Cold Hearts IC Thread

[Malochai]

Indoril grinned as he stuck his head out over the lip of the hole; that had worked better than he had intended - the blade was only meant to have been a distraction. He looked for which surviving nauglir had both eyes working properly, and then hoisted his cloak into a more comfortable position, before climbing fully out of the grate-covered hole and running at the cold ones, ignoring the slaves, and bringing his stiletto blade out once more.

As he got close enough, the elf bunched his legs beneath him and launched himself into a high leap, onto the back of the completely uninjured creature, whilst he swung the cloak over it’s head, blinding it in darkness. He gripped a bony protrusion, pre-empting the bucking attempts to remove him from its back.

 

[Mello]

The healthy Nauglir roared at the top of its lungs before jolting backwards, trying to lose whatever was on its back as it thrashed sporadically in any direction it could. Thankfully the other cold one was far too interested in its own safety and continued pulling apart its deceased companion.

 

[Get of W'soran]

Arkeith felt like he'd been edging along the wall for hours and his nose was throbbing, the blood flowing quite freely.

"Mythas!" he hissed with annoyance "Where in the hells are you?"

 

[Mello]

Mythas shuffled back along the ledge to find a badly beaten up Arkeith. He raised a mildly amused eyebrow.

"Oh.. didn't expect you to... make it this way. Ah well." he lowered his hand down to support the fellow assassin.

"I think I've found a way across over here." he said, motioning to where Sylvia was perched on the wall, looking very drab in the rain and desperately trying to keep her plumage up to shape.

 

[Get of W'soran]

Arkeith gratefully took Mythas's hand but all the same glared at the other assassin.

"Where you waiting for me to fall?" he snapped with annoyance as he wiped the blood away from his face, thankful that the bleeding had stopped.

Glancing at the bird he nodded.
"So what way do you usually do these things? Scope out the target then return to the hideout to discuss the quickest way in? Or simply each do their own thing and hope someone succeeds?" he asked, too curious about the next stage to remember to be sarcastic.

 

[The Archivist]

January headed to the room she had bought. She dumped the package under the bed before unwrapping the second package. Inside was among other things a syringe and serum that she had retrieved from an old favour. She primed it and hid it under the bed as well before returning downstairs.
She walked back to the barman.
"I'm going to wait down here for the person I am waiting for."
She sat back in one of the booths, still wearing her postal robes, settling down to wait for the man. She wondered to herself whether the others had or would retrieve better intelligence than she would this evening.

 

[Mello]

Mythas shrugged.

"It depends on how worried we are that we will fail. This task is a pretty simple one, the infiltration at least, we'll probably plan again once we meet up inside the castle. As you probably noticed we each have our own methods and rigidly.. stick to them." He laughed quietly, still cautious despite the terrible howl of the wind masking his voice.

"We're druchii after all, we're not up for all this teamwork rubbish."

---------

Sure enough after some time the door opened and the old man from the gatehouse entered in, seemingly a totally different man outside of his master's gaze, a much more upright and intimidating person.

 

[The Archivist]

January looked up from the place she sat, inclining her head with a slight smile.

 

[Count michael]

Shevael looked on shocked as the guards collapsed before grinning
That was bloody awesome, so where about does this highborn keep these animals and secrets??"
Looking around to see if he weapons were nearby, as he thought about how he could exploit this gift the gods blessed him with

Suddenly he had a thought
Where are the others???? Did they ditch me or are they already inside.... Damn no one beats Shevael I better find this hydra before them then I can claim the better share of the reward probably need it too

 

[Zephyr]

Kelarith sat still, twirling the bloodwine around in his goblet, hoping he would soon be able to do what he had came for. He had seen January taking a seat and when she inclined her head and smiled at him he immediately got up and walked towards what seemed to be a man in charge of something. His whole posture was just too predatory.

Kelarith grinned when the voice inside his head laughed a bellowing laugh and he saw he was at least a few inches taller than the other guy. But then again, Kelarith was bizarrely tall for his race.
He walked up to the guy who tried to stare him down and Kelarith almost reached for his Draich instinctively. He resisted the urge and shoved the man harshly towards the back by pushing him with his hands.
"Don't tell me you forgot." Kelarith growled in as low a voice he could summon up.
Most of the patrons went up to sit elsewhere seeing where the wind would blow, others yawned and feigned disinterest or looked on appreciatively.

The man quickly recovered and sprang towards Kelarith with his fists clenched, swinging towards his face. Kelarith easily ducked aside and punched him square in the ribs. The man wheezed but recovered quickly and managed to hit back. He cried out as he found that his opponent was armored underneath the robes, he rubbed his now bruised knuckles together.
"You coward!"
Kelarith simply laughed and started punching and kicking, remembering to hold back. He did not need to die after all.

 

[The Archivist]

January sighed.
Too early... oh well, just wait for the knock-out
She returned to looking shocked.

 

[Malochai]

Indoril grinned as the nauglir bucked, grasping the protrusion even harder and clamping his legs around the creature’s flanks. “Nice try, reptile,” he murmured, teeth flashing maliciously, and he tried to stab the cold one in the eye, hoping that the long, thin blade would reach deep enough to pierce the brain. ‘If there’s one to pierce...’

 

[Mello]

After a long, terribly one sided, and drawn out fistfight, the gatekeeper showed his old age and collapsed into a heap on the floor, accompanied with a mild cheer from the crowd. Everyone liked a bit of entertainment with their drink.

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

Aneaya shrugged.

"Sadly I have no clue, assassin, we're going to have to a bit of-" Suddenly she paused midstep and slowly looked down, then to the right.

"Ah found it, it's not often you find something with 7 pairs of eyes, must be the hydra I guess."

To Sheveal's eyes the spot she had been looking at was a regular piece of flagtoned floor.

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

The knife sank true straight through the cold one's eye. However all this appeared to do was enrage the beast further. The nauglir screeched with pain and slammed its side against the wall repetitively, Indoril barely managing to get his feet out of the way before they were crushed underfoot. Soon however the beast slowed down, panting and groaning, almost pleading it seemed. After what seemed like an age, it slowed to a crawl and lay down on the ground majestically, placing its head straight in front of it. Evidently it had resigned itself to death. It's breathing became slower and shallower...

 

[Zephyr]

Kelarith looked down upon the man and gave him a nudge to the side with his foot to make sure he was really knocked out.
He exited the Sleeping Dragon in a dramatic fashion, his robes billowing in the wind, leaving the applause behind.
He looked up towards the sky and tried to get a bearing of where he was. There was the great tower of the harbor, and there the Temple's.
He made his way towards where the others were supposedly hunting a Hydra according to January. They might need some extra killing power.
Kelarith spared a last look at the tavern behind him. "Enjoy yourself January, I am off to find the others". He sighed, talking to himself like this meant he had not killed for too long. Time to fix that.

 

[Malochai]

“Khaine, I give you an offering today ...” the Druchii thought, before his body was jerked forward and he almost smacked the back of the reptile’s neck square with his face. As it was, he managed to move his face to the left and only graze the right of his face. He felt raw skin and scowled, but when the creature moved once again lurched to the side his thoughts were pulled away from the minor injury, and he scrambled to place his foot on the top of the nauglir’s back, rather than between it and the solid stone wall. Indoril could have sworn that he saw spidery cracks start to appear, and then widen every time scales and stone connected.

A bone-chilling scream forced it’s way out of the creature’s deep throat, and the dark elf longed to place a knife inside it’s mouth and kill it quickly, but even a dying nauglir could tear his arm off with little trouble. Instead, as it started to slow down and lower itself, he grabbed the hilt of his knife, still lodged deep in the creature’s eye socket, covered in slick, black blood, and yanked it out harshly. A deep growl resounded in the creature’s throat, and when he threw the blade to his other hand, he saw why - his sudden movement had caused the tip of the blade to snap off, still residing inside of the cold one. Without warning, he repeated the procedure, driving it deep. Leaving the blade where it was, he leapt from the nauglir’s back, tucked and rolled, springing up and running for a wall where he could see an overhang a few metres above him. There were several minute cracks and flaws he could only just use as handholds, which he started to do, constantly checking over his shoulder for the last reptile to notice it’s second compatriot was dead.

 

[Count michael]

"Any idea how we get to it?" Shevael replied casually looking around for something to loot or his weapons

 

[Mello]

As Indoril fled to the wall of the cave, the final Cold One looked at the newly dead body, then at Indoril. Grunting it moved on to the new source of food and started consuming its other companion. An easy meal was an easy meal after all.

Indoril scrabbled up the side of the wall, slipping many times on the moist smooth wall, but managed to keep himself a couple of feet off the ground.

--------

Aneaya shrugged.

"You're the master assassin, I only know its a couple hundred feet underground in that direction, I guess we must explore the castle." she said, vaguely pointing at where she had been looking at before.

The unconscious guards turned out not to be dead, but their weapons were easily salvageable. There was a small variety of shortsords, longswords, spears, halberds and even a Rapier.

 

[Count michael]

Grabbing a halberd and two short swords he turned to Aneaya
"Come on then this master assassin thinks he knows the way"
Setting off in the direction she indicated into the castle

 

[Mello]

Aneya giggled, "I swear you said that this was meant to be a secret? I didn't kill those guards back there, and you said you couldn't kill anyone."

The pair head into a large entrance hall, the place was crawling with guards, who were simply so far away they couldn't out make the two of them out well enough to be intruders yet.

 

[Count michael]

"I never said I wanted it to be a secret without killing" Shevael replied "This bastard employer wants us to sneak in and out but stuff him I want some fun..... How about you?
Damn I wish I had my guns at least I have my chain"

 

[Zephyr]

Kelarith finally made it to the huge mansion where somebody was supposedly mad enough to keep a hydra for a pet. He snorted knowing that it could be fully well possible. He of all people knew how eccentric nobles were. His brother had his own pet manticore after all, until it had eaten his father's prized steeds. It was quickly donated to a beastmaster after that.

He scanned the perimeter for a while and noticed the huge walls and heavily guarded gate. It was a practical fortress. He wondered where the other Cold Hearts were and how in Khaine's name they had gotten in. He settled himself against the walls of another building across it, nobody would notice him there as long as he kept quiet. All he had to do was wait until somebody got out again, somebody he hopefully recognized.

 

[The Archivist]

January looked suitably shocked as Kelarith left. She picked up the old man carefully and took him up to the room she had purchased, telling the barman to make sure they weren't disturbed.
Once there she took the syringe from where she had stored it and injected the man. It was a powerful sleeping and amnesia agent: he shouldn't remember much after he arrived in the inn.
She stripped him bare and took the other package. Inside was a bright pink leotard, the type used by strippers and other sultry proffesions. She struggled to get the man into it, leaving him in a compromised situation.
With the man sorted, she took a careful look at the old man and began working her face with make-up. Soon her face was a decent imitation, and she took the clothes and fixed herself up.

She slung a large black cloak over her to disguise her disguise, and left hurriedly. She disposed of the packaging and syringe in a nearby alley and hurried back to the manor.

 

[Malochai]

Indoril gasped, sucking in great breaths of air, looking over his shoulder. He saw the last nauglir feasting on the other one and stopped, frowning. ‘Maybe it’s just a particularly stupid one,’ he thought.

The elf dropped to the ground with nary a sound, squatting low, left palm - only a slight cut on his palm and a red stain; not a worry compared to the mountain of muscle and teeth before him. He frowned, staring at the creature. Indoril’d managed to get some of the creature’s secretions on himself - maybe that was why he hadn’t been attacked. He shrugged, and then brought up his handbow once more. ‘If only I carried a sword’ he thought suddenly, reluctantly. He’d always considered them unwieldy and mainly used by those who didn’t have the finesse to use a more subtle blade. He shrugged once more, resolving to amend that state of affairs once he had concluded his business in the fool-nobles’ home.

As he still hadn’t managed to disturb the cold one, he crept around to the body of the first dead nauglir, hoping he would find some of the liquid it secreted left on the hide.

 

[Get of W'soran]

Arkeith smirked "I do team-work just fine. It's after the job is done that I tend to get rid of those who bother me." he said loud enough to be heard over the wind, but not too loudly.

With that the knight walked towards Sylvia to look at Mythas's supposed way across.

 

[Mello]

Aneaya waved her hand impatiently

"No worry, we're headed that way now. So, two choices, short but heavily guarded, or a longer route which will keep us undetected and undisturbed."

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

Mythas hopped over a blunter part of the sharpened steel fencing that crested the top of the wall, thick leather protecting him from any injury. Balancing on the top of the fence, he reached down to help Arkeith across.

"The route I have planned is along the inside of the wall. If you look along the wall of the main manse, there's a badly damaged section, good enough for me to climb, up. If you don't have the confidence, I'll find the lowest window on the inside and open it for you. Sound good?"

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

The remaining Nauglir was certainly keeping an eye on Indoril, the closer he got to it feeding, the louder its low rumbling growl reverberated. If he wanted to smell like a Nauglir he was going to have to find something far from the feeding cold one.