Wicked Encounter

It's a lovely evening, warm but not stifling with a cool breeze that comes by now and again to keep things from becoming warmer than would be comfortable. The stars are spread out across the sky like a smattering of jewels though there's no moon to be seen. It's late enough now that there are lights put out, and it pours from taverns and inns in welcoming puddles on the ground. The light brings with it the murmur of voices leaking out from the buildings in a way that is as comforting as the light is. Many of the taverns have soft music playing, or the sound of laughter that suggests other entertainment. All in all, it's a beautiful night to be strolling down this stretch of Alexandria's streets.

Astaren is up on a roof, a fancy pillow under his head, and star gazing.

Two young children, one oruch and one human, run pell-mell out of a nearby building, laughing and screaming. A moment later Yelrona dives out of a window, roaring like an overacted monster, wearing a multicolored costume with scales and a tail and claws on her hands... a rainbow dragon, maybe?... chasing them, periodically distracted by imaginary baked goods.

Iskandar sits on a chair at a corner. He was a wineskin in one hand and occasionally takes a drink. It looks to be very nearly empty, though with his habit of taking large gulps that doesn't necessarily mean he's been here for long.

Out of one of the inns glides a woman. She's extraordinarily beautiful, with long platinum blonde hair and blue eyes like those of a husky. She's only five feet tall, and wearing a blue dress that accentuates her feminine form. There's something about her that says fragile, and as she exits the bar it's hard to tell if she's perhaps elvish or if she's human. There's no time to determine it either because the moment that she glides across the intersection of an alleyway she's suddenly drawn into the darkness by a pale hand. She lets out a startled noise, but only one before she disappears into the darkness.

Iskandar seems to sense something and turns to look at the woman when she leaves the inn. Once he sees her he can't quite tear his gaze away, so he sees the hand and sees her pulled into the alley. He seems slightly disappointed. But at the cry he leaps up from his chair. He drops the nearly empty wineskin on the chair and then dashes after.

Halanaestra is making her way from the Soldiers Defense Hospital, having spent the last several days in treatment and healing from her ordeal and rescue. Her things have been returned to her, and she's finally gotten the courage up to explore the city proper. She stops here, stops there, looks, smiles, makes her way from shop to tavern and just generally seems to be having a good night being, well, free. Her attention is grabbed when a scream is let out and a young woman vanishes in to the darkness. Yeah, no, no one else is going to be taken by anyone else. She turns on heel and bolts towards the alleyway.

Astaren closes his eyes and sighs, "Really? really?" sitting up and putting his pillow away, "Was such a beautiful night to." hoping down off the building and peering into the alleyway.

Yelrona 's attention is captured by the woman, and she is distracted from the children's game. She watches in admiration, and her costume fades out, replaced by her usual garb... maybe a little more stylish than her usual. She is considering her approach when the woman is grabbed from the darkness, and she charges the alley, throwing a flaming gem into the air that begins orbiting her head.

Coming out of the inn, the not so magically beautiful woman, Dax walks out and is drinking down some wine from a flask. She's just looking about when Yelrona captures her attention. "'Ey!" She calls out to the other woman, "Yel!" She starts moving in her direction and then watches as Yelrona darts into the alley, "Waiiit! I gotta tell ya 'bout ta Ork!" She starts moving after Yelrona, not quite as fast, but moving. And thankfully only running into a wall once, before she's stumbling into the alley.

A lovely evening is somewhat redundant from Aya's perspective: she finds most all evenings lovely. If not, they are certainly preferable to the unbroken sun. She exits from one of the inns onto the lamp-lit street.

In the alley the woman is standing. Behind her is a man, his form obscured by the shadows so that it seems for a moment as though his head and hands are floating. One hand grasps the woman around the middle, and the other is clenched around her slender neck. She gasps, eyes wide as they are joined in the alley by... so many observers.

Behind her the man is... There is something unnatural about him. His skin is pale and ashen, his green eyes glow and are the color of a feline's eyes. He grins at everyone, tightening his grip on the woman. "Hello." His voice purrs out low and almost seductive, and he pulls her a step back away from everyone. "It seems we have company my sweet... I think you best stay where you are my friends. Unless you would like my sweet to lose her head."

Yelrona draws her bow on the instant, but makes no further move. "I'm staying where I am, for now. Hurt her and you're dead. What's going on?"

Sasha happens to be standing behind everyone as the man makes his threat. She looks up as if to say 'oh brother', before she rests her walking stick on the wall....then half-heartedly puts her hands up.

Halana is now also standing alongside Yelrona and the first only response Halan gives is that of the sound of her blade being removed from its scabbard. "You. Will not. Have her" she snaps out at him, eyes glaring and burning with rage and fury. "I did not come from slavery to stand by and watch another be taken." She takes a single step forward, "If you harm her, you will /know me/."

As Yelrona draws her bow, Dax flips her claws forward and then looks between everyone present. She swallows down some ale that she took from the inn, and looks around. "Ya ain't 'spose ta... do tha' in public." Dax comments to the pale man, "It ain't legal. Ya need ta find a room..." Swinging the wineskin in the direction of the nearby inn, she is using it to point, "Tha' there, get a room, cheap, an' jus' realize. Ya break the bed... they gonna charge ya."

"Oh, hey," Rona says over her shoulder to Halana, somewhat irrelevantly, "you got your gear back. Excellent."

Iskandar reaches for his own bow before remembering - he's not wearing it. Scowling briefly, he turns the expression into a glare at the man. Then he suddenly smiles. "What a villain!" he admits. "But as you can plainly see, unfortunately - for you - you've come to a city of heroes!" He tugs his cestus a little more snugly on his hand. Luckily he didn't leave home without that.

Aya arches a brow at the commotion, noting Dax's yell and Yelrona running. Both lead her eyes to the man in the alleyway, holding the woman. Whatever obfuscation he thinks the shadows grant him may be over exaggerated. She ceases to exist where she stands, reappearing behind the man, leaving a vanishing miasma of shadow at each point. In self-amusement, and poetic license, she seeks to wrap a hand around the man's middle and put another at his neck.

Yelrona is visibly startled to note Aya appearing somewhere other than right behind her. It feels wrong, somehow.

As Aya appears behind the man he seems to evaporate like water, appearing suddenly on the rooftop. It is as though he pulls the same trick she does, disappearing and then reappearing. A low grinding noise rose from him and he holds the woman closer to himself a shield. He whispers something in her ear and she claws at his hand with her own smaller ones. "I think... I would like to play with you all a little bit yes?" Suddenly he leans forward and bites the woman hard on the neck. She shakes with the force of it and in an instant he is drawing back once again, licking blood from his lips. Then he drops the woman from the rooftop.

Yelrona moves, faster than an elf her size really ought to, and positions herself beneath the falling woman. Her bow drops to the floor as she prepares to catch her if she can.

As the woman falls from the man's grasp, Sasha is already running forward. Yelrona is faster, but Sasha doesn't seem really worried about catching the woman. The woman must have something up her sleeve. If Yelrona catches the woman, Sasha will be there to check her pulse, among other things......

Astaren is standing back, leaning against the wall. His arms crossed as he watches thoughtfully.

When the teleportation happens, Dax just blinks a few times, goes stumbling forward a little, she's pointing, "Did ya see tha'?" Looking at where the guy used to be. Then up when there's talking, she reaches her head with her fingers and starts scratching. "We 'spose ta try an' kill this guy or we... not?" She wonders, to whomever is nearby, even as Yelrona runs up to catch the woman who is now falling from a place, much higher than she was moments ago.

Aya is about to ask for clarification when he drops the woman. That could be his answer, and not too surprising. She's even less surprised that Yelrona and others are already racing to the falling woman. Could Aya possibly beat them there? Yes. Could she catch the woman while doing so? Not likely. So, instead, she reverts to her original question, arching a brow at the one on the rooftop. "Is that all you had in mind for amusement?"

Iskandar tilts his head back to look up at the rooftop. He glances down at the woman in Yelrona's arms, troubled. But then he looks determined. If they couldn't save her, they'll just have to avenge her.

Halan's first reaction is to run to the young woman, next to Rona and Sasha and instantly place her hands on her, "Blessed Lady, Golden Lady, I need your light." She says a soft prayer, a quick prayer, with closed eyes as her sword now lays on the ground near, and her shield rests on her back.

Yelrona lays the woman down on the ground and does what she can to make Sasha and Halana's jobs easier.

Astaren flys his way up to the rooftop and finds a chimney to lean against. his eyes never leaving the man, looking thoughtful as he evaluates him.

The woman is swiftly caught by Yelrona, and though there is a nasty bleeding bite on her neck she seems quite alive. The spell cast on her heals the injury completely and she gasps, one hand lifting to her neck. When it comes away with just a little blood she looks gratefully at the women around her. "Thank you."

Above them the man makes that odd grinding noise again, and looking at his terrible grin those watching him realize that the sound is... laughter. "I like you." He is speaking to Aya, and suddenly he appears behind her as simply as he had gone before. He leans close to her, scenting her like a dog. Then his glowing green eyes bore into hers hypnotizing. Spellbinding. Then suddenly his hand moves to strike her.

"It's nothing," Rona replies, scooping up her bow. "Besides, we just got finished cleaning this alley, and do you have any IDEA how difficult blood is to scrub up?" She nods appreciatively to Halana, whose healing prayer helped matters significantly. "If you'll excuse me, though..."

She can't fly, or teleport, or jump especially far, so she runs into the building on whose roof the action is, hoping to find stairs up to the roof.

It will end up taking her a while, between locked doors she has to pick or bash open, and the lack of roof access, forcing her to climb out a top-floor window and up onto the roof.

It probably would have been faster to ask someone for a lift. Oops.

Aya is not accustomed to having some of her own tricks used against her. That and her glance to the downed, if caught woman, leave her at a disadvantage. One that rewards her with a fist to the face that snaps her chin to one side and leaving her to blink in surprise. Before her eyes narrow in anger.

Sasha looks relieved when Halana heals the woman. "Stay with her, please." She says as she glares at the man behind Aya. "ALTHEA! UNRAVEL THIS ABOMINATION!" She has no weapons in her hands, but she has her own weapon...her faith. A pulse of Blue light extends from her and goes through Aya, but if Aya had any wounds, they do not heal. The entire effect is to damage, what Sasha expects to be, an undead monster on the other side of Aya.

Iskandar whirls around to look at the man and Aya. He starts to sidestep so that he can charge the villain. Then he seems to remember something. He suddeny changes direction and moves back so that he is roughly between the man and the girl from earlier. "Stand still!" he shouts, though only half-heartedly.

That's a fight. Dax can see the man ready to strike out at Aya, and she moves forward. Yelrona darting out of the alleyway, and Dax was about to follow, but then the guy on the rooftop is now down here on the ground level. Flicking her claws out, Dax just jumps towards the guy in an attempt to claw him, or grapple, or something.

Astaren continues to watch, and pulls out a copper coin. With a quick pass of his hand the coin starts to glow very brightly, like the sun in the sky. Then he casually tosses it at the man aiming for his feet. Then crosses his arms as he leans back and continues to watch.

Halana will take the woman by hand and give the whole situation a look over, before helping her to her feet. "Hows about you come with me to see the other Clerics at the hospital? We'll just need to make sure you're really ok." With that, if she allows it, Halana will take her in hand and play protector as she walks the young woman towards said hospital.

The woman goes with Halana, even as the man who accosted her leans away from the sudden light from the coin dropped in front of him and Sasha's. The man's arms lift as though to protect his face from a blow and it allows him to be attacked for a moment. Deep gouging wounds appear on his arms but rather than screaming he grabs the claws that attacked him. Blood pours slougishly from his wounds and he flashes huge fangs at Dax and throws her away from him, tearing one of the claws out of her hands and looking at it with pleasure. One booted foot lands on the coin, snuffing out its light. He seems none the worse for wear save the claw marks, and he grins attacking Aya again in a frenzy of blows almost too fast to follow. He's so unnaturally fast that it hurts to watch him move.

Dax gets tossed into a nearby wall with a great big oomph, hitting her back against rock. She slides to the ground, slumping for a moment, her head hits hard enough to start to bleed some even as she groans loudly. Blinking hard, she is looking around the alley, closing her eyes, and squinting, and then slowly pulling herself back up. Her claws... she is gasping out and preparing to charge forward with the one set of claws still on her.

This is terribly improper. If anyone should be darting about striking fear into the hearts of foes, it should be her. In retrospect, perhaps it will be humbling. At the moment, though, Aya's focus is one survival.

She can move quickly, but not preternaturally quick, leaving her to fare possibly better than others even as she succeeds in catching several blows. Including at least one slashing from purloined claws.

"Are you enjoying yourself yet, creature?" She refuses to give him the satisfaction, and if he expects to terrify her... he will be sorely disappointed. She responds with her own series of rapid counterattacks, her form flitting in and out of existence between strikes, reappearing at a different flank just in time to deliver the next before relocation.

Astaren pushes off the chimney as he looks serious now, "Possible vampire, undead creature. No sunlight, if you do drop him, drag him to the river and submerge his body. Another way to destroy them, otherwise he will keep healing." trailing behind his hands is a blue glowing light. His right hand holding a rod he pulled out of his bag and tapping is against his thigh. Tracing a pattern in the air a sudden green beam of energy barrels towards the man. His other hand glowing as the rod vibrates and suddenly a pulse of vibration through the air as a shattering effect also targets the man. "With that, I am off to the temple of Vardema to get some help." turning around he starts walking away towards the temple district on the roofs, soon to dimension door once he can cast again.

Sasha only partly watches him as he starts to flick all over the place. "If you're trying to scare me.....it's not going to work. You can't get close to me without me doing you a lot of harm, creature. And now your quarry is gone. Your destruction is nigh, it's just a matter of time." She says before looking to Dax and smiling. "Go. I'll get you some help shortly." She says as she opens her hand......and holds it next to her. "Althea, please bring some help to my friend, so I can bring some real help." The ball of light floats out, and expands into a fully formed translucent angel. "he's all yours." And the force angel flies after the vampire to attack viciously with it's bill.

The spells that Astaren casts cause some of the equipment that the man is wearing to simply... disintegrate. He rocks in place as well, a low groan emitting from his lips as Astaren's spells and one of Aya's hits finally lands. For the most part they've hit only air but she manages one. Unlike Dax who misses him simply because of the way he simply does not stand still for any length of time. His body is covered in scars, and he appears just to the side of Aya again. Whispering in her ear before suddenly - with the notable entrance of the angelic being - vanishes.

Yelrona finally makes it to the roof! She draws her bow, nocks an arrow, and fires, just in time to pass through the space where the creature had been a moment before. She looks around, seeking to re-establish a target

Aya's guard remains up as her eyes dart around for the assailant, expecting a possible re-appearance even after his whispered words. When it finally becomes clear that he won't, her stance relaxes somewhat and she brushes blood from her lip with the back of a hand. "So, that's how that feels..."

Yelrona chuckles at the comment. "Yeah, li'l bit. So... vampire?" She keeps her bow out, just in case.

Aya glances up at the retort and one corner of her lips lifts. "The fangs seemed to suggest that." Her eyes lower and pan over to the summoner of angels and others.

"Eh. Seems like everyone has fangs, these days." Yelrona looks over the edge of the roof. "Is the woman all right?"

Yelrona inspects the roof and the alley for footprints, dropped items, or anything else that might provide a clue about the vampire

Dax walks her way over to where the vampire was, when she's able, her hair sticking to her head with the blood that she leaked herself. Messy. Good thing she has reddish brown hair, blood matches really well, and she picks up her claws that the man had taken from her and re-affixes them onto her arm. "I can use a drink fer sure." She states, grumbling out her words as she starts to turn out of the alley way to head back to the inn from whence she came, stumbling a little more now than before. Yes, best thing for head injuries, more alcohol!

Sasha takes a deep breath and steps away from where the vampire was. The Force angel glides it's way over to Sasha and compresses into a blue light, where Sasha takes into her hand. "thank you my friend." And she starts for the Soldier's Defense.

-End-