Silk looked at Matthew with a look of open curiosity as if she was hanging on his every word, whether because of intoxication or charm was irrelevant as it was an act in any case. Her position relative to Matthew however allowed her to glance discreetly at the barkeep and his increasingly nervous disposition. Outside she could hear the sound of heavy boots gathering, at least half a dozen pairs of boots, possibly the same ones that she had heard earlier in the day. Either way it was not the city guard gathering outside. Nor would the city guard come running either. Coin would have already exchanged hands to assure that was the case. Meaning it was already too late to make a run for it, since she assumed that any other entrances would also have someone waiting there. She had no idea who was tracking her but they were good. Very good.

“There are six men, well equipped men, gathering out front and I imagine even more gathering around the back, so any moment now that door is going to get kicked in and all kinds of fun words are going to start getting thrown around,” Silk said with casual cheer as she reached to her side and withdrew a steel sword from its scabbard on her hip. “Words like ‘bitch’, ‘whore’, ‘half breed’ and other colourful terms of affection,” she carried on with an amused, unworried look on her face, as if this was a game she had played many times before. “But don’t you worry, I won’t let them say such mean things to you,” she said as she spun around on her seat and dropped to the ground with nary a sound. She chuckled cheerfully to herself. “We can negotiate your fee later, ‘kay?”

"Just find me a nice sword and we'll call it even." He spoke finishing his drink as turned and slowly got up as she spoke. His armor clanked a little as he walked over standing beside her drawing fire tome with a smile. "And even if they do call you those things I'll say this, your a wonderful polite woman with cute ears." He turned and smiled at her giving a little bow as the noise grew louder.

He turned aimed his spell at the door, he planned to give them a rude awakening when they came in. "However we have more pressing matters, I'll cook'em while you cut down anyone still moving. Lets not trash the place, I am staying at this little establishment and we will need somewhere to drink in peace when where done." He grinned and summon the fire ball to his hand, they would enter in a matter of seconds, so he greeted them properly with a fiery surprise.

Zaku nodded to the soldier, "Indeed that's a sound plan. Just make sure you don't get caught. If you're caught you put the girl's family in danger." Zaku commented plainly as the girl stopped walking as they came down too a large dojo along the edge of town. "You know this wasn't what I was expecting." Zaku said to the girl as she shook her head, "I'm sorry but I hope you'll still be able to help." the girl commented as Zaku chuckled and shook his head. "No it's much simpler this way. Are either of you silent enough and able to climb up too the roof without getting noticed? If not then I'll go. The climber will then sneak in through a window upstairs and or whatever they can get into and see if they can find a way to get around and behind the people who are undoubtedly waiting for her in the main room. They'll save anyone they can while not putting the girl in danger. We only need one person to go up the other two should wait somewhere outside but nearby so that they can charge in and surprise anyone in there who is not taken out by the climber. Does that sound like a plan that you two are willing to follow? It relies a lot on not letting them hear us and if they do the girl and her family and the other prisoners are going to be harmed for sure. A lot of pressure indeed."

The Corpse Raiders as they liked to call themselves were not the most intellectual of fellowships in Ylisse, they had simple tastes and often employed simple plans. Simple but very often very effective plans. They were the kind of people you hired if it was a blunt force approach that was required, rather than a more delicate touch. Which is why they employed a plan that should have worked. It had been simple enough; kick the door in, make a commotion, be loud, identify the girl, rough her up a bit and then cart her away into the night while the city watch turned a well-paid blind eye. Maybe she fought back, maybe she ran, either way it would have ended more or less the same. What could one girl alone do, even if she was a half breed?

In that regard their employer in the capital had been very specific that she not be killed and provided that she was in a good enough condition to talk they could do with her as they liked. It was always nice when jobs came with perks. The only part they took offence to was the messenger who still accompanied them, sent by their employer to ensure his orders be carried out no doubt. However they could not complain in the grand scheme of things, he had been able to predict and follow the half-breeds movements to the letter, leading them to this very tavern. The tavern keeper had already been informed of his role in the plan. And paid for his silence. However the messenger was gone now, as if summoned away on some urgent business.

It was a good plan, which was why it came as something of a surprise when three burly leather and chain clad men burst into the tavern that they were immediately met with a torrent of wizard’s fire. However the order to attack had been given and so without thought it would invariably be followed through, the burning men pushed aside in the confusion as armoured men with weapons drawn tried to force their way through their burning comrades. Some joined them in the flame but most got through, advancing with weapons drawn and teeth bared.

"Silk, I could use a little help." Spoke the tactician dancing around weapons strikes and unleashing fire where he could. This was bad, magic was medium ranged kinda thing and fire especially could be dangerous if not properly aimed. So as he dodged and weaved the first axe wielder came rushing at him burying the hatchet in the wooden wall, Matthew gave him punch across the face then gave his friend a boot in the gut before rolling away. He wasn't as graceful as a thief but he could be light on his feet when wanted to. Sadly his kicks and punches while painful did not leave them unable to fight. A quick fire spell however immolated the one with his axe stuck in the barroom wall. "You guys are terrible, you telegraph your moves and you rely on sheer strength to make up for brainless tactics. Silk could have taken you by herself." He chuckled really hoping Silk had found him a sword by now.

Silk could when she so desired play quite the elegant, delicate young woman. She did not fight like one however. The first man to approach her was allowed to grab her, only to be rewarded with a knee to the groin as she was pulled toward him, causing him to collapse to the ground in a groaning heap. Silk pushed him aside and dodged to the side as a second man tried to grab her, her clawed fingers slicing across his face and eyes. It was not a crippling blow and her opponent pulled away from her before she could finish him off. By now her assailants would have realized the cost of a reckless lunge and would approach her in an organised manner if she let them. If that happened it was as good as over, even with a mage at her back.

“What kind of mercenary doesn't carry a sword?” she said in a cheerful, almost conversational manner just as a chair came flying through the air from in front of her, crashing into the wall behind her. The chair had been a surprise to the man in front of her as well, causing them both to dodge out of the way. It seemed that some of the more rowdy customers were in a fighting mood and had joined in the fracas. The Raiders had clearly not considered the mood and the amount of alcohol present. Taking the opening Silk rolled out of the way of a third man and scoped up the sword discarded by the man still groaning on the floor. Silk kicked him again just to be sure.

“This is not the kind of service I expected!” she said jokingly as she slid the blade across the open ground toward Matthew.

Matthew chuckled snatching up the iron blade blocking the strike of another sword wielder as swiftly buried the blade in the mans neck. "I'm terribly sorry miss Silk, I will do better in the future." He found a moment to bow like a butler before rushing at another foolish bandit, kicking him into the crowd which preceded to beat on him. "So Silk tell me, things always this interesting with you around." He laughed as he dodged and parried to different swords men. Both backing him along the room, Matthew's back found the wall as they both lunged he rolled between cutting them both along the legs. Leaving those two to tend there wounds he moved to Silks side. "Perhaps we should take the party elsewhere? To many people for us show everyone a good time." He said holding spell book at his side and blade out as defensive weapon. He took a glance at the girl he was fighting with, Silk was tougher than she looked and even with his help she seemed to exactly how to handle this.

"I'm a solid climber and willing to go since it's my plan i shall take the risk."said Zack as he stopped walking and looked at the surroundings near the dojo. "Don't worry young miss we will rescue your friend just stay hidden and do what my friends here say and you will be fine and we will have your friend back safely in no time at all." he said to the young girl as he gave her a pat on the head and smile."So are we all agreed on the matter?" asked Zack as he looked to the others well strapping his lance and shield onto his back ready to climb.

"I have no problems to the contrary unless he has something to say." commented Zaku with a shrug. He really couldn't care less about what happened to the girl. This was just his good act for the day. Something he can go preach to Naga about when he finally passed away. "So that leaves me and the good gentlemen to my left to go and attack the guards. Do you think you can handle quick, clean, and fast death? You seemed to be more heavy handed in your mannerisms than myself. Heavy fighting won't get us far at the start. It's if they bring out anyone fast that you need to be there to stonewall them."

Samuel stood there as the plan was being set. "Yeah, I'm fine killing the guards as fast as possible." In truth he was not thrilled with the idea of teaming up with this Zaku character as a person but he had seen what he could do in the arena so he was sure as a fighter he was in good hands. That thought brought something to Samuel's attention. "Hey I saw you in the arena today. I sure do hope this doesn't mean that you too tired to keep up or too injured to take the first hit here."He said as he begun preparing his blade for a decent fight. Well either way that this conflict turned out it was what Samuel wanted. He came here to have a good fight and from the look of things that is what he was going to get.

"Huh so you were there hm? Well if my composure is in question I assure you that I am fine. I trained with a strong trainer and I've dealt with combat sessions longer than that arena scrap. However I still have a burning sensation on my body from those light spells hitting me." Zaku said as he looked at his scorched armor. He still was ashamed of letting himself get burned. It was a annoying turn of events. "Well what are you waiting for soldier boy go get climbing and be as silent as possible. We'll wait two minutes before sending in the girl to get the distraction going then we'll storm in and murder everyone once we hear a commotion happening."

Silk smashed a chair over the back of a man’s shoulders, causing him to reel away from her in a defensive manner. “No, this is a slow day, there hasn’t been a murder yet or anything!” she called back to Matthew while parrying a clumsy axe blow, directing the blade into the table beside her. The loss of momentum left her assailant open to a thrust from her sword, however instead of the tip she head-butted him instead, his broken nose denoted by a sickening crunch of cartilage. He fell away, clutching his nose in a protective manner as blood gushed between his fingers.

The blow left Silk dazed for a brief moment, recovering just in time to avoid being grasped by a man who had thrown himself through the air toward her. Had he connected no doubt she would have been out for the count. As it was he went crashing into the table behind her with a loud thud, followed by the sound of breaking glass. More still followed in his wake however, forcing her to retreat in Matthew’s direction, where they ended up back to back. The Raiders, bloody and bruised encroached on them, grouped together in a defensive manner. Some of them had even had the foresight to deploy shields. Surrounded like this it would only be a matter of time before they were beaten by numbers alone.

“This tavern is starting to feel a little crowded, feel taking this outside boys?” Silk said aloud, her smile suddenly bright and cheerful. “Ta-Da!” she announced happily as she lifted an oil lantern that she had just ‘acquired’ in front of herself. She let in hang in the air for a moment. Most of the Raiders simply glared or leered incredulously at the gesture. One or two were a little quicker on the uptake, making the connection between ‘oil’, ‘fire’ and ‘wizard’. Silk lobed the lantern into the air above them.

Matthew would do the rest. In the ensuing explosion they would be able to make a break for the street.

Matthew smiled. "And now for my next trick, I'll immolate a bunch of pricks!" He laughed and let a fire ball fly. The spilled alcohol combined with with the oil explosion did more than just distract them, it cause to catch on fire, luckily the stone floor prevented the entire place from burning down as Matthew pushed right past them and out the door. "Silk you amaze me, think there stupid enough to keep trying to kill us?" He said questioningly, however it was answered when more burst out, some not even realizing the fire that had sprouted on them.

Matthew sighed and readied himself for there strike. "Next time we fight enemies with at least one brain cell." He spoke dodging an axe thrown out the door of the place. "Okay, lets get smart about this, we find whose in charge and put a knife to his throat. Only way these idiots are going to stop coming, I'll hold them back you find the leader then we take him." He said deciding to take the fight seriously for a moment.

The brawl in the bar was suddenly interrupter as a group of guards stormed in. "Hey what the hell is going on in here!? This is supposed to be a peaceful freaking festival under orders of the Exalt herself! Unsanctioned fighting in not allowed now who the hell are the aggressors in this!?" demanded the guard at the front. By the looks of him he was a seasoned knight. There were four guards behind him and were all clearly trained soldiers. "And who the flying fuck is retarded enough to use a fire spell in doors you insolent dumbass little prick!? You could've burned down the whole bar!? Do you have even a remote amount of common freaking brain cells!? Half the stuff in here is wood for Naga's sake you incredulous fuck boy! WELL WHAT DO YOU PEOPLE HAVE TO SAY FOR YOURSELVES!?" shouted the captain pounding his heavy lance into the floor with authority. He spoke with a mixture of disbelief, anger, annoyance, and flat our disgust about everyone in the bar even the ones who didn't do anything wrong.

Zack moved slowly down a small alley a street over from the dojo and slowly advanced looking for any sentry on the lookout, once he felt sure there was no sentry he double checked his equipment making sure nothing was loose he looked to the neighboring building and saw it was shorter than the dojo,he took a small running start and jumped his finger tips wrapping around the edge of the buildings roof he felt strain run through his arms as he pulled him self up onto the roof. He spun around and got a firm grip on the roof of the dojo and lifted him self onto it's roof and moved slowly across the roof to minimize noise and found a small open panel. He slowly lift the panel and once he had enough clearance he lowered him self onto a cross beam and lowered the panel behind him. He moved slowly keeping his balance as he moved from beam to beam until he had a clear view of the main room of the dojo.

Samuel heard the boy's reaction before the soldier embarked in his overly complicated path into the building. In this situation Samuel was never going to understand because he preferred to keep his feet standing on the ground unless he rode his horse. True there was no fighting going on up there but the idea of a battle on something like a bridge or unstable territory did not give Samuel a good feeling. After the soldier was gone Samuel thought it was time to reveal his source of concern. "I'm not too worried about you getting pelted with spells. Heck we could spent the next two minutes find a mage to blast you some more. What I am concerned about was if you would be able to swing that sword all day or am I going to fighting the last guy with nothing more than moral support because you pulled a shoulder." He quietly bantered.

"I'm ambidextrous. I am just as good with my right hand as I am with my left. Don't think down on me as some sort of worm. I'm not fodder." Zaku commented as he pushed his hair away from his eyes. He looked up and saw the soldier had finally gotten into the house. "Now if your done questioning my competence soldier please follow me and do you best not to alert any guards. You're bound to make much more noise in that armor than me in this leather vest." said Zaku as he looked at the little girl. "Don't do anything stupid." Zaku told her sternly as she nodded and shivered a little. She was afraid of him...figure out the little girl who wouldn't be afraid of him and Zaku will show you a fool. Zaku swiftly moved making very little noise. It was if a rat was scurrying down the alleyway. He knelt down in order to sneak by the windows around the dojo as he heard a man or two walking around the area and he didn't wish to screw anything up. The building was wider than it looked and it took much more time then expected to get around it into the backyard. "Oh glorious..." Zaku thought to himself as he saw before him three men in myrmidon garb and an archer conversing around a group of people. Most likely kidnapped from the festival in some way, shape, or form. "Well that just put a hole in my plan...should we try and get them all now or should we wait? If we attack we run the risk of the people in doors finding out about our friend and murdering anyone else inside there or taking them away. But if we don't do anything immediately we'll run the risk they'll flank us and make our plan more complicated. I say ignore them. They're worth more trouble than they're worth."
===
The inside of the dojo was quiet and dirty but otherwise it held only a couple of people. However as Zack quickly found himself in the main room of the dojo he spotted a large man with a big axe and a man who looked liked a thief. Beside him was a simple looking man in archer armor but he had no weapon on him. "..It seems that girl is taking much longer than expected what now boss?" asked the thief to the large man as the barbarian shook his head. "We'll bring'em the the boys outside the city what else?" retorted the barbarian as he made a disgusting comment regarding the women of the group which caused him to laugh as the archer looking gentleman simply looked at the man. "But sir how will we get past the guards." asked the archer as the barbarian turned his back to the thief and looked at the archer. "What did you not get briefed on that you dumbass? Fine I'll show you later I'll give the girl one more hour since I'm feelin' generous."

Silk took a moment to catch her breath, dusting herself off while casually side stepping an axe that came hurtling from the tavern interior. The explosion had given her a moment of respite, as well as some degree of initiative. She could ill afford to squander it by rash action. The situation was becoming complicated. Normally she would have agreed with Matthew’s assessment of the situation, that the best way to kill the snake would be to remove its metaphorical head. However it was his comment as to the hordes combined intellect, or lack thereof that made her consider a different approach. She was about to voice her plan when her ears pricked up at a sound that was all too familiar to someone in her line of work.

“As lovely as that sounds we need to leave, now. The guard will be here soon. Looking the other way is one thing, letting the city burn down is another,” Silk said with obvious meaning as she motioned to the commotion emanating from inside the tavern. She motioned toward a side street and headed into the darkness that it provided. It was a dead end but the wall at the far end was relatively low. She wandered over to it. She could scale it easily enough on her own. “You know, burning down a city isn’t something you do every day, you might want to keep a low profile, at least for a few days,” she said as she offered him a leg up should he need it. The sound of armour was getting closer.

Once on the other side Silk carefully scanned the area before advancing into another side street, equally dark and dismal with only the faintest glimmer of illumination from above to light their path. The sound of the commotion was broken up now by the sound of an angry, authoritarian voice that with each step faded into the background. “Those idiots didn’t have the combined brain cells to track me down, not to that tavern, let alone this city. The fact that they were waiting for me on some highroad is even more suspicious.”

Silk increased her pace slightly, eager to be away when the arrests started getting made. “Whoever sent them knows me. Knows me well enough to predict my movements in advance. That’s a pretty exclusive club,” Silk said thoughtfully. It meant that whoever it was that had commissioned this little romp was most likely someone she knew. It was highly unlikely they would have come in person. More than likely they had hired a middleman, and a good one at that.

---

The thing about fire is that, well, it is hot. It burns. It does not induce calm states of minds in those that it has touched in any meaningful way. Anger, pain, confusion, rage but never calm. Which was why the current leader of the still smouldering Corpse Raiders turned on the approaching guard with the fury of an unbridled sea storm. A bad idea in retrospect, despite a clear height advantage over even the tallest guard by a clear head. “And who the fuck invited you!? You parade ground prancing piece of fifth! You tossers were paid well to look the other way, now do what you are told and look the other fucking way!” he shouted in reply, realization slowly dawning on him that this man did not look like any normal city watchman.

Unfortunately the current leader of this particular band of raiders was not a man well equipped to dig himself out of such situations and so soldiered on regardless. The brute force approach. He pointed out of the door to some men who had managed to stumble outside. “Find the bitch, gut the wizard!” He then looked at the knight with obvious disdain. “Out of my way lickspittle.”

"You know what?" The knight said with a look of pure disdain as he marched directly up to the man and looked him directly in the eyes and stared into the bandit's face as if he simply wanted to strangle the man. "I don't like your attitude big guy." The knight said as he surprisingly quickly slugged the man so hard in the face not only did it scratch some of the man's skin off, not only did it nearly break the man's jaw, but it also knocked him out cold. One of the guards nearby walked over to the man and grabbed him for good measure. "Should've known better than to call the knight of the deadlands a lickspittle. Surprised he didn't even recognize the guy." commented one of the soldiers and the knight walked over to the bartender and pulled out his wallet and slammed down some money. "That should cover all expenses. Sorry for the trouble." the man said humbly to the bar keep who was terrified out of his mind as the guards matched out of the bar.

Matthew ducked and followed her avoiding the guards, he didn't want to be held responsible for damages to the tavern. As he followed her he smiled. "Let give whoever it is someone else's movement to predict he doesn't know me and he doesn't know where I'm staying. I'm renting a room at inn not far from here, I dropped girl Isabelle knocked out over there before I came to meet you. Lets head there and talk, you can sort this out away from where the walls have ears." He said looking to beggars and shady merchants lining the streets any of them willing to sell info for a good price. It was brought on thoughts of homes were assassins used beggars and poorly paid servants as means to learn about and find there marks.

"If you are being hunted then it's best to be off the streets anyway. There are always more like the brutes we faced back there and plenty who can actually fight." He started towards the market, his was close to palace meaning many more guards and lot less tolerance for fighting even if you paid for it. It was three story stone building, complete with marble floors and well dressed servers. "No one would expect to find you here, to many guards and to expensive for many peoples tastes." He spoke, he didn't care for the place much more than likely he was here because it was safe from thieves and had better beds for weary travelers.