::Her hold over the offending shadows faded as her attention shrank to the size of her imediat surrondings and the massive arm that was coming her way.
But instead of trying to avoid it completely, she leap at it. Trusting in her own agility to get her atop the arm and her boots to carry her up it as the intent was to use the limb as a pathway up to the more vulnerable places of the troll...::
As the arm came for its sweep at whatever was to the troll's right side, Neko lept at the thing and with precision managed to latch onto the arm with barely a notice to the troll.
She was free to run up along the arm thanks to her agility and boots.
::With a huff to blow stay hairs from her face, she runs up the arm as she draws the sword from her back and reaches for the necklace that was a gift from her closest friend on this plane. As she nears the head she brings the blade about in a quick slash that she hopes will cause the mightly thing to roar in pain so that she can toss one of the baubbles from the necklace into its maw.::
As Neko runs up the arm, the troll notices too late as it tries to make a grab at her with its other arm. Before the giant hand could reach for her, the blade swings true and cuts across the right eye making the creature stagger as it howls in pain once again.
The giant troll is just about to fall on its back...
::She ripped one of the explosives from her necklace and tossed it towards the howling mouth of the troll as she slipped her sword back into its sheath across her back and made to slide down its chest to her Kopii, still embedded in the flesh. If they did not pull free when she grabbed them, she would simply hold on and ride the beast to the ground.::
Neko slid down the chest with ease, grabbing her weapon in the process before jumping off the collapsing creature. As soon as she heard the slam that came with the massive bulk hitting the earth, there came another 'bang' that forced open the head of the troll.
Blood and fleshy bits flew around the corpse and hit several individuals around the troll, the creature was quite dead. At least that one was.
The body of a bandit flew right over Neko, collapsing into a mess as soon as it hit the ground. Every bone in the body was broken.
There was still another troll, wounded, but quite fit to continue the rampage where its brothers had failed. It was barreling straight toward Neko with the same reckless abandon its kind had shown today.
Suddenly, from the other side of the road came a whistle, and Neko turned to see a familiar hat. Quick came riding on horseback at full gallop charging straight toward the incoming troll. As soon as he was close enough, Quick stood up on the horse and hurled himself right at the beast, with his brave steed running right past it.
As he was in the air his famed weapon, Hydra, revealed its fury as four metal snakes suddenly shot forth from his coat and struck at the head of the beast. The troll spat in pain and anger as it felt as if a bunch of metal hooks got under his skin.
Quick was held in the air suspended by his weapon, for a moment. When the troll attempted to catch him, the Sellsword Captain reeled himself in and hugged the face of the monster.
Watch this, kitten!
The metallic serpents let go, and wrapped themselves around the neck of the beast until the length of their bodies could go no more. They plunged their fangs once more into the flesh of the troll, and Quick commanded them to unravel. So they unwrapped with great speed, tearing flesh as they did, until finally neck and bone were ripped asunder. With little effort the head of the beast fell off and Quick hopped off the body before it too collapsed on the road.
She snapped her hands quickly to her sides to fling any ichor from the weapons held there before scanning about for any other threats. Be they more trolls or the bandits turning on them now that the shared threat was gone.
-What do we do now? I doubt we'll be bale to find thier base now... ::
As soon as the last troll was gone, it seemed the world had stopped around the warriors so that they could have a breather. Except for Quick.
What do you mean what do we do now?
One of his chains suddenly lashed out and caught the neck of a bandit whose faction just realized that now was a good time to run away. The few attackers that remained, somewhere around ten, now made for the trees in a haste. One or two that knew wind magic kicked up a dust cloud before chasing after their brothers.
"Damn it!" cried Quick, before reeling in his catch who was bleeding heavily from the neck.
"Now if you're straight with me, I can see about fixing those holes in your neck, who are your people?" he said in a raised voice to the bandit.
His bleeding prisoner was twitching and growing pale, struggling to get a word out. He spat blood at Quick before finally saying something that seemed incoherent, gibberish. In a flash, the man unsheathed a dagger and gutted himself.
Quick stood there bewildered, but not at the act. His confusion sprang as soon as the man spoke.
"That's impossible..." he said as he dropped the corpse to the ground like a used rag and his weapon reeled itself back into his coat.
::Neko had actually started to run for the bandits trying to flee in the hopes of stopping them or perhaps trailing them back to their base when she heard Quick inside her head and stopped.
She looked from him to the backs of the remaining bandits and back again, a bit bewildered.
-But... But they're getting...-
She watched as the last of them faded into the woods around them, gone.::
HUFF!!
::-Nevermind.-
So she went to the nearest body of a fallen bandit and began to search for anything out of the ordinary. Even going so far as to look for hidden pockets. They were bandits after all...
-Mind telling me what it is I'm supposed to be looking for?-
She flipped the body and kept searching. If she found nothing, she would move to another and do the same.::
A coin, currency, anything not from these parts. I recognized that language that whoreson spoke, it's from the Desert Kingdoms.
As Neko searched the bodies, she indeed found strange currencies that were not used in Wistvale, at least. If she knew anything about the Desert lands she'd confirm it, otherwise Neko would trust that Quick was correct in this matter.
One corpse in particular, however, Neko found had a strange sort of pendant. Rather, it was a silver case in the shape of a small rectangle. The thing hung around the neck of a rather distinguished fellow, at least compared to his mates. It appeared the trolls did him in with their surprise assault, as half his body was mangled and broken. This man never stood a chance when he got the drop on him.
It was capable of being opened by the look of it.
As Neko, Quick, and the surviving vanguard looked around the battlefield, they could all see that the rest of the caravan was making its way up the road looking mostly intact despite Quick's claim that they too were under attack by trolls. The mercenary companies looked a bit short on men, however.
::She didn't recognise the coins, so she took that to mean they were what Quick was looking for. The pendant was interesting though so she took that too. And as much as her curiosity wanted her to open it, she did not. It could be a simple locket, or it could be some sort of magical deathray and her curiosity really would have killed the katt...
Smiling at her own little joke, she rose and walked over to Quick, noticing the arrival of the rest of the mercenaries.
-Here. Are these what you were hoping to find?-
She passed him the coins, and after a bit of hesitation, the pendant too.
-I also found this.
And it seems everyone else has decided to join the show.-
Not quite trusting Quick, she looked over the approaching mercs to see if there were any signs of wounded. Surely there would be some if they had been attacked as he said.
-Odd thing, the trolls showing up. You don't think they were trying to use them but got out of hand, do you?- ::
Quick moved over Neko when she had confirmed finding something. The merc captain picked up the coins, shaking his head.
This can't be right, what are these men doing way out here, dressed like they just stepped out of the sands...
His question was pushed to the back of his mind when Neko handed him over the pendant device. The case felt smooth under his touch as Quick caressed it with his fingers, examining every surface of it.
"Odd thing to have...might be a trophy from a previous raid." he said out loud.
Without hesitation, Quick undid the latch and opened up the case.
Neko couldn't see it from her angle, but whatever what was inside made the mercenary's eyes light up as if he found a long lost treasure, and if she knew anything about long forgotten treasures, she's know what this immediately was as soon as Quick moved it from the case.
As his hand pulled away, she could see that it was a plain card, at least plain to her. It was slightly larger than your average playing card, but Quick was reading it as if it ancient script printed on the damned thing.
"The Beyond..." he said in a gasped whisper.
As Quick was admiring his new card, Neko examined the approaching wagons and men. When at first it was difficult to tell, now it was clear that these men had been into some rough fighting. A few of them were barely walking, while other mercenaries rode on the back of wagons with makeshift bandages wrapped around them. Thanks to their superior numbers and training, however, it seemed they fared much better than her group did.
No, you can't control a beast like that unless you make it fear you, and a large one like that, it'd take a lot of convincing to make it fear you.
Quick was still admiring the card when he answered her, but slowly put it away as the other mercenaries began to approach.
::Seeing the look in Quick's eyes, she instantly regretted handing the pendant over to him. She wasn't sure what it was, but she could tell right away that Quick knew. And that it was something powerful...
How was she to know? Thet thing could just as easily have had a picture of some relative inside. She seemed to remember Father mentioned magical cards in her lessons, but she could not for the life of her remember what He had said. That may have been because she had imediatly started wondering if hats with portals to pocket dimensions filled with rabbits would be the next topic...
So she hung her head and kicked at a loose rock while she thought things over. While out of the corner of her eye, she watched where Quick put the card and silently judged her ability to successfully lift it from him later...
Shrug
-Guess it was just coincidence then that they showed up the same time as the bandits. I didn't think they attacked in groups like that...
As for these guys...-
She kicked a body of a nearby bandit with her boot.
-I don't know why they would be here. Expanding territory?-
She wished now that she had taken the time to study the land around Wistvale more in her time here. Aside from her trip north to rescue Father, she had not ventured far from the town walls. ::
Neko being a talented thief, she instantly noticed that Quick placed the card in an inner coat pocket somewhere around the left breast. She was confident enough in her ability to easily snatch an item from that location, whether she could do it without Quick noticing was something else entirely.
In the brief time that they've spent together, all she could likely figure of Quick was that he was a capable fighter with poor humor, but otherwise knew his way around poor crowds and perhaps has dealt with thieves in the past.
The other unknown factor was the weapon he wielded and its properties. Whether it was a thing he controlled entirely with his will or was a weapon self aware, she couldn't know. The serpents were capable of flying as fast, if not faster than an arrow. More than that, though, he seemed to have taken a liking to her that didn't mean Quick wouldn't turn on her in an instant. After all, he surely knew that this vanguard would be mostly slaughtered by the attack, and Neko was in it.
If you want the truth of what I think, they were just out to make a profit back home. The Southern Sands are a thankless place, the people there know nothing but conflict. A scrap of food is hard to come by in most places, or so I hear.
As Quick communicated with Neko, the mercenary captains from before made their way toward them both.
"Lot of good this did then, eh?" "Well, Tallady will be happy to have gotten some of their bloody wagons made it through."
"Thanks to a couple of monsters, as you can see." Quick said, pointing out the troll bodies.
"Strange thing that, where did these monsters bloody come from? You don't see their like near civilization often, especially ones that size."
One of the men looked down to see the mess of bodies, but was more interested in the bandits, of course.
"What are this lot then? I never seen armor like that."
"Southern Sands," said Quick.
"You're full of shite, the hell would they be doing here then and what for? You'd never get all these goods back there from here."
Quick seemed to have been working out an answer to that since he first learned where these men came from, but now appeared more sure of himself ever since Neko discovered that card.
::Neko stepped forward and looked up to the Sellsword Leader, all thoughts of taking back the card pushed to the back of her mind...for now. Maybe an opportunity would come later, but in this moment she had questions and she felt Quick had the answers.
-You know something, don't you. Or at least highly suspect. And I believe it has something to do with that card I gave you. What is it?- ::