ChaoZ: A Royal pain in the elves.

"I'm seriously sick of this metal shit."

Rol ran towards the metal spike, hoping to dodge past it and ran at the Dark Elf. Shadows climb up is body, ready to be used defensively or offensively.

Jex frowned and suddenly quickstepped. However, he jumped to where his daggers were, grabbing one by the hilt and the other by the blade. He threw the second dagger at the elf and charged at her with the other one. If he could get close enough, Danielle would be able to get more information.

Rol ran at the spike and it impaled him. Rol is dead game over.

(You're lucky you can't die in this RP. Running at a metal spike that's flying towards you? What even? )

Rol dodged but the spike hit his arm. Luckily the shadow armor protected him and it turned out to be just a flesh wound.

Danielle continued observing and scanning Avena.

Avena made no attempt to dodge Jex's dagger and it hit her right in the shoulder. Without flinching she created two portals, one under Jex and another under Rol. Both fell through and into each other.

She jumped on the metal spikes and glided across. She jumped and kicked Rol into the wall.

She then grabbed Jex by his foot, pulled him through the portal again before throwing him through another portal she just made. He landed on the other side of the metal wall. She closed the portal.

(i have absolutely no idea the size or the speed of this metal spike, going closer to dodge things is an important principle of martial arts and combat sports, i am sorry for using logic the one time, maaaaaaaaan.)

Rol's shadows responded to the kick, blocking the impact, but it cause his shoulder to bleed more once he hit the wall, he managed to upright himself so when he slid down the wall he landed on his feet. "This is working, yup. fucking fun man."


"Does she not run out of energy or something?" Rol asked out loud.

(Yeah, sorry. My fault, I misinterpreted your post. I read it as you charging straight at the spike and then hoping to dodge, being two seperate movements (Where you would be impaled before getting the chance to dodge). Instead of one fluid movement. )


As she heard Rol Danielle realized something. "The mask is replenishing her energy!"

Avena ran at Rol. Before he could react she appeared from a portal behind him. She kicked Pew and Pew out of his hands and punched him in the face. When he didn't go down the first time she punched again. This time the lightbulb went out.

She grabbed his arm before he fell, took the bomb glove off his hand and dropped him.
Leaving him unconscious on the floor.

Jex frowned. When Danielle relayed the information she had given he knew there was no way he could beat her. The amount of magic he used on the Elven boy wasn't going to allow him any big moves and there was no way he could take her down by himself. He grasped the staff of Wisdom and allowed his magic to encase it.


"Glacie."

A thin sheet of ice coated the wand. He had infused the outer shell of the staff with inactive ice magic. If any living organism were to come in contact with it besides him, it would release all the ice magic stored inside of it, be it a frozen mass of a cell or a hundred spikes exploding outwards.

Avena put the glove on her hand and opened and closed her hand to get a feel for it. She then walked through a new portal and stepped out another, walking towards Jex. Her eyes focused on the staff of wisdom. "Clever but it won't help you."


"She noticed because of the mask. Damn it." Danielle said.

Avena slowly made her way towards Jex. She aimed the glove at him. The runes on the glove started glowing in different colors. A giant blast of chaos energy shot out. Jex tried to dodge but the explosion that followed was too large to dodge. Danielle tried to shield him with a forcefield but was too late.

The blast knocked the wind out of him. He hit the ground and the last thing he saw was Avena standing over him holding the flute artifact. He faintly heard Ziome's voice cry out for him before passing out.

---


The scent of the ocean air brought him back to consciousness. He felt the grainy sand under him as he struggled to move again. When he opened his eyes he saw Ziome sitting next to him again.

Glancing to the side he could see Az was lying a bit further and so was Rol. Both of them seemed to also be waking up slowly. "They're waking up!" Danielle's voice said.

This startled Ziome who had been dozzing off. "Huh? Oh!" The apprentice witch scrambled to her feet and checked on Jex and Az. Fluffy did the same to Rol and licked his face.

"About time." Another voice grumbled, Riaden.

"You mean she didn't annihilate us after knocking us out to ensure we would never interfere with her again?"

Rol said. Still lying down, letting the manticore lick at his face.

"Since we got wrecked so hard i'm assuming we gotta do a training montage before we run into her again."

"Good question. I'm pretty sure this headache means we aren't dead, so how the fuck did that happen?" Az asks as she slowly gets back on her feet.


"She took the other artifacts and then came for me but apparently I panicked and that activated my self defense mechanism. Which teleported us all here." Danielle explained.

"And where is 'here' exactly?" Az asked as she took off her boots to shake out the sand.


"According to my data, were in Ostea, the Pertus district to be exact."


"So we are back in the high elven kingdom."


"Yes, the temple of wisdom where I was trapped is only a few days walking from here."


"A training montage?" Ziome asks.



"Don't be stupid." Riaden grumbles again, standing a few feet away from the rest.


"Unfortunatly it isn't that simple. This isn't anime."


"What is anime?"


"Anime was a mistake."


"What?"


"Nevermind. We need to figure out what to do next."

"Next is training montage."

The bounty hunter said, sitting up, his arms crossed. He was adamant in his dumb idea.

"We can't do a training montage because of budget cuts."


(I'm not even sure how to do a text based training montage? Otherwise I'd already have put it in.)

Az walked around stretching her sore muscles. "We really need a game plan here. Does anyone here have an idea?" She turned to face Riaden. "You're supposed to be the leader, so lead. What's your plan?"


"There is no plan. We failed. The mission is over, we go home." Riaden let out a disappointed grunt and crossed his arms.

"What? What the hell do you mean we failed? Just because we got our ass kicked doesn't mean we have to give up! What kind of guild gives up at the first sign of trouble?" Az yelled, infuriated at what she saw as a lack of commitment on Riaden's part.

He glared at her untill she gave him a chance to speak. "That's not what I meant. Our mission was to retrieve the king. The king is dead, we failed."

Az her eyes widened. " ..what? How... Why the hel did you wait untill now to tell us?! And are you sure?" A million questions raced through her mind and she wanted to blurt all of them out at once. 
Luckily Riaden interupted her before she could get going. "You were occupied fighting the dark elf. And yes, I'm sure. I checked his pulse myself."


"Ashera damn it! Back to the citadell it is then. Hopefully Kiro has fixed the ornithopter by now." She sighed.

Ziome jumped up suddenly. "Wait! What about Danielle? That Avena woman really wanted those artifacts. Danielle's staff is the only one she doesn't have yet. She'll be looking for it."

"And?" Az raised an eyebrow.


"She's probably looking for the staff right now. She might suspect we'd go back to the citadel. If she ambushes us there we won't stand a chance. We can't just let her take Danielle." Ziome argued.


"She did really want those artifacts. We still don't know why but until we know more we can't let her get her hands on the staff. I also believe we were to stop the prince if needed. And to me it seems he, or at least the dark elf, needs to be stopped. This quest isn't over." The fire in her eyes reignited, they hadn't failed yet.

Riaden frowned. "Agreed." He nodded.


"Thanks, I think? We still don't have a plan though." Danielle's comment broke the triumphant mood.

Az looked back at Riaden. He didn't notice until a few seconds later. "Right. The dark elves avoid the cities. They know being seen means war. Our safest bet is to hide the staff here. As said before we also need to know more about the purpose of the artifacts. The Queen is likely our best source of information. Or at least one of her advisors will know something. So you all stay here to protect the staff. I will run over to the citadel and.."


"Oh no, you're not pulling that again." An annoyed Az interupted. " Last time you left us things went terrible. Me and Ziome will go to the citadel. You guys stay here and protect Danielle."


"I'm much faster. It's -" Riaden protested.


"Oh for fucks sake. No, You're staying. Speed isn't important here. Keeping Danielle safe is. You're more useful here in case someone tries to steal her or something. We know you prefer to work alone but this is a team mission, you'll have to get used to them if you want to be in this guild." She stared down the assassin.

He stared right back. A dangerous silence followed. Interupted by a sigh and a shrug. "Fine."


A few moments later the two witches took off into the sky and headed to the citadel again. Ziome looked back once and waved at Jex before disappearing from sight.

Riaden looked up at the sky. Dark clouds were forming above the city. "Get off you asses. We're gonna need to find shelter." 

"There's gotta be an inn or something in the city, right?"

Rol sighed, still on his ass.

"How many gem do we have?"

Danielle answered Rol. "You and Jex each have 34 gems. Riaden has zero gems. So you have a total of 68 gems. Unfortunatly I have no data on the current value of gems and the local price to sleep at an inn."


"I'm going to find shelter. You can follow or you can stay here and be stuck in the rain." Riaden said before walking into the city itself.

Despite the coming rain the people working on the docks just kept working. Most of them were orcs or half elves unloading or loading boxes of and on ships. While the high elves stood to the side, yelling at the orcs to work faster. Riaden wondered how long it would take before one of the orcs smashed one of the boxes against a high elven face.

The first drops began to fall and Riaden decided against waiting around to find out. Heading away from the docks he saw the locals heading inside to avoid the rain. Leaving the normally busy streets as good as empty. 

After a few minutes of wandering around the rain suddenly started pouring down hard. There didn't seem an inn in sight. Several elves ran past in a hurry to get out of the rain. Only a few poor elves didn't seem to have anywhere to go. Among them was a young kid sitting at the street corner.


"Maybe we should ask for directions." Danielle said. (Assuming you followed Riaden. If not then uh.. I dunno. You probably still need directions. In that case just ignore the Riaden internal monologue parts and pretend he's not there?)

"Riaden's sounding like an ass right now."

Rol followed Riaden reluctantly.

"Directions? ask the kid that is also stuck rain, flawless plan."

Jex was kind of salty. Scratch that, he was salty as hell. He couldn't believe that they were beaten and disposed of as easily as that. He didn't even notice Ziome wave at him when she took off. His mind was focused on finding out how to beat the Dark Elf. He followed behind Rol and Riaden, quietly. He analyzed each and every situation that had happened during their fight. What he could have done better and what he should have done. The rain didn't bother him as he sought after it's calm ambient noise but he didn't want to catch a cold either. He look up and immediately made eye contact with the little boy.


"Hey, buddy. Do you know where we can find a place to stay here?"

The kid flinched. He seemed to have been daydreaming. He looks up at Jex and stares at him for a moment. After a short silence the kid speaks. "Yah, an Inn is over dere-so. Wan' meh tah sho' ya where? I'll tek ya guize dere fer a gem."

Riaden grunts at the kid.


"Wha's 'is problem?" The kid asks gesturing towards the grumpy assassin.

"He's stingy or hates people. Probably both." 

Rol squinted at the kid. "I'm not overly sure a field trip to the inn is worth a gem." He was speaking to Jex, but as per usual didn't lower his voice so the kid could probably still hear him.

Jex frowned and nodded.


"Let's go, then."

He pulled one gem out from his pocket but he didn't let go of it. He didn't trust the kid quite yet.


"I'll give it to you when we get to the inn."

The kid stared silently at the gem for a few seconds before shrugging. "K fallow meh." The kid got up and started walking. "T'isn't far. Juz a cuple a mins away."
He led them through the narrow streets in between the warehouses. The streets here were dirt roads and the rain was starting to soak the ground. Soon they were walking through mud and large puddles of water.

After leading them through the maze of streets and corners the kid finally stops outside a building. The only sign that this is an inn is the sign above the large wooden door that says "Th  Ram  y   t    Inn". A few letters seem to have fallen off. For the rest it looks exactly like the other buildings here, grey and old. The wooden panels in front of the window were all closed.


"You sure this place is open?" Riaden asks the kid and raises an eyebrow.


"Yah, teyh keep da winduws clos'd cuz peopl kept smashing tem all da time. C'mon" He says before opening the door and walking in.

Riaden frowned.
It seemed to be somewhat darker inside than you'd expect.

Rol followed the kid, his walking turned to tip toes as the road turned to mush, the bounty hunter didn't like the sticky feelings the mud had when you stepped in it, ugghhhh.

"Th Ram y  t  Inn?" He looked at the wooden panels. "You reckon it was named that or did letters fall off?" He asked his fellow Inn goers curiously before following the kid inside.

"Better than the Old Cock."

Jex whispered to Rol. He followed inside but, upon realizing how dark it was inside, allowed Daniel to release a bit of light magic to better their vision. He looked around, squinting his eyes.

Riaden tries to look inside but it's too dark to see much. He looks around the empty street suspicious of the situation. Before he can say anything Rol and Jex are already inside. "It's a trap, watch o-".

The door slams shut behind Jex and Rol. Separating them from Riaden outside. The kid runs into another room with a laugh. And several armed men and women emerge from the shadows. They surround the two adventurers. One of the men jumps at Jex with a wooden club with spikes.
Meanwhile Rol is attacked by a woman who is double wielding axes.

"What is this a second level encounter? I don't want free exp, absolute bullshit." Rol sighed. He drew his guns and avoided the lady's axes and dashed behinds her putting left Pew against her head. "You're making bad decisions... WAIT WHERE IS MY MANTICORE?!?" The bounty hunter panicked.

(Oops forgot about the Fluff.)

One of the other ambushers charged at Rol from behind.

"What manticore?" The woman who had a pew against her head expressed her confusion.

Suddenly one of the windows burst open with a roar. Fluffy leapt through and took down the ambusher behind Rol.

Outside Riaden was dealing with more of these people.

"That manticore." Rol said, a matter-o-factly. "Oi, keep the arrow murder explody shit to a minimum, so we can question enough after we kick their asses." Rol said to Jex.