tobiXoX: The larger cities were no longer safe places for those who did not count themselves as human. It was in the wild untamed wilds of Rembrant where many found their home. The roads that had once connected the whole of the empire, once they carried trade goods and held the foot prints of constant travelers. Now they were bare except for the occasional patrol. Now, once before the half-breed had been nothing but a mercenary but now he protected a family of elves as they endeavored to travel out of the empire, they camped off the side of the rode, under a hedge so they could hide their presence more easily. The half-breed watched the road, hopeful that tonight they did not run into a patrol.
Rheksas: That night, a patrol was the least of their worries. Harrying them from a distance was a group of local yokels who though to go out and hunt, but instead came across elves and decided they were better worth their time. Eight men came with torches and farmer’s implements, garbing themselves in the thickest clothing they could find. “Oi, step on out’ere, knife-ears! Keep your green gobbo steady!” taunted the eldest, an aging but fit man who was lean and hard from a strenuous life of farmhanding. They had all seen the half-orc as a group but decided they could take their chances, outnumbering the man despite his superior armaments. “Father Thayde says no man’s’a’be out on the night roads. Them’s the hours of the gods. They’s comin’ back, says he, and only Man shall reap the bounty.” Rheksas, in the meantime, was out on a stroll with his wife and his dog, enjoying the cool dusk breeze before spotting a splinter of armed peasants racing off into the wilderness. He pointed the oddity out to Asmara, suggesting there had to be something of interest to drag those folks out from their homes so late.
HoneyTiara: Asmara had been enjoying a bit of the warmer air and non-snow covered ground. She had a shawl over her shoulders that matched the different colors of cloth that adorned her dress in wraps. Her kerchief covered her horns and her shawl covered the angry red burn on her chest. Her skin wasn’t her natural purplish tone, having willed it to dim in color and now appeared to be just quite pale. She had been walking with her husband and their dog, Boye, when they had spotted the groups of men. She got the chills just looking at them but she had a feelings they weren’t up to anything she would find fun. Though her fears were swallowed and she grabbed Rheksas’s hand and started to lead him, having them follow the men. Boye followed close besides them, not going to give them away when she gave him a shushing motion. She had taught him nicely while he was her only companion for a while, Rheksas being away to make money for the tavern and such. He was a good dog and she loved that he was in the family.
tobiXoX: Artor cursed as the mob emerged from wherever they had been. The elven family shuddered and frozed in fear and looked to each other and then to their half-orc protector. There was a pleading look in their eyes that nearly broke the half-breed's heart, it was the same look that his group had given him when they had been caught in that Imperial Garrison. Artor settled them down with a hand and spoke up,”You seem like a reasonable lot, simply walk away and we can make it worth your while,”Perhaps he could negotiate but he drew his axe just in case as he kept hidden with the elves just out the view of the angry mob.
Rheksas: Rheksas stumbled just in time to hear the mention of Father Thayde, and that put a great big smile onto his face. He was actually visible to both the Artor and the elves before long, his sickly pallor clashing against the darker hues of his armor. “Come now, let’s see some blood,” he laughed at the scene, wondering if this lone man should prove a match for peasants in plainclothes wielding garden hoes. They turned to him for a brief moment, assessing the threat he posed. Sandwiched between the two of them, morale took a sudden dip. “Are you… are you on the greenie’s side?” asked the eldest man, clutching his pitchfork. “No,” answered the smiling man. “I just want to see what I can see.”
HoneyTiara: Asmara nearly squeaked when Rheksas seemed to gain one of those smiles, the smiles that could mean a number of different things. She was guessing he knew the man named Thayde, and she didn’t think he cared too much for him but she could be misunderstanding. She did slightly hide herself behind her husband, her hands coming up to her visible elven ears. She glanced to the being with green skin and the elves, making sure they were natives to Rembrant and not her people. She gripped onto Rheksas’s arm and was about ready to tell him it wouldn’t be good for innocence to be caught up in a fight. At least the elves should be left alone till their protector defuses the situation.
tobiXoX: The half-breed looked to see the pale man come in between them. He wondered if he was just passing through, he hoped he was, Artor had no delusions that he was here to aid. It was better than him being an Imperial Officer or something, he breathed a sigh of relief as he heard the man say he was not here to make matters worse. The Half-breed placed his axe on the ground in front of him and he began to draw his bow and notch an arrow as he spoke,” I can pay you in silver and furs. I'm a hunter and I've picked up quite the haul since i've been forced out of the cities.” He wasn't even lying about the furs, though the elves had been using them for bedding they were still quality furs. He didn't expect them to take the offer but perhaps he could get them talking long enough for him to think of a way to kill them all without putting those elves in danger.
Rheksas: A barking, boisterous laughter erupted from Rheksas, making him appear all the more strange for his sudden inappropriate humor. He was a long-featured man several inches shorter than Artor, but what could be seen of his body underneath that black half-plate suggested a fitness more becoming of a warrior, with a gaunt, sunken face and scars enough to speak of a storied military career. “Aye, aye, you’ll be handing over them furs and any money you’s got,” said the eldest, brandishing his tool with as threatening a gesture as he could make.
HoneyTiara: Asmara shifted behind Rheksas and pulled her shawl closer, opting to stay out of it. She hadn’t been seen by anyone it seems, she took that as a good sign and looked down to Boye. She didn’t know if Rheksas would scold her if she asked boy to help guard the elves, but she knew the farmers might hurt him too and she couldn’t have that. So for now she stayed silent and looked between the groups. She reached up a hand to arrange her long wavy black hair so it might slightly hide her ears a bit better. “I wouldn’t give something so expensive as furs to these lot of pigs, they would only dirty their worth..” She mumbles more to herself and Boye, seeing as Rheksas was busy finding something funny that no one else seemed to.
tobiXoX: “Alright, I hid all the furs and silver at the base of one the trees behind you. It should be the one with a branch broken off it.” There was infact a tree like that behind them but he had not hidden any furs or silver there but once they were turned around Artor would rise up, two arrows notched and two more gripped in the same hand he held his bow in. He would draw back the string taut, his eyes gleaming with deadly precision, he would release the arrows along with a breath released steadily from his lips.
Rheksas: That was all Rheksas needed to rip his longsword from its sheath and engage the poorly armed group, as one arrow sank into the hip of the eldest and another into the shoulder blade of his closest compatriot. They were fool enough to turn, and their fool ways brought more smiles and laughter from the mad, black-clad warrior, whose involvement induced a sharp and immediate panic for the remaining five. Rheksas closed with the one farthest back in the group, assailing him with a broad, horizontal cut that sliced open his breast and biceps, snapping clean through the shaft of the pitchfork that became his ineffective defense. An impressionable lad barely into his twenties, he fell in a screaming heap, a piece of rib visible through his clothes. Rheksas danced into the next of them, batting aside his garden scythe with a hanging parry, then turned his wrists and quick-stepped his blade into the back of his neck, seeing him undone along the spine. The rest of the peasants seemed culled by this, throwing down their weapons in pitiful surrender.
HoneyTiara: In a blink Rheksas was on the move, happily cutting up the idiotic farmers into minced meat. Asmara watched a moment before going around the fighting and went to stand by the elves, Boye by her side. She wasn’t much of a fighter and couldn’t do much, but she would hold her own as best she could if she had to. She turned to the elves and moved her hair slightly so that they could see her elf ears, she hoped that would ease them a bit. At least till they found out her other half of her heritage. She hoped that wouldn’t be found out.
tobiXoX: Artor heard the familiar sound of arrows sinking into flesh and then he noticed two were coming for him, farming tools raised in anger. The half breed drew one arrow from his hand, notched it, and released it in one swift motion. The arrow flew and then one of the men stumbled as there was a newly created hole in his neck. He gripped the arrow as he fell wih a sickening choke. The other was to close for the half-breed to draw an arrow, he held with him a wood axe he swung it wildly, Artor brought his bow up to meet the shaft of the axe and then drew the dagger from his thigh and plunged the blade deep in the belly of his attacker. Artor removed the dagger and kicked him away. The other farmers dropped their weapons, the half-breed wondered if he should simply kill them all, to prevent information from getting spread, after all he was already a wanted man. “Thank you stranger but now you share the responsibility of the crime.” He asked as he walked towards the remaining mob, his dagger still wet and warm with blood, the implication being he was heavily considering ending the rest of them then and there.
Rheksas: Artor could see Rheksas lifting his blade to inspect it, but only long enough to watch as blood ran *up* the blade and into the fuller, disappearing from sight. It was a strange-looking sword, not so much in terms of build, or from the fact that he just witnessed it drink blood, but from the dark metal of its composition and the graffiti-like scrawl etched in some foreign language all along the steel. His fascination subsiding, Rheksas picked over the dead men with swiftly waning interest, his dull silver eyes eventually trailing up to meet the half-orc. “I don’t share anything with mud-people,” he almost laughed, the mirth evident in his tone. “Though few’s the man who risks himself for elves. Let alone one of some rather… peculiar heritage such as yourself.”
HoneyTiara: Asmara left the elves and came up to the two men, one her husband and the other a halfling of some sort. She stood besides Rheksas and looked around them at those dead and the small group of those left seeming to huddle together as much as they could. “Rheksas, I don’t want to hear that from you of all people. ‘Mud-people’, that is so rude.” She chides him lightly but it was mostly out of instinct and didn’t have too much emotion into it. She shook her head softly before she bowed her head to the halfling. “Hello, I am Asmara. Please don’t mind him, he’s happy to help.”
tobiXoX: The half-breed cocked an eyebrow at the man's strange blade he growled lightly at the mention of mud-people,”People usually go for 'Tusker.'” He said he wiped his dagger of on the tunic of one of the dead men, the elves slowly filed out of their hiding spot, “Messer.....” The patriarch of the group looked about at the carnage but he kept his wife and children back, in an attempt to avert their eyes. “My heritage isn't that peculiar, Hume. Maybe your life just isn't very interesting......Now all of you, strip naked.” He commanded to the remaining farmers.
Rheksas: Three of them lived, and with no other alternative, sandwiched again between the howling-mad mercenary and, well, another mercenary but bigger, they obliged the half-orc and stripped down to nothing. It was a slow, pitiful spectacle that Rheksas was none too keen to watch, but watch he did. “The fuck is a Hume?” he laughed, focusing little of his attention on the peasants.
HoneyTiara: Asmara turned away from the stripping males, not at all wanting to see them in the nude. She shakes her head as Rheksas continues to say things that might tick off the halfling and lightly swats his arm.
tobiXoX: “Its what we 'Mud-People' call humans, its one of the more polite names we have for your kind.” Artor watched them, snarling and growling occasionally simply for his own amusement. Once they were done the half-breed crossed his arms and picked up their clothes and brought them to the family of elves,”Put these one, atleast you won't be dressed as elves when we cross the border.” He then turned back to the two, “Thank you, Asmara and Rheksas. I am grateful.”
Rheksas: To that, Rheksas again laughed – everything about this situation was amusing to him, it seemed. He had that sort of wicked rictus grin to him, the kind that showed off his crooked but impeccably white teeth. “I like you,” he said to the half-orc, sheathing his sword. “And my dog likes you too.” Well, Boye was more indifferent to the situation besides the odd barking during the conflict, but for all intents and purposes the dog didn’t seem to dislike Artor. “Where are you headed with these elves?”
HoneyTiara: Asmara smiled a bit shyly and bent down to pet Boye, telling him he was a good boy and that she was happy he was there. She peaked up to Rheksas and the half-orc, now shying away from the elves. She hadn’t been around her “own kind” in for so long, she was a bit on edge now that the fighting was over for now. She let the two of them talk, not really sure what to say considering she didn’t know much about the situation. She would speak when she needed or wanted to though.
tobiXoX: “I do not believe it wise to tell you,” Artor said rather flatly. He crossed his arms, creating a sort of barrier between him and the seemingly amused warrior. In truth, they were headed to Shirewood. There were rumors of safe haven there, hidden well fro the eyes of the empire. Artor looked over at the dog, he seemed to be rather uninterested in this whole situation and then he looked to Asmara. He was cautious by nature and that was how you stay alive in Rembrant these days.
Rheksas: “Fair enough,” said Rheksas. Disarmed but not deterred, he pressed his luck. “But when you return from there, I’d like to see you in Anthem. I could use a big, strapping fellow like yourself in the battles up ahead. I find myself throwing in with the lord of Valanice these days, and he’s got a lot of coin to throw around. Not to mention, he’d kind enough to work with undesirables and peoples of different races.”
HoneyTiara: Feeling the half-orc looking at her, Asmara self consciously reaches a hand up to her head and feels the fabric of her Kerchief that hides her horns. Making sure it was in place she stands up from petting Boye and looks off to the side, scanning the tree lines. She let Rheksas talk to him, she knew him well enough to know he can handle business like conversations. That or just be violent. Her lips twitched at the thought, off in her own little world. Realizing that she remembered the last time Rheksas caught her day dreaming he scolded her. She giggled.
tobiXoX: Artor cocked an eyebrow at the man. He had heard of this Lord Lorian and briefly considered joining up. He wanted to fight, he had felt like he had been sitting on his hands since this conflict had started and there were debts to be paid in the Empire. But, he had a duty to fulfill, these elves wanted safe haven and he had agr-,”I want to come with you,” One of the eldest sons said. Soon all the eves were begging Rheksas to allow them to come along, admitting to various skills that would be useful in war time. Artor looked between the two and then back to Rheksas. Perhaps fate was intervening? “Since my charges are throwing their hat in with you. I guess I am as well.... I am Artorius. You may call me Artor.” He bowed his head to Rheksas in respect.
Rheksas: Rheksas seemed to wave off his bow, as if to suggest he was not a man worthy of the gesture. “If you can do all this as you claim, you may accompany us to Anthem. Loian of House Castellan is a fair enough man, and lets people regardless of birth advance themselves in standing so long as they are willing to work for it.“ His attention shifted onto the half-orc next. “Artor then. As you know, I am called Rheksas, and this is my *wife* Asmara,” he said, gesturing to the woman at his side. “My dog is called Boye. I think there’s some magic in him.” It was settled, and the lot of them would see Anthem before long. Perhaps his wife’s own elven heritage swayed him to intervene, or perhaps he was as crazy and battle-hungry as he appeared. Artor would have no answer to this in the near future.