For Interested Parties...

[Malaroth]

Silence settled about them, with thick and tense coils, as greed, vengeance, and a hundred other motives heaped themselves upon each other amidst the throng which trembled with private trepidation.

"Think of the gold," one whispered through harsh, chapped lips.

"He killed over three hundred of us," another swore through clenched teeth and a trembling countenance.

The stalemate grew sour, eyes for the urn and for each other, gathered near the door of the Floating Dragon. The anonymous buyer looked on, suddenly standing in the perimeter of the circle, cursing that fool Saul and himself for proving to be the greater idiot. Still, if he could snatch it and escape... there might be coin enough to be found, in time, to make the inevitably broken bones worthwhile.

After all, flesh could mend.

His forward motion was a spark for dry wood, one man's greed igniting the rest and spurring them onward and against eachj other, all inward-bound, all grasping for the delicate, fraudulent urn. As he pressed against the assembled bodies, attempting to squirm through, a pair of hands seized him, shoving him hard against the bar's outer wall with force enough to drive the breath from his lungs and to instigate a war.

They all moved for the urn at once. Undoubtedly, someone had acted first, but whoever that was had been lost to the sparked brawl. As one man grasped the urn another found himself being shoved into a table and having it land atop hima s he thundered to the floor and rolled into a wrestling trio. Tankards shattered against faces and skulls, until one brave soul snatched it and dashed madly for the door.

His progress was halted severely by a crippling blow to his kidneys, driving him to one knee and sending the urn chiming loudly as it danced across the floor. As he struggled to his feet, a stout frame slammed him against the door, against which he struggled in vain, twisting and churning, planting his feet against the door in an attempt to throw off the attacker, plying him with body and word.

"He killed my brother!" He snarled through the thundering tumult, vengeance giving him strength and lending his limbs tenacity enough to hold on a few moments longer. "He killed my brother, I'll smash his urn to pieces!"

The hold upon him loosened, perhaps softened by kinship at having suffered together as people of Myrken. Hope began to calm him, until the grasp shifted again and he found himself lifted fromt he ground and exploding through a window out onto the street beyond.

The cobblestones broke his fall.

The world began settling into place as he listened to the row going on within the tavern's walls and watched the shadows dancing in violent chaos within. With a sinking heart, the shadows reminded him of the Ashfiend and how the creature stepped through them with murderous ease.

[Malaroth]

With each hand that grasped for the urn there was a different excuse, a different justification, or just a different greed. One man shrieked that the urn was part of some vile Drow scheme and that it needed to be set in the noonday sun for it to be dispelled. His answer for all his pleading proved to be a hand for the back of his skull.

"I'll be rich I tell you," another shrieked, his fingernails clawing at another's eyes as they struggled and grappled, their thundering feet leading them to trip over a third who was trying to get back into the fray.

"Rich! Give it here!"

Saul, who lingered on the outskirts of the brujaha, stared with wide, ignorant eyes at the chaos that had erupted. Blame and thoughts thereof vanished into the rising tide of fists, feet and skulls, of table legs and tankards, and the stink of spilled ale. One patron drove another's skull firmly against the edge of the bar just in time to receive a swift blow to his knee, which left him at the mercy of his first victim, waiting and enraged, scramling along the floor.

"I'm gonna sink it in the ocean!" another screamed as his own war cry after seizing the urn and dashing madly for the door. A trio bore him down together, scraping and stumbling through the doorway. A chorus of "let go" and bestial snarls flit from lips to strike alongside of fists and feet as the struggle began to trickle out into the street - the tavern proving insufficient to contain their wrath.

[Carnath-Emory]

It's a hell of a thing to wander into. And she has, there having been two months during which Aithne was a quieted place and Darkenhold very nearly the same, so that a swordswoman better made for action than waiting had made a habit of wandering. This has changed, very recently -

But that habit had not. So that the Floating Dragon had been her destination at this advanced hour, with a thought towards cards and wagers; to questions as well.

What she's found here is something else entirely, and brawls upon the 'Dragon steps aren't uncommon, but the size of this, the viciousness...

She lingers by the doorway at a small remove now, simply to watch for a little.

[Malaroth]

The trio collapsed not far from Ariane's side, wrestling and striving, turning knees and elbows upon one another as two more leapt into the ferocity untangling before her. Others were caught up in their own struggles, an entire tavern turned upside down as combatants held each other in place, themselves denied from the urn and denying it to others.

For as the knotted mass of men near her struggled against itself, the object of their greed and wrath spilled out from their midst and rolled, casually, outside. A small and silver urn, its lid tightly set in place, its side marked with odd and foreign engravings while its metallic countenance bore signs of age and wear.

All in all, it was a well-played attempt at a counterfeit.

For suchy as these however, men caught up in fear and loathing, hatred and suspicion, it was fire for dry tinder and the means to unleash themselves upon a creature who had wrought much harm, or whose legacy might earn much gold. A grasping arm found itself suddenly crushed beneath a heel to that wrist, accompanied by the shriek and snap of the pain that accompanied a broken bone.

Saul, unwilling to be caught and associated with the fake, began to creep towards door while clutching a small purse pregnant with coin.

[Malaroth]

It had begun to spill out into the streets.

With the attempted departure of the first few, doggedly pursued by others disinclined to allow such a disengagement, or even a simple escape, it had trickled and then greedily flowed outside. Broken barstools and tankards now lay scattered across the road, having been replaced by the stationary walls of neighboring establishments and homes. Fists and feet could not be abandoned or traded for more potent weaponry, however, and found continued employment in the ongoing assault.

For every pleading cry that desired to see damage spat upon the Ashfiend's memory, there were two more who sought it for personal greed, and three more who sought it for its supposed magical power.

SO it went, just beginning to draw the attention of passers-by who quickly learned that the urn had been found and eagerly joined the fray, until Saul himself tumbled into the bedlam quite by accident, his fleeing frame clutching the coin purse mistaken for someone making off with the urn. As they began to tear at his garb for a more secure handhold, they loosened the sack, spilling coins onto the street as others landed atop he and his immediate assailants, crying that he had almost gotten away with the urn - despite the fact that it lay nearly a hundred feet in the opposite direction.

Their merciless bludgeoning soon stripped away greed and resolve, leaving only a desire to live from the beleaguered Saul. With the first blood that escaped him they also withdrew a trembling, shrieking and death-fearing confession: that it was not real.

That the urn was a fake.

Stunned silence died quickly, as the headless creature composed of angered and desperate townsfolk turned upon the one fool en masse. A dozen hands gripped arms and legs, dragging the counterfeit towards the nearest street lamp amidst a coarse, rumbling complaint as men sacrificed their belts for a most noble purpose in the name of justice: a hanging.

Confused pleas amidst tear-dampened sobs found little mercy from those hands, a dozen easily, that worked to bend and pressure his arms behind his back, one at a most unnatural angle, to bind hands at the wrists. Another began to lower his own belt about Saul's throat while spitting curses upon their captive and one offering his last benediction.

"Make a profit from my niece's death, will ya?"

[Khalika]

Nothing else could be said, or done. For there was a hand grabbing for the scruff of the riot leaders neck. She would yank him back and snapped at the crowd...

"Who else has something to say?.."

She barks, as one hand holds the loud mouth, and the other has a grip on Saul....

"Are you all hell bent on proving that Myrken is full of nothing but small minded fools and thiefs?!...Perhaps the Ashfiend should have wiped you all out, and let Myrken start fresh.."

She meant it too hurt. To hurt and grab attention, then she saw it...The false Idol. It drew a flare of anger to the eye, and brought her fierce gaze to Saul...

[Malaroth]

Lane Patterson had watched his niece be slaughtered by the 'Fiend, had heard stories of how his victims rose again to serve him, had lost pounds in feverish ngihtmares of his sweet little niece rising again to stalk Myrkentown beneath her fell master's shadow. His outrage was muffled, though not silenced, as the gypsy melts from darkness into their midst, her hand seized across the breadth of a boisterous mouth mad with awakened grief.

His complaints vibrate with a mute ferocity against her palm, eyes widened in surprise and anger at being halted in his just tirade against the poor fool whom khalika also had a hold of.

Saul stared with shock at the gypsy's words, round and gapinge yes nearly vacant for the fear that had begun to seize him, bound up in belts for bindings and a noose, sweat escaping him in profundity, thick with the stink of regret. It was a childlish regret, one akin to a child's being caught at something seemingly fair that the adults disallow regardless.

The circle near her stirs with rumbled discontent, that she should attempt to still their justice. One of them, clutching a table leg which has survived several blows to others' bodies, raises the makeshift weapon to add some mute volume to his words.

"We'll not let this scum profit on the deaths of our loved oens, we'll not! Nor mock them with this fake!"

A low and deadly calm assent of murmurs and nods flits amongst the assembly, whose anger is dimmed in light of the sudden interruption, of the sudden insult upon them, all in the Ashfiend's name. Still, despite his capture, the creature's promise at the Baker Farm seemed to live on, to have taken a new shape, and to have begun to grow again:

To bring them shadow.

To bring them Hell.

[Khalika]

The Gypsy dropped Saul like a bad habit, tossing him to the ground at her feet, a heel was then quickly wedged between neck and shoulder blade so he had no thoughts of fleeing. The free hand slid between cloak and body, and returned quickly armed..

M'tai..


Anyone who has lived in Myrken has seen the weapons, or heard of them. The foreign claw like blades that the woman uses as an extention, of her own hand in battle. They, those three curved blades that rest now fitted upon her hand, curving upwards with the turn of her wrist. They have found a mark, and she a smile.

"Do I widdle your stick?....Or the nub that will be left of the arm that holds it?"

She doesn't bluff...He has about two breathes, before the riot becomes a dismembering.

[Malaroth]

Flashing eyes follow bared weapons until she has him in a most precarious position. It is enough for her to get the silence she seeks, along with two hands that creep into the air, arms bent at the elbow, in a sign of surrender and plea for mercy. With the gypsy's martial prowess displayed, her threats rendered far more tangible, the tension bound up in the knot of Myrkenfolk begins to tremble, loosening itself from fists and limbs bent upon violence.

"Mercy," her captive whispers through clenched teeth. His eyes whisper something else altogether, a fear mixed with vehemence, at being caught in such a precarious position, at his wrath being made to halt.

Saul, cast aside and pummeled into the street, merely gathers what moments of peace that he can, having been forgotten for the moment. Bound up in belts, and with Khalika's punishing blow for his back, there is little for the faud to do but await whatever judgment that is to befall him.

The belts provided him time to do little else but regret what he had done. He also began to wonder if he was, indeed, the bigger fool. Soon, he had little doubt, he would know that for certain, one way or the other.

[Inajira]

It might have been a false idol, but it still compelled. It compelled a man in faded slacks, torn just above where unlaced boots rested loosely upon tired feet, to pick his way towards the urn. With the gypsy the center of attention, he hoped her distraction would soften his steps even further.

Closing in on it, along the outskirts of the hesitant assembly, he entertains thoughts of reward from his master, from his master's master - a fantasy that sees the fingers recently lost to a local thug restored with some of the magic said to lair in Myrken.

It is enough to have him stoop, catch the urn, and begin a mad dash down the street. It is enough to ignore that the gypsy and Ariane are both present, perhaps unwisely.

[Khalika]

Unwise indeed, for Saul was well inhand as it were and the most vocal of the brawlers, was speaking more out of grief in the heat of the moment then anyting more sinister. The rest of the crowd was slowly dispersing, and it was them the Gypsy's eyes were scanning, waiting to see if any were thinking to take advantage of the situation, for the urn was still in play. Fake or not, it was a tempting item and she wanted to see who would be tempted..

When it happened it was quick, and her mind was a buzz with ideas as to which course of action to take. She looked to the leader of the brawl as she pointed towards Saul..

"He makes it to the constables alive...Or your family mourns another death..."

With that she was gone racing through the crowd, of course she wasn't exactly looking to catch him in the chase, but to see where he takes the thing, and who if any he takes it too....For she knows there is another in play, a servant playing master now that his master is gone.

As for Saul?....Perhaps a night or two in a cell will lead him to a safer line of work...