Anissa

Sylar, absorbed in his own plotting until Yuhra spoke, looked up at the girl's words.

"Like what you see?" Yuhra giggled at the demon, noticing his gaze fixating on her, even though she could not see it; she could feel his presence watching her. She bit into the bread and began chewing, barely stopping to breathe. She was starving, and holding a piece of bread in her hands didn't help much. "If you were a human, i would likely have you at the ground by now. But, I respect my life, so I'll let you do your business." She said uneasily, knowing that the thing was bigger and likely much stronger than her, so she should be careful of what she says and does around it.

"Gethin," Sylar murmured coldly. "I will need you on this mission. Do not force me to send you away."

Gethin glanced around at his Master, and then to Ranos, just as he removed his hand from his sword.
"Yes, Master," he murmured, lowering his eyes to the ground, remaining carefully placed in Sylar's shadow. Sylar nodded calmly and looked once more to Ranos. "We are only waiting for Anil, correct?"

Ranos nodded at Sylar; "Perhaps we should just move on and hope he follows us...? I could've sworn he was moving faster earlier."

"Perhaps he got tired and had to stop," Sylar jabbed sardonically. It was no secret that he held each guild member at a certain level of disdain, for one thing or another. He was a rather... disdainful person, when it came down to it. "Shall we go?" he asked.

And as was typical, he did not stop to wait for the others. Swinging back his long dark hair and raising his hood over his head to keep the sun out of his eyes, he struck out again, taking the lead not because he wanted to lead, but because he wanted to get going. Gethin fell in beside Sylar, letting his gaze trail over Yuhra as they passed her, before focusing once more on the path ahead. Sylar did not stop to see if the others would follow, and Gethin followed his lead, his face an emotionless and seemingly blind mask.

Ranos beckoned for Yuhra to follow as he set out towards the village. Keeping pace with Sylar, he took a swig of water from his canteen and showed a smirk as he could see Nalyn on the horizon. "Well, at least it's in sight! We just gotta keep walking," he acknowledged, capping his canteen and hooking it back up to his belt. Once again shielding his eyes from the sun, using his hand as a visor, Ranos squinted at a strange sight not far ahead; a half-giant standing still and gazing across the plains.
"Shit!" He muttered, raising a hand and clenching his fist, signalling a stop. Even Sylar would hopefully stop, considering the danger a half-giant would pose.

"Well, then, looks like we're going to need to get past this guy. Everybody gather 'round."

(Combat tiiiime~ :D)

"We're going to kill it?" Yuhra excitedly asked. She loved fighting large monsters, the feeling that she gets when she slays a powerful beast. Some say she has a thing for violence (tee-hee), but she actually just enjoys a challenge. She listened intently, so that she can find out if they get to kill it. She unsheathed her naginata, the razor-sharp tip gleaming in the sunlight. She then held the drawn weapon behind her back horizontally, producing a girlish pose. Yuhra smiled, ready to hear the plan.

Sylar spotted the half-giant just an instant after Ranos, stopping suddenly and hanging back on his heels. Gethin did not stop, moving until his seven-foot, white-haired, fanged mass stood between his master and the possible harm. Sylar, sheltered behind his demon, turned his back on the half-giant and looked back to Ranos and Yuhra.

"Well?" he called quietly, in a voice that only they would hear. "What do we do about this?"

It would not be so easy to kill, Gethin spoke in Sylar's mind. Sylar tossed a glare over his shoulder at Gethin.

"Silence," he commanded quietly.

"I'm a bit rusty, I remember when I was younger I could take down one of these things by myself...All it will take for us is a little bit of coordination. I'll hold his attention, and you two can sneak around and flank. Not that hard." Ranos said, nodding at the lumbering monster before them.

(...Are we ready?)

(...Anil's player has work during the days...and CPR training at night...)

Anil had decided to take a bit more of a majestic entrance than he originally anticipated. The appearance of the half-giant before his companions invited Anil to make a bit of a course correction. He was flying high, hundreds of feet above the ground where the half-giant could not see him, clumsy beast it was. So focused on the ground, never paying heed to what was above. Seeing his companions form up to fight the monster, Anil decided that his would be a perfect time for a pre-emptive strike. Hovering far above the monster, Anil hollered more harsh words and the wind followed suit. He clapped his hands together in a grand arc and a shockwave of air hard as steel rocketed down from the sky and smashed the half-giant in the back, knocking the beast to the ground. Easy pickings now for his companions.

Anil began his descent to join his companions in further battle.

(OOC: Alright, that didn't quite go as I had planned it so sorry if this post is a bit crude.)

Ranos smirked slyly;
"Thanks for finally joining us, oh high and mighty monk," he chuckled. "Alright, now that he's weakened, I'm sure he'll get back up, Anil can cast a protective ward over me, Sylar will back me up, and while the beast is distracted, Yuhra will take its left flank with her naginata. The demon dog can be positioned on its right side, ready to charge its back if it turns to attack Yuhra. Now that we've got this plan, may as well charge it..." He said with a grin, unsheathing his long sword adorned with a single topaz; "...let's do this!" He finished, taking his large iron buckler off of his back and sprinting forward at the great monster.

Anil smirked at Ranos's comment, "Well, had I known this would be such a problem for you I wouldn't have been so leisurely in my pace." the monk replied as he cast a hardening spell over the guild master making his armor, clothes, and even his skin as hard as granite despite retaining their respective forms. The half-giant was struggling to his feet as the guild master charged it. Anil conjured an aero-blast that hit the beast in the head with the force equal to that of any maul, knocking the creature off-balance again while Anil himself followed his guild master.

Sylar listened in pensive silence to Ranos' plan. It seemed solid enough - they always seemed solid enough. That did not mean that nothing ever went wrong.
Oh well, there was no time to worry about that now. He gestured Gethin off to his position on the half-giant's right. Gethin obeyed his master silently, as ever - he had been commanded to speak only when necessary, for his voice was terrible and seductive and simply an inconvenience for Sylar. He shifted around, maintaining his human shape, and dropped into a crouch. For a beast so weak there was no need to take full power.

Sylar backed off a step, putting himself quite a distance behind Ranos, and began to whisper words of magic, twisting his way into the half-giant's mind. Working on its sanity. Displaying visions to it that would frighten the skin off of even the most accomplished and intelligent warriors.

The half-giant slowly pushed itself back up from the ground, rubbing the sore spot on his forehead from the vicious impact on the ground. Ranos had just arrived to greet him with cold steel when it seemed to have a great panic attack, swinging his boulder-sized fists around and letting out blood-curdling screams. Ranos seized the opportunity and lunged with his blade, turning it sideways before it sank into the leg of the beast. The creature felt it as your average pin-prick, turning around to swat the fly that bit him. Ranos leapt back and took a half-step to the right, dodging an incoming fist, before he took another slash at the same leg.

The half-giant was still having the most horrid visions in his head, and that was the worst of this fight for such a nervous beast. Unable to maintain calm, he thrashed and spun in an attempt to control the tormented screams inside of his mind. He swung and knocked Ranos back a few meters, being mostly okay due to the protective wards. The creature shrank to its knees and cradled his bulbous head in his hands for a few seconds before standing back up again, eyes completely white, and letting out a roar of bloody murder. Oh dear.

Master, Gethin called out to Sylar, but the mage was deeply absorbed in his casting, working the spell deeper into the half-giant's mind. It took time to rot away the mind, and a great deal of concentration went into feeding the images to the great beast. Gethin knew that as well as anyone, for his mind was linked to Sylar's, and he could see the mage's thoughts as he chose what he should show to his victim, but not for the first time Gethin found himself wishing that Sylar would put just a little bit less concentration into his magic. With Ranos tossed to the side, Sylar was exposed to the madness of the howling giant, and entirely unaware of his own danger.

Slowly, bit by bit, thought by thought, Sylar broke his way deeper into the half-giant's consciousness. If he worked at it long enough he knew he would be able to cause permanent damage, and there was no one who knew him who could deny the fact that he enjoyed the pain his powers dealt. That was why, in the end, he and his demon got along so well - they both enjoyed the screaming.

Master, Gethin repeated more insistently, his word cracking through Sylar's spell. The mage's brow furrowed with the effort of maintaining his spell through a split consciousness. Gethin gave a snarl of frustration as the half-giant began lumbering towards Sylar, the first person he saw. His voice took on different tones, dissinant and inhuman as his frustration broke through. It had been his intention not to attack unless ordered to do so, but his prime command was to guard Sylar's life until the very end. And unaware as he was, the mage's life was very much in danger.

Muscles surging, Gethin launched himself from the ground as the half-giant passed him, latching his claws into the great creature's back. His form seemed to morph as he struck, half-hunched, half-furred, his muzzle lengthening, caught between wolfish beast and fanged human. His white eyes came alight with lust as he burried his fangs into the enemy's flesh.

But the giant kept moving, roaring in rage, and Sylar remained unaware.

(Yuhra will be inactive until about now every weekday.)

"Have fun in hell!" Yuhra shouted, charging head-on at the giant, holding her weapon by the very end, giving her massive leverage on the blade. She swung the weapon only once, her heartbeat racing as the blade easily slid across the giant's body, leaving a long, shallow cut. That should slow him down, she thought, hoping that Sylar could bring it down with the added time from her and the demon.

(Well, that's about when school ends, so it's not a big surprise. I'm a student too.)

The half-giant stood idly, its white as snow eyes now host to branching veins of scarlet and a dark sanguine stream pouring from its nose. The slashings of Yuhra combined with the vicious bites of the demon hound brought the creature to its knees with a resounding "thud." The creature on its knees was now, in essence, dead. Now just moments from the grave, the half-giant fell down to the ground, its face buried in a pool of blood and saliva.

Ranos took a few steps forward to the great beast, sliding his sword into its scabbard, checking for the thunderous pulse usually present in its neck.
"Dead," He said brieflly, taking a step back as to not dirty his boots further. Taking a look at the town of Nalyn in the distance. "Good battle. And now we move forward." He continued his walk to the village with minimal pause and a smile.

(This is about seven hours AFTER the time I would normally have been home. I had work and then I had a special unplanned baby sitting job... my schedule's a little irregular, sorry guys. >.< But I do post every day!)

As the creature died Sylar came back to the real world, blinking rapidly and lowering his hands, now empty of the buzzing power of his magic. He gave his head a swift little shake - it was not the most comfortable thing to have a spell broken off in the middle - and pulled his robes more tightly around him, falling into step with Ranos and Yuhra. Gethin took up his place once more at Sylar's shoulder, wiping away the stain of the giant's blood.

By the time Anil had reached the half-giant it was already dead, it's dark blood pooled about it in the aftermath of the Guild's vicious attacks. One thing about the Guild of Nine Swords that was forever enshrined in Anissa's oral history was their effectiveness. They got the job done, and they did it cleanly which is probably why so few people were purchasing their services recently. The highly political realm of subterfuge and intrigue was not clean, it was in fact very dark and dirty. No employer wanted any ill work traced back to their ink, and the Guild of Nine Swords was a very public institution that displayed a great deal of transparency. Too much for most.

Anil chanted an assessment spell around him, surveying the lifeforce of his companions. They all seemed to check out, Ranos and Yuhra may be a bit sore later from the sudden exertion but that was to be expected of warriors. Sylar was sound in the body, if not necessarily in the soul. Anil had no ill will towards the dark mage; in Kal'ha they had been taught to accept that everybody walked their own path to enlightenment and no matter how wayward that path would seem to an outside observer that very observer should recognize that there is more than one way to live. Anil remained unjudgmental of the young man. Anil hadn't had time to take account of Sylar's entrance appropriately as was due to another Guild member.

"So then, how is our prince of darkness doing today?" Anil inquired with thinly veiled satire. Okay, so maybe he was a little judgmental, then again that was expected for one who did not complete his spiritual training at the monastery. The silvery-black haired man appeared to be occupied at the time anyway and paid the meddling monk no heed.

Anil turned to the other two of the troop, Ranos and Yuhra. Lords how lovely she looked with a weapon in her hands! Anil smiled at the girl as he approached the two warriors and produced the silver coins given to him by the tavern keeper's daughter. With his hand outstretched towards Ranos, Anil pinched the coins between his thumb and index finger and said, "Although I may be tardy, I never fail to deliver."

"Someone's been working hard." Yuhra looked at Anil. That monk had always seemed somewhat odd to her, how he should seem very wise and pragmatic-instead just goofy and unpredictable. She felt somewhat uneasy about the giant that was killed. Are there more nearby? How are we sure it's dead? The questions rang in her head.

She began to feel light headed. "You three keep going. I need to sit down for a second." She crouched to the ground, holding her hand against her head. Her forehead was throbbing for some reason. She untied the cloth from her waist, and pressed it against her head. Did i eat something bad? She tried eating some herbs she had packed, but nothing changed. Now, she felt like she was about to pass out. She fell to the ground from her crouching position, and started to groan in pain.

No, no, not again. I don't want to see father again...

It was at this time that the party had reached the wooden gates of Nalyn; greeted by two guardsmen clad in armor made of hides.
"Halt, travellers. What is your business here?" The taller guard asked gruffly, boasting an iron battleaxe that looked like a child's toy when held by the brute.

"We have been summoned by the village elder," Ranos said, holding up the worn parchment he had received hours earlier, the elder's seal occupying the page's lower half. "I am Ranos Tarran of the Guild of Nine Swords, and my friends and I have been hired to investigate your little ghost problem." At this, the guard busted out with laughter;

"I'm not sure what constitutes a less dignified response in that statement, the Guild of Nine Swords or ghosts," with a mocking expression of thinking on his face the guard shortly followed up with "yes, definitely the Guild of Nine Swords." Flashing a condescending grin to ice the metaphorical cake, the guard silently stepped aside and signaled the guards to open the gates.

Ranos faked a polite smile, and with a heart-warming and friendly tone replied;
"You have a good day as well, sir. May the gods bless your path."

(ENTERING: NALYN [will make first post there when everyone's said their byes here.])

[WORKING ON OOC ANNOUNCEMENT...STILL TRYING TO FIGURE OUT ACTIVE RPING TIMES.]

Sylar paused as they drew into view of the town walls, glancing back at the demon who towered at his shoulder. He hardly noticed anymore how tall and muscled the demon really was - he was far too accustomed to Gethin's presence - but he knew that normal townfolk would think him odd. Especially considering the dark mage's robes of the one he followed so closely.
"Keep your head down," he commanded evenly, holding Gethin's eyes steadily. Or he assumed he held his eyes. It was difficult to tell with the demon. "I would not be stopped for questioning."

"Yes, Master," Gethin agreed, hiding his pointed ears in his hair and closing his lips tightly to conceal his fangs. He rested one hand on Sylar's arm. Suddenly the demon seemed nothing but a large blind man, lead by an... oddly considerate mage.

Sylar stood in silence, listening to the exchange between Ranos and the guard without the slightest twitch. He felt little attachment to the guild's reputation, and it was no secret. It would have been easy to believe that he said that sort of thing about the guild himself... if he ever bothered to talk to anyone outside of the guild.

Anil had opted to stay behind to make sure Yuhra was feeling alright. "Yuhra, what ails you?" Anil inquired as he took a knee beside the stricken warrior. Yuhra simply grumbled in pain to the monk's query. Kneeling beside her and waving his glowing palms about her at a distance Anil conducted an evaluation of Yuhra's life force. Based on his assessment aura and gut instinct the monk was puzzled to find that nothing was physically wrong with the girl, yet clearly she was experiencing great agony.

What could possibly be the matter? Anil thought as he lowered his hands. He had to do something, but what? It was then that Anil's other training at the Kal'ha came to mind. In the study of the martial arts one learns a great deal about human anatomy and within this knowledge is that of pressure points. Pressure points--highly sensitive areas on the body that react strongly to stimulation--could be used to redirect the flow of energy with in the body to induce pain, paralysis, pleasure or as the case was needed now, serene calm. Carefully weaving his hands behind Yuhra's fiery hair, Anil placed the middle finger of his right hand on the girl's temple and the other at the neck-shoulder junction and applied slight pressure. This would hopefully slow the flow of energy within the body, calming it down. Anil just hoped that Yuhra didn't cut his head off in response to his possible intrusion.

The large, looming figure loomed above a small red-haired girl with a wooden mallet above it's head. "I told you, do not leave the house without my instruction!" The man brought his arm down, the mallet colliding with the girl's head, and sending her to the floor. All the young girl on the floor could do is sit back up, cowering in fear. The man issued more blows, each one leaving a horrible mark on the girl's body.
Is that me?

"Please, dont!" Yuhra suddenly wrenched herself free from the grip of whoever was holding her. She looked back at who was holding her, and it was just Anil, adjusting her pressure points. "I am so very sorry for worrying you. It was just a little episode that I have sometimes. Thank you for helping me snap out of it though.I guess we need to catch up." She then started walking towards the town.

(GOING TO: NALYN VILLAGE)