DnD-style roleplay!

[Nail Strafer]

Quote: "The very fact this family reached out to a human doctor might well speak of how dire and desperate the situation is. If this family is so important, don't you think you are doing a disservice by obstructing us? As for the law, we will cross that bridge when we reach it."

"That's not a fact! How do you know this doctor isn't leading you on?" Wolfie's spittle flew out of his mouth. He simply couldn't accept the fact that this was a real house call. "What if he's planning to poison whoever he says he's going to treat?"

"He's got a letter and--"

"Have you seen the letter?"

Augustine hesitated. Despite the situation, that told Wolfie what he wanted to know and he spared a little smile.

"You haven't, have you?"

Augustine didn't have a witty comeback for that.

"See, I'm right. Blind trust. You just don't know!"

Quote:"You already saw me throw a knife out of it's sheath and still hit your companion between the eyes. I assure you, my aim with my bow is even better. Decide quickly. This long bow has a very hefty draw weight. I won't be able to hold it for long."

"Either you're a liar or you've got very bad eyesight. The guy you tried to hit with the knife is the guy who caught his pantleg on fire. And he's obviously very much alive. Humiliated, but alive. I think I'll take my chances."

Wolfie lowered himself so that only the tip of his right ear and right eye eye was visible to Chadin, as he sunk behind Geoffrey.

[Chadin]

Chadin's eyes narrowed as the wolf defiantly hide further behind his human shield. There was however, more than one way to skin a wolf. Chadin quickly scanned his target for any exposed body parts the wolf had neglected in his bide to hide his face behind Geoffrey. After all, the wolf was considerably larger than the doctor. He could always take the wolf's ear off, but that would hardly have the desired effect and might provoke the wolf to kill Geoffrey out of spite. What he needed was something like an exposed arm, a leg, something with a bone Chadin could drive his arrow deeply into to cause maximum pain.

What Chadin needed was a distraction, and perhaps a little misdirection to boot. Chadin very slowly started to side-step around to the right, making sure to keep his arrow firmly trained on the wolf and himself out of reach of any of the wolf's fallen companions. Either the wolf would be forced to turn with him to keep Geoffrey between Chadin and his arrow, leaving him exposed to a potential attack from Augustine on the left, or he'd allow Chadin to slip onto his right flank and give him an opening to shoot him in the side.

In the meanwhile, Chadin's ears did not remain motionless. Chadin cast an intense gaze into Geoffrey's eyes. He waggled his right ear forward, practically pointing to Geoffrey with his ear. Then he waggled both his ears straight up, then straight down. Chadin repeated this motion several times as he side-stepped, hoping that maybe Geoffrey might be able to catch on from his vague sign language to try and duck when the opportunity came. As for the wolf, if he was paying attention to his ear's bizarre dance, then he likely wouldn't be paying much attention to Augustine, or what else he was doing. Hopefully, he'd be able to confuse, distract and misdirect the wolf towards the wrong thing an give either him or Augustine an opening to end this stand-off.

[Nail Strafer]

"You tryin' to circle round behind me?" Wolfie growled. "Well, I think me and the human are just gonna go for a walk in the woods."

And with that he started to back away from the campsite.

A sudden cry destroyed the night's silence. If anyone turned to look, they'd see Augustine had put a little cut on his hostage's throat with his swordpoint. Blood began to trickle through the fur and dribble into the dirt.

"That was about a quarter of an inch. Stay where you are, or it goes in a full inch."

Wolfie growled, but obeyed and stayed where he was. Meanwhile, he caught sight of Chadin's funny ear movements.

"Hey...what are you--"

That was all Augustine needed. He quickly released his own hostage, and rushed Wolfie from his left since he was looking around Geoffrey's right and thus couldn't see Augustine coming. With one quick tackle, Wolfie released Geoffrey and was rolling around in the dirt with his fellow canine. However, Wolfie had the advantage of a knife. Augustine threw out an arm to intercept Wolfie's knife hand, and pushed as hard as he could to keep it away. However, the knife point was getting frighteningly close to his eyes...

Meanwhile, Geoffrey was shocked from the movement, but quickly regained his composure as he figured something was about to happen from Chadin's ear movements. He quickly ran to stand behind the deer and in safety.

[Chadin]

Chadin's eyes narrowed as he focused on two brawling canines. He couldn't risk hitting Augustine while they were both moving so much, but as the wolf seemed to gain the upper hand, pushing his knife dangerously closer to Augustine, Chadin seized his chance. The moment Geoffrey was clear of the action, Chadin's arrow flew free, aimed for the wolf's knife wielding shoulder.

[Nail Strafer]

"AAAAAAGH!" Wolfie released the knife, and clutched his other hand at the arrow. Knowing the wolf was neutralized now, Augustine quickly stood up to survey the damage. When he saw how close the bolt was to hitting him instead, Aug let out a whistle of admiration.

"Wow... Nice shooting Chadin. I'm not sure if I would have tried to take the same shot."

"You...you TRAITORS!" Wolfie howled out, as he tried to get to his feet while pulling on the shaft. "You're making a mistake taking that human to Provenan! I promise you that you are! You will regret this!"

Augustine couldn't help but spare a little laugh and smile.

"Damn... Your cause may be stupid, but your dedication to it is quite breathtaking."

Geoffrey looked at both Chadin and Augustine with a little bit of a shocked expression. Augustine looked at him, confused as to what the matter was now that the threat was dealt with.

"Aren't you two going to help them?"

Augustine did a double take. "What? Why?"

Geoffrey didn't spare another word, as he quickly walked over to Wolfie's side, as the wolf was trying to pull out the arrow.

"No, no! Don't do that! You'll just make the wound worse."

"Get away from me, meatsack!"

"This 'meatsack' is trying to save your damn life!" Geoffrey said, exasperated at all of this pointless hostility. "If you don't want me to help, at least listen to this. Either you have to widen the wound somehow to let the arrowhead come out, or you have to push it through to the other side. It's going to hurt a lot, but it's the only way to guarantee you remove the arrow without the arrowhead staying trapped inside your body."

Augustine was quite impressed with Geoffrey. It looked like he truly did believe medical care was a universal right, regardless of whether you were man or beast. It was very touching to see. Too bad Wolfie didn't seem to feel that way.

[Just wondering, did you ever get my email with that fanfic?]

[Chadin]

[I did, just haven't had time to look at it though. I'll let you know when I've finished reading it]

Chadin too was quite surprised to see Geoffrey so quick to aid the very same beast who'd only moments ago been intent on killing him. Personally, he'd have just as soon sent the thieves on their way to deal with their wounds on their own. None of their injuries were hardly life-threatening anyway. The arrow wound ran the worst risk, from potential infection, but with a few medical herbs would be entirely survivable; though his hand would probably never be quite the same again. But to him that was simply justice, and a pretty light punishment at that given what he attempted to do to Geoffrey.

"Let the buffoon be, Geoffrey. If his prejudice is of greater importance to him than his own well-being he is beyond our concern. Now I say again, take your companions and go. If I see you again, I will not hesitate to put an arrow through your cold, blackened heart." Chadin said gruffly as he collected the fallen knives, swords and weapons the thieves had brandished and tossed them into a pile near the base of the tree.

[Nail Strafer]

[OK, thanks. I finally played Mass Effect for the first time yesterday too You can tell these are the same guys who made Sonic Chronicles on the DS. The level up system is very similar. I decided to be an infiltrator.]

The wolf opened his mouth to object to his weapons being taken away, but then hesitated. In the end he just let out a little sigh. He seemed to realize that antagonizing these three further was only going to make things worse, and this was the best he was going to get out of the situation. A screwed-up shoulder, humiliation, his weapons taken away, and all of his men in a similar state.

"Come on boys," he said to his three fallen compatriots.

Alfonso, still clutching his broken muzzle, shimmied to a stand and walked away from the campsite, glaring at Chadin the entire time. However, he said nothing. Marco had finished putting out the fire on his pant leg a long time ago, but he'd gotten quite a few burns. He too stood up and stumbled away, moving very slowly with the burnt leg so as not to disturb the wounds. Finally, the Terrier walked off and joined them.

"Glad that's over..." Augustine wiped the sweat off of his brow.

"Do...do you think he's right?" Geoffrey looked at the two of them. "Will it be this bad getting closer to Provenan?"

"I can't say for sure, Geoffrey. I've never taken a human with me to Provenan. But don't worry. We'll stay by your side. Maybe next time we should stay somewhere a little more public. Those guys may have snuck up on us, but they were also cowards. I doubt they would have tried to kill you in an inn."

He gave a reassuring pat on Geoffrey's shoulder. Augustine continued to watch as the four bandits trudged off into the night.

"Speaking of which...I know it's dark, but maybe we should move now. Those guys might have friends. I get the feeling they won't let this go so easily."

[Chadin]

Chadin kept his bow, and a clutch of arrows at the ready as he watched the thieves slink off into the night with stone-cold indifference to anything said by the vengeful canine. He watched the place where they disappeared into the darkness long after they vanished into night's embrace, his natural night vision allowing him to watch them longer than Geoffrey's eyes could and his large, keenly sensitive ears tracked the sound of their every step. Chadin listened intently for the slightest change in direction, the slightest pause that might suggest the bandit's were attempting the circle back around.

Much to his relief, after several tense minutes, the sound of the bandit's footsteps finally faded away as they moved off. Much of which Augustine and Geoffrey exchanged words of relief were missed by Chadin as he focused all his attention on the retreating bandits. Once they were finally out of ear shot, Chadin let out a massive sigh of relief. The adrenaline from the encounter seemed to drain out of Chadin's body all at once. Chadin's fur colour practically turned a shade or two paler as all that built up tension and stress found it's release valve. Chadin unceremoniously plopped down beside the fire, the hand holding his arrows starting to visibly shake. Chadin at last set his longbow down across his lap and whipped his hand over his eyes. Evidently, the encounter had left Chadin far more shaken than he'd ever let on during the battle.

He didn't speak, or say anything to his companions. He had nothing to say. He'd missed the entire conversation whilst he kept an ear on their enemies withdrawal. He didn't even know they'd said anything at all.

[Nail Strafer]

Augustine couldn't help but notice that Chadin hadn't added any input to the suggestion to move camp. He turned around, noticing that the deer sat down by the fire, and he didn't look too good. Although Augustine figured it may have just been the close encounter with the bandits.

"Chadin? You all right?"

He crouched down on his knees to look Chadin in the eye. He looked a little bit pale. Geoffrey crouched down too to have a look. After a quick examination, he turned to Augustine.

"I think it's just stress from the fight," he said.

Augustine nodded, before turning back to Chadin. "You going to be OK? I said we may want to move our camp. I get the feeling those guys might come back with friends.."

[Chadin]

Chadin's ear flicking was about the only visible response from Chadin. He shook his head as his brain finally came back out from his inner thoughts.

" Yes... I'm fine, sorry. I, I... hate having to resort to violence like that... Sorry you had to see me like that." Chadin at last answered as he rubbed his tired eyes.

Shaking off the lingering effects of the post-fight adrenaline crash, Chadin rose to his feet and collected his things, albeit with still slightly shaking hands. "I think you're right though, about moving on. Much as I wouldn't mind getting some rest after all the excitement, I'd rather not have to deal with the likes of those scum again."