TheWizardLizard

Cinder Sickness - A DnD style classic RP

Tobias turned and raised his mug to Hugh. "Oh, hey, there he is." He furrowed his brow at the man's confrontational stance and aggressively loud question. "Uh, what demons? Just the one, remember, from the apothecary. Z... something, he said his name was." The thief paused for a moment. "I-it was just the one, right? There weren't... more that I didn't see? That would be bad."

A stranger sitting next to Tobias tapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, bruv. I've got a set of clothes just like that."

"Weird," the thief responded automatically, sipping from his mug. Just then, his sharp ears caught a shout from outside and he surged to his feet. This wasn't happening. This wasn't happening.

This was totally happening, it became apparent as he ran outside the inn and beheld what was on the horizon. There was a small army bearing down on the village, all sorts of bandits and slavers and beasts among their numbers.

Everywhere people were running, making a mad dash for whatever sanctuary they could find. It wasn't going to matter, though - these bandits, these slavers - they'd burn down every house, take everything they wanted, and drag off anyone they thought was valuable.

Tobias leaned back against the wall of the inn, his head swimming from alcohol and bloodloss. No, there wasn't time for that. The thief had been in a lot of close scrapes while more impaired than this, and so he bit his cheek and willed his head to clear, for now at least, while he analyzed the situation.

The situation, incidentally, was totally fucked. Fiona was gone, the elf with the axe was gone, crazy Sana was gone, the orc with the bone was gone, the goblin was gone. All that was left to defend the town and the orphanage - fucking orphans - was a wizard who kept passing out, Big Brut Pally Hugh, a bare-handed bald man, and a bizarre corpse. And me.

Tobias didn't know how to fight, but he knew how to decieve. Sleight of hand, acrobatics, misdirection. Tobias drew his daggers and began stepping, almost serene, against the river of people running for safety. He could do this. It'd be like a burglary, a con, a pickpocketing... but with more, you know. Pain and stabbing. And if that didn't work, he had a secret weapon up his sleeve. He hoped the apothecary was as good as he said he was.

Resolute, doomed and scared shitless, the thief waited for the storm to break.

Cinder Sickness - A DnD style classic RP

I'll take 3.

Cinder Sickness - A DnD style classic RP

Tobias took a long pull of the drink in front of him. It tasted like a sweaty pig smelled, but the rogue figured a few mugs of it would do the trick.

His plan to drink himself into a stupor was interrupted early on, however, when the groggy-looking sorcerer pulled up a seat next to him. "Oh, hey, sleeping beauty. Have a nice nap?"

The wizard wanted to know what had transpired, and Tobias rubbed his brow with a sigh. "Let's see, what'd you miss. Well, you may or may not have seen Sana go skullfuck crazy, and I'm being literal about that - she managed to get one of those guys to tell her where their camp was, then murdered him. Her, Fiona, the elf, the goblin, and the orc-thing went off to go find more people to kill, I told them off and stayed here. Baldy sided with me and carried you in here, he and the corpse are out burying dead bodies, I think. Big Brut Pally Hugh's around here somewhere, and the demon's... actually, I don't really know where the demon is." The rogue wrung his hands nervously. "That's not what you want, is it? Want to keep track of the... demons..." he trailed off.

The rogue regarded the wizard and shrugged. "Well, in any case, those guys should be back by tomorrow, doubtless knee-deep in blood. Not sure what's gonna happen then, but hey, at least we got a few quiet hours without any stabbings."

Cinder Sickness - A DnD style classic RP

Tobias snorted in amusement as Sana's retort bounced off his back. He flung the door open to the inn and allowed Hanzo to enter, bearing the wizard Melvus over his shoulder. Before he retreated inside, the thief stuck his head out once more. "Tell yourself whatever you have to, Sana. I don't give a shit," he said, and slammed the door.

He glanced around the inn to find a room full of people staring at him. Tobias looked down at his clothes and beheld them soaked in blood and slashed to ribbons. "... Oh." The crowd was silent, and Tobias waved their gazes away, exhausted. "Don't worry, the bad people are gone," he said, unsure of who he was talking about.

The monk had inquired as to his well-being, and Tobias sighed. "Oh, I don't know, I stubbed my toe something dreadful out there. I also got a little bit disemboweled, killed a man, and saw more horrible things than I'm going to be able to have nightmares about, so it's really not been the best day." He shook his head. "When I saw her... pull that shit with the arrow, I thought she was just crazy. Sounds like it's even worse, though: she thinks she's justified."

Without waiting for a reply, the thief marched up the stairs (gripping the bannister tightly as he did so - he was still pretty woozy from blood loss) of the inn. None of the doors to the rooms were locked, so it was quite simple to rifle through them until he found a set of clothes that could replace the blood-soaked ones he was wearing. The thief got dressed quickly, a skill learned from many early-morning escapes, and proceeded back down the stairs, hoping that the owner of his new clothes wouldn't notice.

He was in luck, as every eye in the building was fixed on a stranger sight - that zombie from earlier had brought a corpse inside. Tobias rubbed his temples and resolved not to deal with it.

"Something strong, please," he asked a nearby barmaid, and moved into the crowd to look for Hanzo. On first impression, Tobias wouldn't have trusted the monk, but he'd seemed to side with the thief in the conflict of 'sanity versus bloodthirstiness', so clearly he wasn't all bad. Worth getting drunk with, at least.

Cinder Sickness - A DnD style classic RP

Bring them to the inn - that's shaping up to be B Team headquarters.

Cinder Sickness - A DnD style classic RP

Tobias was still rolling his shoulders as he sauntered up to the rest of the group. Vaeri had just finished healing an unconscious wizard, the goblin was running around nearby, there were corpses everywhere, and a massive orc-looking... thing was siting calmly, vigorously working lubricant into the shaft of his bone.

Tobias was, for reasons he couldn't put his finger on, quite relieved to see Fiona was alive, at least. Not only that, but she'd also acquired a prisoner. Tobias watched the interrogation with morbid, horrified attention, turning a very distinct shade of green as he did so.

Sana was crazy. Stark raving out of her mind. She was twirling an eye, an actual human eye, around on an arrow like a fancy hors'dourve. Tobias had known people like that, and none of them he would ever want to work with.

He stood, paralyzed, while the interrogation closed. He watched speechless as she executed - murdered - the man kneeling in front of her. It was brutal, barbaric. Insanity. And now they were going back for more. Sana wanted to go after the rest of them, and was asking for volunteers. Already, the strange orc-thing, the elf who'd saved his life, and even Fiona - sweet, naive, innocent Fiona - had agreed to go with her.

Without knowing what he was doing Tobias stepped forward and opened his mouth. "You people are fucking insane."

The silence hung in the air like a corpse from a noose. Clenching his fists, Tobias continued. "No, I mean it. You just killed him, Sana. He's dead now. D-E-A-D. You didn't like him, so you shoved an arrow through his eye socket. He did what you asked, told you what you wanted to know, and you fucking killed him anyway. That's not acceptable, that's not what people do."

His voice gained power as he paced back and forth, trying to make furious eye contact with every one of them. "I know what you're thinking - here comes the criminal, lecturing us about right and wrong. And yeah, I'm a thief. I lie and cheat and steal for a living, I do a lot of bad things, but I don't kill people. I just killed someone for the first time in my life, and it was in self-defense, and I think it may have been the worst thing... ever. But you people? You made a fucking day of it. And you didn't just kill these people, you butchered them! Look around!"

The thief stopped and pointed to a skull at his feet. "Someone was cutting out skulls. That's delightful. I'm glad to be a part of their team." He walked another few steps to where something shiny lay in the ground. Picking it up, he displayed it to the group. "A fork. It has blood on it. Someone stabbed somebody with this." He walked another few feet and pointed to a foul-smelling, vaguely human shaped lump of charred flesh and ashes. "What the fuck am I looking at right now? Can anyone tell me? Was this ever even a fucking person?"

Another brief walk - this time, he held a mangled dead body up. The spine was snapped, the neck was shredded, the face (eyes in particular) were puddles of gore. Tobias felt his stomach turn as he displayed the corpse. "AND WHAT IN THE NAME OF HOLY FUCK HAPPENED TO THIS GUY?"

Tobias dry heaved a little as he let the body collapse, then straightened back up to face the others. "You say these guys were kidnappers, slavers? Stop them, by all means. Rough them up, imprison them, 'bring them to justice', all that shit people are always trying to do to me. But don't pretend this was anything other than a massacre. And if you guys are going to go hunt for more of this? Good luck and leave me out of it."

It occured to Tobias that Sana could probably kill him now if she wanted - she had a bow, and he was still too woozy to be dodging arrows. Fucking... whatever.

The thief turned and walked back towards the inn. "Try to have fun, dearies. I'll be here in case you decide to start saving orphans again."

Cinder Sickness - A DnD style classic RP

Group B. Jesus, Mary and St. Joseph, Group B.

The Kin Bane - A Wild West Style Undead Hunting Campaign - Closed

Bill raised his eyebrows as the sheriff blew through the office like a hurricane. The lawman was obviously having a stressful day, but this talk of men who wouldn't stay dead? That was confusing. Clearly, the bounty hunter's killing shots hadn't been quite as lethal as they all would have liked. Would have taken a real clever man to play opossum and fool so many people, though, and Bill found himself wondering just what kind of town the sheriff was running here.

Well, nothing for it but to talk to this Ang person, whoever that was. This whole business was crazy, but he had nothing else to go on, and he'd be damned if he'd give up his hunt now after coming so close. The marshal stepped into the back room to find it empty.

"...Huh." Whoever Ang was, they seemed to have left through the back door, seeing as how it was open into the night. What was more, there was a sound coming from that direction - a queer sort of whistling. Something about that noise sent a chill down the old man's spine, and a thought pushed its way to the front of his mind: That ain't natural. He pushed it back down just as fast, took his rifle from his back, and stepped through into the moonlit night to follow the noise.

Bill had seen a lot of things in his long life: a lot of death, pain, and misery. He'd had a lot of long chases, a lot of bad scraps, and a lot of hungry nights. He'd heard wolves bay for his blood and stared down the barrel of Confederate rifles. But something about that night, how big the moon was in the sky, how twisted all the silhouettes of the buildings seemed, how shrill that godawful whistling was... it spooked him.

He wasn't following long before he arrived on a disturbing scene. A small group of people were facing down a solitary figure - one of them, the woman he'd seen earlier, was pointing a rifle at him. At the figure's feet there was a man, unconscious, his shirt torn away. Whatever the strange man had in mind for that poor soul, Bill was prepared to guess that it wasn't wholesome. The whistling was coming from nearby, though nobody seemed to be making it - more like it was just emanating from around them.

All these things were more minor details, however, compared to the two things that grabbed the Marshal's attention. One, the figure's face was unmistakably Westbrook, and two, he was armed in a way Bill had never seen before. There was something on his fingertips, long, sharp, like claws. The old lawman didn't much want to see what the killer could do to a person with those.

Bill took aim at Westbrook's center of mass, steadied his rifle, and announced his presence with a shot. What happened next, nothing on this earth could explain - Westbrook swerved away from the bullet, faster than any person should be able to move. Cursing, Bill loaded another shot and yanked the bolt back on his rifle, taking aim once again. Something queer was going on here, and Bill would find out what it was just as soon as this murdering sonofabitch was dead - not one second sooner.

Cinder Sickness - A DnD style classic RP

Tobias was bleeding to death. The terrible gash in his chest was oozing red, creating an extending pool of blood mingling with that of the corpse next to him. The rogue couldn't stop it, he couldn't stand up, couldn't do anything. He tried to call for help and all that came out of his mouth was a sort of... raspy gurgle. He couldn't even reflect on his choices, decide just where he'd went wrong that had landed him gutted like a fish in some back alley, couldn't conjure up any charming last words or dying hopes. He couldn't think of anything but the terrible hole right through the middle of him, and how much he really, really didn't want to die.

A face swam in front of him, strange and beautiful and webbed with scars. The elf. "I am a holy woman, you can trust me to be able to heal your wounds," she said, in a voice soft like pine needles. The rogue stared back at her, whimpering nothing in particular - Tobias didn't even know what he'd say if he could say anything.

She put her hands to his chest and he was filled with an entirely alien sensation. A deep sense of wellness filled him, as though the whole world wanted very urgently to tell him something: that he had done well, and had nothing more to fear, that he was a warrior and he would not die today. The flesh on his chest began to knit itself closed like it was just waiting for someone to ask it nicely. When the healing was done, Tobias let out a few wet coughs.

The rogue sat up and beheld the scene. He was absolutely covered in blood, both his and his foe's. In front of him was the elf, still looking at him, and past her... the dead body of the man he's killed.

Tobias rolled to the side and retched. When he was finished, he looked back to the elf, holding a hand out to him. Warily, he leaned back against the wall and scrambled to his feet on his own.

"Um... thank you," he said. "Not that I, you know, needed it, I was doing fine on my own. Just a papercut, really, could have walked it off. Wish I could say the same for this guy, but, uh... guess that's what he gets for crossing Fortune and Glory here." The rogue held up his arms to flex them and jumped slightly when a an old man tapped on his back. Tobias recognized him as the apothecary.

"For you," he said, handing him a few vials of clear grey silvery liquid. "Invisibility potions. They work for fifteen minutes."

The rogue accepted them with a nod. "Uh... thanks," he said, but the man had already moved on to hand something to Vaeri, uttering a brief explanation before he left the pair. Tobias was just thinking of what to say next when his eyes caught Vaeri's hand on her side, red between her fingers. "Oh, shit, you're hurt." And she'd chosen to heal him instead? ... Weird. The rogue offered his shoulder to the elf to lean on. "Uh, come on. We should get you to someone who can patch that up."

Cinder Sickness - A DnD style classic RP

@TheWizardLizard Looks like someone gets a visit from Good Doctor Goblin.

@Horrid

*incoherent whimpering noises*