Zilo made his way back to The Umie household as nightfall came. Maldrek and May were discussing Maldrek's findings from the library in a sitting room of the house. They turned to the bard and Maldrek greeted, "Zilo, perfect timing. I was just telling May about the Black Daimyo Order."
"What did you learn?" asks Zilo, perking up.
"Well, they are actually similar to the samurai that serve Lidan, in all ways but beliefs. It gets a bit mixed in with religion here and there, but the long and short of it is that they seek glory via war. Unlike Lidan samurai that follow the Order of the Warrior who value honor and heroism."
May grins and sarcastically comments, "They sound so very interesting. You must have had a ball at the library."
Maldrek shivered and responded, "This society needs a thesaurus, I think I read the word 'honor' over ten thousand times today, but the end result I think I have an idea how they think. A perfect, there's Cruxis."
The three turn to see their friendly paladin enter alongside two samurai warriors. The 3 bid each other farewell before Cruxis joins his friends. Maldrek speaks to Cruxis, "We were just reviewing our findings, Did the patrolling go well?"
"It was fine, there were a few crimes that got reported and we even looked at a crime scene after a bar fight went down this afternoon." Zilo squirmed a bit at that and May seemed the only one to pick up on that. She pushed," What's up Zilo, problem?" Zilo opened his mouth, but Maldrek interrupts,
"We'll get to how odds are that bar fight was Zilo later."
Cruxis snaps in and says, ""I'll get in on that action. I'll bet ya 5 gold." Maldrek sighs and says, "If it will get you back to your story fine. Now continue, specifically what's your impression of the Lidan Samurai?" Cruxis smiles and begins again.
Cruxis' face light up and he speaks as though he is reciting doctrine, "I have never seen such a devoted police force. It's nothing like guards in Deneval. They are closer to a Paladin Order than a town guard. It was glorious, such dedication to duty is to be used in all places."
May looks unimpressed toward Cruxis, "So what you are saying is they have their heads in the clouds like most knights and boy scouts. Looks like we'll be the only defense for the lords." Cruxis hops back and looks insulted, "Take that back!" May smiles and says, "I'll prove it, Maldrek, I'll get to my findings after, this is part of it, please allow me to."
Maldrek rubs his chin and says, "Fine proceed." May looks back to, removing her shadow studded armor Cruxis and says, "Armor off orc boy. Maldrek, do you happen to have to Fabricate ready today?"
Maldrek nods and opens his book to the spell. May looks to Zilo and says, "Zilo go to the furnace and get a big bundle of firewood. We need some material to make two wasters." Zilo scurries off to find the furnace room as May finally turns back to the intrigued looking paladin.
"What's your game May?"
"We are gonna go a round, and I don't want to kill you so we'll need some wasters. We fight till the blunted weapons begin doing enough damage to wound." Cruxis looks mildly shocked, but not discouraged. He speaks, "I could use a win, sure."
Zilo comes back moments later with a bundle of wood, the servants in the room followed him, curious why he needed them and in addition one of the warriors that had accompanied Cruxis had come as well and was now staying to watch the exchange.
Maldrek reforms the firewood into some safe forms of a scythe and a longsword and the two heroes square up within melee range of each other. Zilo decides to play his battle tune without his magic to make the fight more entertaining, and so the moment that he begins playing the two begin the fight.
May's natural speed gives her the edge and she gets the first move flicking her scythe out and around at multiple angles but making it difficult to tell where the attack will come from. With such wide angles starting and stopping May is proving her ability as a Feint Expert. Eventually, she gets Cruxis to flinches to the right and at that moment she redirects her Scythe with a transfer behind her back to bring the point of the wood to go his exposed kidney.
The sneak attack is devastating and brings Cruxis down to one knee and he mutters, "Okay *cough* if you're bringing out your tricks, then so will I." Cruxis rises up and points his wooden blade forward at May and chants, "I am the sword that forges ahead for Peace, the slayer of those who stray to violence. Arete of the bloodstained blade, lend me your strength to do what is needed."
Cruxis's wood begins to bleed a translucent crimson sap as he snaps his blade up and calls for a divine bond of Keen. With his time spent improving his attack odds, May tries to make another maneuver to feint him. Cruxis does manage to avoid the feint this time, but May's attack is still too fast for him to avoid even when he does see it coming. The attack hits him right in the gap of his shoulder and neck, a critical hit.
The cleric assassin was not expecting his reaction at all though. His eyes flaired with some sort of piercing power. May could see his eyes burn with some sort of holy energy. It was different from his usual auras as this was piercing her rather than surrounding him. He had somehow managed to focus his Divine Wrath over being struck so horribly into May to shake her overconfidence.
May takes a few steps back. She didn't have the ability to make any more of those expert feints, and Cruxis was hurt, but not down. She was really banking on him going down after a second sneak attack. Cruxis raises his shield and moves in a flash, his blade thrusts forward and shatters her guard. The wood weapon's tip crashes into May's forehead at full force returning her critical hit with one of his own. May's head is blasted back before her side is also slammed by the makeshift sword.
She lowered her body and holds her forehead that now houses a small trickle of blood that her eyelashes manage to hold off. She snaps back up and tries a normal feint swapped into and overhead slash to try and bust his defense again, but the paladin raises his shield and holds her Scythe in place. Cruxis' face is solemn and focused as he sweeps his sword at her feet. She jumps her feet back, but the shield holds her upper half extended by her scythe.
Cruxis twirls 360 degrees with the sweep and spins his own shield above. With this simple spin, the shield's turn rips May's scythe from her shaky grip and positions his own weapon's tip to fly up from his hip and into May's sternum. May is knocked to the ground and splays out, She is moaning in pain.
Cruxis's face tenses, showing his shock at how badly she was knocked down. He immediately undoes his smite and divine bond. He moves over to her, tucking his weapon under his arm, and speaking, "I would say I'm sorry, but you did doubt the code of a paladin."
May doesn't move, Cruxis kneels down to examine her. Zilo begins to move in, but Maldrek holds him back with his arm. Zilo looks to his friend, confused since he was recruited way back when to act as the group's healer. All he sees is a focused expression on Maldrek's face.
Cruxis looks away from May and back to Zilo. He shouts, "Zilo! get over here and look at her, She still conscious and-! Maldrek let him go! She's not going to be fixed by a simple cure spell!" Maldrek lowers his had and shakes it slowly and mutters, "Match ain't over yet."
Cruxis can't quite hear him from there as he takes a few steps over to try and hear. He stops and just waves him off before continues, "Whatever, forget you then, maybe one of my Mercies can-" Cruxis turns back toward May, not witnessing what she did.
As he began to step to the bard and wizard, she silently snapped up to a crouched position and glanced toward his head. She then silently pressed both hands to the ground and lifted her bent legs upward. In a flash, she presses up into the air with a twist and her heel comes flying in at the turning Cruxis.
Her heel hits him right below the back of the jawline below his ear and he collapses onto the ground not moving. Maldrek's eyes widen and Zilo's jaw drops. He runs over to her and asks, "What in Dema was that!? I expect that kind of stuff from Jin Shi, not you May!"
May smiles and straightens her clothes a bit as she speaks. "I aimed for the cervical plexus. Figured if I put enough force into it then his nervous system would just go kaput for a little bit." Maldrek approaches and says, "Assassin training?" May nods and says, "For targets, you need out of the way, but not dead, he should be moving again in a minute or so."
May points over to the samurai still watching and says, "But that's my point. Honor and heroism in combat might give fervor and discipline but can be a huge weakness. You overlook ways the enemy can attack you. I could kill Cruxis, right now if I wanted, and the Black Daimyo can do the same thing at the ball."
Zilo retorts, "But there's no glory in that, and that is half of their whole deal." May is faltered by this recollection, but Maldrek who had been rubbing his chin at May's words suddenly snaps his fingers. He speaks, "Glory isn't the same as honor, it just can be to some. Glory can also come from beating the unbeatable odds." Maldrek turns to Zilo, "Like, for instance winning an unwinnable duel like some people planned."
Zilo snickers as Maldrek continues." By that logic, they will earn glory no matter what since according to what Takeshi said they are vastly outnumbered. That means they will only want their other goal."
"War." Said Cruxis as his body finally regained the ability to move and he stood. Maldrek Nods and says, "War with the Umie in the shadows, or on the battlefield. and it may have been a suspicion this morning but I think week can safely say they will be trying to assassinate the Umie. At the ball, or in the future. That means it's our duty to track them down."
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