Valissia took note of the man behind her pleased to see he was a fighter. She felt the same crack of energy as before this time on a greater level. Keeping her gaze steady on the man infront of her she spoke to the boy. "It may be a good idea for you to get a little more distance from him, he seems to be a grabby one." She felt her body prepare itself for any unknown impact as she casually retreived her claw-like weapons from the chain around her waist. "I agree with this kind sir behind me though and I love interesting stories. Do share."

Ian smiled, and with mock pout he said "aaaw, your story really could have been interesting." The man that had creeped him out before said something about dark magic... he still creeped Ian out. Ian looked towards the woman who appeared to be helping them as well, "well, there isn't much I can do from a distance..." he made a small gesture to the man who seemed so calm and continued "but if he is right, we wont have much of a chance." Ian gave her a wink and made a small gesture towards the kidnappers legs and prayed she understood his signal. A small distraction would be needed... he raised his arms above his head in surrender saying "there isn't much I can do."

A shriek came from outside, a sound somewhere between disgust and horror. Ian got his distraction a moment later as a veritable wall of buzzing, chirping insects boiled through the slightly open window. The swarm moved as one to Ire, and though most could not bite or sting, the sheer mass was horrifying, touching some buried part of the human psyche. The few that could actually do anything other than startle and buzz began to bite, sting, and scratch madly at the dark man. Little harm would come of it, but they were not meant to kill him, merely stall.

Makoma let go of the ceiling. His wings caught the air, turning his fall into a looping arc. He landed rather heavily on Isaac and held on, his feet wrinkling Isaac's shirt as they gripped the cloth tightly. His voice was suprisingly human as he spoke to Isaac. "Up to the second floor! We will cover the stairs."

Valissia caught her current partner's signal and slipped foreward into a crouch that fit the weapons hugging her hands. She was about to pounce when a shriek from outside followed by the swarm that attacked before she had to move. Eyes widening in surprise she kept her wits and moved backward until she was beside the other man. "I say we listen to his idea and take a little trip to the second story." Moving quickly then she made her way to the stairs still facing the magic weaver with caution.

Ian's eyes gaped in amazement at these critters flooding toward the evil man... it took all of Ian's courage not to scream like a little girl... he hated spiders. Slightly in shock, he exclaimed "what in gods name?!" ignoring the fact that a dragonborn, along with hundreds of insects that may have just saved a life or two, Ian rushed up the stairs. Chances were that these people were friendly... except for the kidnapper and possibly the strange man who appeared so calm, so he shouted to his current allies "not exactly the best situation to make new friends eh?" he gave a small chuckle, still trying to process everything that had been thrown at him since he entered the inn.

Valissia quickly took inventory of herself trying to remain calm. She leaned against a wall and adjusted her claws. "Or the best if you think about it, always good to know who you can count on in a fight." Blinking for a moment she realzied the mild sting running down her back. Another pulled piercing, grand. Brushing that off for later she spoke up again. "By the way my name is Valissia."

Isaac felt himself be tugged sharply into the air, and then heard a voice yell "Hold On!". He complied, holding on with all the strength in his body. The disgusting sight of all those vermin clambering through the window had been a shock, but now he had regained his composure. He heard the woman and the man who had helped to intervene and free him from the evil man having a conversation as they ran. He realized he still had his room key in his pocket. "Quickly! We can barricade ourselves in my room!" He felt like he should introduce himself, but...Time was short.

Ire transformed the techniques of Dark Magic into explosive balls of Dark Energy, and focused his onslaught, not on the fleeing boy and his helpers, but on the horde of vermin. If he had not grown up among these same creatures in the streets of Grandael, The Capital City of the country that shared its name, then he might have been a little more...disturbed. As the Dark Energy Spheres made contact with tiny devils they erupted, sending miniature limbs and bodies flying around the inn. The sight was surprisingly gory. Blood few from each killed opponent, and this was definitely one of the most messy methods that were at Ire's disposal. He also noticed that not only had the heroes retreated, but the Innkeeper and his staff were no where to be seen. He laughed. "Cowards!" He would have whipped out his katana blade just to scare them a bit, but he found Dark Magic a more suitable way to kill someone.

After two minutes of causing thousands of little shapes to suddenly explode, the onslaught of vermin now slowed to a halt. He slid his katana from it's sheath and looked for anyone else to kill.

Locke lept from his chair in horror as the horde of insects entered the room, a mixture of fear and disgust spread across his face. He had seen many things, but nothing as hideous as this, the writhing mass heading straight for Ire.

Even more astonishing than the initial display of insects was the way in which Ire began to dispose of them, it was without a doubt the most impressive display of magic that Locke had ever witnessed.

Locke was itching for a fight, but the way that this man handled the nightmarish swarm worried him, magic was extremely draining to stamina, and Ire appeared to be completely unaffected despite the huge show he had put on.

His magic would destroy any of us for sure, Locke thought to himself, perhaps if I can keep him occupied on parrying my blows.

He drew his own sword once Ire was finished with the swarm and appeared to be ready for the next fight, Locke had a decent sense of honour in combat, and wished for this to be a true test of skill.

"The name is Locke Briggs, mercenary, warrior, and certainly no coward." he bellowed across the room, slowly making his way towards Ire, "How does your swordplay compare to your magic?", he had a look in his eyes of wild fury, his intentions to attack were abundantly clear.

The excitement of the situation had almost certainly clouded Locke's judgement, one wrong move and he would be finished...

Ire chuckled. "How sad. Only one person out of the whole bunch was brave enough to decide to stay for the after party." The only problem with this little battle was that he would be wasting time. He needed to kill the boy! "I'll make a deal with you. If you can disarm me before I can reach the boy, then I'll leave. If you can't, then...well, the Prophecies lied." He moved into an offensive stance. If this man was as skilled a swordsman as he seemed, then Ire would have a decent challenge keeping his sword in hand, but if he was merely a fool walking around with a sword that he did not deserve... "You may call me Ire. The Lord and Leader of the Grandael Military Forces." If Ire did lose, he could just use a very powerful spell to transport himself back to safety, but that would entirely seep his strength and force him to rest a couple of days away. "Would you like to make the first move?"

Locke's eyes changed focus slightly at hearing Ire introduce himself, if the magic display and professionalism of the stance he had adopted was not enough of an indicator to how skilled this man was, then the title he held could speak volumes on its own. Locke had seen the handiwork of the Grandael on his travels, this was going to be extremely dangerous.

He gave a quick nod of his head to acknowledge Ire's offer, breaking out into a quick dash towards him, lunging the tip of the sword forward in an excessively vicious first strike as an attempt to feel his opponents speed out.

His movements suggested that his style was reckless and unpredictable, but they possessed a great deal of speed and power, the blade of the sword appearing as a blur to the untrained eye.

Using his free hand as he moved forward to attack, Locke grabbed the collar of his own heavy black cloak and began to pull it away from his body, intending to use it as a distraction as well as shedding some extra weight.

Ire stepped to the side with inhuman speed and parried the man's blow away. The cape of the man was being used as a distraction, but Ire had used that same distraction once before in his younger years and knew how to ignore it. Slipping downwards, Ire moved his sword up so that he could guard himself from any attacks coming from the man, and spun his foot out, attempting to hit the man's leg and cause him to stumble.

Most men had trouble avoiding the speed that Locke struck with, but this man was like a ghost, his eyes could barely trace the movement of Ire as he stepped to the side, not only easily parrying his lunge, but also avoiding his feint with the cloak.

His impulse directed him to immediately follow up with another attack, his sword thundering down towards Ire, only to be met by the clash of steel.

Irritated slightly by the block, he barely noticed the foot that was moving towards his legs. Too little too late.

The foot struck his bad leg, and Locke stumbled backwards, knocking over a table and grabbing onto a chair as he did so, attempting to regain his balance. Had this man already noticed that his leg was his weakness, or had it just been luck? The pain from the old scar in his leg screamed out at him, it felt like it had been struck by a hammer.

As if this was bad enough, he had never seen this fighting style before, Locke did his best to maintain an air of confidence and stop himself from making it obvious that he had been hurt. He was rusty, and he would have never expected a fighter of this caliber to show up.

Ire slowly rose to his feet, chuckling. "A little disappointing." He began walking toward the staircase that would lead him to the boy. He expected the man would try to attack his back, so he prepared himself with a stance called, 'Tigers Feint'. If the enemy attacked him while in this stance, it would be easy for him to block and counterattack. The counter-strike would only be a small strike that would do minor damage, but it was always more fun to hurt your opponent a lot before you finish them off.

((OOC: Last post until some of the others get on and stop me getting myself into too much trouble xD))

Disappointing? Disappointing?!

Locke clenched his teeth together and charged towards Ire for the second time, flinging the chair that he had been gripping onto towards him as a decoy.

A primal fury began to surge within his heart, the anger serving to increase his speed and power significantly. The style he charged in with was extremely unorthodox, keeping his free hand in front and his sword arm behind him. This was risky, but allowed for extremely difficult to predict slashes, it would serve its purpose, however.

What he lacked in finesse, he made up for in eccentric, unconventional moves and his anger, which permitted him a certain degree of resilience.

At the top of the stairs, Makoma could hear what was happening below. "Oh bother. Those of you skilled in combative arts, I believe an ally could use a hand. Young man," addressing Isaac, "the man below is after you specifically. Stay alert and run if you have to. You are more important than you realize."

Makoma took to the air again, wishing he hadn't spent so much time aloft recently. A secure footing among the rafters was easy to find, and his feet found footing while he racked his brain for a plan. Hmm. No sunlight, but the sun is fiery in nature. Fire is available. Worth trying... Makoma focused, touching the magic woven into the world. He knew the threads woven around sunlight, and discovered that those woven around firelight were similar. Thinner, weaker, but it was something. In his mind, he unraveled them and rewove them. The room went black for a moment, the only illumination coming from the tiny bead that contained every trace of the firelight that had previously made the inn seem so warm and inviting. Collected together, the light was intense, throwing shadows across the room that danced and lept in the erratic light.

The firelight bead was a little less than an eighth of an inch in front of Ire's left eye. It didn't last long, but should at the very least blind that eye. The magic in the room reasserted its natural state, the threads reweaving themselves as Makoma let go of them.

Valissia twitched her fingers feeling the metal around them respond eagerly. "Combat? This sounds promiseing." She sprinted back the way they came entering the lounge seconds after the light returned to normal. "The feeling of the energy in the air made her skin tingle. Moving to position herself as to best assist Locke she made a sound almost like a purr. Her family had always been known to begin embody the animal their weapon was inspired by. Smikring she spoke. "Are we playing with fire now?" Her smirk became more defined as the blades on her hands began to glow, tiny ruins invisible before turned red before fine lines of flame began to crawl the length of the blades. 'This has to end quickly.'

Ian frowned, "this isn't the nice town visit I had hoped for..." he gave the boy a reasuring clap on the back, "don't worry, we'll protect you." And with that, he leaped halfway down the stairs to join "the creep" and the woman in fighting the kidnapper. Ian gave a small smile and made the attempt to get the kidnappers attention "those are some fancy tricks you have there" he pointed his sword toward the ground "but I prefer not to fight..." he sighed "but it's necesarry." Ian charged down the stairs, making a feint blow towards the top of his head, then again making a feint towards his left leg, he then made his real strike towards the mans arm. Ian gave a deep frown as he brought the last strike down, scolding himself ~I made the first move... what came over me?~ but it was to late for that, he would have to play out the battle as it was.

Valissia saw Ian make the first feint and circled quickly to back up his next attack. When he feined for the man's leg and went for his head she took the oppurtunity to follow up on the attack and went for the dark magic user's left leg. If he could block both hits she may have to consider becoming impressed. She focused solely on her attack and the thin stream of magic she held causeong the fire to flare an odd blue white as she closed in.

So much occurred at once that confusion almost overwhelmed Ire. Luckily, he had seen where the chair had been coming at him from before he had been temporarily blinded by the Light Magic, and he was able to catch one of the chair's legs with his hand and use it to deflect an attack from the mercenary who he had been fighting earlier. The second after the attack had been deflected, Ire used minor teleportation to transport across the room. The spell he had just used was extremely taxing for an untrained magician, but it he would only feel the affect if he had used it to transport a major distance. He was still slightly dazed when he chuckled, weaving another teleportation technique.

"Fair fights are always enjoyable, so I'll come back when I'm properly armed. Remember, children, the I am still hunting the boy and wherever he goes I will destroy!" As he teleported, he laughed. The ringing echo of the laugh remained seconds after he had teleported to safety, a few miles away from the city. Using so much magic to shift a persons entire mass was extremely taxing, and now Ire felt as if he could sleep for days. Luckily, he was a bit safer now.

Isaac rushed downstairs, despite the warnings given to him and felt an immense amount of Dark magic being used. He jumped out of the staircase in time to see the evil man who was trying to kill him disappear. The man's maniacal laughter seemed to echo even after he was gone. "Who was that?" He asked sheepishly, still a little disoriented after todays events.

Ian frowned deeply and moved his hand through his dark hair, he then looked the boy in the eye and said "well, I was kind of hoping you could tell us" he said making a sweeping gesture around the room with his arm. "As to why a highly trained assassin was making the attempt to kill you... over, what was it? the Prophecy of The Speaker?" seeing the boy obviously knew about as much as he had, he took a seat and sighed heavily before returning to his old, happy, self. He turned the chair around and sat with his front facing the back of the chair, "well, I suppose it's nice to meet you all, I'm Ian if it's of any importance." A chill crept down his spine, mostly about that strange man.