Marineking

Well, that ensured he would be eating next month. He was not much of a hunter, and disliked having to foraging in fields when money was low. Besides, it had been a long time since Sarrisan had ridden in one of those buggies, and he would be lying if he said he wasn't anticipating it just a little. He was, after all, only middle aged. He still had a bit of the hot blood of youth left coursing through his veins.

He turned to his new companions with a smile still visible on his face, "The day started out so peaceful," he said jovially, "And now we're off to face dune-worms and desert bandits. Sounds like fun, does it not? You do not see such work very often nowadays, and Flession is jewel of a place, in all reality. I have some few objects which I treasure somewhat back at my inn, so I shall see you both at the meeting point. Farewell!" And he turned and began walking down the street.

He made sure to keep his hands at the ready, if inconspicuous. There were many other free-lancers on the street, and not all of them seem to have dismissed the situation yet. He was not about to be jumped by a gang of these fools and be late for the job. It did not even cross his mind that he was in true physical danger; he had gotten to the point where he did not recognize most mortals as a threat. Some called it arrogance, but whenever he chose to think it about it, he liked to think it was simply confidence, if at an extreme level.

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Deselin

Dashal merely walked away after the goblin had left, ignoring his new companions. He had nothing he really treasured, save the cloak on his back. In fact, he had barely any possessions at all. All that was on him was what he owned, and that was fine enough for him. He had nothing to fetch, so he decided to stroll the streets for a while, until it was time to leave.

Lost in his thoughts once again, he mindlessly stumbled into the market district, where hundreds of stalls stood with merchants all waiting to empty your pockets. Dahsal walked in between some of the stalls and saw plenty of things: worthless trinkets, weapons of many kinds, exotic and rare foods, even an iron battlestaff, which he stopped and longed over for quite some time. He had trained in the use of a bamboo staff at one point, but it didn't matter, he had no idea if he could even use the thing, much less have enough money to buy it, so he continued walking before the merchant noticed him.

Seeing that he had nothing left to do, Dashal headed towards the eastern part of town, ready to leave, but was intercepted by a pickpocket. The man ran by him and, very carelessly, stole the small pouch hanging from Dashal's waist. Before he got far, Dashal had already condensed some of the air in front of the man, and he ran face first into an invisible wall. Dashal casually walked over, took his pouch back, and continued to the East Gate.

Lefos

There wasn't anything Elias truly needed that he didn't already have. Even still, he ended up back in his hotel room. "Where he hell did I put the damn thing? Why the hell do I want it, anyways? Nothin' but bad memories on it..." Elias continued to search about his room for sometime before finding what he had hidden. The original plan was to leave the thing here, let it be another's problem, but circumstances wouldn't permit that. It was an old blade he acquired during his first job as a hired gun...a job he hadn't the heart to complete. "Suppose I can't run from some things." He took this blade and tied it tightly to his rifle. It wouldn't be on long, but he didn't want to risk losing it before it found its rightful home.

On his way to the eastern gate, Elias stopped at a local black market dealer. He traded in the money he earned from taking down that thief earlier, along with what little he had left, for three grenades. Two being frags, the third being a highly experimental "thermal" grenade. The thing worked by simply increasing the temperature of the surrounding area to over 4,000 degrees. He was able to get it so cheap because not a single tester had lived to tell of it. "Hell, if I don't use it, I can probably sell it for at least twice what I just bought it for."

After his stop at the black market, he was heading through the market district and eyed one of the others that had been hired. He noticed the unarmed man eying what looked like a primitive battlestaff before walking away. As he walked away, Elias noticed a pickpocket strike. Before he could even get his gun, the pickpocket had slammed into an invisible surface, and the man was on his way. "Well I'll be damned...not many mages left these days." Elias wandered up to the booth the man was at, "Excuse me, I've got a question about that staff you have there..." Elias didn't have much money left, but a meager battlestaff was extremely cheap, though it did eat up what was left of his savings. Increasing his pace after his stop at the stall, he did his best to catch up to the young magus he would soon be working with. When he finally caught up to him, Elias ran in front of him and thrust the staff out towards the man. "Take this. You've got no weapons, and regardless of your magical skill, you'll need one. And I don't think we've had a proper introduction. Name's Elias, wanderin' gunman," and with that, Elias continued towards the gate.

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Deselin

(Controlled Elias with permission)

Dashal had only just taken out the thief and received his purse, when one of his companions had jumped in front of him and shoved something in his hands. Without even taking a look at the item that had been given to him, Dashal stared at the man with a curious look. The man perhaps noticed this, because he answered.
"Take this. You've got no weapons, and regardless of your magical skill, you'll need one. And I don't think we've had a proper introduction. Name's Elias, wanderin' gunman." And before Dashal could properly thank Elias, he had turned and left. In his haste, it looked as though he stumbled a bit, but he played it off with subtlety, and then he was gone.

"Weapon?" Dashal whispered as he looked down to his hands. There, sitting plain as day, was the battlestaff he had been looking at just a couple of minutes ago. He tested the weight of the staff by holding the end of it and shaking it up and down. It wasn't quite as heavy as he thought it'd be, but it was actually just right. He tossed the staff up, let it slip in between his fingers, and caught it at its mid-point. He continued toward the East Gate again, this time using the staff as a walking stick of sorts. When he got there, he saw Elias sitting on an elaborate stone bench with his elbows resting on his knees, and a round orb in his hands. It had some weird markings on it, and from what Dashal could make out, they were ancient runes; obviously an item of magic, but it was also made of metal, so it was a mix of technology and magic. "Interesting..." he thought. Dashal approached Elias, thinking over what he would say to the man, but once again he was lost in his thoughts. When he came to, he noticed Elias had lowered whatever was in his hands and was staring up at him. "Err...thanks." Dashal said as he scratched his head nervously. "Oh, yeah! I'm...Dashal, magician, as you've seen. It's nice to meet you Elias." he said, nearly forgetting his own name in the process. "What is that you have there?" he asked as he sat on the bench next to Elias.

Lefos

Elias had completely forgotten he had the grenade out. "Oh, this thing?" he replied. "Its a highly experimental grenade. It mixes powerful ancient magics with modern technology to heat everything within a certain radius to an astounding degree. Problem is that nobodies survived a test use, though. 'Least its reusable...or supposed to be." He handed Dashal the grenade, as though asking him to exam it. "You know this magic crap better than I do. Let me know if the runes and such are in order. Like I said, they're old. Pre-fallers, even. Well beyond my knowledge."

Elias moved over a bit, making room for Dashal to sit. "Didn't expect to be the first one here." he contemplated, fidgeting with his rifle. His eyes moved to the blade and wouldn't move from it. "That wasn't a battle...that was a goddamned massacre. Glad I left, but it didn't do any good." That had been his first taste of combat, and he was surprised that it wasn't his last, either. One kill, and he was long gone. He swore he'd return that blade to one deserved it. It was truly elegant, clearly a blade wielded by a man of great stature. "Maybe this will resolve me of that sin." Elias had no idea why that battle had scarred him so badly, such things were a frequent occurrence at one point. Maybe it had to do with the impossible odds. He knew what they would be, but didn't think to object. Just a job for a paycheck, he figured. It was his last action anywhere near an army or battlefield. Street brawls were tame compared to such battles.

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x_king

"Good day." said Cycladese curtly before slipping into an adjoining alleyway. As he coursed though the labyrinthine pathways and lanes of the Elven City, he tried to remember where he had last encountered Basta. He had met the crusty old javelineer many months before:

Cycladese entered Basta's marble villa, dressed in all his princely regalia. The Old man shut the door behind him. The house was uncomfortably pointy and creeper-lined, a perfect example of Elven Architecture. A wise smile spread across the criss-cross of wrinkles and scars that was his face.

"Cycladese!" he sang, "I often wondered what became of ye."
Prior to his entry, Basta was under the impression that Cycladese was long dead.
"Look at you, decked in all your best attire." he intoned, admiring the shining embroidery on the Hopolite's green cape. "Like a true Nobleman."
"Nice place you have here." said Cyclades, running his chapped fingers across the oaken cornice that fringed the door to the hallway. "What brought you to Elven Lands?"
"The peace." Basta exclaimed jovially, "I've retired from the battlefield. I now work as a farmer. Wake up, till the fields, return to my comfy hammock.. it's a blessed existence, really."

An hour of vapid conversation ensued, until Cycladese finally revealed the ulterior motive behind his seemingly chance-vistation.

"I go to gather them once more." he said, quietly, as Basta began throwing herbs into a cup of hot water at the table. It was a drink both of them fancied as children.
A dull silence filled the room.
"There are none left to be gathered." he remarked coldly. "You've been through six years under my tutelage - Had I not taught you, as an infant, to see things as they are?"
He lifted the mug and placed it before Cycladese, but the brazen warrior made no attempt to drink the warm beverage.
"You have, indeed. But you also told me of things noble and great. You-"
"I will not join you in your brawl with the Talzirans. They fought us once in a great war, and emerged victorious. And I've accepted that."
"I haven't." he said, hotly. His jaw bones were clenched tightly together, and his eyes burned. "I aim to defeat them in a second conflict."
"It is with remorse then, that I say that we must go our separate ways. You go North and war with the Talzirans, and I'll tend to the crop and bring in the harvest year after year."
He saw Basta's jade cape abandoned on the hook of a nearby coat-hanger. It looked like some dusty relic from a bygone era.

Within an hour, Cyclades was swiftly riding down the road to yet another distant city. He never succeeded in gathering a force against the Talzirans.

Now Cyclades stood before the deserted remains of the very same hovel where he had met the man many months ago. It looked twisted, sodden with moss and coloured in a sickly black. It stood betwixt a pair of towering edifices of glass and steel. He was confused.

He collared a passer-by and questioned him, "Was this not the residence of one Basta Deggaris?"
"Yea, he died some months back." he answered, loosening his arm from the giant's tight grip. "He died of a heart disease - I think."
Cycladese was shattered. Basta was like a father to him, he had taught him to fight, to read and to write. The friendship they bore was forged from a deep respect. It was a friendship that could not lessen through the vicissitudes of 10 years or through death.

The marble bust of an Elven Diety looked down upon him from the dreary roof of the villa. He sat upon the pavement and weeped.

Deselin

Elias explained what he knew of the grenade, and then handed it to Dashal, who was clearly befuddled, but knew what Elias wanted anyways. As he started translating some of the runes, he saw Elias stare over at something, and when Dashal took a look, his eyes rested upon a finely crafted blade; almost something a lord would use. He saw grief on Elias' face, and read sadness in his eyes, so Dashal decided not to question anything.

Instead he leaned over and told Elias what he had translated so far. "You see here, this first rune, it roughly symbolizes a written version of earth magic I've seen before." Then he pointed at the next two runes. "That one is the action of earth, I can't read it, but this here says 'collide'. And this cluster here, it's a small story of creation, in a God-like sense, but in context it could be taken as our definition of the word. And this here...hmm..." Dashal thought for a few seconds before it came to him. "It translates, literally, into death. But back then, death was usually associated with fire, because they burned their dead. So the whole thing, in a sense, means 'Earth collides to create death (or fire)'."

Dashal looked away from the grenade to receive a confused look from Elias, so he explained what it meant. "Magic isn't all fancy 'make things out of nowhere' kinda stuff. Magic can only manipulate the elements. Or, in layman's terms, magic can only use what it's provided. So unless you threw this thing directly into a fire, it would have to use some sort of earth around it to create a spark, and then create the heat it produces. See, watch." Dashal said as he slammed the grenade into a metal wall behind him. The grenade visably vibrated a slight bit, but couldn't find components for its spell, and went into a rest again. "Understand?"

Lefos

Elias went over to pick up his grenade. "Yeah, I get what you're saying. Earth plus fire equals god only knows what." Elias paused to think for a moment, before tightly wrapping the grenade in a piece of loose cloth. "We're gonna be in a desert. Can't have that thing falling around carelessly." He stuffed his tightly packed grenade into one of his pockets and looked back at Dashal.

"I saw you eyin' it. That blade." Elias paused and turned to face Dashal. "I'm seein' it goes to one who should have it. I picked it up off a fallen soldier on my first job. My employers would have sold it. I may be a mercenary, but even I have a sense of honor." He somewhat scoffed at himself after saying that last word. "Honor? It sure as hell wasn't honor that made me shoot him. More like fear."

"Oh, and I'd appreciate if you wouldn't tell anyone about that grenade. Don't wanna cause needless concern or anything." With that, Dashal nodded his head and seemed to lose himself in thought. "Don't wanna risk that damn Goblin finding it. Its worth a nice chunk if it works and doesn't kill us."

((Just wanted to get that all out of the way. Sorry this post is so short. Controlled Dashal a bit at the end because Deselin didn't want to do a post just to agree.))

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x_king

"Don't tell anyone what?" asked Cycladese, who emerged suddenly from a nearby alleyway. His eyes were blood red, and his hair unkempt. The jade cape had been soiled by street dirt. His voice quivered in a peculiar manner and his thin lips dropped to form a warm smile. The spearhead and his steel armor glinted in the sun. He now bore a helm with a vertical slit through which one could see his eyes and his mouth. It was surmounted by a long, stately red feather. An item he usually kept stored in the fur wrappings that hung from his shoulder.

He was trying, very hard, to disguise his grief in affability and smiles.

Lefos

Elias jumped at the sudden appearance of Cycladese. He had caught the man's name as when they were talking with the Goblin earlier. "Nothing, nothing." Elias stared at the man before bending down. "Now or never, I suppose."

He undid the ties on his gun, removing the blade from it. Holding it between his two hands, he approached the warrior. "I believe this belongs to you." he said. "Before you say a thing, allow me to address how I came across this. Some years ago, I was contracted by a large army from the northlands. It shortly after I fled my home, and I was in desperate need of money. They were plenty sized to combat anything in their way, but they wanted to be sure, so mercenaries were welcome." Elias paused before continuing. His recounting the battle was a difficult task. "I...was on the front. I had no idea how badly we outnumbered the other force. It wasn't so much a battle as a slaughter, as I'm sure you know. In the heat of battle, I was frozen, unable to move. A man, he looked much like yourself, approached me, as though he were to kill me. I think he saw the fear in my eyes, saw me as no threat, and he turned away... I shot him. Square in the back. He turned to me and gave me the most confused look I've ever seen, and he fell. Shock set in, and I passed out for the remainder of the battle. I came to just as it was ending. I grabbed the fallen warrior's blade, and ran. Never got my paycheck, never got the reputation I'd hope to build." Elias was struggling to continue at this point, the blade still grasped in his hands.

"Its all I've done for years now, run. When I saw you, though. Another of them. I knew I had to return this blade. At least I can say I did more than run for once." Tears began to swell in Elias' eyes, at this point. "The blade is yours, and you may do with it as you will. I imagine you were related to the man, as you appear so similar. Kill me if you wish. Just don't lose that damn blade."

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