Exit: LIGHT! Enter: NIGHT! (Wicked Basket)

[Brisinger987]

Temhota didn't sleep except during the day. She was her strongest at night, and the evenings were her alone time.

And today was no different. She wandered Draconi Forest, curious as to whether anything interesting would happen. Maybe a bandit group.

Maybe a fellow magician.

And of course, maybe both.

She stepped into a clearing, hoping that some sneaky bandit would try and take his chances with her. Maybe she might get one to obey her whims. Then she would set herself right in the morning, with her alone time being less alone.

The clearing wasn't far from a pond, and hopefully the bandits she wanted were nearby.

((OOC: I kinda didn't know how to start it))

[Wicked Basket]

Cryce stood at the edge of a small pond. According to his source, a particular group of bandits liked to ambush travellers who would stop at the pond for a drink. This was exactly what Cryce was hoping for.

Sure enough, a bandit emerged from the trees with an undoubtedly stolen sword in his hand.
"Welcome, traveller," the bandit greeted him. "What business brings you into Draconi Forest this fine day?"
"Don't think you can fool me," Cryce replied. "I know exactly what you are."
A smile spread across the bandit's lips. "Well in that case," the bandit said turning to the treeline. "Come on out, boys!"
Six more armed bandits emerged from the woods and surrounded the lone cryomancer.
"That's a nice staff you got there," the leader said with a grin. "I bet I could get more than a shiny penny for something like that."
"I sure you could," Cryce sneered. "But first I would like to know if you've ever been to Hyoite."
The bandit broke out into raucous laughter. "Why the hell would I go to Hyoite? I'd freeze my damn toes off! Besides, business is much better here." He turned to the other six and shouted "Get him boys!"
The six bandits charged Cryce with weapons raised, but they didn't get very far. Cryce lifted his staff and them slammed it back down hard upon the ground. The result was six staves of ice erupting from the ground, each one impaling an attacking bandit. The leader was shocked, but it didn't last long. The leader stuck two of his fingers in his mouth and let out a loud, shrill whistle. Bandits began pooring out of the treeline with weapons brandished and shouting individual battle cries. Cryce readied himself for combat. This is going to be interesting, he thought.

[Brisinger987]

Temhota heard the sounds of fighting, and smiled, running towards the commotion.

She arrived, as seemed to teleport, shifting herself at the speed of light, just briefly, through the darkened treeline.

Then she plunged her dagger into a bandit, using her enhanced strength, born of her father's demon blood to literally throw the grown man onto an ice spike.

"Hey there. This looks like fun." She sent a man spiralling as a fist formed from his shadow and punched him in the face, before she stabbed another bandit.

"Room for one more on your side?"

[Wicked Basket]

Cryce had not expected someone to come to his aid, but by the looks of it this stranger just seemed to like killing people. Cryce's thoughts were interrupted as yet another bandit charged. Three icicles formed on the end of his staff and he swung them at the bandit. All three icicles impaled the bandit's chest and Cryce yanked the staff back breaking off the icicles in the man's chest. The leader of the band of thieves decided that disgression was the better part of valor and began slowly distancing himself from the fight. Cryce touched the ground with the end of his staff and encased the leader's entire lower body in a block of ice. That should keep him still long enough to slay his underlings. Cryce spun around and projected a storm of shards of ice toward three of the bandits. The ice shards acted like shards of glass as they cut, ripped, and tore through their helpless victims. This fight will be over soon, Cryce thought to himself.

[Brisinger987]

"Not talkative then..." Temhota got a scratch from a bandit knife, then felt another knife plunge into her leg. She yelled in exclamation and literally enveloped the guy in his own shadow, suffocating and crushing him.

Then she pulled the knife out, setting up a shield around herself made of solid shadows, so that she could bandage the wound.

When she'd done that, she jumped back into the frey.

[Wicked Basket]

Cryce decided that this has gone on long enough. Gathering all of his power, he slammed his staff onto to the ground causing great spikes of ice to erupt from the soil. As if that wasn't enough, yet more spikes burst out from the sides of the spikes that had come out of the ground. Anyone that had not been impaled by the original ice spike were skewered by the smaller ones that branched off the first. Only two were left unharmed besides Cryce himself: the leader and Temhota.

[Brisinger987]

Temhota saw the ice spikes and smiled, before taking the shadows around both Cryce's and the Bandit's legs, arms and heads, and holding them perfectly still in the dark, moonlit air.

"Now, boys, I don't want to hurt you, well rather, one of you. Who that is depends on who started this fight." Temhota erected a shield around herself to avoid the mage trying any tricks on her.

"So, you there, mr Iceman, who started it?"

[Wicked Basket]

"He started it, I finished it," Cryce said coldly. "And if you think that simply restraining will save you, you are sorely mistaken." Cryce looked Temhota right in her multi-colored eyes. "Put me down."

[Brisinger987]

"You did finish it." Temhota smiled sweetly and released him, before decapitating the bandit leader with his own shadows.

"My name is Temhota. Can I ask yours now?" She smiled again, dropping the shield. She felt that after she had killed the bandit captain, she had made her point.

[Wicked Basket]

Cryce looked in horror at the decapitated bandit leader.
"YOU DAMN FOOL! I NEEDED HIM ALIVE," he roared turning to face Temhota.
Cryce then looked back to the deceased criminal.
"Where do I go from here," he muttered with a hint of sorrow.

[Brisinger987]

"Ah. Oops..." She made a slightly regretful face, but it didn't look sad.

"Surely there are other ways of obtaining the information you need? I can help you get it if it makes things better?" Temhota tried to appease the cryomancer with the offer. But she doubted he would accept.

On the other hand, it gave her something to do.

[Wicked Basket]

"I need to find a whole other lead now," Cryce told her. "He was the only one I had at the moment and I can't go back to the guy that led me to him because I kill them after I get the information out of them so they can't warn their friends."
Cryce sighed.
"The only thing to do now would be to go to the nearest town and ask around."

[Brisinger987]

"Well we better get moving. I don't like waiting." Temhota, hopped almost childishly, before breaking into a skip, seeming happy as it were.

"Are we gonna go or not?" She said impatiently.

[Wicked Basket]

Cryce sighed once more.
"I get the feeling that you aren't going to give me much of a choice," Cryce replied.
The pair began making their way down the road leaving all of the dead bandits in their wake.

[Brisinger987]

"It'll be an adventure. And you get to share it with me." Temhota smiled as if that was a good thing, knowing it was never a good thing. She was childish, too laidback. She'd once eaten an apple on a hammock while a village behind her burned, not caring because she was too lazy to save anyone.

[Wicked Basket]

"You make it sound as if this journey is for leisure," Cryce commented. "The only reason you're coming along is because you don't seem like the type of....whatever you are that would just leave after asking politely."
Cryce rolled his eyes. His only lead he had gotten in a long time was dead and now this, this, this thing wouldn't leave him alone. Cryce sighed for third time since Temhota had arrived. She didn't even know why he was doing what he was doing and she probably won't ask because it doesn't seem like she cares. So be it. He didn't share his background with others anyway.

[Brisinger987]

Temhota yawned, and literally faceplanted in the dirt.

"I'm tired, carry me." It was probably a journey she could make on her own, but she didn't want to exert energy, because that required motivation. That was something she didn't have right now.

"I might if you ask nicely...." Temhota teased, still lying on the ground where she had face planted, smiling.

[Wicked Basket]

"Carry you," Cyrce snarled. "If you have so much trouble walking then why don't you fly? You have wings."
Cryce continued walking, although he wasn't entirely sure where he was going. He would eventually get somewhere if he kept walking.

[Brisinger987]

"Look babe, if I'm gonna accompany you, you gotta romance me, it's textbook. Gods, don't you know the procedure. You romance me throughout our adventure, and then when the adventure ends, I either say, "Yes, let's get together" or "There's someone else/somewhere I have to go" and that's how this adventure ends." Temhota stated it like it was obvious that had to happen, as if it were set in stone.

"So romance me darling!" She floated along side Cryce, inviting him to carry her.

[Wicked Basket]

Romance. He had that once. Although he couldn't remember her face or what her voice sounded like. Five years was a long time. Romance. Was what that like, again? It must have been nice while he still had it, but it has been so long and his heart had grown so cold. Romance.
Cryce suddenly remembered that Temhota had just got done talking to him.
"I don't romance," he said simply.