Ulric was certain that they'd managed to sell their cover as traveling merchants fairly effectively. They'd played a near-perfect game the night before, accessing the port documents, even if they'd had to take the originals instead of copying them and leaving none the wiser. There was a virtue in having these real ones. If they could finagle a way to compare with the copies, there was an exceedingly high probability that some sort of doctoring had taken place of those to hide the abnormal tendency of some ships to never carry cargo and to take trips to nowhere with some regularity. No doubt the timing of those trips could be correlated to reports of people being abducted, if one could get an inside track on the city guards.
Civilization operated according to certain precepts and bureaucracy sprang up as a necessary byproduct of large groups of people coming together to exchange goods and services. Somebody was sitting on the information that would connect the dots, it was only that he and Taipan didn't have access to it. If they did, it would make their excising this tumor much more expedient. As it was, they currently had themselves an opportunity, if only they could take the individual following them alive. While they strolled, ambling between stalls in a large trade plaza within a few minutes' walk to the dockyards, Taipan revealed the plan she'd been working on to do that very thing.
"Our tail is almost certainly not alone, Ulric." the tall woman said casually, as if regarding the time of day.
"Teams of three are common, one to stay behind, one to stay ahead, and one to keep the flank. If I have not detected sign of them they are experienced and within their element here in this tangle of people. I do not think that I could lose them without revealing that we are aware of their presence." She summarized to him.
Ulric nodded, that made sense. He chewed on it as he haggled over a set of fangs from some kind of large serpent, their curved, hollow ivory color not quite hiding very fine serrations along the front and backs of the tooth. Three silver squires parted from him and he put the fangs in his belt pouch. He was certain he could do far better if he could manage to kill a [Venombolt Viper] without being forced to melt its skull. The bastards were pretty scary though; he'd seen one dissolve two men in armor with a single blast of acidic poison. Taipan would enjoy carving the fangs into some trinket or another.
"What about a trap?" He asked his partner as they huddled over a set of otter pelts.
"These were caught with poison Ulric, they are useless. They laid dead for over a day before they were skinned out and will be too brittle to tan or work without losing their resistance to water. I could separate from your side and remove the flanker who is probably coordinating the encirclement, if you will permit." She answered, fingering the hide with evident disgust.
Abandoning those pelts without another look and ignoring the tight-lipped stare of their incompetent seller, they moved on.
"Oh? Have you been able to catch tell of the others involved in this little play?" He asked, almost surprised.
Ulric had, of course, not been able to do any such thing. The ones in front and side moved more naturally through the winding forms and he'd only kept "sight" of the one behind them because that one stayed too precisely in place behind them. So. Technically skilled, but a moron.
"Of course, Ulric. Who do you take me for?" The bosomy Elf asked, faking a pout when he rejected a buy on some fine silk rope.
He had no idea what she wanted it for, but they'd come back around to it eventually. Better to sell the idea that they were being discerning in their shopping, it would not do to reveal the wealth he actually had access to. That little surprise had not completely worn off. Damned Elves and their practical jokes.
"No offense meant Lady Taipan." He apologized softly, "It was only surprising because we are in this absolute mess of fucking people and buildings. I barely recognize faces we must have passed a dozen times by this point, let alone some experienced thugs. Had we been in the wild I'd warrant that they never got within a league of us without your knowing."
Best to offer her compliments to go with the apology, he'd learned that much about his lovely Shadow. This proved true now as she sidled closer on his arm, offering a press of some of his favorite parts of her anatomy to reward his good behavior. So easily had he been trained. She liked to preen over her skill at the Hunt. Compliment her body as much as you wanted, that barely registered on her radar since she already knew she was beautiful, but praise her ability in the wilds and she was all smiles. And more, sometimes.
Ulric was slow on the social uptake sometimes, but he did learn. Particularly when he was constantly exposed to a surly Elf that liked to make her displeasures known though training exercises that made his bones sweat, all under the guise of "serving his future interests" and that only when she wasn't fingering her knife's blade openly. Most men suspected that their wives had plotted on them at some point. He knew his did, she'd admitted to it.
"Tell you what," Ulric offered his ultimately competent companion, "You have my permission to spend the next Round of the Twins in whatever fashion you deem. Anything you want, you're off the leash for a whole hour."
And now he was reminded again why this incredibly lovely woman scared the mortal piss out of him sometimes. She was smiling her special little murder smile even while her now indigo eyes fairly smoldered at him. He needed to have a word with Bald'rt and company about their parenting, that they had produced this outcome. Ulric coughed lightly into his hand when he recalled the Iriel'en Lord's pet name [Shadow Panther] for his daughter: A Greater beast known for being ruthless hunters of incredible danger.
Taipan giggled lightly and pulled him down for a peck on his cheek and a whispered, "Return to our first inn, the alley behind and I'll show you what I've caught then."
And then she was off, gliding down the cobbled street. Ulric thought he saw someone pull off from a nearby outdoor barstool to follow her rather sooner than they should have had they not been watching. They had barely even touched the mug they'd left behind. Now that was suspicious, nobody day drinks and leaves a full beverage behind.
He shook his head slightly. They were being followed by idiots. Judging by his Shadow's evident glee, they were being followed by very soon to be dead idiots.
Welp, he'd been given his marching orders. Ulric drifted out of the plaza, leaving behind the squawk of offseason merchants trying to empty their inventories before the rush of new goods. He didn't bother trying to see whether or not he'd picked up new minders, the one behind him had never left. The catch team they'd sent out before had had eight members. What are the odds that they used fewer on the second go around?
********Taipan******************
Her feet whispered almost without sound on the cobbles as she made her way quickly through the streets of Trachn'ir. Smiling, Taipan relished in her Honor's trust. He'd granted her an entire hour! Completely unfettered, completely at her own discretion. And that after she'd prompted their "debate" over separating.
What a surprise that had been. He'd been holding back during their spars, hiding his growth in anticipation of her challenge to his lead in their partnership. He'd gotten her angry enough to press her position when the environment limited greatly her mobility and had smashed her with unexpected ferocity, in a whisper of that violence that she knew he kept tightly reined. The ambush was a thorough success and it occurred to her that the man had twice now managed to catch her completely flat footed. It boded well for their future together. She had to appreciate that her partner was not a fool. Odd. But not foolish. He knew her strengths and had faith in them, if not so much as she herself did. Well, he was young yet, he would learn.
Turning suddenly down a narrow alley, only just barely wide enough to accommodate her shoulders, she immediately jumped upwards, two and a half meters vertical, and planted her feet and hands on the walls of the pressing buildings to throw herself an additional two meters on momentum. Planting herself again, suspended now more than half way to the roof of the second story leatherworker's shop that made the right hand building, she used her knife to work the window lock of the leatherworker's upstairs home, opening it quickly and rolled into the dwelling without sound, closing the swinging portal behind her. A mere three seconds after entering the alley and she had vanished from the streets, to look down from the cover of the curtained glass window without a sign that she'd ever been there.
The man who'd been following her, a Celestin, which twisted her lips sourly, appeared surprised. Two others joined him, a plain looking human dressed as a cart puller and a rather vulpine Lupid beastkin, his thick ruff and one torn ear distinctive as the front of the encirclement that had been keeping them hemmed in. The Celestin and the Lupid both wore the uniform of city guards. Perhaps they even were. It would matter little in a few moments, the Huntress thought to herself.
Her knife still at the ready, she gently pushed the window open as they would be pursuers passed by it, timed so that they would see nothing even in their peripheral vision. Her mana regeneration was crippled in these unattuned lands, her core still not harmonized to the mana flows of the low land forests as it was to her home territory of Iriel. Even so, she had not used much of her strength and could spare some here to guarantee the clean kill. Gathering herself, she dropped down on top of the trailing Human, opening him completely from throat to groin with the weight of her passage to the ground, her Deep Woods Ranger's [Silent Step], and decades of mastery earned by similar attacks, deadening the sound of her landing.
She rose from her momentum absorbing crouch with a hammer grip on the knife handle and a palm against its hilt, driving the blade cleanly through the base of the spine of the Celestin, not lamenting the loss of any Elf who would be in service to slavers. Her cousin's corpse hid her profile behind it and she felt her shadow mana condense with intent focusing into her blade, even as the sound of her first victim's fall turned the wolven head of her Lupid tracker.
[Fatal Thrust]
She jabbed her knifehand forward, over the shoulder of the falling Aes'r and the point of the immaculately cared for blade passed easily through the bones of the Lupid's thick skull, spearing through its forehead and killing it instantly. So potent was the concentration of mana in her strike she bypassed the integrity of the bone and experienced little of the expected shock to one's wrist, or sound, as might be expected when stabbing into the victim's brain case. A swift up and down jerk of the blade ensured that the Lupid was gone and she stood straight before the last of her three enemies had stopped twitching.
It had been too long since she'd gotten to Hunt properly.
Her husband had granted her a full hour, of which she had used five minutes. She exited the opposite side of the alley moving exactly as she'd entered it and turned down another busy street to circle the block. As she did a quick scan of the drifting citizens of the city her experience eye homed in on another of the would be hunters as they approached the alley she'd entered before, the air of one with a purpose loud about them. They might as well have screamed that they were part of the group looking for her. She wanted to spit. Why had they thought to be hunting Iriel'en when they were so bad at it?
Oh well. She grinned as the brutish Valin turned down the alley, having closed the distance between them easily, merely passing as if on a hurried venture through the crowd. When this last would be hunter turned down the alley she followed silently a mere few footsteps behind, turning as if on accident down the same narrow passage as she'd gone just a minute earlier.
A few moments later she strode out the other side of the alley, unable to keep from laughing openly that she'd gotten four of them with the same exact bait. Next, she would deal with the one that had tagged her Honor. Ulric's new perception skill was turning out to be more useful than she'd expected. She had to admit, she might have to give him more space to experiment with his bizarre use of magic, he seemed to have a way of finding incredibly potent applications for one with a newly awakened core. As much as she disliked cities, this one she knew well and it was proving to be a novel hunting ground, full of opportunities to experiment with the techniques that would prove useful when they made their way to the maze of buildings that was Prosper.
Ah. There he was. Ulric had taken a slow course back along their trail, and was crossing a wide thoroughfare, busy with the press of peoples. The dense shuffle of bodies proved a wonderful opportunity to try one of the incredibly potent poisons that her Honor had brought from the glade. Taipan's belt held a discreet pocket on its reverse side, holding an assortment of hollowed needles made from [Sawspine] quills each filled with the toxin that induced rapid paralysis.
She spotted the trailing man that had evaded her detection earlier, to her vexation, easily enough. The man, another Celestin damn his eyes, was probably using a class skill or ability that helped him to track his target's vision and stay in the precise blind spot that rendered him effectively invisible. She moved through the crowd, ignoring a few copped feels, and withdrew a needle from her hidden bandolier. As she came abreast of now obvious hawkshaw she flicked her fingers to send the needle deeply into his neck, passing him by even as his hand slapped to his neck at the sting.
She didn't slow as the commotion behind her grew, shouts for aid coming as the former agent dropped to the ground. She stepped behind a large Saurid, hiding in his profile as her Honor turned, no doubt sensing the loss of the tail he'd been focusing his new senses on. She'd have to be careful when trailing him now, if Ulric could indeed feel presences through solid objects. She'd figure out how to bypass it sooner or later. It didn't take long for her to catch up to the form of her husband and take his arm, enjoying the surprise on his face as he saw who it was that had come upon him undetected.
All told, she'd done exactly what she wanted for half an hour. Five of their enemies were dead and they would have plenty of time to plan their ambush for the rest from the site of their first housing within Trachn'ir, completing the circle on the false trail they'd laid that they were operating from that part of the city preferentially. She felt her Honor's hand slide around to hold her wasit and leaned into him.
A glorious day it was shaping up to be.
Ulric was slightly startled when one of the presences in his senses abruptly closed in to take his arm. Suppressing a jerk he turned to see it was his Taipan, smiling, returning much earlier than he'd expected. Her little excursion must have turned out well. He found out why shortly, though he had some idea as the trailing presence had fallen out of order just half a minute earlier.
"Howdy there little lady, back so soon?" He opened, not bothering to hide that she'd snuck up on him.
She flashed her teeth in what many would have considered a threatening way.
"Our friends outside of town are joined by five of their friends. Ulric, these ones on our trail are thugs and no more. They have never tasted the true wild, have no sense of caution, or understand the exchange between hunter and hunter." The dangerous woman summarized, disgusted.
"I confess, it was fun to be given a free rein, but these men would be little more than meat should we find them outside these walls. They are better suited as prey for you to sharpen your claws." Taipan told him seriously.
His eyebrow raised at that last statement. Sharpen his claws? He shook his head slightly as he parsed out her meaning. If he had read her correctly, his wife, consort, Shadow, Person of Importance had just implied that she had returned early because she got bored murdering mooks in the street and wanted him to use them as murder practice. It was a refreshing reminder that the Iriel'en were Those of the Hardest Asses. Like somebody had distilled tigers and injected the essence into people.
Ulric coughed into his hand, covering his slight judgment. Of course, who was he to talk? He'd pounded a man's brains out against the floor not a ten day ago for touching his wife's arm and would have done worse had not a keen guardsman's fast response kept others from his reach. When in Rome, Einar he told himself. Probably most of the sapient folk didn't have the ghost of the [Forest Lord] howling blood and gnashing its teeth in their hind brains but that couldn't be an excuse forever. He'd quite calmly murdered four men in his forest before ever that ascension had taken place.
Watcher what did you do to me? Ulric Einar asked himself, not for the first time. Or did you even have to do anything at all? Maybe this piece was sitting there, asleep, all along just waiting to wake up and be free. Maybe part of his old life's tension was in keeping this bit in check, dissatisfied by the inability to act on instincts that cried out to hunt for ones who made themselves into prey.
Aaaanyway.
"Your confidence in me continues to inspire Taipan." Ulric told the Elf, "Care to give me a rundown on exactly how you chose to divert yourself?" He asked, knowing he probably shouldn't.
She told him.
He'd been mostly correct. The satisfied smirk painted across her features and the near laughter hidden behind her alert, scanning, eyes indicated that she took great pride in her work. That shouldn't come as a surprise. Lady Taipan of the Ancient Glade had the heart of an assassin. The main difference was that the ones she'd killed had had their own Ferryman's fee paid for them in the blood of her elder brother and she had not yet, or ever would, come to the balance.
"Then we are coming to the point of it, my sultry killer, in more than one way I might add, wife." Ulric said, winking at her.
She was aware of this double entendre, it was one of her favorite compliments as it blended the less meaningful address to her form, which still she enjoyed, with his respect for her talents. Her lean into him let him know his fishing had come up with a small bite.
"The dickbag responsible for giving these men their marching orders knows we're in the city. He probably doesn't know that you changed your looks seeing as how they were completely unprepared to go [Shadow Panther] hunting when they followed you and thought to maybe get information, or leverage, on me to eventually lead to the Iriel'en slave prize they're after." Ulric summarized.
Taipan gestured her agreement in the Iriel'en way. He'd have to work on that with her, they spoke way too much with their hands and others would key on it if they were well versed in the Deep Woods Elves. Since there was local Celestin help involved that wasn't so farfetched.
"Now that five of their number are polluting the gutters they will also no doubt know that we know of them. Which begs the question: How to strike the heart of the [Hydra]?" He finished.
Ulric was certain that they'd managed to sell their cover as traveling merchants fairly effectively. They'd played a near-perfect game the night before, accessing the port documents, even if they'd had to take the originals instead of copying them and leaving none the wiser. There was a virtue in having these real ones. If they could finagle a way to compare with the copies, there was an exceedingly high probability that some sort of doctoring had taken place of those to hide the abnormal tendency of some ships to never carry cargo and to take trips to nowhere with some regularity. No doubt the timing of those trips could be correlated to reports of people being abducted, if one could get an inside track on the city guards.
Civilization operated according to certain precepts and bureaucracy sprang up as a necessary byproduct of large groups of people coming together to exchange goods and services. Somebody was sitting on the information that would connect the dots, it was only that he and Taipan didn't have access to it. If they did, it would make their excising this tumor much more expedient. As it was, they currently had themselves an opportunity, if only they could take the individual following them alive. While they strolled, ambling between stalls in a large trade plaza within a few minutes' walk to the dockyards, Taipan revealed the plan she'd been working on to do that very thing.
"Our tail is almost certainly not alone, Ulric." the tall woman said casually, as if regarding the time of day.
"Teams of three are common, one to stay behind, one to stay ahead, and one to keep the flank. If I have not detected sign of them they are experienced and within their element here in this tangle of people. I do not think that I could lose them without revealing that we are aware of their presence." She summarized to him.
Ulric nodded, that made sense. He chewed on it as he haggled over a set of fangs from some kind of large serpent, their curved, hollow ivory color not quite hiding very fine serrations along the front and backs of the tooth. Three silver squires parted from him and he put the fangs in his belt pouch. He was certain he could do far better if he could manage to kill a [Venombolt Viper] without being forced to melt its skull. The bastards were pretty scary though; he'd seen one dissolve two men in armor with a single blast of acidic poison. Taipan would enjoy carving the fangs into some trinket or another.
"What about a trap?" He asked his partner as they huddled over a set of otter pelts.
"These were caught with poison Ulric, they are useless. They laid dead for over a day before they were skinned out and will be too brittle to tan or work without losing their resistance to water. I could separate from your side and remove the flanker who is probably coordinating the encirclement, if you will permit." She answered, fingering the hide with evident disgust.
Abandoning those pelts without another look and ignoring the tight-lipped stare of their incompetent seller, they moved on.
"Oh? Have you been able to catch tell of the others involved in this little play?" He asked, almost surprised.
Ulric had, of course, not been able to do any such thing. The ones in front and side moved more naturally through the winding forms and he'd only kept "sight" of the one behind them because that one stayed too precisely in place behind them. So. Technically skilled, but a moron.
"Of course, Ulric. Who do you take me for?" The bosomy Elf asked, faking a pout when he rejected a buy on some fine silk rope.
He had no idea what she wanted it for, but they'd come back around to it eventually. Better to sell the idea that they were being discerning in their shopping, it would not do to reveal the wealth he actually had access to. That little surprise had not completely worn off. Damned Elves and their practical jokes.
"No offense meant Lady Taipan." He apologized softly, "It was only surprising because we are in this absolute mess of fucking people and buildings. I barely recognize faces we must have passed a dozen times by this point, let alone some experienced thugs. Had we been in the wild I'd warrant that they never got within a league of us without your knowing."
Best to offer her compliments to go with the apology, he'd learned that much about his lovely Shadow. This proved true now as she sidled closer on his arm, offering a press of some of his favorite parts of her anatomy to reward his good behavior. So easily had he been trained. She liked to preen over her skill at the Hunt. Compliment her body as much as you wanted, that barely registered on her radar since she already knew she was beautiful, but praise her ability in the wilds and she was all smiles. And more, sometimes.
Ulric was slow on the social uptake sometimes, but he did learn. Particularly when he was constantly exposed to a surly Elf that liked to make her displeasures known though training exercises that made his bones sweat, all under the guise of "serving his future interests" and that only when she wasn't fingering her knife's blade openly. Most men suspected that their wives had plotted on them at some point. He knew his did, she'd admitted to it.
"Tell you what," Ulric offered his ultimately competent companion, "You have my permission to spend the next Round of the Twins in whatever fashion you deem. Anything you want, you're off the leash for a whole hour."
And now he was reminded again why this incredibly lovely woman scared the mortal piss out of him sometimes. She was smiling her special little murder smile even while her now indigo eyes fairly smoldered at him. He needed to have a word with Bald'rt and company about their parenting, that they had produced this outcome. Ulric coughed lightly into his hand when he recalled the Iriel'en Lord's pet name [Shadow Panther] for his daughter: A Greater beast known for being ruthless hunters of incredible danger.
Taipan giggled lightly and pulled him down for a peck on his cheek and a whispered, "Return to our first inn, the alley behind and I'll show you what I've caught then."
And then she was off, gliding down the cobbled street. Ulric thought he saw someone pull off from a nearby outdoor barstool to follow her rather sooner than they should have had they not been watching. They had barely even touched the mug they'd left behind. Now that was suspicious, nobody day drinks and leaves a full beverage behind.
He shook his head slightly. They were being followed by idiots. Judging by his Shadow's evident glee, they were being followed by very soon to be dead idiots.
Welp, he'd been given his marching orders. Ulric drifted out of the plaza, leaving behind the squawk of offseason merchants trying to empty their inventories before the rush of new goods. He didn't bother trying to see whether or not he'd picked up new minders, the one behind him had never left. The catch team they'd sent out before had had eight members. What are the odds that they used fewer on the second go around?
********Taipan******************
Her feet whispered almost without sound on the cobbles as she made her way quickly through the streets of Trachn'ir. Smiling, Taipan relished in her Honor's trust. He'd granted her an entire hour! Completely unfettered, completely at her own discretion. And that after she'd prompted their "debate" over separating.
What a surprise that had been. He'd been holding back during their spars, hiding his growth in anticipation of her challenge to his lead in their partnership. He'd gotten her angry enough to press her position when the environment limited greatly her mobility and had smashed her with unexpected ferocity, in a whisper of that violence that she knew he kept tightly reined. The ambush was a thorough success and it occurred to her that the man had twice now managed to catch her completely flat footed. It boded well for their future together. She had to appreciate that her partner was not a fool. Odd. But not foolish. He knew her strengths and had faith in them, if not so much as she herself did. Well, he was young yet, he would learn.
Turning suddenly down a narrow alley, only just barely wide enough to accommodate her shoulders, she immediately jumped upwards, two and a half meters vertical, and planted her feet and hands on the walls of the pressing buildings to throw herself an additional two meters on momentum. Planting herself again, suspended now more than half way to the roof of the second story leatherworker's shop that made the right hand building, she used her knife to work the window lock of the leatherworker's upstairs home, opening it quickly and rolled into the dwelling without sound, closing the swinging portal behind her. A mere three seconds after entering the alley and she had vanished from the streets, to look down from the cover of the curtained glass window without a sign that she'd ever been there.
The man who'd been following her, a Celestin, which twisted her lips sourly, appeared surprised. Two others joined him, a plain looking human dressed as a cart puller and a rather vulpine Lupid beastkin, his thick ruff and one torn ear distinctive as the front of the encirclement that had been keeping them hemmed in. The Celestin and the Lupid both wore the uniform of city guards. Perhaps they even were. It would matter little in a few moments, the Huntress thought to herself.
Her knife still at the ready, she gently pushed the window open as they would be pursuers passed by it, timed so that they would see nothing even in their peripheral vision. Her mana regeneration was crippled in these unattuned lands, her core still not harmonized to the mana flows of the low land forests as it was to her home territory of Iriel. Even so, she had not used much of her strength and could spare some here to guarantee the clean kill. Gathering herself, she dropped down on top of the trailing Human, opening him completely from throat to groin with the weight of her passage to the ground, her Deep Woods Ranger's [Silent Step], and decades of mastery earned by similar attacks, deadening the sound of her landing.
She rose from her momentum absorbing crouch with a hammer grip on the knife handle and a palm against its hilt, driving the blade cleanly through the base of the spine of the Celestin, not lamenting the loss of any Elf who would be in service to slavers. Her cousin's corpse hid her profile behind it and she felt her shadow mana condense with intent focusing into her blade, even as the sound of her first victim's fall turned the wolven head of her Lupid tracker.
[Fatal Thrust]
She jabbed her knifehand forward, over the shoulder of the falling Aes'r and the point of the immaculately cared for blade passed easily through the bones of the Lupid's thick skull, spearing through its forehead and killing it instantly. So potent was the concentration of mana in her strike she bypassed the integrity of the bone and experienced little of the expected shock to one's wrist, or sound, as might be expected when stabbing into the victim's brain case. A swift up and down jerk of the blade ensured that the Lupid was gone and she stood straight before the last of her three enemies had stopped twitching.
It had been too long since she'd gotten to Hunt properly.
Her husband had granted her a full hour, of which she had used five minutes. She exited the opposite side of the alley moving exactly as she'd entered it and turned down another busy street to circle the block. As she did a quick scan of the drifting citizens of the city her experience eye homed in on another of the would be hunters as they approached the alley she'd entered before, the air of one with a purpose loud about them. They might as well have screamed that they were part of the group looking for her. She wanted to spit. Why had they thought to be hunting Iriel'en when they were so bad at it?
Oh well. She grinned as the brutish Valin turned down the alley, having closed the distance between them easily, merely passing as if on a hurried venture through the crowd. When this last would be hunter turned down the alley she followed silently a mere few footsteps behind, turning as if on accident down the same narrow passage as she'd gone just a minute earlier.
A few moments later she strode out the other side of the alley, unable to keep from laughing openly that she'd gotten four of them with the same exact bait. Next, she would deal with the one that had tagged her Honor. Ulric's new perception skill was turning out to be more useful than she'd expected. She had to admit, she might have to give him more space to experiment with his bizarre use of magic, he seemed to have a way of finding incredibly potent applications for one with a newly awakened core. As much as she disliked cities, this one she knew well and it was proving to be a novel hunting ground, full of opportunities to experiment with the techniques that would prove useful when they made their way to the maze of buildings that was Prosper.
Ah. There he was. Ulric had taken a slow course back along their trail, and was crossing a wide thoroughfare, busy with the press of peoples. The dense shuffle of bodies proved a wonderful opportunity to try one of the incredibly potent poisons that her Honor had brought from the glade. Taipan's belt held a discreet pocket on its reverse side, holding an assortment of hollowed needles made from [Sawspine] quills each filled with the toxin that induced rapid paralysis.
She spotted the trailing man that had evaded her detection earlier, to her vexation, easily enough. The man, another Celestin damn his eyes, was probably using a class skill or ability that helped him to track his target's vision and stay in the precise blind spot that rendered him effectively invisible. She moved through the crowd, ignoring a few copped feels, and withdrew a needle from her hidden bandolier. As she came abreast of now obvious hawkshaw she flicked her fingers to send the needle deeply into his neck, passing him by even as his hand slapped to his neck at the sting.
She didn't slow as the commotion behind her grew, shouts for aid coming as the former agent dropped to the ground. She stepped behind a large Saurid, hiding in his profile as her Honor turned, no doubt sensing the loss of the tail he'd been focusing his new senses on. She'd have to be careful when trailing him now, if Ulric could indeed feel presences through solid objects. She'd figure out how to bypass it sooner or later. It didn't take long for her to catch up to the form of her husband and take his arm, enjoying the surprise on his face as he saw who it was that had come upon him undetected.
All told, she'd done exactly what she wanted for half an hour. Five of their enemies were dead and they would have plenty of time to plan their ambush for the rest from the site of their first housing within Trachn'ir, completing the circle on the false trail they'd laid that they were operating from that part of the city preferentially. She felt her Honor's hand slide around to hold her wasit and leaned into him.
A glorious day it was shaping up to be.
Ulric was slightly startled when one of the presences in his senses abruptly closed in to take his arm. Suppressing a jerk he turned to see it was his Taipan, smiling, returning much earlier than he'd expected. Her little excursion must have turned out well. He found out why shortly, though he had some idea as the trailing presence had fallen out of order just half a minute earlier.
"Howdy there little lady, back so soon?" He opened, not bothering to hide that she'd snuck up on him.
She flashed her teeth in what many would have considered a threatening way.
"Our friends outside of town are joined by five of their friends. Ulric, these ones on our trail are thugs and no more. They have never tasted the true wild, have no sense of caution, or understand the exchange between hunter and hunter." The dangerous woman summarized, disgusted.
"I confess, it was fun to be given a free rein, but these men would be little more than meat should we find them outside these walls. They are better suited as prey for you to sharpen your claws." Taipan told him seriously.
His eyebrow raised at that last statement. Sharpen his claws? He shook his head slightly as he parsed out her meaning. If he had read her correctly, his wife, consort, Shadow, Person of Importance had just implied that she had returned early because she got bored murdering mooks in the street and wanted him to use them as murder practice. It was a refreshing reminder that the Iriel'en were Those of the Hardest Asses. Like somebody had distilled tigers and injected the essence into people.
Ulric coughed into his hand, covering his slight judgment. Of course, who was he to talk? He'd pounded a man's brains out against the floor not a ten day ago for touching his wife's arm and would have done worse had not a keen guardsman's fast response kept others from his reach. When in Rome, Einar he told himself. Probably most of the sapient folk didn't have the ghost of the [Forest Lord] howling blood and gnashing its teeth in their hind brains but that couldn't be an excuse forever. He'd quite calmly murdered four men in his forest before ever that ascension had taken place.
Watcher what did you do to me? Ulric Einar asked himself, not for the first time. Or did you even have to do anything at all? Maybe this piece was sitting there, asleep, all along just waiting to wake up and be free. Maybe part of his old life's tension was in keeping this bit in check, dissatisfied by the inability to act on instincts that cried out to hunt for ones who made themselves into prey.
Aaaanyway.
"Your confidence in me continues to inspire Taipan." Ulric told the Elf, "Care to give me a rundown on exactly how you chose to divert yourself?" He asked, knowing he probably shouldn't.
She told him.
He'd been mostly correct. The satisfied smirk painted across her features and the near laughter hidden behind her alert, scanning, eyes indicated that she took great pride in her work. That shouldn't come as a surprise. Lady Taipan of the Ancient Glade had the heart of an assassin. The main difference was that the ones she'd killed had had their own Ferryman's fee paid for them in the blood of her elder brother and she had not yet, or ever would, come to the balance.
"Then we are coming to the point of it, my sultry killer, in more than one way I might add, wife." Ulric said, winking at her.
She was aware of this double entendre, it was one of her favorite compliments as it blended the less meaningful address to her form, which still she enjoyed, with his respect for her talents. Her lean into him let him know his fishing had come up with a small bite.
"The dickbag responsible for giving these men their marching orders knows we're in the city. He probably doesn't know that you changed your looks seeing as how they were completely unprepared to go [Shadow Panther] hunting when they followed you and thought to maybe get information, or leverage, on me to eventually lead to the Iriel'en slave prize they're after." Ulric summarized.
Taipan gestured her agreement in the Iriel'en way. He'd have to work on that with her, they spoke way too much with their hands and others would key on it if they were well versed in the Deep Woods Elves. Since there was local Celestin help involved that wasn't so farfetched.
"Now that five of their number are polluting the gutters they will also no doubt know that we know of them. Which begs the question: How to strike the heart of the [Hydra]?" He finished.
