Cicero Bladewalker & Dalious Durendail
Dalious didn't know if Finny was faking or not, but he took the act as a sign that it was time to attack regardless. Instead of focusing on Finny however, the gang suddenly turned their attention toward Cicero.
Dalious swung his pickaxe toward the foreman's neck, the pick plunged through, just missing the clavicle. Dalious had to use his leg to yank the tool from the man's neck. Red forcefully spurted out. Then the man gurgled, clutched his neck and fell to the ground in a pool of his own blood.
"I am Captain Dalious Durendail! Fiercest pirate of the deep blue sea. Prepare to die." As Dalious boasted in triumph over his foe, the bruiser took a swing at him with his own pickax. Dalious ducked underneath the blow.
Meanwhile, Cicero charged into two swings of his quiet opponents. One went wide, but the other met its mark. The impact bashed his gambeson and he winced in pain, but made no sound. He glared at him then plunged his dagger between the striker's ribs, and directly into his heart. Afterward, he turned to the other man and calmly stated,
"Drop it."Dalious nearly fell prone when he narrowly missed the bruiser's swinging attack. He pushed himself back up from the sand and raised his pickaxe to go on the offensive. His weapon cracked and broke apart as he held it, the end falling off the handle. All he could do was let out a disappointed sigh as the bruiser swung again toward him.
Dalious reacted almost to late, but just enough to avoid a fatal blow. The enraged bruiser's heavy swing just grazed across his ribs, cracking one of them as Dalious fell backward to the sand. The pain shot up his side like fire on flesh, causing a wince of discomfort from the pirate. He turned to look at the bruiser, knowing he had just been bested by a graze.
As be the large man came to finish him off all he could think of was,
'I'm about to die and we haven't even had breakfast'. Sure breakfast was just glowing mushroom fungus, but it was breakfast still.
Swift as an arrow, Cicero lunged into the bruiser's back full force with his dagger. After the strike to the man's right lung, Cicero rapidly stabbed the man's back while clutching his neck from behind. He repeatedly brought the weapon above and plunged downward over and over again. Blood drenched their garments. All the man could do was exhale sharply at each blow. Gradually, the exhales became less and less pronounced. Finally, the large muscled man collapsed to the floor motionless.
Cicero turned to the other man covered in blood and spoke calmly, yet authoritatively,
"On the ground, now." The man complied almost immediately as Cicero took the piece of rope that had strung Dalious' pickax and began to tie the man's arms behind his back.
"Is the wound bad?" Cicero inquired.
Dalious backed a few steps as he watched Cicero kill the man, ending up covered in his blood.
"Great job, though I had it covered," he said.
"I absolutely did not think I was going to die just now, heh...that would be foolish, heh. What? The wound? A mere scratch. Or...a cracked rib. Oh yeah most assuredly a cracked rib. Still better than those three got."He chuckled but immediately winced in pain again. He then walked over to Finny's body and knelt down to see if he was faking or not. The old man was dead. He said no words and just rested a hand on him for a moment. Letting out a sigh, followed by a wince, he stood again and turned toward Cicero.
"Bloody hell, we're keeping that one alive?" "Prisoners are a valuable source of intel. No military worth their salt denies the right of unconditional surrender. But as for your friend.." Cicero glanced over at Finny.
"I'm..sorry." Then he turned to their prisoner,
"We should hide the bodies. Do you know where the gangsters are and how many are left?" "Yes." Dalious walked over and punched their new prisoner in the stomach, for no real reason.
"There's this area, and this....hmmm...this here...". He began using his fingers to draw a map of the place into the sand. He spoke of all the likely places the guards might be.
"What do you think? Should we split up or take them down together? We have the element of surprise." "Maybe you could enlist the aid of some of your fellows. Surely the enemies numbers have been thinned out. I counted about 8 that came earlier. There are at least four remaining. With at few allies we could take them by surprise. That reminds me. Manzur's spear you hid in the sand back there. We could use it. I'll hide these ones if you go fetch it." Cicero began to drag the corpses of the three men into the mine and covered them with sandstone. The process took about 10 minutes.
Afterward, he picked up one of the fallen shovels. Then he turned to the tied gangster.
"Now for you.." The man began to sweat profusely.
"When the captain returns you're going to lead the way." Cicero said with a sly smile.
"The guards are too close to them all early in the day," Dalious told him.
"Rounding them up would work best closer to rest time. However, if they spot us rising up against the guards I've no doubts that they would quickly join us in the fight. They just need a little motivation is all. I'll fetch the spear!"As Cicero tended to the corpses, Dalious quickly ran back and recovered the spear. No one was around as the others were all still working, but just a matter of time until they came looking for them. Grabbing some mushrooms he hid under his bedding, Dalious stuffed his face with them before digging up the spear. While the spear was right where he'd buried it, he noticed that Cicero's companion was not. Returning to Cicero with spear in hand, the pirate told him what he had discovered.
"Your friend is gone. Perhaps we should move quickly." "Not there? Did he leave on his own or did someone abduct him?" Cicero reasoned. Then the thought occurred to Cicero he should inform the former pirate of his allies above,
"Unfortunate. I'm sure he got up, finding some place to lay low...By the way, Gwyn is above, you know. The elf? She is with a rogue-like woman with the gift of luck depending on the day. You'd probably take a liking to her in all honesty, but with your poor taste in women that may not be a good thing." Cicero chuckled playfully.
What would the duo do? Would they strike while the iron is hot before they are found out? Or would they wait until the work day was finished to make their move?"The gift of luck? Not sure what that means exactly but I've had my fair share of luck to know it is no gift. Regardless, we're gonna need all of this luck to help pull off what we're scheming. Let's go kill these f***ers!"
