Kjan looked up in surprise to see the wagon steadily rolling away. "Oi! No no no!" he shouted quickly, waving his arms. "That's mine! Stop! Halt! Cease!" He attempted to run after them, only to find himself faced with another attacker. This really was not proving to be his day...

Ash paused in the woods. The former prisoners stopped as well, nervous. He could hear the faint sound of cries, clashing swords, and general commotion. "Stay here." he said to the group behind him.

He crept to the edge of the forest and looked down into the clearing. Men were fighting with men, and he caught a glimpse of the wagon he had been moving to join.
"Oi! No no no!" Ash could hear Kjan's voice rise above the clamor. He grunted, then hurried back to the group he had left in the woods.

"All of you stay here, and stay hidden." he said, then found the young men who had been watching the end of the line. "Can any of you fight?" he asked. The men nodded, and Ash handed his hunting knife to one of them. "Here you go-use it well. Sorry I don't have anything for you other gents, but if you find something to use for a weapon, feel free to join us. Just be sure to hurt the blokes in uniforms."

He and the young man ran off towards the fight.

Cato said "Well, then I shall leave...." then sighed and mounted his horse. He began to slowly move away.


OoC.Stop him if you would so like.

"Wait! Are you looking for the Phantom Grey?" she asked. Elizabeth wanted to know more about this masked stranger...

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(}--{)Imagination Inspires Ideas -Zandain(}--{)
Married Cloud Strife 9/17/08

The vigilante stopped his horse and turned about. Maybe she knows something? he asked himself. Cato called out "What do you know of him?!"

"That he'd set free some prisoners that were going to hung this morning. If you haven't already heard. If you follow the right path, you might be able to catch up to him. He's riding a carrage, so a single horse could find him," Elizabeth winced, maybe she shouldn't have said this. Of course, he certainly seemed to want to know about the Phantom. Then an idea popped into her head, that she was supprised she didn't think of before.
"Maybe the Phantom kidnapped my twin..." she murmered, it was barely audible...

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(}--{)Imagination Inspires Ideas -Zandain(}--{)
Married Cloud Strife 9/17/08

The mounted man heard her whisper and said "Ahhh......maybe we could have a mutual relationship. I myself must find this Phantom to restored order, and you to find family." He moved his horse next to her, and reached out a gloved hand to help her mount behind him.

Elizabeth hesitated, and glanced back toward the farm house. Her two younger siblings were still there. But she had always told them, when it was just her looking after them, that if she went away and din't come back, to stay about a day and then go find help. She looked back up at the masked stranger, and accepted his hand. She wanted to find her brother...

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(}--{)Imagination Inspires Ideas -Zandain(}--{)
Married Cloud Strife 9/17/08

Cato pulled her gently onto his horse and said "Now, where was this phantom reported to be heading. All I need is direction and place of departing."

"From the town he was going Northwest," Elizabeth said, putting her hands on his shoulders for support...

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(}--{)Imagination Inspires Ideas -Zandain(}--{)
Married Cloud Strife 9/17/08

One of his men went down, and another arrow nicked Falch'nus's leg. Heart leaping, he turned halfway around, eyes darting to and fro in search of the threat. He came up blank. One of the Phantom's lackeys? He rapidly signaled his archers and squinted against the sunset for the returning signal. He caught sight of the threat then, a figure crouched in a tree.

"Not a single move," he cautioned, not without a trace of anger. He valued the lives of all his guild members, and the dead man on the ground happened to be a close acquaintance. "I've three arrows with your name on it." He whirled back on the Phantom. Better compromise their target quarry quickly, before he summoned more reinforcements. "Sorry," he said with questionable sincerity.

A second later, his fist was coming fast and hard at Phantom Grey's temple.

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Heavens above, what a horse, Jais thought in no calm temperament as Threng's mare bucked and raked, sending enemies running amok. He was, of course, a massive help. Beautiful sunlight glinted off his beautiful scimitar as he slashed and lunged and committed beautiful homicide -

In short, he hung onto Threng for dear life the entire time.

He was quite adept at sneaking unnoticed into a nobleman's house, stealing some prize possession, and getting himself killed at the back door for an ill-fated wisecrack. Oh yes, his mad skills were boundless, but unfortunately for him at that very moment, surviving in all-out battle was not one of them.

On the bright side, clinging to Threng was.

And then the bounty hunters - or the few that remained anyway - were gone, vanished into the surrounding wood as if they'd never been. Call it a surrender of sorts. Blinking, Jais looked around. His face brightened. "That was fun! Oy, Kjan! How many did you kill?"

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Threng barely had time to crack another bounty hunter on the head before they suddenly dissapeared. On odd sensation filled his chest; was it air rushing into his lungs? Oh yes...Jais had been squeezing the life out of him. Of course, despite the deathgrip on his chest, Jais' desperate flailing had actually brought down a sizable amount of bad guys.

Nat struggled desperately against the urge that was pressing him to shut his eyes and bloody jump already. But down on the ground- there were swords and men using the swords, and men being used with the swords, and he rather didn't want to get in the midst of it. Besides, trying to control ravenous horses madly galloping off into the sunset wasn't near as bad as it sounded. It was charming, really.

"Bad beasts, baaad baaad horrid beasts!" he muttered, once again making deplorable attempts at reigning them in. How had he managed all those years working for a nobleman and never learning how to ride or drive a horse? The world may never know.

Fortunately enough, once the brawl stopped, the horses slowed up. Call it a bit of luck. Nataniel managed an auspicious grin, and nodded to the people in the back of the wagon. "See what the upper hand will do? Let it be a lesson to you in mastering the beasts of nature."

Thus saying, he swung down and headed off to find that man who had handed him the beasts in the first place, and give him a bloody nose as a thank-you present.

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<center>
"The piano is able to communicate the subtlest universal truths by means of wood, metal and vibrating air."

"One-and-a-half," Kjan replied with a grin that bordered on manic, wiping off one of his knives before sheathing it-- he wasn't about to leave himself completely weaponless just yet by putting away both. "I had halfway killed that last one when he ran off. Typical."

Shielding his eyes with one hand, he gazed down the road. "So...whaddya think the odds of the horses conveniently taking that wagon straight to the keep for...Uh-oh."

Coming down the road was the very man he had given the reins in the first place, and he didn't look happy at all. "Hello..." Kjan said nervously, slowly giving ground as the man advanced. "That was fun, no? Your own little slice of adventure? Courtesy of the man who just risked his life to save you, I might add?"

Without another word, Kjan took off at a sprint, rushing past the ungrateful man and straight down the road toward the wagon. "Time to go!" he called out with fake cheer, clambering up into the driver's seat once more. "If you're coming with us, the time is now! Better hurry before we fill up!"

The Phantom may have been aptly named - but it would take a god, not a phantom, to escape from this one. He went down like a stone, an ignanimous defeat for one of his caliber. He would later hope his reputation survived the blow. In any case, his greatsword hit the leaves a millisecond before he, but both lay motionless.

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"Hah! I beat you!" Jais cried, stabbing a taunting finger at the Phantom's little cook of questionable skill. Chest swelling, he had his disarming grin all prepared... when Kjan ran right past him to vault with even more questionable grace onto the wagon's driver seat. Startled, he intelligently fell off Threng's horse and charged right along after him. "I whacked two," he huffed, clambering into the drivers seat beside his cook friend of questionable skill. Deciding to be magnanimous, he waved an insouciant hand back at the Antisocial Assassin. "Threng helped."

A moment of dense silence. Something wasn't right. Pondering this, he glanced around. The lightbulb came on an instant later. "Did someone eat the Phantom?"

--------

At that exact moment in time, Phantom Grey was being dragged along, tied to a spit, roasting over an open fire surrounded by hungry cannibals and Captain Jack Sparrow.

Well, almost the same predicament. Minus the spit, open fire, cannibals, and Captain Jack Sparrow.

He was being dragged along though, escorted at a breakneck pace through the forest by no less than five bounty hunters with Falch'nus at their head. They broke through the dense underbrush on horseback, headed right back towards the city and the High Vizier himself. Falch'nus pulled his steed up right before the city gates.

The guards scowled. But then again, it was a guard's lot in life to scowl. "Your name," he barked. "There's been funny stuff going on in the city lately, and you better not be one of those street rats associated with Phantom - "

"You mean him?" replied the Guild Master, gesturing expansively at the bound gray-cloaked figure slumped over the saddle in front of him.

Needless to say, he got through the gates without further interrogation.

[feel free to wake up. by the way, who's playing the Vizier?]

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