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[JRPomazon]

Please! Oh lord please don't ki-AAAAGGGGGHHH!!!

A man was impaled and the crimson saber ripped through the flesh to regain it's freedom.

No! I don't want to die! Please- AAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Another was cleaved from the shoulder, the blade ripping through the bone and muscle like a hot knife through butter

Get AWAY FROM ME! GET THE HELL AWAY-GUUUAAAAAGHH!

The man had a fraction of his spinal cord destroyed as he attempted to escape the blade that had ripped through his back.

They all fell, one by one on the dimly lit cave floor. Solomon's sword draining the blood of it's victims and leaving the corpses with no blood drain from their wounds. It was like it was feeding. Ahhhhhhh . . . this was what he was waiting for . . . this . . . EUPHORIA . . . By the goddess, there was nothing like it! Solomon's eyes flickered with excitement, to just let loose like this with his soldiers was amazing.

"M'lord, we have a situation."

Solomon's high was shattered as his subordinate interrupted his tranquil state of mind. With half a mind to kill him, he stormed over to see what the templar had in mind. Then, killing his templar wasn't so imporant anymore. Behind the rocks where one of the templars chased one of the PET members, a crate was knocked open revealing a detonation device.

"Charges . . . damn them to hell, this cave is ridged to blow!"

The time for murder was all but done now, escape was the ultimate objective now. Damn it all. The sounds of pebbles being kicked away echoed through the room, attracting the templar's attention.

"Detain him!" Solomon shouted, being sure to NOT issue a kill order.

The Templars moved fast, grabbing the man and slamming him down to the ground. Solomon walked to their new prisoner.

"Where is the exit your worthless wretch?" He asked. The held man was shuddering violently, fear had long since taken his senses.

"SPEAK!" Solomon shouted, his eyes filled with rage.

"By the water! The exit is by the water!" The man shouted.

He had gone into the caves for nothing! It was time to regroup with the sergeant, the longer he stayed in these caves the better his chances of dying. And with the war coming on the horizon, that was just not possible.

[Egann]

Egann took a look over the bow of the ship, peering between two folded sails, left as great heaps of canvas on the deck. There was Marion, tied to the main mast. There were also a good half-dozen hands winding ropes and readying for departure, and then there was that liason -a short, stubbly dude with a protruding jaw and an insanely bushy unibrow.

The liaison was the only one who was armed with a sword, but two baskets of pirate sabers rested on the fore and aft of the deck. Sure Egann could take out two or three before they could arm themselves, but by then the rest would come with arms. Subduing the ship would mean a distraction, and two armed men running out and siezing control of those baskets of swords. At least three -preferably four- armed men. It would be suicide for a lone man to attempt it.

That yacht's not going anywhere without you. Seems the Alliance doesn't have a skier competent enough to tell them what the real problem with the snow-troopers idea was. Marion's not going anywhere, either. Besides, Solomon'll have your head if you let the Dude go.

A man came out from below, carrying a small wooden box the size of two fists. He snagged one of the torches off the dock and headed off into the cave. Egann, carefully sliding from shadow to shadow as long as he was within eyeshot of the yacht, followed.

Once in the cave, the man walked at a brisk pace, scraping along at a quick enough pace that Egann didn't really have to concern himself with the sound of walking. He stopped in a small corner, retrofitted as a hiding area, shuffled around in it, then returned towards where Egann was. Egann scrambled to hide behind a corner, but the man was not paying close attention as he walked past.

One of Solomon's templars walked up, carrying the candle which had illuminated their hiding cell. "Nice to bump back into you," The templar said. "We have to get out of here. This place is rigged to blow!"

"I know. Where's Solomon?" Egann responded.

"Around the corner down there."

Egann jogged over to where Solomon and the other templar were. "The Alliance is turning on PET and planning to blow up the cave. As that the PET dude doesn't seem to know anything, I'd just assume let him suffocate when they do; it's the liaison from the Alliance we want alive. Go on down this passage and it'll take you to the yacht they're planning on using to escape. I have to go save Marconi and Simon."

[JRPomazon]

"They AREN'T going anywhere."

Solomon ran to the dock, all but one of his templars following suit. The last one remaining to help Egann with the other hostages. As Egann and the last templar left, Solomon grabbed his saber as his footsteps beat down on the wooden planks of the dock.

"It's been a some time since I've done this."

He swung the blade in front of him . . . the crimson saber than extended by 3 feet instantly, blood dripping from the crimson blade although it did not strike a soul. He boarded the yacht, one of the deck hands noticing his arrival. The inquisitor thrust his extended blade from a polearm's length, impaling the man from a distance. The deckhand grew pale, his skin looking withered and old the longer the sword breached his body. He couldn't speak as his strength left his body. The templars raided the shit shortly after, executing the lesser workers while looking for their target. The one who was better dressed than the others was most likely the one they were after, it was a terrible tell sign for the people in the alliance. Solomon drew his blade from the withered dying man, who fell slowly to the ground as his took his final breath.

As the templars made their noisy kills, the liason took notice of what was going on on the other parts of the yacht and to their horror saw their men dead on the deck.

"What in Diel's name has happened!" The liaison shouted.

"Why cry for a god who has forsaken you?" Solomon said as the templars took care of the last of their defense.

"The Inquisitor! Bloody Solomon!"

The liaison quickly ran to the mast where Marion was being held and grabbed a sword from one of his dead men.

"Not another step! Or this harlot of the empire is through! You hear me! Now drop your weapons and submit!"

Solomon looked straight at Marion, her expression was calm. She was in Steel's service alright, that expression was clue enough for that. Which left little to no sense of remorse from Solomon for her situation. Her incompetence was her own fault.

"She is a servant of the goddess who knew the risks before taking this mission. She is prepared for death."
A deck hand in service to the liaison took his sword and tried to attack Solomon from behind, shouting as he charged to make the final blow. Solomon swung the back of his hand to the face of the man, sending him to the ground as his sword was let loose from the impact. He turned back to the liaison, his eyes dead set on his own and screaming to him that he would be inflicting a very large amount of pain on him in the near future.

"Go ahead then, slit her throat so we can get on with this!" He shouted.

"Solomon you bastard!" Marion shouted.

"I tried to save you earlier! This is how you-"

"I've HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR BICKERING WOMAN, YOU'VE SERVED YOUR PURPOSE SO KINDLY SHUT YOUR MOUTH!"

A templar came from behind and disarmed the liaison of his sword while another detained him, holding his arm behind his back. Solomon walked up to Marion, his sword dragging on the deck on the ship.

"Obnoxious little tart, aren't you? If anything else, you are annoying enough to be able to draw away attention."

Marion didn't say anything to him, or rather she couldn't think of what to say. Did he plan all this from the beginning or was it luck? Solomon took his blooded hand from earlier and sliced through the ropes that bound her to the mast. As the dim amount of light reflected on the dried blood, it appeared that his fingers were coating in some sort of steel. He clenched his fist, the caked on blood that had gathered on his hand cracked and broke off into pieces on the deck.

"I want that man detained and I want anything resembling a detonator brought to me immediately!"

"What makes you think it's on the ship?"

Solomon looked back to the liaison and walked toward the detained man. He stomped on the small of his back, getting a cry of pain out of him.

"Speak you worm! WHERE IS IT!?"

"The . . . the man that you met before . . . he has it with him. It's a . . . remote . . ."

"Remote detonation? You lie!"

Solomon slammed his boot aganist the man again.

"GAH! It is the truth you pompous brute! The alliance has technology that you couldn't begin to DREAM of. Combined with our magic, we are unstoppable!"

Solomon kicked the man on last time for good measure. The man with the power to destroy this cave was somewhere in the mine. The only one who could find him in time now was Egann.

Edited by JRPomazon, 25 April 2010 - 12:24 AM.

[Egann]

The templar with Egann had taken point, less of a matter of command, and more a matter of necessity; he, after all, had the candle, which he carefully shielded from the wind as the two of them hurried along the corridor back towards the niche they had initially been hidden in.

The instant the templar rounded the final corner and came to an exceedinly narrow juction, a crossbow bolt smacked into his chest, buried up to the fletching. The candle holder rattled away into darkness.

"Nice to see you, again, sergeant." It was the Dude. Egann heard the sound of a crossbolt being reloaded. "Very nice indeed. It seems like everything goes according to plan yet again."

Egann looked around; the darkness was The Dude had a bead on the one narrow channel into the niche with his crossbow, and was now patiently waiting for any sound in the dark to fire.

"What do you mean by 'according to plan?' In a few minutes the Alliance officer will betray you and your army. He's going to demolish this whole cave, taking out PET with it.

"Correction; I am going to demolish the whole cave." A finger thumped against glass. "I have the detonator. Come now, Gauvin. Think. Do you think we really are so interested in your little plan on how to make soldiers into skiers? Ha! As if! Our target all along has been Solomon's head. But the irony is that we can't just kill him. Oh, no. Chikara would just resurrect him if we did that. No, we have to completely erase him, make him dissapear, and how better to do that than to bury him under a mountain? Such a crushing blow to Koridai on the eve of a war with Calatia."

A crossbolt bounced off the wall, ricocheting dangerously close to where Egann had taken cover. The Dude reloaded. "Our objective has never been to wage war against Calatia and Koridai together, but to let them fight amongst each other. With leaders like Chikara and Selena, that couldn't be easier. Then, when the war is over, when both sides are weakened, then we make out move against both. Of course, when we found out about your little idea, we were intensely curious about it, but only as an aside, only to make sure it couldn't allow Koridai to over-run Calatia, only to ensure both sides took heavy casualties. And how better to ensure the idea is never used than to kill he who dreamt it!"

"What?!"

"Labbry being poisoned attacted Solomon's attention as we knew it would because we knew he owed Lord Darius a favor. The conversations you've overheard? Arranged beforehand. That man you followed here swapping money? He was sent for you to follow and come here. THERE NEVER WAS ANY PET ARMY! IT'S ALWAYS BEEN THE ALLIANCE!

Egann drew his sword. The thought of doing this made him very nervous because his blade was still wet.

Lighting edge: ON!

The water on the blade spat off the blade with a dreadful screech, sending blue orbs of light scattering in every direction. Egann took the glowing blade and thrust it into the crack, illuminating the niche. Another crossbolt whistled through. Egann sprinted into the chamber.

The Dude picked up a club and swung, beating Egann's sword out of the way. After exchanging and parrying several times, he set to mercilessly beating Egann's guard.

That club's heavy enough you're having trouble blocking it! Lighting edge: off!

The room descended into complete darkness again. Egann thwart-stepped a swipe from the left on high he heard wiffing towards his head, cutting now more from memory and instinct than good reason. The blade dragged hard against something, and Egann followed up the slash with two more cuts from different angles, finally getting a good fix on where his target was and coming in with a thrust for the finishing blow.

The man fell to the ground with a thud, coughing. "Think you've beaten me?! THINK AGAIN!" He rammed a glass cylinder against the ground, a blue light from within illuminating a double-helix of wires and a newly-broken lighting rune.

REMOTE DETONATION?!?!

Explosions began to sound off in the distant parts of the cave. Egann snagged the glass cylinder as the glow began to fade, then wiped the blood from his sword on the dead man's clothes and reactivated lightning edge. He quickly cut Simon's and Mr. Marconi's bonds.

"Come on! We have to get out of here now!" Egann led them at a sprint down the passageway, explosions long since replaced with the bowel-shuttering thunder of distant rock-slides.

A massive rock fall opened up the cavern to the ocean just as Egann arrived at the yacht, water flowing in as the water-levels equalized.

"Thank Diel and Lazu. That's our way out! Simon, help me unfurl the sails! Solomon, I would be grateful if you'd pitch in your templars, too. The air-pressure from the collapsing caves will fill the sails and force us into the open ocean."

Egann glanced nervously at the small hole. That hole wasn't tall enough for the whole yacht to go through. Unless it opened up more, they were going to loose the mainmast -if not the secondary mast as well- on the way out, but that beat the pants off the alternative of sticking around here and waiting to be crushed.

[JRPomazon]

OoC: Can't think of much to write right now, you mind taking care of the great escape Egann?

Solomon looked to his templars.

"GO!"

Without another word, the 3 templars addressed different parts of the ship. The sails were opened quickly, the templars climbing up the masts and cutting whatever restraints were holding them back.

An explosion echoed from the caved, a detonation went off earlier than expected. So it seemed that they were not worked to explode all at once.

[Egann]

Egann climbed the rat-lines to the top of the mainmast, a templar -unable to quite keep up- lagging behind as Egann set to cutting the ropes to free the sail. "Quick. Grab the other end of the sail!" Egann directed the templar. "Do as I do." As soon as the templar had a finger-hold, Egann jumped off the rat-lines, the combined weight of two men rapidly unfurling the large sail as they slid back down to the deck, the resistance cushioning their landings.

"Do the rest of them the same way." Egann told the templar. He nodded. Egann could already feel the weight of the cave pressing on them, pushing them towards the small exit like a speck of dust squeezed from the bellows of a forge.

Explosions continued to detonate in the background, thunder and rock slides. A string of explosions rang through the cavern, circumnavigating the lake like fire across an oil-slick, one explosion seeming to conduct itself to the next. The dock was obliterated, then the slope where it had been, then finally it circled around the great cavern, explosions blasting away great stalactites from the ceilings and loosing great sheets of rock from the walls until it reached the exit. Explosions wreathed the small exit, obfuscating the sunlight with smoke and dust.

Egann ran to the wheel and spun it like crazy, trying to evade the newly fallen boulders while still making for the exit with all possible haste. It would all be for nothing if those explosions had just covered the exit.

The yacht shuddered as it struck a rock Egann hadn't been able to avoid, then another hit, this one more violent, threw some to the deck. It was impossible to tell how that exit was shaped after all of those explosions; even if it had opened up sufficient space for the masts, the falling rocks may well have left insufficient space in the water for the yacht to clear it, but they were now in the height of the funnel of the bellows, and the full weight of the collapsing cave drove the air past them. They were headed towards the exit, whether the yacht would fit or not. They were far beyond the point of no return now.

Then it was all over. They were clear. The great squeeze of the air in the cave now a steady wind at their backs as they sailed out into the ocean.

Egann passed the wheel off to a templar and sank to his knees against the nearest vertical surface: the poop-deck rail. Perhaps in a moment he'd figure out what exactly had been going on. More likely, though, he would set to taking a look at the detonator he had just pocketed. In a moment. The day was not yet done, and it had been a bit more eventful than he had cared for already. Just a bit, though.

[JRPomazon]

A calm had fallen over the entire boat, avoiding certain doom was quite the relief. Solomon released a line was was holding while opening the sail from below and sighed with relief. After the rush of escaping with their lives and killing as many people as he could back in the cave, he finally was able to relieve some stress that was beginning to pent up inside him. Still, this entire day seemed to be uncalled for. He walked over to Marion, who was guarding the liaison, tied to the main mast of the ship.

"It seems the fortune of the goddess is with us this day." She said, motioning to the tied man from the Alliance.

"Indeed. Since he is not of Koridain origin I have no qualm allowing you to take him to Lord Steel. I'm sure his meager interrogation skills will be enough to get information out of him. And if not, just mention that I would be Steel's replacement if results are not satisfactory."

"Of course, Lord Solomon." She replied, forcing politeness.

"Good, I'll leave him to you."

Solomon left the company of Marion and headed to the wheel, were Egann was lying down.

"Sergeant, it seems we had more for us today than we originally thought. And despite that you managed to preform well under these conditions and that leaves me with one last thing to address: Join the Inquisition."

[Egann]

"Sergeant, it seems we had more for us today than we originally thought. And despite that you managed to preform well under these conditions and that leaves me with one last thing to address: Join the Inquisition."

Egann took his time standing up. For an instant he was genuinely flattered with the offer, and he was the Goddess's man, through and through, but serving with the Inquisition wasn't exactly what he had in mind. Egann opened his mouth to refuse the offer, but thought better. This wasn't a request: it was a command. And Solomon wasn't the kind of man you said 'no' to, either.

That was it. The 109th Infantry Scouts was, at that very moment, going through final inspection before being mobilized for combat in the upcoming war, and here was Egann. Sidelined.

OoC:...OK. Not only does this conclude the thread, it also provides the perfect lead-in for me to introduce my second character for the dorm-war. Unless you have something else to do, I say thread closed.

[JRPomazon]

Egann said nothing, Solomon saw his silence as indecision.

"Give me your answer after the war, I'll respect whatever decision you make. Until then, just say alive."

Solomon left Egann's company and returned to his templars, they would sail of a time and return to the ranch. Then, it was back to the Arbiter's Grounds.

OoC: Egann, you don't have to join the inquisition if you don't want to and I wouldn't want to write you out of the war either. If you have any plans to go ahead with this however, just shoot me a PM. As for the story, I'd say we're done here.