The Hanged Man was busier this evening than it usually was, and Sophia wondered if there was a reason for that. Also, the fact that she knew how busy this place was on a typical evening troubled her slightly, but she supposed there was nothing wrong with that. This place was just as respectable as any Hightown establishment... meaning that under the gilded surface, all these places were dens of scum and lowlife, with the occasional jewel of an individual mixed in. What they were looking for tonight, however, was not a jewel, but quite the opposite.
They spread out, filtering among the patrons and opening their ears, though most of what they would hear was absolute drivel and contained no useful information about missing Qunari or corrupt guardsmen. Sophia found herself working towards the bar along with Nostariel, where she soon spotted a taller figure among the group, and she smiled upon realizing that it was Ashton. Turning her back to the bar, Sophia leaned up against it when she had reached his side, surveying the patrons at the tables. No small amount of the them were armed, but that was to be expected anywhere in Lowtown, particularly after sundown.
"Hello, Ashton," she greeted pleasantly, doing her best to shrug off any negative attitude left over from her encounter with the Arishok. "You wouldn't have by chance overhead anyone mentioning they're a guardsman in here, have you?"
"Wondered when you two would make your way to me," Ashton said swiveling around in his seat. On his face he wore a large smile, as he ever did, but what was missing was the noticeable blush that all the other patrons were wearing. Because unlike them, Ashton wasn't drinking. Instead the tankard held some kind of juice. He wasn't told, and he didn't ask. It was probably better that way. Probably wasn't much better for him in the long run. "I seen you all come in. I mean, I seen you all come in. I pity the poor bastard you're hunting for," The Chevalier was impossible to miss, after all. Amalia and Aurora less so, but he even managed to pick them out.
Ashton ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the bow sitting at the base of his neck. At the mention of the guardsman Ashton chuckled and leaned his head a little to the side. "Only every other minute. The poor sod you're looking for is over there, the one waving the bottle around and buying drinks for the entire bar," At that Ashton frowned and looked wistful for a moment. "Which has been no fun since I quit drinking," Ashton, shaking his head. He then chuckled it off and held out his tankard in offering for Nostariel. "Drink? It's... Well, I'm not sure what it is actually," He said, smile dropping as he peered into the tankard, sloshing the liquid around.
Nostariel smiled, a touch wryly. She definitely knew how he was feeling on that. Sheâd quit drinking herself, and sometimes, she wondered if he might be putting himself through the same from some kind of solidarity. She hoped not; either way, it was nice not to be the only one. The glance she gave the tankard was speculative, accompanied by a raised brow, but in the end she shrugged and lifted it gently from his hand. âDonât mind if I do,â the Warden replied, taking a sip and using the opportunity to survey the guard they were looking for surreptitiously. She had the uncomfortable feeling that this bit wasnât really going to end well. Living in a bar for more than four years had given her a sort of sense for when things were tense, and that fellow, despite all the drinking he was doing and facilitating, was taut as a bowstring. Handing the tin tankard back to Ash, she touched his elbow in thanks and followed Sophia over in the fellowâs general direction.
âCareful,â she advised the Viscountâs daughter in a low voice. âSome of these would love an excuse to start something in here.â Of course, a barfight would hardly be worse than anything else they ever did, but they could still get ugly, even with friends, because in the end, you were mostly hurting people who were just a little too intoxicated to know better, and sheâd feel bad about that, if it happened. The one Ash had pointed them to was situated at a corner of the bar, flanked by a few other patrons all too happy to take advantage of his generous offer for free alcohol. She wondered if maybe the sudden windfall of funds had come from being paid off to not notice a few Qunari disappearingâthe thought turned her mouth down into a frown.
Honestly, Sophia was a little less concerned, but she'd try to keep that to herself. It was a selfish desire and not at all like her, but the Arishok had her feeling like hitting something, and a corrupt guardsman would do just fine. No one would die, obviously. It wasn't like that Dalish elf was here, and the rest of them were capable of holding their own while not murdering enemies. Well, perhaps Nostariel would be less comfortable in the midst of a fist fight... but she wouldn't be alone. Either way, if this man had been buying rounds for most of the bar, he probably assumed he had a good deal of friends here. There were only six of them, and those numbers would probably go underestimated. Very few of these people had seen them in action before.
Sophia tried to catch the eyes of the others, to let them know they'd potentially found who they were looking for, before speaking from behind the man at the bar. "I hear you've been buying quite a few drinks, guardsman. Is that something the Keep's covering, I wonder?" He didn't even turn to face her, which was perhaps a boon to them. The city guard would recognize the Viscount's daughter, of course, especially in her armor. "Tonight, I'm paid and blessed, and all I had to do was turn my head. What say you, lovely? Care to fetch us another round? To all my..." He turned, blinking a few times at her. "...friends. Shit."
Sophia had her arms crossed by this point, not amused with being mistaken for a serving girl. The redheaded guardsman seemed rather threatened by the glare. "Hey, don't do anything rash now. I know important people. We're going to show this city what to do with heathen oxmen, since you and your father won't." Oh, the stupidity of these people. Sometimes, Sophia wondered how they all still managed to keep themselves alive. Surprisingly, Sophia managed to keep her anger in check for the moment, trying to appeal to him instead. "Relax, guardsman. I just want to know who paid you to take a Qunari delegate."
"Look... I made a good wage for looking away while someone tamed a horn-head. So what? Don't you want them gone, too?" She most certainly did, but that wasn't the point. Right now, trying to get rid of them would only serve to let them kill everyone in the city. "Just give me a name, please. This doesn't have to get ugly." But he seemed to think otherwise, and now that she noticed it, there were a good deal of eyes on them, and the room was significantly quieter than it was when they'd walked in. The guardsman didn't look to be budging, so Sophia turned to the bartender behind the counter.
"I apologize in advance for this. The Keep will pay for everything that's about to be broken." She then turned abruptly, throwing a heavy punch into the corrupt man's jaw, sending him reeling backwards and nearly going to the ground. Unsurprisingly, the Hanged Man erupted.
But Maker, that felt good.
Amalia had split off from the group, taking Aurora with her to prowl the edges of the room, though she let the other woman do all the questioning. Nobody seemed to really know who here was a guard and who wasnât, though that was like as not because of the fact that all these humans were too drunk to remember much of anything at the moment. It was enough to wrinkle Amaliaâs nose with a fair amount of disgustâsheâd never liked such places. With time, however, she caught sight of Nostariel and Sophia heading purposefully towards a certain cluster of people, and cleared her throat to halt Auroraâs current conversation, nodding over at their two allies. That was what they wanted, and she wasnât fool enough to suppose that their target was simply going to give up all the information they required.
She was thinking she might have to expedite matter by becoming a bit rough when Sophia apparently decided that nothing more subtle than a strike to the face was required. The Qunari and her student were only about halfway across the room by this point, and the entire bar erupted shortly thereafter, making it rather impossible to simply walk up to the others. Amalia rolled her eyes as she caught a clumsily-thrown punch, deftly twisting the arm in question back behind its owner and slamming his head into a nearby table, whereupon he promptly fell unconscious. âWaste of time,â she muttered under her breath. Glancing over at Aurora, she raised a brow, jerking her head at the crowd of exactly a half-dozen burly men that approached the two females. âImekari. Show me.â It did not need to be said what, exactly, she was asking to see. Aurora knew her well enough to decipher this.
What would a trip to the local dive be without a massive bar fight? Far too quiet for them. Aurora wouldn't minded if at least one of these excursions went smoothly for them. But what was happening was happening, and no amount of internal griping was going stop it. When the bar turned into a brawl, Aurora caught the first elbow intended for her face. While Amalia slammed hers down into the table nearby, Aurora drove two swift fists under the armpit of her own malcontent. He dropped like a rock, deciding that the floor would be much more kinder than the redheaded spitfire. With the three words leaving Amalia's mouth, Aurora turned to her for a moment and nodded. If this was part of her assessment, then it was part of her assessment. She just wished that it wasn't in the Hanged Man of all places.
Right, six big and probably inebriated men. Nothing they couldn't handle. They'd all dealt with worse-- much worse. It did raise the question of why the gang decided to descend upon them of all people. The way they just dropped two men probably had something to do with that. Aurora sighed and began to close the distance between them. If they were going to make their way to them in any event, it'd be better to bring the fight to them and gain the upperhand in the beginning. There was a chair on route to the thugs, and Aurora utilized it. Jumping up onto the chair, she then bounced her way to a nearby table top, and then bounded toward the men.
Practiced strength was put behind the lunge, so instead of slamming directly into them, she'd float over their heads. She even pulled her legs in closer to avoid kicking on of them in the head and snapping their neck. She landed a couple of paces behind of them. Taking a hard step backward, she used that momentum to drive the point of her elbow square into the spine of the man, throwing him to the ground. Now with Aurora positioned in the middle of the crowd of thugs, she turned and this time sent both of her elbows out, driving these into the bellies of the men on either side, putting them on their knees. But these were big men, it'd take more than that to finish them. Still, Aurora was far from done.
Lucien, meanwhile, was currently looking down in some surprise at the fist that had planted itself against his chestplate. He wasnât sure exactly what had made punching a man in armor seem like a good idea, but the fellow whoâd done so was clearly regretting it nowâhis knuckles had split and were bleeding quite profusely. It could be worse; he could have broken them. Holding both hands up in the air by his shoulders as though in surrender, the Chevalier sighed. âGentlemen,â he said, addressing himself to those in his immediate proximity, âI assure you that you do not want to do this.â
He was answered, predictably enough, by a flying chair, which one of them had seen fit to pluck from its perfectly innocent spot on the ground and hurl for his head with extreme (and, he liked to think, unwarranted) prejudice. Moving one of his lofted limbs, he caught the thing by a leg and set it carefully back down again, using his other arm to block an incoming fist, which banged off his gauntlet with a muffled hiss from the person whoâd thrown it. Shaking his head, Lucien kicked the nearest one in the chest, sending him sprawling backwards into a knot of other people, a few of whom turned on him and engaged a few of his friends for good measure. That should keep them occupied for a while, at least. In the meantime, he had four others to deal with, one of whom was a bit smarter than his barehanded compatriots and had broken a pair of legs off another chair, handing one to his nearest ally and keeping the other.
Well, he supposed he really had no choice, did he?
Nostariel was, thankfully, prepared for this eventuality, and had coated herself in rock armor as soon as Sophia punched the guard, but that was not to say she was all that comfortable at the moment. She didnât really want to cast any magic on these people, but she only knew very basic things about fighting with oneâs own hands, and those had been picked up only recently. Still, it wasnât like she was just going to stand around and wait to be hit, so when she saw one of the hangers-on attempting to sneak around to Sophiaâs back, Nostariel planted herself there instead, swinging a stony arm around and into the womanâs shouderblades. It knocked her forward, but she retaliated with a low, sweeping kick, which thudded into the Wardenâs armored leg with just enough force to upset her balance a bit, sending her stumbling to the right a few steps.
Grimacing, Nostariel reacted by targeting the immediate area with a Mind Blast, a small spell that would simply daze those hit by it for a while. Everyone except Sophia within about ten feet started staggering around, which would hopefully give the noblewoman an opportunity to dispatch with no small number of them. The Warden did not, however, see the one that had managed to shake off the effects approaching her from the left.
Too bad he'd never get to her. A shadow passed over Nostariel, and the man was taken to the ground with an elbow drop from the hunter. Back where Ashton had been only moments ago, a man sat with his face buried in the bar, a dented tin tankard not too far. There was a joke about hard liquor in there somewhere, but Ashton's moment of acrobatics had taken its place instead. At some point between Sophia's hard hook and Nostariel's Mind Blast, Ashton had dealt with a barfly via tankard, mounted the bar, and, well... flew. He stood rolling his shoulder in its socket, having tweaked it in his descent. Still, he was well enough to pass Nostariel a wink...
... At least before got socked in the mouth. An uppity bastard had happened to break through Nostariel's Mind Blast just in time to land a punch on the archer. Leaned backward with the sucker punch, he reached out and snatched the collar of the offender and his newest, most hated man. Trading blow for blow, Ashton drove his fist directly into his nose, and followed up with another for interrupting him, and another one just because. He passed another look toward Nostariel, though there was no wink in this one. Do you believe that? it screamed. Though not for long, as another man tackled him and carried him off further into the brawl.
Sophia was trained in combat with the blade, taught to move with speed, precision, balance, and grace. As far as fist fighting went... she knew how to defend herself, but all of this was really just natural talent at work. Soldiers were taught unarmed techniques so that they would be prepared, but Sophia had never been a soldier. Thus, watching her slug the corrupt guardsman was not at all like watching her work with a blade. For one, her punches were rather wild, sloppily aimed, and now that she no longer had the element of surprise, they didn't have as much weight behind them as the others could get. Also, she tried to commonly fight with a cool head, but this barfight was serving as a way for her to... express her emotions.
She drove the guardsman all the way to the wall near the door, hammering him with punches wherever he didn't guard, and her flurry left him with little to do but block and bide his time. Just as his back rammed up against the hinges of the door she felt Nostariel's mind blast spell go off, and just in time too, as she felt a dazed individual stumble into her back, his planned attack temporarily thwarted. She turned to deal with him, throwing a knee into his gut to double him over, then seizing two fistfuls of hair and kneeing him again, this time in the forehead, sending him sprawling backwards, clutching at his skull. She'd no sooner completed this than the guardsman, on the edges of the radius of Nostariel's spell, rudely grabbed Sophia's braid and yanked it backwards.
"Ow!" He had some nerve, didn't he? No fear of the Viscount's daughter herself. Important friends indeed, if he thought himself safe from Sophia and her friends. She managed to turn her head with the following punch somewhat, but it still caught her across the cheekbone, dazing her slightly. The next move was for him to push the pair of them back into the barfight proper, away from the wall to closer to where many more of his friends were. Sophia was driven back, despite landing a few hasty punches to his ribs and jaw, but she felt a few punches on her own person, to the side and back. The armor dulled off most of that, but she then felt the effects of being rammed backwards into a table, a jarring pain in her lower back followed by the whole thing tipping over, sending the pair of them to the ground amidst the chaos.
It wasn't pretty in the slightest, but she was going to beat the living daylights out of this man if it was the last thing she did.
They spread out, filtering among the patrons and opening their ears, though most of what they would hear was absolute drivel and contained no useful information about missing Qunari or corrupt guardsmen. Sophia found herself working towards the bar along with Nostariel, where she soon spotted a taller figure among the group, and she smiled upon realizing that it was Ashton. Turning her back to the bar, Sophia leaned up against it when she had reached his side, surveying the patrons at the tables. No small amount of the them were armed, but that was to be expected anywhere in Lowtown, particularly after sundown.
"Hello, Ashton," she greeted pleasantly, doing her best to shrug off any negative attitude left over from her encounter with the Arishok. "You wouldn't have by chance overhead anyone mentioning they're a guardsman in here, have you?"
"Wondered when you two would make your way to me," Ashton said swiveling around in his seat. On his face he wore a large smile, as he ever did, but what was missing was the noticeable blush that all the other patrons were wearing. Because unlike them, Ashton wasn't drinking. Instead the tankard held some kind of juice. He wasn't told, and he didn't ask. It was probably better that way. Probably wasn't much better for him in the long run. "I seen you all come in. I mean, I seen you all come in. I pity the poor bastard you're hunting for," The Chevalier was impossible to miss, after all. Amalia and Aurora less so, but he even managed to pick them out.
Ashton ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the bow sitting at the base of his neck. At the mention of the guardsman Ashton chuckled and leaned his head a little to the side. "Only every other minute. The poor sod you're looking for is over there, the one waving the bottle around and buying drinks for the entire bar," At that Ashton frowned and looked wistful for a moment. "Which has been no fun since I quit drinking," Ashton, shaking his head. He then chuckled it off and held out his tankard in offering for Nostariel. "Drink? It's... Well, I'm not sure what it is actually," He said, smile dropping as he peered into the tankard, sloshing the liquid around.
Nostariel smiled, a touch wryly. She definitely knew how he was feeling on that. Sheâd quit drinking herself, and sometimes, she wondered if he might be putting himself through the same from some kind of solidarity. She hoped not; either way, it was nice not to be the only one. The glance she gave the tankard was speculative, accompanied by a raised brow, but in the end she shrugged and lifted it gently from his hand. âDonât mind if I do,â the Warden replied, taking a sip and using the opportunity to survey the guard they were looking for surreptitiously. She had the uncomfortable feeling that this bit wasnât really going to end well. Living in a bar for more than four years had given her a sort of sense for when things were tense, and that fellow, despite all the drinking he was doing and facilitating, was taut as a bowstring. Handing the tin tankard back to Ash, she touched his elbow in thanks and followed Sophia over in the fellowâs general direction.
âCareful,â she advised the Viscountâs daughter in a low voice. âSome of these would love an excuse to start something in here.â Of course, a barfight would hardly be worse than anything else they ever did, but they could still get ugly, even with friends, because in the end, you were mostly hurting people who were just a little too intoxicated to know better, and sheâd feel bad about that, if it happened. The one Ash had pointed them to was situated at a corner of the bar, flanked by a few other patrons all too happy to take advantage of his generous offer for free alcohol. She wondered if maybe the sudden windfall of funds had come from being paid off to not notice a few Qunari disappearingâthe thought turned her mouth down into a frown.
Honestly, Sophia was a little less concerned, but she'd try to keep that to herself. It was a selfish desire and not at all like her, but the Arishok had her feeling like hitting something, and a corrupt guardsman would do just fine. No one would die, obviously. It wasn't like that Dalish elf was here, and the rest of them were capable of holding their own while not murdering enemies. Well, perhaps Nostariel would be less comfortable in the midst of a fist fight... but she wouldn't be alone. Either way, if this man had been buying rounds for most of the bar, he probably assumed he had a good deal of friends here. There were only six of them, and those numbers would probably go underestimated. Very few of these people had seen them in action before.
Sophia tried to catch the eyes of the others, to let them know they'd potentially found who they were looking for, before speaking from behind the man at the bar. "I hear you've been buying quite a few drinks, guardsman. Is that something the Keep's covering, I wonder?" He didn't even turn to face her, which was perhaps a boon to them. The city guard would recognize the Viscount's daughter, of course, especially in her armor. "Tonight, I'm paid and blessed, and all I had to do was turn my head. What say you, lovely? Care to fetch us another round? To all my..." He turned, blinking a few times at her. "...friends. Shit."
Sophia had her arms crossed by this point, not amused with being mistaken for a serving girl. The redheaded guardsman seemed rather threatened by the glare. "Hey, don't do anything rash now. I know important people. We're going to show this city what to do with heathen oxmen, since you and your father won't." Oh, the stupidity of these people. Sometimes, Sophia wondered how they all still managed to keep themselves alive. Surprisingly, Sophia managed to keep her anger in check for the moment, trying to appeal to him instead. "Relax, guardsman. I just want to know who paid you to take a Qunari delegate."
"Look... I made a good wage for looking away while someone tamed a horn-head. So what? Don't you want them gone, too?" She most certainly did, but that wasn't the point. Right now, trying to get rid of them would only serve to let them kill everyone in the city. "Just give me a name, please. This doesn't have to get ugly." But he seemed to think otherwise, and now that she noticed it, there were a good deal of eyes on them, and the room was significantly quieter than it was when they'd walked in. The guardsman didn't look to be budging, so Sophia turned to the bartender behind the counter.
"I apologize in advance for this. The Keep will pay for everything that's about to be broken." She then turned abruptly, throwing a heavy punch into the corrupt man's jaw, sending him reeling backwards and nearly going to the ground. Unsurprisingly, the Hanged Man erupted.
But Maker, that felt good.
Amalia had split off from the group, taking Aurora with her to prowl the edges of the room, though she let the other woman do all the questioning. Nobody seemed to really know who here was a guard and who wasnât, though that was like as not because of the fact that all these humans were too drunk to remember much of anything at the moment. It was enough to wrinkle Amaliaâs nose with a fair amount of disgustâsheâd never liked such places. With time, however, she caught sight of Nostariel and Sophia heading purposefully towards a certain cluster of people, and cleared her throat to halt Auroraâs current conversation, nodding over at their two allies. That was what they wanted, and she wasnât fool enough to suppose that their target was simply going to give up all the information they required.
She was thinking she might have to expedite matter by becoming a bit rough when Sophia apparently decided that nothing more subtle than a strike to the face was required. The Qunari and her student were only about halfway across the room by this point, and the entire bar erupted shortly thereafter, making it rather impossible to simply walk up to the others. Amalia rolled her eyes as she caught a clumsily-thrown punch, deftly twisting the arm in question back behind its owner and slamming his head into a nearby table, whereupon he promptly fell unconscious. âWaste of time,â she muttered under her breath. Glancing over at Aurora, she raised a brow, jerking her head at the crowd of exactly a half-dozen burly men that approached the two females. âImekari. Show me.â It did not need to be said what, exactly, she was asking to see. Aurora knew her well enough to decipher this.
What would a trip to the local dive be without a massive bar fight? Far too quiet for them. Aurora wouldn't minded if at least one of these excursions went smoothly for them. But what was happening was happening, and no amount of internal griping was going stop it. When the bar turned into a brawl, Aurora caught the first elbow intended for her face. While Amalia slammed hers down into the table nearby, Aurora drove two swift fists under the armpit of her own malcontent. He dropped like a rock, deciding that the floor would be much more kinder than the redheaded spitfire. With the three words leaving Amalia's mouth, Aurora turned to her for a moment and nodded. If this was part of her assessment, then it was part of her assessment. She just wished that it wasn't in the Hanged Man of all places.
Right, six big and probably inebriated men. Nothing they couldn't handle. They'd all dealt with worse-- much worse. It did raise the question of why the gang decided to descend upon them of all people. The way they just dropped two men probably had something to do with that. Aurora sighed and began to close the distance between them. If they were going to make their way to them in any event, it'd be better to bring the fight to them and gain the upperhand in the beginning. There was a chair on route to the thugs, and Aurora utilized it. Jumping up onto the chair, she then bounced her way to a nearby table top, and then bounded toward the men.
Practiced strength was put behind the lunge, so instead of slamming directly into them, she'd float over their heads. She even pulled her legs in closer to avoid kicking on of them in the head and snapping their neck. She landed a couple of paces behind of them. Taking a hard step backward, she used that momentum to drive the point of her elbow square into the spine of the man, throwing him to the ground. Now with Aurora positioned in the middle of the crowd of thugs, she turned and this time sent both of her elbows out, driving these into the bellies of the men on either side, putting them on their knees. But these were big men, it'd take more than that to finish them. Still, Aurora was far from done.
Lucien, meanwhile, was currently looking down in some surprise at the fist that had planted itself against his chestplate. He wasnât sure exactly what had made punching a man in armor seem like a good idea, but the fellow whoâd done so was clearly regretting it nowâhis knuckles had split and were bleeding quite profusely. It could be worse; he could have broken them. Holding both hands up in the air by his shoulders as though in surrender, the Chevalier sighed. âGentlemen,â he said, addressing himself to those in his immediate proximity, âI assure you that you do not want to do this.â
He was answered, predictably enough, by a flying chair, which one of them had seen fit to pluck from its perfectly innocent spot on the ground and hurl for his head with extreme (and, he liked to think, unwarranted) prejudice. Moving one of his lofted limbs, he caught the thing by a leg and set it carefully back down again, using his other arm to block an incoming fist, which banged off his gauntlet with a muffled hiss from the person whoâd thrown it. Shaking his head, Lucien kicked the nearest one in the chest, sending him sprawling backwards into a knot of other people, a few of whom turned on him and engaged a few of his friends for good measure. That should keep them occupied for a while, at least. In the meantime, he had four others to deal with, one of whom was a bit smarter than his barehanded compatriots and had broken a pair of legs off another chair, handing one to his nearest ally and keeping the other.
Well, he supposed he really had no choice, did he?
Nostariel was, thankfully, prepared for this eventuality, and had coated herself in rock armor as soon as Sophia punched the guard, but that was not to say she was all that comfortable at the moment. She didnât really want to cast any magic on these people, but she only knew very basic things about fighting with oneâs own hands, and those had been picked up only recently. Still, it wasnât like she was just going to stand around and wait to be hit, so when she saw one of the hangers-on attempting to sneak around to Sophiaâs back, Nostariel planted herself there instead, swinging a stony arm around and into the womanâs shouderblades. It knocked her forward, but she retaliated with a low, sweeping kick, which thudded into the Wardenâs armored leg with just enough force to upset her balance a bit, sending her stumbling to the right a few steps.
Grimacing, Nostariel reacted by targeting the immediate area with a Mind Blast, a small spell that would simply daze those hit by it for a while. Everyone except Sophia within about ten feet started staggering around, which would hopefully give the noblewoman an opportunity to dispatch with no small number of them. The Warden did not, however, see the one that had managed to shake off the effects approaching her from the left.
Too bad he'd never get to her. A shadow passed over Nostariel, and the man was taken to the ground with an elbow drop from the hunter. Back where Ashton had been only moments ago, a man sat with his face buried in the bar, a dented tin tankard not too far. There was a joke about hard liquor in there somewhere, but Ashton's moment of acrobatics had taken its place instead. At some point between Sophia's hard hook and Nostariel's Mind Blast, Ashton had dealt with a barfly via tankard, mounted the bar, and, well... flew. He stood rolling his shoulder in its socket, having tweaked it in his descent. Still, he was well enough to pass Nostariel a wink...
... At least before got socked in the mouth. An uppity bastard had happened to break through Nostariel's Mind Blast just in time to land a punch on the archer. Leaned backward with the sucker punch, he reached out and snatched the collar of the offender and his newest, most hated man. Trading blow for blow, Ashton drove his fist directly into his nose, and followed up with another for interrupting him, and another one just because. He passed another look toward Nostariel, though there was no wink in this one. Do you believe that? it screamed. Though not for long, as another man tackled him and carried him off further into the brawl.
Sophia was trained in combat with the blade, taught to move with speed, precision, balance, and grace. As far as fist fighting went... she knew how to defend herself, but all of this was really just natural talent at work. Soldiers were taught unarmed techniques so that they would be prepared, but Sophia had never been a soldier. Thus, watching her slug the corrupt guardsman was not at all like watching her work with a blade. For one, her punches were rather wild, sloppily aimed, and now that she no longer had the element of surprise, they didn't have as much weight behind them as the others could get. Also, she tried to commonly fight with a cool head, but this barfight was serving as a way for her to... express her emotions.
She drove the guardsman all the way to the wall near the door, hammering him with punches wherever he didn't guard, and her flurry left him with little to do but block and bide his time. Just as his back rammed up against the hinges of the door she felt Nostariel's mind blast spell go off, and just in time too, as she felt a dazed individual stumble into her back, his planned attack temporarily thwarted. She turned to deal with him, throwing a knee into his gut to double him over, then seizing two fistfuls of hair and kneeing him again, this time in the forehead, sending him sprawling backwards, clutching at his skull. She'd no sooner completed this than the guardsman, on the edges of the radius of Nostariel's spell, rudely grabbed Sophia's braid and yanked it backwards.
"Ow!" He had some nerve, didn't he? No fear of the Viscount's daughter herself. Important friends indeed, if he thought himself safe from Sophia and her friends. She managed to turn her head with the following punch somewhat, but it still caught her across the cheekbone, dazing her slightly. The next move was for him to push the pair of them back into the barfight proper, away from the wall to closer to where many more of his friends were. Sophia was driven back, despite landing a few hasty punches to his ribs and jaw, but she felt a few punches on her own person, to the side and back. The armor dulled off most of that, but she then felt the effects of being rammed backwards into a table, a jarring pain in her lower back followed by the whole thing tipping over, sending the pair of them to the ground amidst the chaos.
It wasn't pretty in the slightest, but she was going to beat the living daylights out of this man if it was the last thing she did.