Outside the inn

The commander of the patrol looked displeased when presented with a deluge a mess of conflicting stories, some of people caught outside similarly calling out their own version of events.

"I will have silence!"

It was a complex situation. Several armed people and at least two were capable of combat magic. His men had recognised the strange bunch around the wagon posed the greater threat and the majority of their attention and weaponry was thus focused on them.

He took a deep breath and started to see about sorting out this mess.

"You will all be detained and interviewed in order to in order build a true picture of events. You are to immediately remove any weapons you have upon your person and place them on the ground.

"Once this is done, I will indicate people one at a time. These people are to hand in their weapons to the person I designate and submit to the placement of temporary mana restrictors by our magus to prevent the use of magic. This restrictor will be removed and your belongings returned to you once these proceedings have concluded.

"You are to comply immediately."

* * *

Behind the inn

"Explain your intentions swiftly, or face dire consequences."

The unsavory character faced with this weighty ultimatum retorted thusly:

"Bugger off, you stupid bastard."

He started forwards, intending to run past Fallister.

OOC: Post delayed by me being disorganised sorry.

Gabriel glances around at his new comrades at the end of the speech, alarmed. He whispers to the prince.

"What should we do?"

Lucius very slowly shrugged his longsword off his shoulder. He looked at the patrol. If he did anything, they'd fill him with arrows, and no armor he could presently wear without being crushed would help him with that.

Note to self: buy a fucking shield.

He raised his hands. Internally, he kept priming himself; if anyone did anything drastic, he'd pick up his weapon and run, fast. But, externally, he was raising his hands and waiting patiently for others to set a path for him.

Repeating a famous line from the legends word for word, Fallister frowned and spoke. "That was a poor explanation."

He crouched slightly, and then spun, angling his sword so that it's flat side would, hopefully, strike his opponent in the leg as he attempted to pass.

If he did it wrong... things could get messy. And bloody. Fallister remembered a friend of his who had tried to duplicate this trick from the story, and had ended up taking his brother's leg clean off. Hopefully... Fallister had inherited Isaac Downsley's skill as well as his looks.

Roland gritted his teeth, to keep the nervous laughs inside his chest. The truth was, he wasn't sure what to do, and couldn't find an answer for Gabriel. If they ran then it would make finding the Wish Hex much more troublesome, with soldiers chasing after them. If they fought, though, they might not win.

Besides, resisting would be frowned upon. The only way they could get away with it was if it was self defense. Even then, did he want to have to kill an entire town, just to make it out of this?

Leaving his scepter in the ground, he stepped back, hands raised. He didn't want to give them any excuse to shoot him, before he had a plan.

He wasn't like Lucien after all, who wouldn't die even if he were struck with a mortal blow.

"What do we do?" he said, finally beginning to reply to Gabriel. "Nothing, at least right now."

(OOC: Just to note, Lucien doesn't actually know he's immortal, as I doubt he'd have been mortally injured since the wish)

Lucien looked about at the others questioningly, a nervous expression on his face. He'd never been in a situation like this, and all he wanted to do was run away. Very very quickly. The only thing stopping him was the damning knowledge that they'd catch him--that is if they didn't just riddle him with arrows from where they were.

After a moment his clammy hand grabbed the hilt of his sword, drawing it shakily and letting it fall to the ground before he backed away from it, raising his hands in the air as sweat broke out on his face, his stomach retching from fear in his gut.

"Great, we tried "diplomacy", can we try my plan now?" Vierin whispered to those around him. "I'll just raise a stone wall from the ground and we can run to the cart. I'm not handing myself over to the "town guard." He said town guard in tones people normally reserved for sewage cleaners.

Vierin was sweating slightly, it was difficult to keep himself from finishing the spell, he wanted to set it off and get moving. The sight of so many armed people staring at him didn't help much either.

"I'll just raise a stone wall from the ground and we can run to the cart. I'm not handing myself over to the "town guard."

"And then what?" Vaeri hissed back, audibly enough for anyone to hear her, "He'll dismiss the wall, you'll be shot, and then you'll be dead and they won't even let me give you the proper funery rites."

She angrily removes her sword from her belt and tosses it on the ground, "So be silent, or I'll shoot you myself." "At least then you won't die over it." she grumbles inwardly.

"Well, I'm sure you know best." Vierin said tightly. "I'm sure we'll easily be able to catch up to a group of horsemen who have a few days on us by wasting a few hours or days getting questioned." He smiled. "It isn't urgent anyway." He added smugly.

Vierin unsheathed his knives and put them on the ground, praying to any god that might be listening that no-one would recognize the spells on them. "For the record though, he can't actually dismiss the wall, it's all natural, I'm just raising it up."

To hell with questioning. This requires action. Gabriel steps up beside Vierin and whispers.

"You say you can make a wall. So can I. When I make mine, use your magic to make it bigger or stronger. Whatever you can do."

With that, he jumps to the front of the group and claps his hands together before slapping them on the ground. Sparks fly as atoms rearrange themselves and as much rock as he can move jutts out of the ground in front of the guards, or around them if he was capable. He glances back quickly to Vierin.

"Now!"

He prepares to manifest fire and draws a long dagger from his belt in preparation for the wall's likely destruction, despulsion, or stepping around by the guards and their mages.

"Curious," the man said slowly. "Tell me, why would a man such as yourself be so eager to protect a pair of thieves?"

Koru paused and slowly moved his staff to a defensive position, not entirely trusting this man despite his relaxed stance.

"I protect those who have proven themselves to me," he said calmly. "I have seen every reason to protect them, and no reason to trust one such as you." Koru paused as he noticed the sounds of trouble where he left Ivan. "If you do have a reason why I should trust you instead, speak it quickly. I have higher priorities than to protect a pair of thieves, if that is truely what they are."

Before the inn

As a rough wall of stone shot out of the ground, blocking off the sight of the soldiers, there came shouts.

"After them!"

A white arrow arced up over the wall, trailing light like a miniature comet. At the apex of its flight, it appeared to momentarily slow and then shot at Gabriel.

* * *

Behind the inn

The ruffian cursed as he was forced to break stride and block Fallister's attack with his cudgel.

"You're going to regret getting in my way." he said, taking a swing at Fallister's head.

Running for it, Sileph's twin risked a glance over her shoulder and cursed. She hadn't wanted to get anyone else involved. "Go on ahead," she shouted ahead to Sileph, "I'll catch up down the road!"

With that she spun and hurried back to assist Fallister.

* * *

In the stables

"One is a runaway apprentice of my master." the man in green said simply in reply to Koru. "And while doing so, she stole several valuable possessions of his. I believe the other to be her accomplice."

He walked to one of the pens and opened it, the vicious looking, intensely black horse within walking out, still sadled. He moved to mount up.

"Kindly get out of my way."

Gabriel dodges, then claps his hands and throws forward a bolt of blue energy, attempting to encase the arrow in ice.

Lucius quickly ducked, and nabbed his longsword before taking off at a sprint in the direction of the cart. As he happened to run past the prince, he nabbed, and almost certainly startled, the young man, and dragged him off as well. He could see it. He ran, and ran, ran. Two thoughts raced through his mind. One was to keep running. The other, "How the Hell did I get into this mess?"

"Fortuitous." Vaeri thought as Gabriel raised his wall, and immediately dove to the ground to snag her sword. Spinning around with grace she had henceforth not exhibited, the necromancer-lamia slithered with all due haste away from the spectacle, and away from the cart.

There was precious little time and she had to utilize it as best as possible. Eyes squeesed shut, Vaeri aims her left palm, still charged with the vital energy of the townsfolk toward the ground behind her...

"Luminen Flash!"

Like a magical magnesium flare, the reddish-white energy shot into the ground in an eruption of dirt and blinding, persistant cloud of magical light. The cloud hung for several seconds, blowing out the visual contrast of anyone looking upon it, not to mention being painful to glimpse.

Slithering rapidly while obscured, Vaeri palms for her spell component pouch, shakily retrieving a group of needles to sever her higher soul's pattern from the geomancy to prevent tracing magic...

Lucius had grabbed him before he could retrieve his scepter - not that the boy had been in a state of mind after the wall came up. After flailing around, dragged off by the larger man, he regained his senses; for the most part anyway.

"Don't go this way," he yelled, realizing where they were going. "Head towards the stalls. We can't take all the people here on a cart and expect to make a clean escape."

With some other horses, then they'd be able to travel faster anyway. If they were going to run away, they might as well do it as quickly as possible.

The only problem was, what was that thing that Vae-oh.

Covering his eyes a moment too late, he found himself rendered blinded by the flash. Thankfully, he was not the one doing the running, but it would lead to some trouble if he tried to cast a spell now.

"Not so much as you will," Fallister said, ducking the blow and darting forwards in an attempt to drive his left shoulder into the other man's chest. Now that he wasn't paying attention to it any longer, the blade of his sword shrank back into the hilt that he still held in his right hand.

"Things are happening quickly..." Vierin said weakly as the chaos began. Swiftly he released the spell, a wall springing up from the earth, with large spikes jutting out of it. He briefly considered summoning up a wall of dust when he caught Vaeri's spell out of the corner of his eye. "I guess that's taken care of…" He muttered, as the spell left its burning after image in one eye.

He began running towards the cart, the Lamia wouldn't be able to run fast enough without it. Concentrating he casted one more spell. The air behind him seemed to gather up into one point and fire off blindly behind him. Thanks to the flash of light, he couldn't actually see how well it had worked out.