When Opportunity Knocks ~Vigilante~

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DwMcAliley
Posts: 53
Joined: Wed Jul 04, 2012 10:02 am

When Opportunity Knocks ~Vigilante~

Post by DwMcAliley »

Ascher Kraw stepped into the deep shadows cast by a cleft in the stone walls of the dungeon. He pulled his slim frame tight against the jagged stone, making his own shape part of the shape of the wall itself. They cast one shadow.... not two.

Zeddar stumbled around the corner, dazed. There was dried blood fresh on his deathrobe, and he moved as quickly as he could, gathering reagents from his corpse and searching for his prized lute. The instrument was master-crafted, and more than a hundred years old. It played smoothly and sweetly, lifting the Wizard's magic to a new height.

Suddenly, a cloked figure stepped out of the shadows in front of the dazed Wizard.

"I am called 'hokus,'" the cloaked figure called, "Do you know where you are?"

"Yes, you fool," Zeddar spat at the man, "I'm in Shame, on the second level, and I'm trying to find my cursed lute."

"If it's cursed," hokus said, "Then why do you want it?"

"That isn't what I meant," Zeddar began to reply, turning to the stranger.

There was a brief glint of steel, and a katana blade pierced Zeddar's chest. He stood, wide-eyed, staring down at the eight inches of steel embedded in his chest, and then his eyes slowly moved up to the gaze of his attacker. Hokus stood there, a grim grin twisting his face. Hokus twisted his blade a half turn, then jerked it free.

Zeddar crumpled in a heap. He tried to speak, tried to raise his hands, but only made a bloody froth spew from his lips. He spasmed twice, then toppled to his side and lay still.

Hokus rummaged through the Wizard's pack, and grumbled in disappointment.

That was when Ascher stepped out of the shadows.

"Not very lucrative, is it?" Ascher asked the startled murderer, "Killing those who have recently died, I mean."

Hokus shook his head, "You have it all wrong, sir. He attacked me," He began, putting up his hands, but Ascher shook his head hard.

"No," Ascher replied, his voice grim, "I don't have it wrong. I know him. I've known him literally longer than either of us have been alive. You saw an opportunity and you took it."

Ascher reached to his side and drew his kryss in a swift, fluid motion. He spun a leather kite shield from his back onto his left forearm with a hard kick from his heel. Ascher leveled the point of the kryss at Hokus, and smiled himself.

"Now," Kraw grated, "You're going to pay for it."

Kraw moved forward quickly, smoothly. He parried Hokus' sloppy swing with the halberd with ease. Ascher stepped aside as the needle-sharp point of the halberd suddenly thrust at his chest. Hokus quickly reset, though, and launched a sweeping strike at Ascher's head.

Ascher siezed the opportunity.

He deflected the swing up and away, sending Hokus' momentum around wide. Hokus lost his grip on the halberd, and it flipped into the darkness of the dungeon. Ascher then stepped in close, and rammed the curved blade of his kryss home, piercing Hokus just under the right armpit. The blade bit deep, turned, and cracked two ribs on the way out.

Hokus cried out in sudden, spasming pain. He felt the immediate hot pulse of the poison as it hit his veins. Ascher stood, wiped his blade on Hokus' shirt, and sheathed his kryss. He walked over and hopped up onto a boulder by the dungeon wall.

"The poison is swift," Ascher said, his voice cold and even, "You can't cure it, and you can't survive it. I want you to know that now, so when you finally managed to still your mind enough to recall out, you'll know you're still going to die."

Hokus spasmed hard twice, and tried to crawl towards his halberd. A third lancing pain shot through him, though, and he spasmed again, lurching over onto his face. He rose shakily, spitting blood and dirt from his mouth. He glared at Ashcer for a brief, agonizing moment, then he turned and ran into the darkness.

Ascher started to chase him, but he heard Hokus mutter the words of the traveling spell, and there was a brief whoosh of suddenly displaced air filling itself.

Ascher smiled to himself. Wherever Hokus was, that last ditch effort would have cost him. Any spell cast when the body was already that weak would have been too much. Wherever the opportunistic killer had landed, by now his body was growing cold.

Ascher took a rune in one hand, and a scroll in the other.... time to go home.

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