Kiyoka

[Graybeard]

He wasn't quite sure why he was getting involved in this dispute among the Small Ones, but the Robe was speaking unusually clearly to him: follow these people, it said, in a voice that he recognized as that of his grandfather, whose Robe this had been long ago. (Well, not exactly this Robe, but parts of it, anyway.) Grope quickly gathered his equipment, making sure that his sword was easy to lay hands on, and moved out.

He had a tactical problem, he realized. He wanted to shadow the six mercenaries -- yes, he was pretty sure there were six of them now -- yet stay out of sight of the other Small Ones on the road. The mercenaries had already passed one family, jostling them roughly as they went by; he could hear a baby crying, a man cursing, a woman soothing the child. There would be another group as well. Well, he thought, not much of it but to go back to the rooftops. At least he could make good time there, as long as the alleys were close together, even if it meant running through the overpowering (although to a troll, not entirely unpleasant) odor of fish that would keep his sense of smell from being useful.

Up he went, and he quickly started gaining on the men. He could hear fragments of conversation as they ran --

"-- shoot the bastard now? Or make it slow and painful?"

"Remember, we don't just want a death, we want information. Catch the pig first, then get out the knives. Flaying is a good way to --"

The men were stopping at water's edge, in the shadow of a warehouse -- the one with a troll on the roof, although they didn't know that. Only one of them was speaking now:

"Okay, positions, people. Fred and Charlie, fire squad, but aim to wound, not to kill if --"

"-- and Amos, up on that roof. I want to know when the sucker is coming. Good situational --"

Uh, oh. The closest building to the dock was the one Grope was atop. If the squad leader was sending two people up, he'd find it impossible to get them both (as the Robe was screaming at him to do) without the alarm being raised. Then again, maybe only one had been dispatched as a scout; this band of Small Ones had a persistent (and, if he could arrange it, fatal) tendency to send people out alone, no matter how bad an idea it was. Well, he could hope.

He breathed a sigh of relief as a single man climbed onto the roof of the warehouse and took up a position looking back into town. It wasn't long before Grope could hear footsteps approaching from the north. Amos heard them too, and let out two dog-like barks. The signal, Grope thought; the Small One he'd killed at the mission used barks for signaling -- better in an urban setting than bird calls, as his own people would have used.

The man's attention was focused on the approaching party -- fatally so. It was easy for Grope to sneak up from behind, soundlessly snap the man's neck, and impale him on the sword for good measure. These Small Ones were obviously hunters, but they weren't so good at being the hunted. He was still cleaning the sword on the Robe (and again taking the unusual opportunity to swallow some gore for its Wisdom) when there was a flash and a bang in the street below, and a voice yelled:

"JAMIE! It's time for a little talk!"

[Graybeard]

The Robe was practically bellowing at him now: take these people out! And he hadn't the foggiest notion why. He decided to risk a look over the edge; the Small Ones below were likely occupied with Jamie, whoever or whatever that was.

A Small One had fallen at the side of the small brick building across the street, and four of the five toughs he'd been following were converging on the man (or was it a woman?). Well, he had a pretty good idea who "Jamie" was, anyway. But where was the fifth mercenary? He could see a weird, faint blue, Small-One-shaped glow a short distance up the street, but that wasn't the direction the toughs had come from. Further inland, there were confused-sounding voices, but he couldn't see who was producing them.

The four Small Ones converged. "Well, well, well," a voice chortled in Farrelian from near the water's edge; the fifth tough, apparently. "Jamie, we've been looking for you for a long time." That was good to know; it sounded like the speaker was the commander, and now Grope had an approximate idea where he was, although he couldn't see him from his vantage point. The Robe provided another proverb of the Tribe: "When fighting an unkillable dragon, first strike off its head." He started to form a plan ...

Something unpleasant was going on below involving a goodly number of kicks, grunts and curses, but Grope's focus was shifting to the other man. One of the men involved in the festivities called to the waterside figure, "Arty? We gonna do this character here, or take 'um back to the farm house and have some fun?"

The hidden man thought for a moment and said, "Farm house. We don't have the stuff for a good interrogation here, although we could probably improvise." And now Grope could see him crouching behind a derelict wagon. It'd be a tough shot, but he'd have to take the chance. He laid down his sword and reached for his bow.

But then the man looked up and said, "Amos? Any sign that this bastard had company?" And looked up toward the rooftop. Grope froze and hoped that the dim street lights weren't enough to let the man see that the figure on the roof wasn't another Small One. "Amos?" the man called again.

The pale blue form was moving, with odd, heavy footfalls.

[Sareth]

"Ow..."

The abuse that had been heaped upon my person wasn't the worst I'd ever experienced. Never the less, it was still rather noteworthy. Nothing seemed broke, but I couldn't be certain. Would have been nice if I could have checked, but my new found friends seemed less than inclined to grant me the time, as they were busy rolling me over to truss me up.

Never having experienced shibari first hand, I figured this would be a learning experience. I doubted I'd enjoy the lesson, however.

"Amos? Any sign that this bastard had company?"

I giggled. I couldn't help it. After all, my parents had been family. Second cousins, if I recall.

"Amos?"

[Tiamat]

[OOC}I should be posting again shortly - Internet's been out at my house for quite some time and i've been trying to get it up and running again. Have almost succeeded! [/OOC]

[Graybeard]

Grope quickly strung his bow and nocked an arrow, hoping for a chance to use it; developments on the ground were suggesting that he'd have to strike fast.

One of the mercenaries abusing the bound Small One guffawed, "Hey, Amos! Didja fall asleep up dere or sumthin?" His colleagues in S&M thought this great fun, but Arty didn't. "Shaddup!" he hissed. "Something don't feel right here. AMOS!" He'd abandoned all attempts at stealth now. When there was no reply, he sank back behind the wagon as Grope's bow twanged. "Lefty! Charlie! Somethin' happened to Amos! Get up on that build___ OOF!"

His sentence was cut off as an arrow tore into his shoulder and he spun around. Crap, Grope cursed. It wasn't likely to be a fatal wound, and now he'd given himself away. Two of the men stopped what they were doing to the captured Small One and ran over to where Arty was clutching his arm and screaming, and all of the undamaged thugs drew their weapons. Well, Grope thought, time for Plan B -- and he actually had one. He quickly extracted the late Amos' rifle out from under the Small One's body, aimed it generally in the direction of Arty, and pulled the trigger as he'd seen the Small Ones do ...

CLICK.

Trolls are instinctive weapons users, but they don't normally mess around with Thundering Metal Engines or other Small Ones gadgetry. As a result they don't understand the importance of minutiae like, for example, loading the gun. Amos wasn't part of the fire team, and quite sensibly, hadn't armed his weapon while he was clambering to the rooftop. Unsafe, you know.

Okay, on to Plan C, the troll thought, as a volley of bullets whistled by, one of them parting his matted hair.

[Graybeard]

Remarkably enough, he actually did have a Plan C, although he wasn't sure what he was going to do after that.

The wild gunfire had stopped, and that, Grope realized, was bad. Self-control was re-asserting itself down below, and an organized attack was the next step. In his favor was that he still had the high ground, and it also helped that the roof was basically flat and level, there being no need for a peaked roof in a place that doesn't get snow. Otherwise the advantage lay with the Small Ones; they knew the terrain while he didn't, there were more of them, and their weapons could kill at a distance, even if a hit from any single bullet was unlikely to be fatal. He was reminded of that last point by a stinging sensation and blood where the bullet had grazed his scalp -- hardly a serious wound, and if he survived, it would add to his enviable collection of scars, but it did point out that these people and their weapons were dangerous. The bees-and-bear proverb came back to him; he'd probably underestimated the hazard of the Thundering Metal Things previously, but he didn't now.

At the very least, he needed to buy some time, and that was Plan C. He stepped back from the edge of the roof so that the Small Ones wouldn't have a target (until they climbed onto the roof of the next building, he thought, hoping that they hadn't had the same idea) and knelt to the body of the late Amos. Taking care to leave the man's knives behind -- they might come in handy -- he picked up the body and, with every ounce of his troll strength, heaved it over the side of the building, in the direction of the furtive voices he could hear coming from below.

The body landed out of his line of sight with the proverbial sickening thud, accompanied by one shriek of pain and a great deal of cursing. Well, he thought, about time for one of these plans to start working right ...

[Sareth]

Idly I evaluated my situation. I was trussed up like the star exhibit at a fetish party, laying on the ground, bruised and bleeding. The gewehr who had captured me had done a nice, thorough job of it, so I wasn't getting loose, or getting at any of the gear hidden in my clothes. The head honcho had declared his intent to have me hauled away to parts unknown for a chat. And the posse of complete and total strangers behind me had failed to catch up.

We'll put all those in the negative column, as I'll be damned if I can see how they're positives.

But speaking of positives, the group wasn't really paying attention to me, owing to the fact the guy they sent to the roof was, evidently, inconvenienced. Oh, and whoever had done the inconveniencing had a bow, and had nicely punctured bossman.

Well. I guess those are positives...

I speculated on how far I might get if I started inch worming my way away. By my estimate, the nearest dark alley was about thirty feet. I figured I might manage five of it. Well, I suppose I could try something a little different. Laying here and waiting for rescue would certainly be a novel experience.

While waiting for said rescue to materialize, I began speculating on who it might be. Since those following me had still failed to arrive, they had either scattered, or decided to get clever. Climbing onto the roof sounded fairly clever, but I wasn't sure they'd had the time, even assuming they had the inclination. Some of them looked a little soft. The fellow with the Shotgun might have been able to get up there that fast. But he had a shotgun.

So who did that leave? The Gollum? She certainly could have been designed to do it, and might have some sort of bow spell rather than a gun. Course that presumed she was a she. I mean, sure, she appeared to have mammary shaped objects under her clothing. But she also was a Gollum. Shouldn't that make her an it? I mean, not being real, or alive, kind of robbed the she-ness. So 'it' did seem more accurate. Still, there was the tendancy to anthropomorphise, in which case 'she' felt more natural.

I really hate characters you can't properly give pronouns to.

Arbitrarilly I decided that, regardless of whether or not she was alive and capable of declaring 'I think, therefor I demand flowers,' I would refer to the gollum as "her" and leave it at that.

And that's when it hit me.

"OW! MOTHER-FUuuuu... Is that a BODY that landed on my legs?"

It was. And that was a hidden boot knife laying three inches from my nose as everyone was looking upwards and swearing.

Bonus.

[Graybeard]

The Robe was giving him mixed messages now. Kill these Small Ones, it continued to scream, but now there was an added, urgent plea: but first, survive. And truthfully, he was running out of ideas on how to accommodate the two at the same time.

It helped that he caught a break from the Small Ones themselves. One of the men tending the arrow-struck Arty said, and did, exactly the wrong thing: "Arty, that doesn't look too bad. Lemme pull that arrow out ..." "NO!!" "...so you can help here."

The bloody idiots, literally. Didn't they realize that arrowheads had barbs?

Apparently not, because the next step was a grunt of effort, followed by a scream, then a chorus of "OH SHIT!" from five voices at once. Four of them elaborated: "He's bleedin' ta death!" And Grope knew what had happened: pulling out the arrow, they'd cut a major artery. He'd seen it happen before, and the results weren't pretty; there'd be spurting blood all over the place down below -- for a few minutes. And then the odds would tip slightly in his favor, by the amount of one dead Small One.

With this pleasing development, a new plan suggested itself. The men would have their attention split between their dying leader and the threat on the roof that they knew was there, but couldn't see. They wouldn't be prepared for the possibility that the threat might not be on the roof for much longer. He thought that if he could descend to street level and get behind them, he'd have a good chance of taking out all four before the gunfire started -- and if he was seen, he'd be in a better position to run away than if he was dodging along the overhead. He started to move across the roof to a place where he could descend unobserved.

It might have occurred to him that a flat roof is a good place to put a skylight, but it didn't.

Half way across, he stepped on a raised section of roof without thinking -- and one step later, the glass of the skylight gave way with a crash under a quarter ton of weight. He disappeared without a trace (well, not quite, troll blood leaves definite signs of its presence) and landed with a thud on the floor of the building.

Now that was not part of the plan...

[DarkIntruder]

Shaking his head and sighing, Roger crept quietly down the alleyway towards the shouts and gunshots.


He hadn't noticed that the heavily clothed man (?) was missing until he heard the shout of "Jamie, It's time for a little talk!". It wasn't his companion's voice, and not seeing him(?) anywhere, Roger was forced to assume that "Jamie" had run into a little trouble.

Hesitant to run down the same street as Jamie, (It's never wise to run directly into a trap, even if you have an excessive of confidence) he decided to veer off into a side alley and approach the scene from the rear and try to get the drop on whoever was behind this.


Which was what he was doing now. Although it seemed that someone or something had already beaten him to it.


Creeping slowly down the grimy cobblestones, avoiding refuse and other things that he really didn't want to look at too hard, Roger made his way towards the action. It sounded like a helluva party up there.

"Oh Shit, he's bleedin ta death!" came a cry from about 15 feet ahead. Roger only hoped it wasn't his "friend" so to speak.

"Why does this shit always happen to me?", Roger whispered to himself. It wasn't like he knew Jamie, or really owed him(?) anything. Hell, Roger could hop down to the docks right now, and get out of here without any trouble whatsoever.

But he knew he wouldn't. Damn his sense of moral decency! He just couldn't let this guy die.


Moving slowly, silently, Roger peeked around a large refuse bin at the scene. Several thugs were gathered around another near a wagon outside the mouth of the alley. Another had his gun pointed at the roof of a nearby building.

And not 10 feet from where Roger knelt lay Jamie. Or at least he though it was Jamie. Whoever it was was tied up, and appeared to have a dead man lying on top of him.


Slowly moving out, keeping his gun trained at the men. (he didn't think they'd notice though. The alley was quite dark, and they had more urgent things on their mind) Roger crept up to the prone form and heaved the body off it.

At that moment, there was the large smashing sound of glass breaking from the building the thugs seemed interested in, and a large crashing thud from inside. "He's fell'd through the roof!" one of them yelled. "Come on!" Several goons rushed the building and dissapeared inside.

Roger looked down at the figure on the ground.

It was Jamie! He(?) looked pissed though, with his hands and feet tied, wrapped up in rope like a spider's prey.. He was in the process of (awkwardly) cutting the wrist ropes with a small knife.

Chuckling to himself, Roger whispered to him(?). "Hehe, that look is becoming of you. Every considered taking a job as a professional sub? Here let me help you with those."

Roger pulled out his long knife and slit the ropes in one smooth motion.

[Graybeard]

It took Grope a moment to recover from the shock of the fall, which caught him unprepared. A quick check revealed nothing seriously wrong; he had some nicks and scratches from the glass and was bleeding in a few places, but nothing that wouldn't stop by itself without attention. He was annoyed to find some frays and tears in the Many-Fathers-God-Wisdom-Robe, and that was going to be a bit harder to fix unless he could find his mate ... there's that thought again. He'd just have to be careful with it, he thought, as he stopped to check out his surroundings.

Trolls don't like being inside Small Ones' structures. Part of it is the sheer alienness of the places, and their smell is ... unsettling, but mainly, the problem is a simple matter of claustrophobia; a 9-foot-tall biped just doesn't fit well into buildings that usually have 8-foot ceilings. That, at least, wasn't a problem where he'd landed, as the warehouse had a high ceiling, maybe 10 feet or so -- well, not too much of a problem, although he still felt uncomfortable and wouldn't have much room to swing a sword.

He'd landed in an open foyer (a reasonable enough place for a skylight) where a few offices on the inland side of the building gave way to the larger volume of storage space toward the water. A large, incongruous sphere occupied much of the foyer; maybe a world map -- reasonable advertising for a shipping company -- it was hard to tell, because the thing was hard to see, with a predominantly non-reflective surface. There wasn't much light; a small light globe burned in one office a few yards to the north, and a bit of illumination from streetlights made it through the double doors at the main entrance to the building on its west side. There was also the disquieting glow of a magical aura from some of the containers in the storage space. Trolls don't like magical surprises, but he felt the cold coming off the magical containers and realized that they were just refrigeration devices for storing fish. A Small-One-sized door was at the end of a hallway running north off the foyer, and to the south, a much larger door connected the storage space to the docks. Presumably fish and other goods were moved into and out of the warehouse through that door, he thought, and it'd make a good exit for him as well. He moved a few steps down the hall toward the large door.

And just in time. Something came through the double doors on the west with a crash, and he recognized the voices of the thugs he'd been watching. There seemed to be two in front and one behind them, and after the swearing stopped, the guy in the rear spoke.

"Lefty, Charlie, you damn fools, WAIT! All the noise you're making, whatever that was on the roof knows we're here."

A voice -- Grope guessed it was Charlie -- snickered and answered. "Whatsa matter, Louie, you think dat's Springheel Jack or somethin'? We can take 'im. C'mon." But Lefty(?) said, "Yeah, just like Amos and Arty did. Let's do this careful-like. 'Sides, I can't see a damn thing, let's get used to the light before we go in." Good; dissension in the ranks, Grope thought. And Louie chimed in, "Jest remember, we're here to take care of Jamie. If we don't have it easy with the moke on the roof, we don't do 'im."

Snorts from both of the others, and Charlie pointed out, "Jamie's all trussed up like a roastin' goose for a holiday. That bastard ain't goin' anywhere dis time. Whatcha scared of, Louie? Mebbe you's a little ... chicken?" And with that insult, Charlie turned and ran into the foyer ...

... running straight into the dark sphere with a loud, gong-like crash.

From down the hall, Grope almost chuckled. Exitalis above, how had such complete buffoons ever made it to adulthood? He moved toward the large door to keep his options open -- fight, as a troll should, or flight, as the Robe was urging him -- and drew his bow.