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Jade was used to the reaction Aron gave when he said his last name. A lot of people felt the exact same way about non-humans. Even in Cheries, there were still a lot of people that didn't like them. That's only natural of people when they are around somebody different. Figuring that Aron wasn't too fond of non-humans, he'd have to speak carefully around him. "Nope, I'm a human, it's just that I never got to know who my real parents are. They were killed by bandits when I was a baby. I just use the last name of the parents who adopted me, they were good friends with my real parents." Jade said with a slight smile, he never worried too much about never getting to know his parents. The ones he had no made up for never knowing.

His attention turned toward Alexis. "I see how it is, don't worry about it, sometimes healing just doesn't work on people. Oh, and you can just call me Jade." He never felt comfortable with people calling him sir, and so he always told people to just use Jade. "Well, I think I know where there is an inn, though I'm not quite sure, it's been a while since I was here last. If I'm not mistaken though, there should be an inn down this street." Jade said while looking to his left.

((In your post, you should make them actually find the inn so that we don't have to post about walking, that's never fun.))

Renee traveled fast with Mr. Horton's head, she was sure Dea got wind of what's happened. She looked up towards the sky as she ran, it was late morning. She enjoyed running through the forest and mountains but that quickly faded into the distance as she crossed over into Cheries.

It wasn't long before she saw buildings in the distance, Renee smiled, 'My journey is over.' she slowed to a walk. She followed the caravans inside the city itself. Renee was very happy to see non humans around.

Renee stopped walking as she came to the realization, though she subjected herself to slavery, she was now free. Others are free because of her. Hopefully there won't be another Mr. Horton for awhile yet. She continued walking into the city. Amazed with how much life there is, both human and non humans here as one. She couldn't stop smiling.

She made her way through town to a tavern with an inn connected to it, it was the place where she was hired to take out the non human slave camp over in Turz two years back. Nothing is missed here, all she had to do was wait in the tavern.

While Alexis and Jade seemed to be turning towards friends, Aron saw but a possible threat. He could only voice his concern, but given how Alexis was, his words of caution would fall on deaf ears and he would be better to not bother at all, he would just have to keep a close eye on this man. The fact that he was a man, and seemed to have relations with non-human beasts, were alarming enough for him. "Alexis, regardless of how you feel, you should not strain your foot to much... you should continue talking upstairs in a room where you will rest for a few hours..."

Alexis sighed and looked at Aron trying to get some sympathy with a cute sad face. "But Sir Aron, I was so looking forward to exploring Dea, I have not been to such a large city in many a day, I swear my foot is fine!"

Aron put his left hand over his eyes and groaned. Stupid look once again, she really needed to know that look was dangerous. "Alright, alright.... I was hoping to give myself a little rest, but for you.. I can wait."

Alexis smiled and clapped her hands together in her excitement. "That is wonderful.... oh but wait." Alexis looked away for a moment. "I can't forget about you... Sir Aron, I do have Sir Jade here, he can show me around the city while you rest here..... oh, um, Sir Jade.. I put forth something without asking you first, I am sorry. "Alexis bowed to Jade. "If you would be willing?"

Aron would have pounded his fist into something had they not been at the inn, or in the presence of people. He knew this was coming, and as a bodyguard it was the worst thing he had to contend with. This girl's pension for doing things which endangered her life, she was truly reckless and had the wrong opinion of people. She was so kind that she was blind to the fact any number of people could easily take advantage of her if they knew what to do.

Renee didn't have to wait long before someone sat across from her, she smiled, "So you heard?" The person only nodded, "And I'll be paid in full?" there was a pause before she added, "I would like to remind you, I put my life on the line." she spread her fingers over the table.

The man held up a hand, "I understand." he paused, "I can say not just for myself and every non human here, that you did everyone a great service." he smiled, "In fact those who knew of the mission added their own... gifts into the pot."

She arched a brow while smirking, she liked the sound of bonus on top of the bounty. "I hope it isn't any slaves." she smirked jokingly, "I've had my fill of slaves."

He only laughed, "No, just extra money." he paused for a moment, "The bounty was one hundred thousand gold and others whom saw fit in collective gave around thirty thousand." again he paused, "There was one who wanted me to give you this as well." He slid a black bag across the table.

Opening it up she saw black crystal, she gasped, "IS THIS A JOKE!?"

He reached forward, "Keep your voice down girl!" he hissed, others in the tavern glanced their way.

"This is an insult!" she hissed back, "They're hunting down people with these." she had closed the bag and shook her head.

"Not here they don't." he said simply.

With a sigh Renee nodded and handed the man the bag with the head in it. In turn he slid her a piece of paper, "You're money will be good at any city in Telvus, all you need to do is speak the words, 'I rid the world of evil people.' and the money shall be yours."

Renee took the paper, "Thank you for your business, if you need anything else of this nature, please don't hesitate." They both stood and said their goodbye's, he took the head and left, she sat back down and ordered something to eat.

Renee was petrified, she huddled in her booth, she took deep breaths as she pulled out her twin daggers, her heart pounded hard in her chest. Never in her entire life had she ever seen anything quite like the monster, and the way it just entered that man's chest. She paused and wrinkled her nose, she then shook her head in pity for him. She's heard stories of the old times, and the war because of it, and now... and now it's back.

Taking another deep breath she came to the conclusion that she as the one that killed the man, she should have never accepted the crystal to begin with. Her grip tightened around her curved daggers. Renee will take this creatures life in place of the old mans. "You have no business coming here and taking lives." she growled as she jumped up on the table and was willing to die for what she's unleashed.

Alexis was quick to grab the water and swallow it all in one big gulp and then panting a little as she couldn't breath during the time it took to finish her drink, she let go of the glass which fell to the floor and shattered. Alexis fell to her knees and had her hands on the floor in front of her. "So... cold..." She coughed weakly. "Tha.. sir... ade..." Alexis said as she tried to summon back her strength, Aron needed her, she had to protect these people from these dark forces! Unable to speak clearly, Alexis, in her head was physically abusing herself for being weak and unable to do anything. She didn't want people to die, she had seen first hand what these objects she searched for could do, her thoughts were to all the poor innocent people who were going to die.

The demon snorted at Renee's comments. "Foolish half breed, you have no idea whom you are messing with!" The demons voice was deep and very dry, almost like some one with a very sore throat. As the demon moved, it was quite clear the building was getting in his way. Flexing his body, his wings, and his head, the demon let loose a blast of dark energy and force causing the half of the inn he was in to shatter and break apart, causing light from outside to pour in, casting a massive shadow on Renee. People in the streets screamed and ran in terror as soldiers seemed to be forming up in the area to try and fend off this demon. "Your souls are mine!" The demon raised a hand and a massive battle axe, almost as tall as the demon itself appeared from a cloud of dark magic, and the demon gave off a fearsome roar as it raised the axe into the air and brought it down towards Renee.

With a thunderous crack, the axe went right into the second floor of the inn and stopped, fragments and splinters of wood shot into the air and fell to the ground. Lucky for Renee because when the axe broke through the second floor, it fell short and went into the wooden floor below the table she was standing on with a loud thud, easily it went almost a foot into the ground through the solid wood floor.

Aron suddenly turned to where the screams and sounds of soldiers were coming from and saw a building among many others suddenly explode and two massive bat wings stretch and open fully into the air. "Damn it! A demon, this is bad!" Aron gritted his teeth in anger, because of the cities layout, he couldn't just get to the creature like he would like. Not taking any time to really think, he rushed down the street he was on, looking for a branch off towards the demon, an alley, anything which would allow him to reach the beast. If he did not get there in time, there could be a blood bath the likes of which have not been seen since the great war.

As screams from outside the inn could be heard, Alexis tried to force herself to stand. It was a difficult struggle, her legs were shaking and her face looked almost ghost white as she stood up and wobbled. "I have.... go.. help!" Alexis tried to turn around and head for the door but her weak legs gave out and she hit the floor face and chest first with a hard thud which knocked the wind out of her. Gasping a little, forcefully shaking it off as best she could, she tried to crawl and pull herself forward but wasn't getting anywhere fast, it was a rather sad and very pathetic sight to say the least. Admirable, in the fact she wanted to help people, but very reckless as she seemed to be caring less about her body, which would probably end up killing her at some point in her attempts to force it to do things it just couldn't do at the time.

Roaring with anger as the demon tugged on it's axe which was stuck in the ground, it grunted and paid little attention to the wooden stakes which were hitting and shattering against it's body and skin. Just as it got it's axe free, a few arrows came down and went into it's left wing and sailed right through creating small holes which slowly began to close up. The arrows came down with small cracks as they hit the wood of the inn. Roaring loudly once again the demon swung it's body, including it's axe, taking out the wall of the front half of the inn which had been spared before and turned around as the demon tore up the floor and the axe went into the building behind it, missing the soldiers trying to attack the beast from below.

In the streets not far away, a small group of archers were setting up another for volley of arrows as the demon pulled it's axe from the building which it just destroyed and focused on the soldiers below it. It was at this moment a stake from Renee struck the demon around the back of it's neck and it drew a rather thick disgusting blackish red blood. Howling in pain much like a wolf bayed at the moon, the demon extended it's wings splintering parts of the second floor and causing the inn to start to collapse. With almost two full walls gone, and most of the support beams destroyed, it was going to come down at any moment. While the demon struggled to try and dislodge the wooden stake in the back of it's neck, the archers let loose a volley and 4 arrows stabbed into the beasts chest, further increasing it's rage.

Aron growled as he finally came upon an alley which led to the other side and focused on a simple fire spell which he formed in his hand and then ran across his sword, lighting up the shadows of the dark alley. "Idiots, your only going to piss it off!" As Aron cleared the alley, he turned left and caught sight of the demon suddenly charging at a building across the street, it's giant axe in the air, blood dripping onto the ground below. Aron readied his blade for what he knew was coming. As drops of blood made contact with the ground, they began to move... ever so slowly, until something sudden jumped out. A demon similar to the large one, but a little smaller then man sized came forth from one small pool of blood and lunged at the nearest person, who happened to be a soldier. It was over quick as the small demon quickly bit off the mans head and started to eat the body.

Thankfully the soldiers quickly figured out that what they were doing was only adding to the situation, and instead they focused on the smaller demons, which, by seeing the swordsman launch fire at one, could be killed without trouble. "Get some mages out here! We need magic to kill these things!" One guard cried as he was quickly tackled by a small demon and began to try and fight it off as other soldiers were suddenly being tackled and the small demons tried to eat them alive while civilians ran away in pure and utter terror.

The shrapnel and flying debris did not leave everyone unscathed, and an unfortunate brick had inflicted injury on a particular lab coated individual. Blood streamed down from where the brick had injured his scalp, the flowing liquid allready matting the hair and flowing down the side of the face, head wounds allways did bleed a lot more then one might think.

Draqx heard the yell for mages and his thoughts still a bit fuzzy as he collected his thoughts he still acted as fast as he could. Draqx shrugged off his pack and with a slight slurr to his words tried to make a pity reply as he pulled out his "scatterbuss" a short barreled mix between a scatter gun and a blunderbuss with a collapsed stock to be able to make it fit in the pack.

'Mages? what you need...'

Draqx pulled out the stock, the metal rails sliding with a slight metal on metal scrape and a click as they set properly. Then Draqx chambered one of the specially made shells in the specifically coloured loop holders that lined most of the distance down the barrel and closing the breach brought the fire arm up to his shoulder as one of the smaller threats saw him and started running towards him. at the same time the flow of his blood dripped down his cheek and dripped onto his labcoat.

'...is some old fashioned...'

Draqx took a split second to make sure the safety was off as the creature leaped. Draqx pulled the trigger and rode the recoil as the shell consumed itself, unlike a regular bullet this was one that Draqx learned to make from his parents, one of thier more succesful, if more expensive designs. Instead of propellant the cylinder of the shell was a carefully made scroll, the lower half with carefully measued components that would react with the scroll, and the upper half was filled with many small crystals, separated by a disk made to absorb some of the magic and turn it into kenetic energy.

The crystals sped out of the barrel and started to speard in a semi random pattern, those that hit the creature in mid air caused the creature pain as the speed imbedded the small crystals into the creature. The combined impact and damage from the blast caused the creature to land in front of Draqx and curl up, as smoke came from the dozens of small holes the crystals made as they burrowed into the creature.

'...Firepower.'

Draqx opened the weapons breach, smoke coming out from the consumed shell and he took a similar shell and loaded it, noting how man he had left. hmm, 4 left, got to make them count. Draqx then blinked and looked around and could only conclude that 4 shells was not going to be enough.