Almund is a thriving township with a dark side. With houses made from the wooden bodies of decommissioned ships, there are many opportunities here, coupled with many dangers.
While Emma's efforts were appreciated, there simply was nothing in the world that could make Tio trust a dog. Sure they'd sit and roll over on command to your face, but the moment your back was turned they'd be right back to sharpening daggers and lacing your dinner with poison. Still Emma claimed that Tiddles would do what he said, so why not put that to the test?
"Alright then Tiddles..." he began warily, keeping Emma between them in case it realized it's cover was blown and chose this moment to attack. "Renounce your oaths to the dark gods. And then stay. Stay forever."
The path they had taken appeared to be the right one, as the party soon arrived at a small jetty concealed in a cave. There was a single man standing guard there who, if attire was anything to go by, was more piratey than Peg-Leg Beard, the zero legged pirate, and his double eye-patched parrot. He was clearly bad news, and concerningly enough took one look at Tio and though yep, that's one of our guys. Did he really look like a bad guy? Sure he involved himself in criminal activity about seventy percent of the time, but he always thought he dressed fabulously whenever he did so.
Well since there was an opportunity to get some information, Tio figured he might as well exploit it. Hopefully the others had come to understand him well enough by now to tell that he was putting on an act. Dipping into his vast pool of deception experience, Tio drew a sleazy grin across his face and chuckled darkly. "Aye, I caught them tryin' to play hero." He pushed Rynata forwards for dramatic effect, making it seem more vicious than it really was. "Ya don't reckon the boss'll be mad about havin' two extra mouths to feed do ya? Skich my maths is none too good; how many days'll they be at sea for?"
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word count: 336
Fast Facts
Noticeable quirks your character can see when threading with Tio.
Floats
Tio floats in the air, usually just a foot off the ground.
Explodeibur
Tio wears a scary looking gauntlet on his right hand that is clearly magical. It creates explosions.
Rynata's eyes hardened as they came upon the jetty and the less than friendly man beside it. Mr. Tiddles seemed to share her sentiment exactly. However, when the man spoke, it was not the expected threats or bargaining from the people she assumed were behind the kidnappings. Instead, he greeted them, the adults, or especially one of them in particular, as one of his own. That cog not falling into the place she had expected, the gears in Rynata's mind started rearranging themselves to better suit their situation. The man must have confused them with his group. Or worse, someone here was betraying them. However, for the latter to hold true, that person would have had to go through deceptive acrobatics not to arouse suspicion. On top of that, the girls had run at random to fetch help. Even if that hypothetical traitor had planted themselves, there would have been too many variables for this to have been a plausible effort. That left the conclusion that they had the advantage over this strange man.
The moment she realized this, Tio shoved her forward. It wasn't a very violent push, but from the exaggerated movement of his arm, one might have thought as such. In addition, the snow around her feet and being caught off guard caused her to stumble clumsily. Looking back at Tio, she took in his callous expression. If he was acting, it was convincing enough to make her waver in her previous conclusion. She hoped he was acting. Even if he wasn't, she had to make sure things didn't go sour. The situation was still under control and she intended to keep it that way.
"Mr. Tiddles, stay. Delilah, I know it's scary but trust me, stay close to Tiddles and keep him calm. It'll be alright." She looked behind her and caught the children's eye, willing them to keep their cool. There was potential to avoid a messy fight here. If they could get the man off guard or compromised they'd avoid risking the girls and themselves. Also, she could think of no better opportunity to get information out of the people responsible. They had no reason to lie if they thought they were talking to friends after all.
Tactics, tactics. In the uncertain and dangerous situation, Rynata latched onto familiar figures who might have some sort of input to their current predicament. The only such people were her family, of course. Use your head, read the people, keep calm, don't underestimate, and think outside the box.
Seeing Wren suddenly talkative was a little concerning. Until then, the girl had been pleasantly silent for much of the walk. Maybe there was something she knew about the way they had taken. Or the ones they had not. "Not always," they responded, "I only got to be this tall an arc or two ago." The idle chatter likely calmed the girl, and as such, they saw it fit to at least humor her.
However, they soon came upon a clearing, and what they were met with might have been a welcome sight, if not for the man. And his greeting them. A second time they had stumbled onto a trafficking ring of sorts; this one hopefully not much like the first. They weren't too sure what to do, other than to squeeze Wren's hand draw her back behind them. Mr. Tiddles growled, and soon Tio was pushing Rynata forward. There was no way of knowing this was a ploy - until Rynata played along. Or seemed to play along. They weren't all too acquainted with Tio, and weren't too sure they couldn't put it past him to do something like this; lead them into this situation.
Glancing down at Wren, lips pursed, they motioned for the girl to keep quiet. For the most part, the pair weren't too much of the focus at the moment. They wouldn't run; rather, it would be best to play along. Being quiet as they were now would likely present them with a little less to worry about. They'd learned compliance usually kept them safe.
Tio's deception worked - perhaps better than he might have wanted it to in a way. He shoved Rynata forward and she turned and told the children to be calm. Did she believe Tio, or was she playing along thinking that he was acting? Rynata was not skilled in deception and so, it was hard to tell. Yet, she stumbled forward and warned the children. The man who had "greeted" them caught hold of Rynata and his hand snaked out to grab her by the chin, lifting her head to examine her. Leaning forward, he licked the side of her face, up her cheek and his other hand held her arm so hard that she'd have bruises both there and on her neck.
"Nice little morsel you are, I migh' keep you fer myself." His breath was rancid as he pulled her to him, his fingers digging cruelly into her. "NO!" Emma cried out as Tio's actions unfolded. "NO!! You can't be a bad man!! DON'T BE A BAD MAN!" The young girl threw herself, bodily at Tio, screaming and kicking and doing her very best, it seemed, to beat him about the head. Legs wrapped around him and she started hitting.
The moment she did, of course, Delilah joined her and Wren pulled out of Amaris' grasp, looking at her tall companion with real anger in her eyes. "You're supposed to be the grown ups! You're supposed to help!! You don't help by doing nothing, or hiding!! DO SOMETHING!"
Wren, it seemed, wasn't going to attack Tio. No, Wren - and Tiddles - ran straight for the man who had hold of Rynata and the pair of them leaped forward. Must be said, he seemed rather surprised by that turn of events.
And in the space of about four trill.... all hell broke loose.
The sketchy-looking pirate seemed completely fooled by his deception, and for a trill Tio allowed a pleased smirk to grace his face. This was going perfectly! If the pirate revealed how long the prisoners they captured would be at sea, they could cross reference that information with a list of estimated travel times to other cities via ship to find out where they were being taken too. Rynata took the hint to play along as well and allowed herself to licked (which by the way... eww) and in doing so got close enough into the pirate's guard to knee him right in the knackers if he tried anything.
Unfortunately it had slipped his mind that the children in the group were.... well... children, and didn't realise what he was trying to do. Emma screamed at him and starting thumping him, believing that he was actually betraying them, and broke whatever illusion he'd created that he had somehow actually captured them all by himself. "Emm- oww! Emma! EMMA! Calm down!" He yelped as her tiny fists battered away at his leg. ""You're the one who dragged me into this situation remember?! How could I possibly be on their side when I was chucking snowballs around the other side of town at the time of the attack? That was what is called a cunning ruse! I was trying to trick him into telling us where the last ship went!"
Well there was no way that was happening now. Looks like they were doing this the hard way. "Snowflake! Kick him in the bal- err, bells and whistles!" There wasn't a lot he could do right now to help in the fight. With Emma mauling at his legs he couldn't get up close to use his cutlass, but his aim with his throwing knives wasn't good enough to use without risking hitting Rynata or Wren. Snowflake would have to handle this fight herself.
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word count: 329
Fast Facts
Noticeable quirks your character can see when threading with Tio.
Floats
Tio floats in the air, usually just a foot off the ground.
Explodeibur
Tio wears a scary looking gauntlet on his right hand that is clearly magical. It creates explosions.
Children would indeed be children, and thus they should have known that the girls wouldn't catch on to the efforts of the adults without some hinting. Doing more than asking the girl to stay quiet would have likely helped all of this. As Wren yanked away from them, Amaris let out a soft cry, more so an attempt to call the girl back that was drowned in panic at the direction she was headed. There weren't many options, given all three of the girls had taken to getting riled up, Tio preoccupied with calming and warding off Emma's fury.
Without much thought, they ran after the girl. Not too big a distance, but slight hesitation held them back before they were almost literally stepping over the girl. They shoved the man away from Rynata as best they could with one hand, and blocked Wren's path. This would put her out of danger, they supposed, but they'd really just thrown themselves into the thick of things. They truly hadn't thought this through. Though, behind them they could hear Tio shouting something, presumably for Rynata, and thought perhaps they could follow up on his suggestion in her stead. Rather than aim for the...bells and whistles as Tio had so aptly called out, they opted for hitting the man upside the head with their domain bag. They'd shut their eyes, as if awaiting some terrible ending to this, wobbling slightly as they soon after attempted to move away at the tail end of their swing.
Fury and fear were an interesting combination that Rynata would have to sort out later when she wasn't face to face with a vile sea slug crawled out from the depths of the most stagnant trench. Her hair stood on end as the man’s tongue raked up her cheek, and she dug her heels into the snow against his grip. Though the hold on her arm was like a vice, the pain didn’t register clearly in that moment. Thankfully, she was too angry and disgusted to be concerned.
Behind her, she could hear the chaos from the children and Tio’s voice shouting. Apparently, the gig was up. Frankly, thank goodness for that.
Taking her companion’s advice, Rynata kicked as hard as she could, straight up, aiming for the enemy’s groin. Ironically, his iron grip helped steady her attempt as she braced herself on one foot. She then unlocked her knees, using her weight to pull down and away from the man. In her peripheral vision she saw Amaris materialize and come to her aid. With her free hand, Rynata pulled free her dagger and struck low, aiming for her captor’s upper thigh. However, she unconsciously pulled some force from the attack at the last second, inexperience in harming others showing through.
At Tio's yelling, the rain of blows on him stopped and Emma looked at him. Completely unconcerned with everything else, Emma thumped Tio even harder. "YOU MUSTN'T DO THAT!!" tears were streaming down her face and she looked at him with a strange expression, hurt and confusion evident on her face as she sobbed and thumped him. "You're a good person! You have to be one, really be one if you are!" Unfortunately, or fortunately perhaps (if you've ever been on Immortals Tongue with him, for example) Tio didn't get to throw himself into the fight and instead he had two thumping, punching, sobbing and upset children.
What a peculiar trial.
So, Tio got to watch as Amaris strode forward and pushed the man who had, but trill before, been licking Rynata's cheek. Amaris pushed, Rynata kicked and the man in question first doubled over and then stumbled - or stumbled and then doubled over. Either way, the result was much the same and he fell to the ground clutching his groin and yelling.
This was good. But things didn't stop there.
Amaris decided that hitting someone over the head with a swinging Domain bag with closed eyes was a good plan and so the very tall member of the group did just that. As the Domain Bag swung, the man dropped (thereby at least providing an answer to an earlier question - he stumbled, then fell....) and Amaris' target was nowhere near where Amaris was aiming. Unfortunately, that whole swinging attack thing meant that aiming was a ... dubious notion at best and when one added into it the fact that Amaris' eyelids were firmly shut?
Well, Rynata turned around, perhaps revelling in their joint victory or maybe as she pulled her dagger and moved to attack further, Amaris got to experience the brief pleasure of a Domain Bag blow hitting and Rynata got to feel the impact of a Domain Bag in the face. It was shocking and inconvenient, but it wasn't damaging. However, whilst all that was happening?
There was a howl from the man who was laying on the ground and clutching himself as Tiddles, the Dog To End Them All attacked him and bit into the man's thigh, tearing off a good amount of flesh and causing blood to spray.
Tio couldn't help the deep, resigned sigh that escaped his lungs as Emma resumed her onslaught of thumps with a vengeance. Was it worth explaining to her that the concepts of 'good' and 'evil' where infinitely more complex than she believed, and that trying to label all lies as evil was naive? No, somehow Tio got the impression that it would only make her even more upset. By the spirits it was difficult dealing with children! If this was what being a parent was like then he was going to avoid having kids like the plague from now on. And where did people even get this impression that he was a good person from anyway? He wasn't a good person, just not a bad one. His moral compass was about as reliable as a drunken donkey. What were people suddenly going around expecting him to act like a saint for? It was kind of rude really.
The fight with the pirate seemed to going... well enough... without him, and so Tio decided that ultimately the best move he could make right now was to do absolutely nothing. Emma was too upset and young to listen to reason, so as annoying as it he'd just have to stick it out and wait for her to calm down.
At least The Carpet Beast decided to feast upon the flesh of the pirate rather than any of their's. With a demonic growl it tore a large chunk out of the poor sod's leg, and Tio quickly covered Emma and Deliah's eyes (Wren, sadly, was too far away, and he didn't have enough hands) so that they wouldn't see as blood started to gush out of the wound like a river. This had got to be the single most messy fight he'd ever seen, and he wasn't even involved in it this time!
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word count: 320
Fast Facts
Noticeable quirks your character can see when threading with Tio.
Floats
Tio floats in the air, usually just a foot off the ground.
Explodeibur
Tio wears a scary looking gauntlet on his right hand that is clearly magical. It creates explosions.
Closing their eyes had seemed like a good plan in the moment. Mostly because they were quite afraid of what the consequences would look like should they miss the man altogether and would not like to see their own failings, even if every Immortal and those present would be able to know. They did, however, feel something connect with the bag and a thud. So, they had connected bag with flesh - and hopefully the right flesh. They carefully opened one eye to examine the scene and were very thoroughly surprised.
The man had indeed been felled by the collective assault of the mixed blood and the biqaj woman, but was now being dealt with by Mr. Tiddles. While they were more than a little unnerved by the amount of blood, they were not surprised to see Tiddles being as vicious as he was. The man had, after all, made threats towards the children in their charge. Jaw clenched, Amaris went to turning Wren away and blocking her line of sight.
Now all that was left to do was to pull Tiddles from the man. "Mr. Tiddles; stop! Sit!" They attempted using as stern a voice as possible. "Release!"
