I'm not actually going to storm up and kill them, am I? No, that would be stupid. There are loads of them and one of me. The voice inside Lysan’s head that told him he should walk up and slay the bandits battled fiercely. It was winning of course, it normally did – the amount of time he’d been in trouble because of it was something to look at. So far, he’d been lucky – he had a 100% record of not dying, but he knew it wasn’t going to last forever. In two short years he’d been falling at the bottom of caves, hurtling off the tops of mountains, trapped in a large house with a very dangerous and somewhat bloodthirsty homicidal lich chasing after him. He’d had some close shaves, especially when the knife blade hit his eye and cut the short beard he’d been growing. Life hadn’t been the same since – everything was grey, black and very occasionally white.

Mostly, Lysan was proud of not dying. He was really quite boastful when it came to telling other people about his encounters – he thought it would be something to tell his grandchildren, if he survived that long. He looked forward to it, being able to finally rest without someone wanting to stick a sword in his guts. He was thinking about his fights as he followed the several bandits back to what he thought was there camp. And thinking further, he realized that he hadn’t particularly helped his career. Being a bounty hunter for a short time had been a down time, with vengeful brothers of clients coming after him with poison and the like – it was weird, he thought, the way that the poison always showed up in his drinks because of its reddishness. He didn’t get why people didn’t just come up to him and stab him – he wasn’t exactly very good at fighting. Though, he appreciated the fact that they didn’t know this, and it was probably one of the reasons he was going to get slaughtered today. The battle inside his head raged, and another voice picked up on the fight and joined in the side of the “don’t die, I really enjoy living.” It was smaller and quieter than he’d expected – knowing it would come up eventually. It always did, and he systematically lost the argument. Well, I guess I’d better get this over with then. No point in hanging about and waiting for them to come and find me, is there?

It really was a stupid idea, he thought as the bandits reached their camp. The side that had lost the battle was hiding in the far corner of his mind, wishing they’d stayed out. Meanwhile, the other team was busy making up strategies, most of which were far-fetched and basically impossible. He nearly laughed out loud at one such ridiculous example – make a bow out of a nearby branch and shoot all of them within the time space of three seconds. How his mind acted when he was nervous. Lysan had gathered by now that he wasn’t very smart – intelligence was a trait that had somehow evaded his family. He wasn’t thick either, but parked on the bridge between intelligent and thick. The problem was, the bridge was trying to fall down and the water below was being very rough indeed. But then, looking hard at the grayish figures around the messy and chaotic array of tents and open fires that are really very bandit-like, a helicopter picked him up and gave him a free lift home – which was on fire. Sure the plan was working till he slipped, and it wasn’t his fault he hadn’t seen those extra few guards that were walking towards him in the swagger that all guards employ when they’ve just nicked someone. It was a swagger very hard to perfect, and the two coming towards him had had lots of practice. Lysan also suspected that they’d had lots of practice with the huge, pointy spears they were carrying – almost casually – towards him. Damnitdamnitdamnitdamnit. The word repeated over and over inside Lysan’s head, as the two guards picked him up from inside the pit he was lying in. What were the chances of stepping on the only trap in the area? Nothing was particularly hurting, he noted, but soon it would all explode. That was what usually happened.

The sun was still out, and Nyla felt its heat on her back her hand on her dagger ears perked for any sound, soon the crakling of fires and foot steps reached her and she slipped behind a tree. Pulling the dagger free of its sheeth, she reached up to the make shift blindfold she had made years ago, and tightened the knot, it would quite unfortunate for it to come off in the middle of battle. Her eyelids closed over her purple eyes. Listening to the many footsteps she began to panic as she lost count of the people, her hearing was sharp, but the noises were overlapping and repeating.

I think I've gotten myself into a spot... She thought as she pulled out her ice-spear, noting how handy it could be. Stepping out from behind the tree she whispered to the blade and swung at what ever she heard coming. Breathing as lightly as she could she paid attention to her surroundings, the position of her feet, in relation to the noise of the running feet coming at her, she winced as daggers dug through her skin.

She whistled and a large white horse ran up to the battle, knocking over the frozen bandits, and trampling whatever was in its way. Her breath was running out, as she froze and stabbed, feeling the warmth of blood her own and from others. As the noises became easier to count she hid behind trees for a break, moving away from the noises of voices, and feet, the horse guiding her past trees, Nyla kept a shaking hand on the horse's side. I can't keep this up by myself, at this rate they'll kill me... She thought and shook her head, trying to figure out how far away the night was.

Letting her mind wander over ways to buy time now that she was involved, she leaned against a tree, as her legs gave out for a second and she ended up sitting on the ground, the spears cool grip in her hand. Trembling she opened her eyes behind the blindfold, the folds of the fabric weren't there, darkness still, the sun was probably high in the sky, she slammed her hand into the ground. This was stupid how did I get myself into this mess?!? She yelled at herself in her mind, standing up and swinging herself onto the horse.

"Let's go Storm..." She said softly and they thundered off toward the bandit camp once more, Nyla wasn't a particularly good rider, but she was still given an advantage with the speed of the horse, but the odds still weren't in her favor.

Could be worse, I guess. Lysan stood with his hands tied behind his back, leaning gentle onto the pole of wood supporting the main tent. For a start, I'm not dead. Thinking about it, he really did consider this a plus. Taking advantage of the confusion, he had managed to get himself tied up and seemingly forgotten. The plan was flawless - wait for someone else to come and distract the bandits, leaving him with plenty of time to escape, and, if the attacker was any good, not much of a chase. They'd confiscated his weapons, he couldn't do any spells and his possessions were nowhere to be seen, but he was sure he could break out easily. Who couldn't? were his thoughts as the icy tendrils burst a hole in the light material of the tent. The shouts and cries - mostly of men, he realized - had been going on from a while now, leading Lysan to the conclusion that whoever the attacker was, they were really quite good. I hope they're no homicidal maniac...

Now that the matter of sorting out when to break out was over, he decided to try and find an answer to the How side of questioning. Well... let's see, they're loads of things in here, I could use. I just wish the chief bloke hadn't tied me to this post. After delving through a few theories, like with the plan of breaking into the camp, he finally came up with one that he was sure wouldn't lead to more rope. It was the classic way of escape - rub the rope on something and hope it snaps. The something this time was the pole, so he began to move it up and down. Then, all of a sudden, the pole snapped. "Uh-oh..." Lysan's thoughts as the beam came down upon him were 'My life seems to revolve around Ellipses at the moment. Blasted three dots!' Then a pain thronged through his head, bringing him to his knees, knocking all the wind out of his lungs. He crashed to the floor, then hastily stood up. A bandit with a sword out (Lysan's sword, he noted) was standing at the doorway. He said something quickly, to which Lysan replied What? The bandit repeated it, and cut the rope, handing Lysan the sword at the same time. "That was a damn stupid thing to do, you give me my sword back, what am I going to do that won't involve the pointy end of this and my captor's stomach?" The outcome was clear.

Still hurt from the pole crash - where the hurt exploded - Lysan hobbled out of the tent, and, seeing the carnage, decided that hobbling was not a good idea and broke out into a run that stopped suddenly as the effects of not stopping are similar to those of running into a brick wall. "Buggar!" came from somewhere, as Lysan darted away. "I swear there wasn't an ogre earlier!" In fact, it wasn't an ogre, but something very similar, perhaps a woodland variation. But this mattered little to Lysan, as the chase insued. Heading back towards the tent he was imprisoned at, he paused to see a woman charging through the trees, away from the bandits - who turned to face the ogre. Stares of bewilderment were in their eyes before Lysan, followed by the aforementioned beast, crashed through them. "Help me!" was what Lysan cried.

Storm reared up and Nyla let out a yelp of surprise as she was thrown onto her back, knocking the wind out of her, and sending tendrils of pain through her rib cage. Pushing herself to her feet she noticed that the bandits were no longer focusing on her and more over that they were fighting something new, and a cry for help issued through the noises. The cry was accompanied by the crashing steps of a beast, running toward the sound she threw her dagger to locate what was causing the stir and then let a tendril of ice fly in the same direction.

Breathing was now made difficult as she hobbled toward what she hoped was trees, pain from what she was now thinking were brused ribs. She climbed up into a tree to rest and hoped for a reprieve. Maybe the bandits would decide to let her just runaway after that. She jumped down out of the tree, not noticing that her blindfold had been caught on a stray piece of bark, landing on her feet she dropped almost instantly to her knees and elbows. Stifling cries of pain, her hands pressed into her eyes she sat helpless, spear sticking out of the ground just out of reach.

She could hear the paniced calls of bandits, and their rushing footsteps, as she crawled on the ground looking for the piece of cloth she relied on so very much, tears streaming from her blind eyes. "Where did it go?" She whispered to herself in a shakey voice.

((sorry this one's short....))

"Move! For God's sake, get outta' the way, unless you want to be crushed." Taking short strides, darting through the forest, Lysan saw the woman crawling around on the forest undergrowth, most likely looking for something. The ogre was hot on his tail - he'd gained a bit of time as it had tried to rip the unsuspecting bandits to pieces, but had soon regained the chase. And it was much faster than Lysan. You may not think that a huge, lumbering beast would be able to catch up with a middle-sized man, but the ogre-variation was seemingly very good at it, managing to get within a few feet of striking distance. Turning round quickly, Lysan caught a glimpse of something that made his stomach churn. In the beast’s hand a huge, somewhat 10 foot long club made exclusively of wood (plus several metal spikes, though Lysan had no idea where they came from) that would shatter his skull in a single blow.

Like with many things in the world, Lysan didn’t have much experience with clubs – he knew what they were and what they did, but he’d never really seen the point of them when a sword or spear could do so much more. But being chased by something triple his size opened Lysan’s eyes, and he saw the damage they could cause (well, feel the damage they could cause) and wondered why he had never tried to use one before in the past. He remembered swiftly though, and the reason was they were really quite heavy and pretty hard to use. Most blunt objects were – the amount of times chair legs had broken in the heat of a tavern brawl was, well, a bloody large number. That was really why Lysan didn’t use taverns any more, he found that buying drinks from a market was much much cheaper and that it really didn’t require the extra criteria of being strong and able to duck when flying objects flew randomly through the air towards you. And then, Lysan noted, the wizard always turned up, and made a huge mess of things. Waves of magic distorted everything, and you were lucky if the ale you were sipping suddenly turned into a frog – and there were things much worse than that, he remembered, as the beer he had been enjoying suddenly solidified and turned into a violent chicken – and it truly was VERY violent.

Lysan realized that the woman lying on the floor wouldn’t be able to move out of the way in time, and found out that the ogre had exactly the same thoughts. It’s probably got the same intelligence as me… Heh. Then he thought that it probably wasn’t the time to make extremely terrible jokes, and that it was probably time to dive out of the way of the swinging club and preferably move the scrabbling woman at the same time. Then, he thought that he’d overused the words time and probably in his thought process, and then thought shove it, at which point he leapt forward. The club hit the dirt where he had stood not half a second ago. “Please… move… now!” The root that Lysan had landed on really did hurt.

The sounds of chaos were in her head, a close second to the chaos in her head as pain still throbbed through her body. Wrapping an arm around her ribs and using her shoulder against a tree to stand she let out a whistle, but no hooves sounded the arrival of Storm, she had run away, Smart horse… She thought, as the sounds of a rather large creature got closer, paralyzed by fear, and pain, Nyla found her self an open target. She couldn’t see the man dodge a fierce blow from the ogre, nor could she see the hole where the ogre’s club had hit, she did however hear the loud sounds and feel a slight tremble in the earth. She could also feel a new more startling pain across her front, as the ogre swung a large hand at her, she screamed at the pain, and coughed up a small amount of blood (mostly because she had bitten her tongue…). Her eyes also flew open out of instinct, and her head was tilted just the right way to get a decent look at the sun, letting out a shriek of agony she curled herself into a ball, the ogre covering his ears from the loud noise.

Her mind was racing, without her knowing it was, going over and over again how terrible this situation truly was. For starters she was incapacitated by pain; secondly she was still an open target; and lastly she was relying on a complete stranger, who could be dead, to keep them both alive. If the person who had followed her was still alive, hopefully he, or she would know enough that she was useless, if not there was no hope for either of them.

As Nyla rolled on the ground thinking it was the end of her life, palms pressed against her eyes, she cried and whimpered, only causing herself more pain in her ribs, as at least some of them were at the very least bruised, if not broken.

((ok so IE hates me, and the little error screen came up when i was half done this the first time...sorry for the wait...))

(OOC: Heh, don’t worry – IE is so annoying, I know what it’s like!)

Lysan saw his moment and chucked the sword he had had waiting. The scream of the woman he had seen hadn’t affected him too much – really, it had awakened him more. He was standing, his sword arm out, clutching a somewhat sharp branch that he had landed on – luckily, it was down, or he would have impaled himself on it and ended up in a bloody mess – and readied that to throw too. The ogre was still clutching its ears as the first weapon hit it. The sword had come unexpectedly, and the variation was wounded partly – a deep gash appearing in its chest. The sword was lying in a mountain of blood on the floor as the branch whizzed past it. Of course, it wasn’t meant to hit the ogre – what in the nine hells could a branch do to hurt a thick-skinned, thick-brained monster? The answer is nothing, but the stick served it’s purpose, as the ogre turned to follow it.

Lysan liked sticks – he always knew where he was with them (at the end without the point, preferably) and which one would break in a single hit and which ones would break after two humongous slaps. He couldn’t guess how, but there was always an abundance of sticks in the desert village he had come from – the only foliage and forest around was a great cactus field to the west. And, remembering correctly, cacti didn’t have branches. It was one of those mysteries of life, like those of ‘where has the TV remote gone’ and ‘how did your room become so untidy in a single day’? It was just one of those things. Of course, Lysan had no idea what a TV or a TV remote was, so it was a pretty bad analogy. Though, he was known to the second part - dust was attracted to him like a magnet needle to the North Pole.

The ogre, looking the other way had no idea that Lysan was charging towards it, and when he jumped on its back it just looked around in bewilderment – though this was before the long sword that had been on the floor not five seconds ago was sticking out of its head. It raged, and Lysan was thrown off, but the beast toppled and lay on the ground writhing. Lysan, with a less than superhuman effort, pulled the sword out and plunged it through the beast’s thick hide again and again. At last, it lay still. Then, the stranger flashed into his mind. She too was writhing in pain. He ran over to her then said; “Are you okay? I don’t know any healing spells…”

Nyla lay on the ground still, the sounds of battle and death far from her thoughts of pain, and how to make it go away. Rolling onto her stomach she heard the voice ask her if she was ok. Do I look like I’m ok?!? She thought rather rudely to herself as she reached her hands around using the weight of her body to push on her elbows so that she could reach her back, and whispered some words under her breath, and a soft blue light lit her hands. Breathing became much easier as her ribs healed. Sitting up she turned in what she hoped was the direction of the other person. ”What kind of person gets themselves into a mess like that without knowing how to heal themselves?” She asked almost yelling, but really it wasn’t her, it was just the stress of almost dieing talking.

Taking a few deep breaths she wistled loudly for the second time, this time Storm came trotting up. “You don’t know how much trouble you caused me do you?” She asked pointing at the creature, eyes shut tightly, and then she felt the piece of cloth being dropped on her hand. Sighing she folded the fabric methodically and wrapped it round her eyes and continued to try and calm herself down, she flinched as a few small tendrils of pain reached around her rib cage.

Remembering the stranger again Nyla realized how rude she really was being. ”I’m sorry, thank you for helping me out there, I really must apologize for thinking that I was going to die, I should have trusted that you didn’t want to die here either.” She said laughing a little, ignoring the slight pain that lingered, she was still covered in blood, and a few small cuts.

That was a nice thing to say for someone who was scrabbling around on the floor, not getting out of the way despite consistent warnings and somebody that was nearly trampled to death were the thoughts that would have gone through Lysan's head, had not the horse appeared holding a slip of cloth. "I... uh... well, to put it bluntly, the last time I tried learning a spell I ended up blowing up the building I was in. Don't ask me how. I would have had a potion, but they were lost along with the rest of my stuff in the bandit camp. And uh, sorry for not knowing any spells, it's really all my fault that you didn't die, isn't it?" This was what he resorted to saying instead - something that wasn't too mean but could be interpreted as a little mean. Then he realized why she had screamed, and what the little scrap of cloth was for. Oops… And then, when she spoke again, the little bit of anger in his head drifted out. She was sorry; he knew that, so why bother more.

Lysan didn’t get angry much. It was the sort of thing that happened to other people. The way he saw it, why get all fired up over something that probably means nothing in the grander scheme of your life. And, when he did get angry it was the type that lasted for about two minutes then washed away as you forgot what it was you were angry about. When people tried to wind him up he just ignored them, and often wondered what the hell their problem was. He usually answered this kind of remark with the answer ‘get some more sleep.’ When people carried on, Lysan got bored and just walked off. It was quite irritable really, for other people that is. Lysan loved the way he didn’t respond; he saw it as a blessing from a god of some sort. The ironic thing was, he didn’t really like gods and their women-folk much.

Well, this woman saw things in the same way that he did – she realized that dying was a pretty stupid thing, and she was blind – so she couldn’t have seen the ogre coming. He completely forgave her, and tried to make a new friend. But first, he asked if she’d help him deal with the oncoming threat of approaching bandits, though she could stay back if the pain was too bad.

Standing shakily she turned back to the bandit camp. ”The fact that I missed whatever the hell was trying to kill us means that those dirty bandits have their greasy hands all over my weapons!” She said a little angry with the thought. She took a deep breath and steadied her nerves, and tried to rationalize things. Day time was not a good time to sneak in, obviously proven, so in her mind night was the only viable option. Attacking head on was note the way to go, that too had been proven to be stupid to no ends, sneaking in and out was her best option.

”We need to find somewhere to rest before we do anything, because I refuse to go back to that camp during the day, that was just reckless in the first place. Night would be best, and there’s no point in making ourselves a target here.” She said thinking out loud more than issuing orders. Turning her head around in different directions her ears twitched at few small noises, sometimes she loved being able to hear well, and sometimes she hated it. On edge, stressed, angry, and in a little pain, Nyla pointed in a direction, not knowing it was back to the camp. ”Let’s get going!” She said rather enthusiastically, and hoping that if she was pointing in the wrong direction he would tell her.

"I agree with you on all but one account. Personally, I don't think that going back to rest IN the bandits camp is a very good idea." He burst out laughing. That sounds like a plan were his thoughts, and so he grabbed her arm and began pulling her in another direction. A clearing would do nicely, he thought, perhaps somewhere with some food. Lysan liked to think of himself as a Connoisseur of food - basically going on the fact that he liked it and ate it. Though, there was a lot that he didn't like - mushrooms for starters. They tasted pretty damn vile, he recollected, remembering the last time he ate them. A sudden taste of sick came to his mouth, and he choked, trying to get rid of it. Another food, well drink really, was wine. He had been told that it was a drink for the nobility, and though he had never actually tasted it, it must be bad. Anything ever done by nobility is bad. In his eyes they were the cause of all problems in Imythess today, though, thinking about it, there were no country-threatening things going on at the moment. He couldn't remember the last time there had been a major epidemic, and although there was war going on all the time, nobody seemed to die, ever, and the last he heard was that the two sides were playing football with eachother.

Of course, there were always life-threatening things going on, but they didn't really count. They happened naturally, it was something that either you lived in, or you died in, there was no bit inbetween. Anybody worth their salt can safely guarantee that they'd been in a life-threatening situation before. And there did seem to be a great amount of adventurers around at the moment, and an increasing amount of vile beats and merciless bandits. Everybody gets their fill, I guess. When he looked at it, he didn't really see the point in adventuring - you always end up with some deformity of some sort. Lysan wasn't adventuring - no, what he did was something very similar to adventuring, but not actually adventuring. "Well, we'd best be on our way," was the best he could come up with for the moment.

Nyla stumbled and turned as her arm was grabbed, and she blushed at her stupid mistake. "Yeah...." She said nodding in agreeance that they should move, letting out a small yawn, she wondered what kind of person she had stumbled onto, obviously he was prone to accedents, and rushed into things, but really what did he look like? Where was he going? What was he thinking?....wait a second, what was she thinking?!?

Sighing she tried to push the thoughts out of her head, and figure out a way to get into the camp without causing too much disturbance, and without any more injury, the ones she had recieved before were now beginning to show their true colors. Adrenaline was slipping from her body and the pain of cuts and bruises was starting to set in, not to metion the burn of her muscles, and the overwhelming want to sleep. Shaking, she realized how rude she had been for not offering him help with his wounds, he must have had some. "I appologize for not asking this earlier, do you have any injuries that you need healed, it may not be much but I know a spell for it." She offered as politly as she could.


((OOC: sorry....i forgot about this...))

She was tired, that was plain to see. And, seemingly, bruised in many more places than one. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m never at home with spells. For that matter, I don’t really like potions either – they taste absolutely revolting, especially that red one they do in the ‘Witches Shop’ in Taras. Oh, sorry – I’m rambling – let me get to the point; I need rest, and I can blatantly see that you need rest. Most likely the best thing to do would be to find somewhere where we can lay down without fear of being found, and get some energy back. Of course, that’s just an idea.” It seemed to be the best thing to do, what with the bandits around. They would probably be angry bandits as well, what with Lysan and the woman having attacked their camp and killed several. Before, they’d had the element of surprise; and now, they had bruises, cuts and all manner of hurtful things. The ogre had been unexpected – Lysan would have thought the bandits would deal with it, in securing their camp.

Lysan looked back in the direction of the camp – there were shouts and cries, but nothing of any sort coming nearer or getting louder. He looked in the other direction, and the trees seemed to thin. ’This should do – I really am tired, and, for that matter, hungry, so food would be useful. He offered the woman a hand, the realised; he didn’t even know her name! ”I’m Lysan, by the way. C’mon, let’s get you somewhere easier to lie down.”