Troubled Times [Open]

[Cefia]

“Guess I am not a complete knucklehead just yet,” Cefia laughed as it seemed her little suggestion was put into use. It was a shame they don’t have the gold to test out the other one, though she highly doubted it would ever turn out the way she planned. The world did have a very ill sense of humor, so she was quite sure something would have happened. It’ll be fine as long as they didn’t bring the wrath of some giant beast upon them. She mused with her thoughts as they climbed to the view, keeping up from behind as much as she needed to be.

“That is all sound and well, I would not mind endorsing it, but there might be one slight issue with that,” she pointed out at the end. The lass that was with them seemed to have her own set of plan, having already made her way towards the camp. If she was found out, that would spell trouble for not only her.

“I think we will have to change the plan up a bit, I will go distract them so the poor girl does not get her limbs torn off, I am not exactly adept in sneaking after all,” she answered back, running down towards the way of the camp. As she made her way, habits came to rise. She tucked in her monocle into her pockets for safe keeping, entering the camp a bit off from Irisvielle’s direction. As soon as she was within a decent earshot, she took a deep breath in before letting out loud heavy battle cry that attracted the men to arm their weapons and face her direction. Hopefully no little kid ends up emulating this in the future.

[Tamaya]

Tamaya looked in confusion as both of her companions suddenly disappeared. She saw Irisvielle run down the hill, hiding herself behind a tree and looking at a lone soldier without his weapon. Then, she noticed Cefia sidle into the bushes, only to emerge on a slant and roar like a wild beast. The bandits in the camp were startled into action, and many ran towards the green-haired woman, who stood like a statue, ready for combat.

"My turn..."

Tamaya quickly jumped onto Shikoba, and the horse raced down the hill as the nomad woman raised her bow, aiming it and calling out her ritual prayer before loosing the arrow.

"Earth... Sky... LIGHTNING!"

The iron-tipped bolt flew true, embedding itself in the lone man's forehead with a dull, satisfying sound. The bandit dropped like only a man who had been killed on impact could, collapsing into a heap.

Tamaya rode up beside Irisvielle, already nocking another weapon.

"Come on, Irisvielle! They know we're here now... So much for stealth. Now we have to fight! Draw your weapon... Do you even have a weapon? There is a lance there, if you need one. Get ready! We must not be caught unprepared. This is battle now. And in battle, I never take unnecessary chances!"

Seeing another bandit rushing towards her, Tamaya fired at the man, hitting him in the stomach and causing him to yell out in pain, nearly dropping his sword.

"Irisvielle! Now! I'll cover you!"

Tamaya was ready to shoot again if need be. Hopefully, Cefia was all right alone...

[Irisvielle Shou]

Irisvielle stood behind the trunk of the tree desperately wishing that she had heard Tamaya through with the plan of attack. Cripes, I must have got caught up in the moment. Heck I don't even have a weapon what on earth were you planning Iris, stupid girl. Looking out from behind the tree she saw the larger group begin rushing away from her location and toward the green haired warrior who had came barreling down the hill after her it would seem. A brief gasp of relief came over her as she looked over toward Cefia unsure if she would have the time to notice.

Irisvielle mouthed the words, "Thank you so much." Before to long she heard the beating of hooves upon the ground as Tamaya came to a halt with her bow and arrow knocking it. Taking in the shocking appearance and control of her steed she nodded toward the motherly figure. "Right I will go in for that lance if you can cover me."

Quickly she darted out from behind cover toward the tent that was brandish the weapon of her choice. The man by the fire was also getting a slow start as she barreled forward both her hand and a bandits hand grabbing a hold of the lance sadly she had the pointed end. She let out a brief shriek before feeling the lance rammed into her arm slipping against the skin barely missing her elbow which would have been bad. A reaction to the pain and the vile man before her she kicked him away separating his clutching fingers from the grip of the lance and falling backward onto her rear a bit frazzled from the pain and now gripping the weapon.

Her eyes slowly glanced down to her arm worried about the blood and how much damage it was thankfully it was merely a graze for now but the man came charging at her again. Still a bit startled she would hold up the lance toward the man who most likely would slip past it if he wasn't deterred from moving.

[Cefia]

What great fun and thrills! This was the sort of life that Cefia had loved living up to this point. There was glory to be had on the battlefield and she hardly cared. It was the thrill of having your life by thread, a mountain of men breathing down on your necks, ready to chop your head off unless you do it first. There was an almost crazed look in her face as her eyes shined with bloodlust.

It was only the inexperienced or the foolish or both that came at her first. They charged in with their own axes, aimed to end the assault as quickly as possible. She responded in kind, even knowing she was just a tad outnumbered. With her Killer Axe in her right hand, she came full force from below, using the speed she had gathered when charging in. Before he could even throw down his axe, she cleaved her way through the body, without stopping. In such a bloody sight and she laughed not for his death, but in her triumph.

Her spare hand fell to her sides as she took out nice strong pair of knuckle dusters she had acquired recently. Without so much of a delay, another man that tried to come from side found his face being caved in. There was a satisfying crunch of bone, before the men fell backwards, obviously stunned. He must have had a rather thick skull as well. She ignored him for the moment, giving him time to recover bit and focused on the others around.

"How're you guys holding up?" she asked, slamming into another person with her body before they could properly stab her in the gut. The sword had only barely missed and she couldn't feel more alive.

[Tamaya]

"Oh, no no, I can't let that happen!"

Tamaya grimaced and let another arrow fly. This one barely managed to make contact, but it still hit the man in the shin, and she heard a sharp crack as the iron head pierced flesh and shattered bone.

"Irisvielle! You have to finish that one! I'll cover the other angles!"

Tamaya looked over to see Cefia nearby, bashing her fists into another bandit's skull. Why did she have that big axe if she could just punch people's faces in? Tamaya wasn't complaining - it just seemed a little silly. To her, it was as if she were fighting with her bow by smacking her enemies in the face with it, as if it were a sword.


"Cefia! I am glad to see you are all right. I am doing well, but I believe Irisvielle might be injured. She seems to need backup. Let's form a tighter group! It will be easier to fight them off that way."

So Tamaya fell back, nocking another arrow and sending it at one of the bandits who was approaching Cefia. The bolt flew true, hitting the man in the arm. Hopefully it would make him an easier target - and hopefully, this endless tide of brigands would cease soon. Tamaya was not sure how many were left, but she was worried about the well-being of the young lance-wielder. It seemed like Irisvielle lacked combat experience - not surprising for one so young, but disheartening in the field of battle nonetheless.

[Irisvielle Shou]

Irisvielle looked upon her attacker with fear in her eyes till she heard an arrow crack the bones of her assailant. The bandit reeled in pain collapsing as she thrust her lance through the torso of the man. She wanted to make a noise, perhaps a shriek or a cry she had never actually taken another person's life and here she was battered and weighed down by the lifeless corpse of the man who had impaled himself practically upon her lance. It was cowardice compared to what the other two were handling fighting with a vigor that she couldn't have mustered surely not in a single bout.

She watched the lifeless eyes of the bandit as they didn't blink and just looked coldly into her eyes as he continued to slide down the lance. His blood was dripping down from his gut from where the lance had pierced him. What the heck this isn't how a soldier is suppose to act after killing a criminal, heck a bandit no less. This isn't right I thought it was so post to fill self justifying. Trembling she shrieked as the mans body finally finished sliding landing on top of her with more weight then she could attempt to move in her frazzled state.

"Help," she whimpered frightened now as the bandits pack began to thin as the other two fought their way through them. She barely could even recognize the wound on her arm that was still bleeding as she lied there toppled by the corpse.

[Mel]

Oh it was the commotion that roused Mel, yet it was the yelp of one of the bandits that actually caused her to rise out of her bedroll to tug on her boots with a grumble. What was it now. What could it possibly be now, how could these incompetent band of imbeciles irritate her more. The plan she had drummed up was crystal clear, stick to one of the little bands as she traveled through, take her share of the pickings, and simply move along somewhere new. It wasn't anything grand, but it made sense until one added in just how useless bandits and brigands really were. How could these people terrorize anyone? They could hardly pillage a prostitute's rear after they paid her, and a toddler with a stick could easily beat them off. It was disappointing really, had the quality in general criminals fallen so far? Not that criminals had much of a quality to begin with. She was not pleased at waking up to further signs of their incompetence, so with her boots tied up and secured and blade at her side, Mel strode out glowering from being woken so rudely.

"Help...."

The whimper caught her ear and she turned her head, finding a sniveling imp of a child skewered beneath...Oh. How disappointing, the bandit corpse was the skewee. Her eyes narrowed for a moment, and she couched own, ignoring the sounds of battle about her as she poked through his pockets and snatched his purse before moving on to prod at the whimpering one to see if there was anything of value on her. It wasn't likely that she would need it, all it would take was a simple slash and it would all be over, though Mel was hardly one to administer it.

"Purse...purse...purse..."she murmured to herself, cocking her head to the side for a moment whilst she pawed over Iris for anything of value. After this it was off she'd go, leaving the bandits to whichever fate had befallen them.

[Cefia]

Well this was going quite horribly, for both sides... There was a lot more than Cefia had expected, but she thought it was more or less manageable with a bit of effort and strategy. It was a shame she was busy smashing faces in and enjoying herself to actually come up with a plan. That's what her companions were for after all.

Not good though, they needed to form up. There was a lot of shouting, making it difficult for her to hear her companions. She managed to make out the order well enough, but sadly her sight was failing her. Another foolish man came running at her, finding himself being cut in the arm for his trouble before retreating back. They were trying to surround her it seemed. She needed to get from where she was to her friends.

It seems as though she had to make a path for herself. Taking out her monocle, she adjusted it and quickly found where Iris appeared to be. She pointed in that direction, more as a taunt before depositing her knuckle duster into a pocket. Taking out her larger Dragon Axe, she began wielding them both like the good old days. It was definitely more cumbersome and fickle than the smaller ones back then, but that also made her threatening.

She charged in the direction she pointed, bounding towards the girl for support. Quite frankly most people didn't like the idea of being decapitated, especially when they had two very alarming axes. There was quite a many screams, she could hear some boots bounding towards her from behind, but she didn't bother. The only people that were a real threat were ones in front of her and her goal.

"Now what do we have here," she asked aloud, slowing down her steps as she reached the corpse laid over on Iris and what appeared to be a scavenger.

"Sorry, but I need the lass there," she said, moving forward quickly and pulling the dead man off. She seemed mostly intact, but there was not much time to check. She quickly put up one of her axes and lifted the recruit onto her shoulders like she was carrying a dead carcass.

"You with them?" she asked the girl she found shuffling through the bodies. She seemed awfully familiar.

[Tamaya]

"!!!"

An axe whistled by Tamaya, and the nomad barely ducked as it returned to its owner, humming through the air like some sort of deadly iron insect.

"That was a hand axe..."

The nomad swiveled to see a man in leather armor leering at her. The axe was in his hand, but, on closer inspection, she realized that it was well-crafted - a tomahawk, more than likely. Some of her tribesmen used tomahawks. They were beautiful weapons indeed.

But the man also possessed a bow, and a fine one at that. Tamaya narrowed her eyes, nocked an arrow, and fired at the man, quickly moving to flank him as she drew another. It looked like Cefia had Irisvielle covered, so with most of the bandits defeated or forced into a hasty withdrawal and dispersal, it seemed safe to take this one on. There was little chance of an ambush.

The Warrior managed to dodge Tamaya's arrow, and drew his own bow, pulling the string back and launching a return bolt at the nomad with impressive force. The nomad stopped her horse abruptly, her heart pumping as the arrow shot by a few feet in front of her. This man was dangerous. She’d have to be careful.

So Tamaya wheeled and juked, Shikoba moving across the grass as if he were a cloud. Before the nomad realized it, they had migrated to the center of the battlefield - she only noticed because suddenly there were odds and ends that blocked her path.

Eventually, the Nomad got her break. As the man was nocking and arrow, Tamaya quickly raised and fired her own bow. There was a brief moment of silence, and then the sound of a muffled grunt of pain. The arrow’s fletching suddenly caught Tamaya’s eye, from where it projected from the Warrior’s neck like an ornament.

There was a brief moment of motionless silence, and then the Warrior crumpled to the ground, his arm flailing in a final, futile motion.

Perhaps it was the futility of the thrashing arm that kept Tamaya from noticing the tomahawk until it was only a meter away. At that point, she jerked her body to the side, wincing as she saw a sash of blood form from mid-abdomen to the bottom of her right ribs.

Gasping at the sudden pain, the Nomad quickly tumbled off of her horse and pulled out her Vulnerary. After drinking down a swig of the potent medicine, she grabbed out a spare hide cloak and wrapped it tightly around her before sliding onto her side to apply pressure. The wound wasn’t very deep, but it was long, and she wanted to staunch the flow of blood.

[Irisvielle Shou]

Irisviell groaned as she began to push the dead bandit with little more than a budge from all the chain mail and leather armor he had, which thankfully did him little good as he was skewered to death. Taking a deep breath she attemted one more giant heave when she watched as a bandit girl poke her head above her. "Gah!" She shrieked seeing herself helpless now to the thief who was standing above her. Looking side to side she tried to think of what she could do as she was rather hopeless still.

Feeling the pat down she began to giggle a bit as her pockets were relatively empty at this moment she was pursuing bandits and though that bringing along money would have just been trouble. Probably would have been worth more to her parents anyways being ransomed.

"Gah no stop it that tickles. Stop!" She cried a bit playfully as the pain had all but escaped her as well as the seriousness of their location and her predicament. "Look I don't have anything on me ok, if you wanted money you should have gone with these bandits when they attacked my fathers farm."

Cefia then appeared behind the scavenger realizing once again, "Oh-h, I umm hi Cefia as you can see I had everything - ow ... under control."

She squawked as she was picked, "Hey I'm not that bad off." She then brushed the slice against Cefia as she was flailing and stopped protesting. "Owwwwww."

[Mel]

"...Mmm..."

Blue eyes strayed over her shoulder at the tall boorish woman that towered over her with the near-corpse slung over her shoulder like a sack of flour. There was a slight sense of familiarity that lingered about her and Mel had not the time to prod through her mind to find out why it was so. For now she had other interests, the usual interests, idle information gathering alongside the usual time wasting banditry. Yet her patience was soon growing thin on that front, bandits were certainly not turning out to be the malleable little forces of muscle that she had envisioned. It was time to move along, and muscle was useful even in the brutish female form.

"Feh, I'm not with them." Her fingers tangled up in her hair for a moment, clenching tightly before pulling it taut, a new plan being pieced together in her mind. "I checked her over for injuries, and there's just the one. I wouldn't think you should leave the lass unguarded. I'm surprised she knows which end is what of that spear." With an ease she fell into a speech pattern, playing the hero to explain the pat down that she may have witnessed. "Are you with a mercenary company?" she inquired after a moment of thought, at an obvious ease on the battlefield as she lazily leaned forward slightly to dodge a misfired arrow. "I can't think of another reason for this sort of awakening." It was easy to appear any way she desired, and a kindhearted good samaritan who was there for unexplained reasons was the simplest guise for the moment.

[Cefia]

"Ai, ai, all under control," Cefia responded rolling her eyes. She seemed to be well enough to flail around, so perhaps the injury wasn't as bad as she expected. The girl still seemed to have all her limbs to say the least. That was a positive in all the mess, not bad for a first skirmish as far as she saw it. With that said, it wouldn't do her any good if she wound up dead. It wouldn't do any good if the both of them round up dead...

"I be puttin' ye below right now," she said, placing the girl down and moving over, grabbing her axe. There were a few of the bandits closing in on them and an extra member in the mess. She wasn't sure how useful the two would be in a fight, but hopefully they don't get in the way.

"Freelance 'n keal hauled like hell," she responded to the smaller girl, giving her a shrug. This was more or less just fun time for her. She doubted that she would get paid for this mess. The first person that charged at her got a painful kick in the face causing him to stumble backwards.

"That 'n I be lost," she responded, her killer axe swinging through the air catching a man on his arm. He got away lightly with only missing an arm, but he might live in the long run as long as he scurried away quickly enough.

"Best to keep behind me," she warned, looking back at the other two. She wandered if she could punch another hole through the men, but this time, threatening them might not work as well. She might literally have to butcher her way through, unless the two had a better idea.

[Tamaya]

"Okay, that should be better... Now..."

The nomad woman slowly rose, looking with distaste at the dark reddish smear that tainted her robe. Ah, well. She had extras, and it was about time that this one was retired. It had seen too many messes.

As the Vulnerary's pain-numbing and healing effects kicked in, Tamaya felt well enough to get back on Shikoba, who whinnied happily and trotted over to Cefia, Irisvielle, and another woman, who looked a bit... Quirky. Shady. She seemed unusual. But that was okay.

"Cefia, Irisvielle! These look like the last four! Let's get them and finish this battle! I was wounded fighting a Warrior, but I feel all right... Let's cover each other."

The peppy Nomad drew her bow, pulling it back with a slight grimace at the dull pain in her side, and then launched it, sending the bolt into an approaching brigand's leg, causing him to buckle in pain. Another shot went far off, as a sudden stab of pain from her side caused her to jerk her bow when she released it.

Hopefully, the battle would not take too much longer to complete. There seemed to be a goodly number of enemy casualties, and as for their own team, if Cefia was still uninjured, then Tamaya knew that she was the only significant wounded member. But for defeating that Warrior, she believed a slash down her side was well worth it. That had been a test of her skill, and she had triumphed spectacularly.