< An Unexpected Delivery | Red Ice Logs | Chatting and Patching >
The night is fairly warm and muggy with recent rain and suggesting more to come in the later hours. The heavy clouds obscure the setting sun as Kin sets out from the cozy, well stifling, inn where he, the comatose Nine Roads, the bloodied Glory, the tired Iron Horse, and the newly sexy Jaom are staying in a pair of rooms.
Darkness falls rapidly in the small town, and doors close as Kin walks past as the last few people scurry into their homes and seal the local thaumaturge's wards against their doorjams.
- Kinqueduran pauses by a yet-unlit lamppost to pack and light his red jade smoking pipe, leaning back against the bronze pillar supporting the light.
A low, breathy voice carries to Kin's ears from somewhere to his left, in the darkness. "Good evening, sir."
- Kinqueduran doesn't recognize the voice immediately, and just closes his eyes, drawing deeply from the pipe and exhaling his reply. "Evening."
The Black Veil: "You are a very interesting man, sir."
The woman moves closer, still hidden by the shadows. A man is moving closer with a fire-cage to light the lamps. The tiny flame elemental dancing at the tip of the flame-stick is eagerly kissing the wicks awake as the man pauses at each lamp post. Two more and he'll reach Kin.
- Kinqueduran chuckles dryly, another puff of smoke jetting out of his nostrils. "That might be the nicest thing anyone's said about me in a while."
The Black Veil: "I am sorry that I will not be seeing you again in the future."
- Kinqueduran turns his head slowly to look at the visitor. "This conversation is going from peculiar to strange quite rapidly."
The Black Veil: When the man finally lights the lamp overhead, the woman smiles under her cowl of black veils. "I agree."
- Kinqueduran straightens a little, shifting his weight back to his feet. "...do I know you?"
The Black Veil: "I am the Black Veil. You forget so soon that you have bothered me twice? In the North and now here, in my home."
- Kinqueduran nods a little. "Ah yes. Your friend left something with me, he wanted you to have it."
The Black Veil: "I will happily recover whatever he left with you. My apologies I will not be able to thank you properly."
- Kinqueduran leans down a little, hefting the oiled canvas sack from the ground at his feet. "I don't really expect a 'thank you', to be honest, ma'am." He holds the sack out to her with one hand.
- The Black Veil leans down and opens the bag, peering inside. She sighs. "That is most uncalled for. My sorrow is diminished."
- Kinqueduran shrugs, his hand opening to let the bag fall. "I felt it necessary."
The Black Veil: "Well. I believe this is enough conversation, Kinqueduran."
A black-gloved hand slides into the voluminous robes that cover her body and withdraw a slim, elegant blade made of twisted wires in dull grey. No light shimmers on the blade in her hand, but no sounds come from it either. The thin wire blade slices toward Kin's heart.
The tip of the spear rings as it briefly rakes over the paving, coming up to expertly deflect the attack. The tobacco pipe falls from K's grasp, a thick cloud of smoke jetting out from between his lips.
Kinqueduran: "Don't call me Kinqueduran."
The Black Veil: "Why not? It is your name. Unlike me, you have not surrendered it."
Kinqueduran: "For you, my name is Havoc."
- The Black Veil steps forward, catching the pipe on the tip of her blade and driving it back toward Kin's mouth. "You dropped this, Havoc."
The Lance of Mars Descending comes up, twisting mid-air to catch the bowl of the pipe on the razor-edge of the spear, splitting it. Smoldering tobacco, ash, and sparks cascade out.
- The Black Veil casually raises her blade to caress a spray of sparks from the spear, then jabs it forward and back, playing an ear-piercing tune with wireblade and spear as she jabs again and again and again at Kinqueduran's face, neck and chest.
- Kinqueduran takes a step back, then another, the spear lunging this way and that to deflect the onslaught. Red lines of fate twist, taking the deadliest of the thrusts into the lamppost, and in the resulting spray of sickly-green sparks, Kin fails to react to the last attack.
The wire-blade rakes along Kinqueduran’s left temple, then plunges into his eye. The Synodic exhales sharply, freezing in place for a moment. The spear clatters to the ground and his hand comes up to grip the thin blade tightly as he wrenches his head back, blood and fluid pouring down his cheek.
The Black Veil: "Ah..it seems you may be the one not seeing me, then."
- The Black Veil laughs in the same husky voice she greeted you in and darts her blade back, to strike at the other eye
- Kinqueduran hisses, spitting out a bit of blood that had made it into his mouth. "Perhaps so." He drops into a crouch, the lance coming up quickly as K's left hand covers the destroyed eye.
- The Black Veil frowns. A flurry of blows comes again, flashing one after another. Slower then before, as if your wound has made her confident enough to forgo the more potent magics
- Kinqueduran lunges forward, the glittering Starmetal blade snapping against the wire-blade as a growl wells in K's throat, the red spear aimed directly at Veil's left eye.
- The Black Veil backs up a step in surprise and hesitates a moment too long getting her guard in place. The spear tip slides past.
- Kinqueduran 's spear lodges in the Abyssal's eye, and K twists the weapon, painfully grinding down her eyeball within the socket.
The Black Veil: A hoarse, terrible scream emerges from under the veils. It sounds as if two people were voicing the utter limit of agony at the same time. A gasped whisper in an almost-familiar voice emerges from under the veils..."Kin..queduran??"
The Black Veil: "Carmine?"
- The Black Veil shudders and backs away, stumbling. Then she runs.
- Kinqueduran calls back. "Tell them who took your eye! Tell them you saw chaos, and that you FLINCHED!"
- Kinqueduran exhales again, and slumps back on the lamppost. After a moment, he groans, turning to walk back to the inn, using his lance as a cane, his left hand on his brow and his head bowed to hide his latest disfigurement.
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