, or one of the other candidates show up and attempt to take this." He spoke, motioning to the wire wrapped book held close to his person.

"Before too much time passes, what happened to you two?" He asked as he looked over their dirty and tired faces.

@Wade Von Doom @BazusoTheGrey @Amber Franklin

 

[Noble Scion]

Erin

The knight sprint past the creature, before kicking in the store door, her furious, burning eyes first centering on the (unsurprisingly) shocked old woman manning the counter, then locking onto three distinct swords resting on a rack, then a worn shield resting atop one of the benches.

Huffing a breath of air out her nose, she's storm her way over to her swords, and start strapping them to her waist.

Having had a chance to.. Take in, the woman and her swaying 'assets', the shopkeep's expression would shift from surprise to concern as Erin would move through the store, then anger as she'd start buckling the sword. "H-HEY!"

"What?"

"Put those ba-"

Yet before the shopkeep could continue, the flat of a sword would push her mouth shut.

Erin would say nothing, instead serving a death glare to them, awaiting for them to try and object, yet when none came, she'd pull the sword back, sheathe it, grab her shield, and head back outside to deal with the darkwraith, leaving the terrified and bewildered merchant to slide back behind the counter, all energy in her limbs gone.

The knight wasn't sure why she was being so merciful today. Maybe she just wasn't used to her enemies talking to her.

-- Back outside --

Sprinting towards the monster currently attacking her 'neutral companion', the ginger would strap her shield behind her and two-hand her newly-recovered longsword, switching to a reverse grip as she'd thrust the weapon straight for the creature's exposed back, her body flexing as she'd place all of her strength and weight into backstabbing the creature.

 

[Wade Von Doom]

"Oh, not much, fought off assassin's, got framed for being apart of the conspiracy to kill the Emperor, fell into a sewer--" They had talked perhaps for a bit too long, as not too far off they would hear a guard shout, "IT CAME FROM OVER THERE!"

"RUN!" Callintus shouted, before charging off towards the exit to the next district with the others in hand.

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With everyone back together, Callintus let Hei finish his initiation into the guild, by handing in the diary to Armand. "Congratulations!" The redguard said to Hei and Layyel once he grabbed the book, "You have returned with the diary. You have earned the right to join the Thieves Guild. You know owe your loyalty to our guildmaster, the Grey Fox. He has three rules you must follow:

First, never steal from another member of the guild. Second, never kill anyone on the job. This is not the Dark Brotherhood. Animals and monsters can be slain if necessary. Third, don't steal from the poor. The peasants and beggars are under the personal protection of the Grey Fox, particularly here on the waterfront. Easy to follow, no?" Armand remarked with a sly smirk, before pulling out a small piece of folded paper to Hei. "Consider this your graduation present from the master himself. The Crusader will know what to do with it. Now, get yourselves out of the city while you still can. Should we need you and your big friends skills, we will be in touch. Shadow hide you both," With that, Armand threw his torch into the small firepit besides two of the sleeping beggers, and disappeared into night.

The paper had a name on it: Jauffre

Callintus would know who it was. The Grandmaster of the Blades. And he knew exactly where Jauffre was too.

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The Darkwraith shouted out in pain as Erin backstabbed it, sliding off her sword as it fell to the ground with dark blood seeping out from the wound. The victory would be short lived, however, as more Darkwraiths approached from out of the shadows, outnumbering the others, and smashing through the other buildings was more bloatheaded monsters. The whole town turned into a place of darkness, infested by the Abyss. As they approached them, growling with hunger and swords in hand, they would be drowned out by the noise of horses running through the brush and trees. A dozen men and women in white and red attire, carrying swords of their own and torches, rushed to the dark creatures, thrusting the light at them to back them away.

"GET ON!" One shouted to the group, reaching out a hand to Erin first to pull her onto his saddle.

The Abyssal monsters backed away from the horseback soldiers, allowing time for Jin, Shakire and Corvo to get on horses too, before they quickly made a break back for the treeline to escape the town. There were too many to take on. Once they were clear though, they didn't slow down. "Where are we going?" Jin shouted to the man leading.

"Somewhere safe!" Was all the answer they would get.

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SEVERAL HOURS LATER:

Callintus would lead his team out of the city, getting a small boat along the docks to sail them across the lake surrounding the capital to the other side to avoid any guards patrolling the bridges. From there, they would walk to their next destination to find 'Jauffre.' While, with the others, they would continue to ride by horse to the same location. Weynon Priory.

It was a small village, with a monastery right in the center of it. Callintus and co would arrive first, tired after such a long travel, but as they approached the priory itself, along came the men in horseback. Their white and red attires were the same as Callintus'. They were Knights of the Nine.

And the man leading them was easily recognized by Callintus himself. ".... Anden?" Callintus called out.

The man on horseback was stunned to say the least. "Father?" The man had a short beard and dark brown hair tied into a small ponytail, but once the two were close enough, they looked so similar. Father and son, reunited again. "Father!"

"MY BOY!" Callintus cried out happily, as his son dropped down from his horse and rushed to his father to embrace each other in a hug. "HA HA HA! Ohhh, it's so wonderful to see you again!"

"I thought you had been lost!" His son said back, his eyes becoming teary. "What in the Gods names happened to you!?" He asked once they finally separated, although kept a hand on his father's shoulder.

"A long and unexpected journey across the cosmos. What of you, why are you even here?" Callintus asked back, although had some idea as he saw Erin, Jin, Corvo and Shakira approached to see the others who stood out just as much as they did.

"Had been monitoring the town of Hackdirt and have been using the Priory as one of our base camps. Father Jauffre was kind enough to let us stay here when needed. You would not believe what we had seen before we rescued these four."

"Same with myself... Have you heard the news?" Callintus asked.

"No, what has happened?" His son was confused by the somber tone his father took.

"Hmm... Tsunade," he looked behind to the blonde, "acquaint yourself to these new travelers and catch them up on things. I'm sure they have questions. Leave me to my men." The Knights had a long discussion ahead.

Shakire, however, now at the place he was told to go, had a choice to make. And after all this time, wishing to ignore what fate had given him... The least he could do was give the Amulet to someone better handled for it.

TO BE CONTINUED....