What?! Ivan had no idea what occured. One moment, Koru was standing in the doorway, confronting the mysterious man. The next moment, he was hurtling through a nearby window. As if that wasn't frightening enough, the man in green dusted himself off and remarked, "You do not know anything." Ivan started towards the window frame, synthesizing the situation as he moved.

Completely trouncing Koru and dusting himself off, as if it was a light exercise... And what is that comment supposed to mean? Oh, yeah. Not attempting to figure anything out right now.

Ivan rushed through the window frame, still holding Koru's staff. He knelt next to his friend's body, ascertaining any damage sustained. Placing Koru's staff on the ground and producing his truncheon, Ivan began to channel the necessary mana for a healing spell. As his spell was ready to be cast, he heard all sound die out for a brief period of time, and a single word, "Silence." He glanced up for a moment, recognizing the magic at work and attempted to find the source.

Hmm. A young boy, flanked by a few others. Is that a Lamia?! What is... He shook his head at the whole situation, at his complete inability to affect any order on the bizzare chain of events.

Ivan guided the mana into Koru's body, and began the familiar healing spell. Finally, something he could do to help.

Roland's eye twitched at the crowd's response.

Who was he? Who were they to ask him that question? Even if they were not of his country, how dare they not recognize his magnificence.

"I am," he said, his voice louder than before. "Roland Cennador, the one who will be king!"

Dramatically, he threw his hand before him, and from the shadow of the podium something leaped out. Landing a few feet from the crowd and the fighters, it remained in a crouching position, a low growl emanating from deep within its throat. The crowd immediately backed away in shock, and it was only after a moment did someone recognize what it was.

"Holy shit, it's a lion! Get in the cart!"

As some scrambled for safety, a few remained frozen in place, while others had reactions that were difficult to immediately judge. The feline's golden mane seemed to bristle, and its eyes searched for sign of prey. Paws digging into the ground with its claws, its whole body was tense, ready to strike at any moment. Suddenly, its attention focused on Ivan, who had begun to heal Koru.

Launching itself at the man, only its mighty roar gave a warning. Flying through the air, it threatened to slam into the other man with its full (if nonexistent) weight.

Then, as quickly as it had appeared, it vanished. Shimmering sparkles, still following its former path, were all that remained of its image.

Back at the podium, Roland was massaging the bridge of his nose. "What am I doing?" he muttered to himself, finally remembering where he was. Though there was never any danger, to react so impulsively...

How unbecoming of him.

With a sigh, he stepped off the podium. "Vaeri," he said, glancing at her. "Do what you wish with them. There's something your mana's been itching to do, isn't here?"

Little did he know how big a mistake this would be - or how his consent wouldn't have mattered either way.

"Vaeri," Roland said, "Do what you wish with them. There's something your mana's been itching to do, isn't here?"

Vaeri's eyes went wide. This was the sort of thing you wished to hear, but never did, the sort of imperial edict to do something you were itching to do, even if it was morally reprehensible to the commons. Vaeri nodded quickly and turned back to the crowd, a look of absolute mixed delight and embarassment on her face. Her hair! Her legs, and she had left her excruciator kit in sonelheim... However was she supposed to impress Prince Roland in this sorry state of affairs?

"Oh, what spell... What spell!" the necromancer asked herself under her breath, tiny voice pitched high in a mixture of urgency and excitement, "No, too bloody... Too boring..." she began to go through various ideas at a rapid pace.

"Yes... Perrfect!" She grins at the assembled crowd, voice dropping to a low, maleficient and audible pitch, raising her left arm overhead and slowly dropping it to a more level angle in front of her. "Macaro Vitae!"

With the incantation and snap of her fingers as her arm fell level, a pair of energy runes materialized next to her arm, one signifying "life", and the other signifying "to siphon." A circular cage emulating the appearance of the wires still held in Vaeri's right hand cut around the crowd, and their collective stamina began to ebb, swiftly being torn away by the necromancer's spell, pooling in a sphere of reddish white above her outstretched left palm.

Koru was, to place his current feelings in one word, shocked. It had seemed he underestimated the power of that man in green, and hadn't judged the scene as accurately as he thought he did. The end result of such a mistake was the man in green's quick dash towards Koru, which landed him outside of the inn in a rather embarrassing way.

Before he could regain his bearings and as several thoughts and curses flew through his mind, Ivan had approached him and began an unnecesary healing spell. Despite just being shaken up, the influx of mana did help and Koru was on his feet moments after the illusionary lion dispersed.

That was right about when things took another turn for the worse as a nearby lamia began some sort of draining spell. Koru himself was little affected by it, but he knew the peasents, and possibly Ivan, would be feeling like dead weight soon.

"Thank you for your help Ivan," Koru said as he retook his staff. "However, I suggest you get out of the area of this spell. I have unfinished business with that man in green."

With that said, Koru ran after the man at a full sprint, pushing all aspects of his being to an enhanced level well beyond anything a normal person could ever hope to attain. He didn't have the intention of killing the man, he just wanted to avoid another repeat of what just happened.

Once he was close enough to the man in green, Koru lept into the air after him with the intention of pinning him to the ground. Despite the jump, Koru still had his staff at the ready to recover himself incase the man got the jump on him again.

Initially there had been derision at Roland's claim of royalty. The crowd's undecided mind settled rapidly as Roland sent forth an illusion.

Hidden behind the angry and fearful murmurings of the crowd as a phantasm of a lion had pounced Ivan, there had come the sound of hoofbeats. The mood of the crowd had turned ugly at this show of intimidation.

Vaeri unleashed her own magic, creating a circular cage of magic to draw off the stamina of those within. The crowd moaned and stirred. It seemed like there was about to be a bloodbath as they started forwards.

But then a white arrow struck the black cage, both magics flaring and dissipating in a flash of cancellation.

A voice suddenly boomed out.

"Halt in the name of the King!"

A patrol of a dozen soldiers had just ridden into the town. Armoured and mounted, they bore the insignia of the Kingdom of Lothrung's army. The voice belonged to their leader, a gruff looking man, his neatly trimmed beard flecked with grey. A very fine tracery of gold made spidery patterns on his armour. To his left a younger, blond man in grey robes sat, a bow of some white wood in his hands and another arrow being drawn to the nock. Half of the soldiers also had horse bows out and ready.

Things were not looking good.

The commander took one look at the situation and came up with his first question.

"What the devil is going on here?"

* * *

Koru had sprinted into the stables after the man in green, leaping at his back, intending to wrestle him to the ground. Warned by some sixth sense, the man twisted aside, slipping easily to the left as he spun to face Koru.

It was the first really good look Kuro had at the man, who was now examining him intently, dark eyes almost hidden under heavy lids. His face was angular, his nose long and hooked and his chin pointed, narrow and prominent.

There must have been something he saw, for his stance relaxed.

"Curious." the man said slowly. His voice was deep and resonant, the note of intrigue clearly obvious in each carefully eununciated syllable. "Tell me, why would a man such as yourself be so eager to protect a pair of thieves?"

* * *

Somewhere

Fieth stumbled down the road wearily. He was tired and hungry and lost. He was really beginning to wonder if trying to chase the trail of a dangerous magical artifact was a smart life choice.

He'd seen the people who'd stolen it. Or, at least, the people he had seen in Sonelheim had fit what he'd heard about the people who'd stolen the Hex. Anything that had tried to stop them had just been cut down.

Someone like Fieth wouldn't exactly be a match for several trained soldiers. He was, to put it bluntly, gutter trash. He was a scrawny teenager, with a life as a street urchin.

He did believe he had one advantage. He believed he had been one of the people affected by the Hex. That day he'd been having the crap beaten out of him by Geron, a swaggering bully with his own little gang. He rubbed the small, goatlike horns he possessed reflectively. Leftover traits like that, while uncommon, were far from unheard of. He'd used to know a girl who had a tail like a fox. The mad old priest who'd endeavoured to teach the homeless like him had said it was a sign that he was marked by bad spirits and had to be pious or they'd claim him. Though virtually anything drew that reaction out of the old zealot...

Fieth chuckled at the thought. Bad spirits or no, it had definately made Geron and his gang mark him. Goat they called him and a favoured hobby of theirs was tracking Fieth down and trying to make him bleat.

Trying to fight Geron had never been successful. Until a few days ago. After the day of the Hex, he'd woken up sore, but feeling stronger than he'd ever been. The next time he'd fought Geron, he'd won.

He wished he could remember what exactly he'd wished for, but no magical marvels fulfilled that wish...

"Your money or your life!"

Two scruffy looking bandits emerged from behind a bush at the road side. Sometimes Fieth really did wonder if spirits were really toying with him.

OOC: And finally beginning to introduce some of the competition. They're of mixed calibre, as you can guess.

As the guard came around the front and down the alley, Fallister reached for his weapon, unaware that it wasn't at his belt. This didn't stop him, however, and he drew all four feet of gleaming steel quickly and easily. "Explain your intentions swiftly, or face dire consequences." Fallister intoned, trying to imitate the voices he had heard used for Isaac Downsley in the myths.

This is moving far, far too fast for me... Lucius thought to himself. Maybe explaining this in the right tone, with the right covering lies, will get us out free? Tavern fights back home, even really messy ones, don't end in this sort of incursion. He sided towards the Prince, but before he had time to ask for permission to enact his plan, he heard metal unsheathing and a commanding voice.

Crud... I am not comitting treason.

He raised his voice, and courage, as loud as he could, and said, "Do not mind us, sirs! We're merely travellers. A travelling minstrel show! We walked into this mob and, well," he felt the group's icy stares and blushed, unused to such public speech, "seeing no agents of the law nearby, we decided to do our part for Law and Order, and disperse it. Our illusionist, Roland, and our magician and lamia, Vaeri, merely incapacitated and disperesed the crowd with what are truly harmless tricks. As you can see, we've a Lord Downsley impersonator who takes his role somewhat seriously, but don't they all? Eh? Hehehe..."

Internally, he prayed, and prayed, and prayed. Please let them believe it. Please let everyone here play along. Please please please!

"Oh, Gods... This is just way too much," Vierin murmured wearily. "I've known you people for a few hours and..." His voice trailed away into unintelligible swearing.

He focused on the mana that was in the area, the spells that had already been cast didn't seem to have put too much of a dent in it. He began to work.

The spell that he was setting up would, when activated, raise a stone wall from the ground. One with spikes. If they were lucky, they might have just enough time to get to the cart before those guards ran around it and started shooting them.

"This is the part where we count or losses and run away," He hissed. "When I give the signal, we run to the cart, and pray that the horses can figure out a way to run at least twice as fast."

He looked over at Vaeri. "I don't suppose you could arrange something like that?" He asked hopelessly.

Well that was unfortunate. The archer/spellcaster must have shrouded the approach of the guards long enough for them to take Vaeri by suprise. Well played, well played indeed. It quickly became certain to her that, from the plans and sudden actions of the other members of their "troupe", none of them had been exposed to situations like this before on a regular basis.

Lucius at least, had the right plan. Social engineering at it's finest, but Vaeri could do one better. She had a scapegoat, after all!

"Prince Roland requested I incapacitate the crowd, and I acquiested." Vaeri nodded politely to the guardsmaster, trying very, very hard not to smile. It was difficult, as the sudden rush of energy from the angry mob had quite the euphoric, and... empowering effect. Vierin's hopeless tone was ignored entirely, but had an equally pleasing effect.

Roland had not exactly expected a patrol to arrive. While he had always expected that Lothrung government would interfere with his journey - though he had never thought it would be something such as this. As intimidating those arrows were, pointed at himself and the others, his pride refused to back down at such a challenge.

He was afraid. It took him a moment to recover his voice, the shock of their intrusion finally passing over. Even then, he didn't know what to do - and everyone else seemed to do their own thing. Still, he stepped forward, just as he had done earlier.

Hopefully, this time there would be better results.

"Don't run," he whispered to Vierin, the words just as much for himself as they were for the other man. "We stand and set things right. And if we can't," he added, in an even lower voice, "Then we lie."

He passed Lucius, who had tried to cover for them, and Vaeri, who had tried to explain the situation away (even if it was through a scapegoat: himself). Planting his scepter in the ground he rested both his hands on its head, facing the patrol. Trying to keep his courage, he steeled his eyes, inwardly praying that they weren't watering up.

He already knew he had made a mistake. He wished that this wouldn't be another.

"Forgive my companion here for trying to lie; in the face of such an armored crowd, he cannot help but be intimidated. As Vaeri here said, I had I asked her to incapacitate the crowd; before that, I tried my hand at it as well. Though it seems a couple of the brawlers got away, it was our own intention to stop them from fighting. Our methods, while rough, were to ensure their safety.

"And in my opinion, far better than brandishing any number of weapons," he said, not daring to look away from the leader's gaze. "Not that I'm not flattered, if you think you need this many to deal with us."