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[Eythen]

"Your daughter, eh? I am very sorry to hear she is missing, sir." Eythen replied coolly as the rodent scampered into his home. He wasn't quite sure what it was, but there was a certain charm to it, and it was certainly no rat either.

Eythen wasn't buying it, though. Yes, the man seemed genuinely concerned for someone, but a daughter? At this time of night? If he had a little girl missing in the mists, he would be raising all sorts of ruckus pounding on doors trying to find her. Calmly knocking on the one door in the district that just happened to have a female visitor this late? Eythen was a little naive, but he wasn't born yesterday. This was all too convenient.

The fire within his belly blazed as bronze came to life. He had his suspicions of the girl already, it would not hurt to know what he was up against if either did, in fact, turn out to have a few tricks up their sleeve.

He did, after all.

"Why don't you come in? I think I have a spirit or two that might calm your nerves, and perhaps my other guest knows more than I do. Besides, your pet already invited itself in, it seems." Eythen's hand was on the man's shoulder, gentle but firm, ushering him into the hallway before he had much time to object.

The door clicked shut.

"So tell me; Is this the part of the heist where you use some sob story to try and escape the failed robbery?" The sentence was delivered with all the nonchalance of someone inquiring about the weather, as the blacksmith turned to his 'guests', thick arms crossing over a powerful chest. "Are things going to get rough if I don't let you go quietly? Because frankly, I don't see much of a family resemblance.."

Iron and steel were at the ready. To its master, this home was a weapon, any number of potentially harmful objects ready to leap to his aid at a whim. The pewter behemoth raged against its cage as well, itching to be unleashed. Eythen prayed to whatever goodness remained in this world it would not come to that, but then...

It was their move.

Edited by Mosh, 05 February 2012 - 08:19 AM.

[Nessa]

Trev was here. Why was Trev here? And why had he brought Ferret? What was going on? How had he found her?

Meanwhile, their "host" was getting more and more anxious by the second. If she didn't keep everyone talking, the whole place was going to erupt.

"This is the part," she growled, "where someone tells me why in the Lord Ruler's name he's here, and how he found me."

[Trev]

Trev allowed the smith to steer him in, without a trace of hostility in his body language. Even though he was more than alert and ready to attack, he kept his unassuming air. He hadn't missed the suspicion in Eythen's eyes, but until the smith escalated, Trev was not going to make a move. If their host wanted trouble, Trev could give him a lot more than he was prepared to handle. He would not give him any warning of that.

"Ferret tracked you for me," he told Nessa. "They have an incredible sense of smell; she went straight to you." He'd tell her the truth later; there wasn't any need to talk about it in front of the smith. "And I'm here to come get you, lassie, and get you back to the sickbed where you belong." The girl had pneumonia, not to mention the rest of her injuries, and she went charging off around the city like this? He wasn't any more comfortable with keeping her at the clinic than Nessa was at being there, but there wasn't a better choice. Not right now.

He hadn't really ever taken his attention off the smith, but now his direct gaze returned to the hulking fellow. "If you threaten my daughter, master smith, I promise you that things will get rough. But I'm not looking for trouble. Lord ruler, I would have to be the worst robber in the Final Empire. I'm almost insulted."

[Eythen]

Well, NOW the bellows were certainly pumping. The situation grew more heated by the moment, and something stirred inside the smith. It almost felt like...excitement? That would be absurd, though. Who got excited over something such as this?

" Call me insane, but I get the impression your....daughter...is not too pleased to see you, sir. Maybe it is the way she is growling at you? Trouble at home?" He had to play his cards carefully. If his suspicions were right, this could be a valuable opportunity. If wrong...well. He would be a dead man.

And enough people had died recently, in Eythen's opinion.

" Still not convinced you are related, for the record. You and I have more in common physically than you and she. But I do think I believe you about not being thieves. If you were, I think you would be dead already, given your 'success' at sneaking into my business tonight." Seams creaked in the awkward stillness as Eythen shrugged his broad shoulders purposefully. It was a thinly veiled attempt at intimidation. The man was hiding something, the lack of fear in his eyes...something Eythen had become accustomed to seeing because of his unusual stature, spoke as much.

"That leaves me with a young lady in no condition to be running about the rooftops of a cold, uncaring city at night, very unhappy to see a man trying to stealth her away into the mists with as little commotion as possible..

Tell me, is this how the brothels operate these days? Plucking sick and injured young women out of the alleys, nursing them back to health, and making them 'pay' for their treatment?" The nonchalance dropped from his face and voice, eyes becoming cold as frost. His frame tensed as his crossed arms slowly lowered.

"I think I liked you more as a thief, little man.." Dozens upon dozens of lines of blue scattered from his chest like the spray of sparks off freshly-struck steel. Selecting the one needed most at this moment for shattering the uncomfortable tension, Eythen tugged.

To any eyes other than his own, the deadbolt of the door slid on its own, clunking audibly into the frame.

[Nessa]

The door locked. The door locked, by itself. With no one touching it. That could mean only one thing.

Allomancer.

That was it. They both had to get out of here, and fast. Trev was smart enough to think on his feet; if anything, she should be waiting to follow his lead. But they needed every second they could get. Maybe, while this Eythen fellow was focusing on Trev, she could get away, providing a distraction to let Trev escape. Given their circumstances, it was worth a shot.

Nessa flared what little pewter she had left as hot as she could burn it, and made a mad dash to fling herself out the nearest window, heedless of the glass.

[Trev]

Is this how the brothels operate these days? Trev's face tightened into stony anger at the insult. He would never in a hundred lifetimes force anyone else into the life he had lived; he would be dead before he saw it happen to Nessa. But the smith had no particular reason to think Trev was up to any good here. He did not deserve to be punished for it.

The click of the door as it latched without any visible touch, however, signaled something completely different. The smith was an Allomancer, a lurcher until proven otherwise - a skaa lurcher. That was useful to know. It meant the smith was not someone he wanted to kill unless he had to, but the man's level of threat had gone up dramatically.

Good girl, Nessa. She hadn't waited around for a second after she saw the same thing Trev had; she had gone right for the window. Eythen had backed away after Trev entered the room, and he was between Trev and Nessa. It was not the best placement, there was a short distance to cover. But the instant Nessa moved, Trev flared pewter and exploded into motion; Eythen's brief distraction with the girl could give him the opportunity he needed, and pewter let him close the distance in a split second. The smith was far bigger than he was. But he had also been standing like a colossus, pulled up to his full towering height…with his legs straight. That left his knees vulnerable to attack. Trev went for the hollow of the knee on the side nearest to him, to buckle that leg and take out his balance.

Nessa would be safe if he could hold the smith off. Trev would run when he had to, he was not about to waste time playing games with a lurcher in a shop full of metal implements. But Nessa needed a few seconds to get away clear, so he would keep Eythen busy for those seconds. The man was no trained fighter, or he never would have been standing like that.

Edited by Comatose, 27 January 2016 - 04:32 AM.

[Eythen]

Pewter. The both of them. Almost simultaneously. He had suspected the girl, but this man? Skaa allomancers weren't even supposed to exist, officially, and were rare at that. But here were three right in the same room.

Now was not the time to ponder the odds of that happening. The girl was making a mad dash for the window, and it wasn't until Eythen began to reach to try and stop her (for both her and the window's sake) that he realized just what a foolish idea it was.

He had expected the man to run for it as she had, fueling his flight with pewter. He had not expected a swift blow to the backs of his knees, sending him staggering. The impact ratted the bars by which he bound himself. Pewter would have rendered it an ineffectual attack. Pewter would have allowed him to keep his balance, swing the odds heavily back in his favor.

Pewter.....wasn't an option. Not now, not EVER again. The smith got his feet back under his body, and he began to try and reassess the situation. This man...this thug...he knew how to fight. Combined with the metal powering his body to greater heights, it negated the advantage Eythen had in sheer size alone. Hopefully he would just use the off-balanced state to make his own escape, and not press for another attack. If not..

A hammer flew across the room, resounding with a soft smack as it struck Eythen's waiting palm, fingers curling around the handle.

[Nessa]

CRASH.

The window exploded into a thousand pieces as Nessa hurled herself through the glass and into the night. Tiny shards of it dug into her skin as she rolled to a stop on the street, then shoved herself up again. Her skin felt like it was aflame from where the glass had cut - and, in some places, remained stuck in - it, but there was no time to stop and give in to the pain. Her pewter was rapidly running out, and barring any miraculous circumstances, she had no way of getting more. It was time to trust that Trev could handle himself, and get out of here. In her current state, she was nothing but a liability.

And so, with no other options left, broken and bleeding, Nessa faced a randomly chosen direction and ran, as fast as she could, into the night.

[Trev]

Trev wasn't interested in a fight here. It wouldn't be worth risking injury to himself, or for that matter to the smith. He had already filed the man away; a Lurcher could be useful to the rebellion, and so he would tell Ignas about this man when he had the chance. So he ran for it, darting in a pewter-fuelled blur straight past the stumbling smith for the window Nessa had already broken.

Still, he wanted to lead Eythen off a little, to give the girl more time to get away.

"Catch me if you can, friend," he called out as he leapt through the window, curling inward to avoid any of the shards of glass, and then landing neatly on his feet outside in the street.

[Eythen]

There was no way of stopping it. The blacksmith cringed as the window shattered, shards of glass scattering to the winds. It would have been a far more grievous instance had it been one of his own creations, but regardless the inconvenience of now needing a window and his roof fixed..That was enough destruction for one night. He wasn't about to have two pewterarms rampaging about the city.

It would likely make more work for him, certainly, but someone could get hurt. Particularly that injured girl if the thug with the rat caught up to her..

Blue arcs exploded from his chest, lashing to the frame of the shattered window and catapulting him through it shortly after a light jump. He quelled bronze with no hesitation, raising the shielding bubble of copper instead. He wouldn't need the pulses to track them, not as tin brightened the night, both sound and sight, thinning the mists around him.

The man hadn't gotten far, even in his pewter-fueled dash. Based upon the words he had uttered before departing, it was likely he wanted to be chased, lead Eythen away from the girl and lose him in the mist covered streets a thief would know better.

The man also foolishly assumed Eythen only had iron at his disposal. Blue lines in a dazzling array, picking and choosing careful, practiced pushes and pulls completed a graceful arching through the night air, and the blacksmith landed somewhat firmly a few paces ahead of the fleeing figure.

"Like this, 'friend'?"

[Trev]

Ashes. There was only one way the blacksmith could have made that jump. He didn't have only iron, he had steel too, and if he had two metals than he had the rest of them as well. Trev was facing off against a skaa mistborn. He hadn't even considered the possibility, it had been so overwhelmingly unlikely, and now he was in over his head with no backup.

There were a few things still in Trev's favor here, though. If the man was a real fighter, he would have simply gone right for Trev. He wouldn't have been grandstanding like this. Meant he was willing to talk, which meant Trev could try to talk him down. If nothing else he could stall the man for a little more time for Nessa to get away. If it came to a fight, it could go either way, but it would be brief.

"Let's not be hasty here," he said to the smith blocking his way. "You've got power, but you don't know how to use it. No one ever taught you to fight, did they? No, there aren't many people who would train a skaa mistborn."

"You might be able to kill me, but there aren't any guarantees, and I'd certainly hurt you pretty bad before you got me. That sounds to me like a losing situation for both of us. Why don't we talk instead?"

[Nessa]

The empty streets echoed with Nessa's footsteps as she hurled herself recklessly through the mists, just trying to get away so Trev would have a fighting chance. Her pewter was flickering out, too; she was stumbling more often, and pain assaulted her from all over. Between the injuries she had sustained at Keep Casuana, falling through a roof, and then hurling herself out a glass window, it was pretty safe to say that she wasn't going to be going anywhere unless she found more pewter. If the injuries themselves didn't stop her from moving, the pain certainly would.

She collapsed against the side of a building, her panicked breath coming in pained gasps. She had to act, and fast. Not only did she need pewter to get anywhere, but she couldn't afford to stay in one place. With as much as she had been using Allomancy, and without any cover, it was only a matter of time before she attracted the wrong kind of attention. Best to keep moving.

.... And what about Trev? He was fighting without cover, and against an Allomancer at that. Pain clouded her head, but she did her best to stay focused and think. Perrin had taught her about the types of Allomancers. This smith was either a Lurcher, meaning there were two Mistings fighting without a coppercloud to shelter them, meaning they would attract attention very, very quickly - or he would be burning copper as well. Making him a Mistborn.

She was up and moving again, despite the pain, despite how slow and clumsy her movements were becoming, almost before she knew it. Trev had a way of getting under her skin sometimes, but he had been good to her. There was no way she was going to run away while he put himself in danger because she stupidly fell through a roof. That thought egged her on, and she flared her last tiny bit of pewter in a desperate bid to get to him in time.

When she finally caught up with them, they weren't far away from the smithy. The smith's attention was focused solely on Trev, who was trying to talk his way out of a fight. You might be able to kill me, he had said, and Nessa felt a new wave of fear wash over her. Trev had never said anything like that before, at least not in front of her. That ripped away any lingering shreds of uncertainty: this man was Mistborn. And Trev was facing him. Alone.

Which meant it was time for Nessa to do something characteristically stupid.

A quick glance around revealed that a building across the street from the shop had been undergoing some sort of repair or construction. The work wasn't finished yet, and the workmen had left a neat pile of bricks to use when they came back in the morning. Who would want to cart all those things inside, after all? They were the first thing she saw that might actually cause some annoyance, if not outright damage - that weren't metal anyways - so she picked one up, crept a little closer to the scene, and hurled it as hard as she could.

"Hey!" she shouted, though her pained voice sounded shamefully weak. "Leave him alone! It's me you wanted, right?"

[Eythen]

"Talking does sound-" A brick crossed his field of vision, putting an abrupt halt to the sequence of thoughts he was beginning to outline in his head.

A brick. It clattered noisily across the cobblestone, chips breaking off as it bounced once or twice. Eythen traced its errant flight back to the source, not even needing to follow the sound of the...admittedly pitiful..shouting that had trailed it. Right back to the slight and shaky skaa girl.

Somehow, it made sense that it was her. The how or the why eluded the blacksmith, but he cared not to question it. "Cohorts after all, is it? Not the tightest of working relationships, it would seem..

"Suits me just fine, though." Dropping any aggressive aura he might have been maintaining...save for what was natural from his sheer stature, anyway, Eythen calmly crossed the cobblestones and cleaned up the damaged brick. "Would have been quite troublesome to track you down after you'd run off, after all. You want to talk, good sir? Fine, let's talk."

Heading back towards the smithy, Eythen cast a glance over his shoulder. "I assume you can work your mouth while you work a broom? That shattered window isn't going to clean itself up, and I'd rather not have the guards or the Obligators asking too many questions."

[Nessa]

Nessa breathed a sigh of relief. Normally, when throwing a brick - or any heavy object for that matter - at a person, she expected that person, if they were still awake afterwards, to fly into a rage and attack her. Not tell her to pick up a broom. It was a little strange to say the least, but Trev was out of danger, and that was the most important thing.

The smith seemed to want to talk, and since he was a Mistborn and could easily wrangle them into his house by force if he felt like it, Nessa was inclined to go with him. But first she needed pewter, and also to face the inevitable scolding she would receive for what she'd done. Conveniently enough, they could be acquired from the same person. She began to walk towards Trev...

... and her knees hit the cobblestones as she lurched to the ground. Pain was overtaking her, and she was beyond exhausted. Seemed like she wasn't going anywhere without a helping hand.

It was a really good thing the smith didn't seem angry about the brick.

[Trev]

Things were promising; the smith seemed to be agreeable to talking, from what Trev could make out of his face in the dim mists. He didn't like talking out in the open like this, but the fool mistborn didn't seem concerned about potentially being seen. They did have an observer...someone was sneaking about in the shadows nearby. Trev could not see, but he could hear, and he was just about to say something when Nessa shouted, and a brick flew between the two of them.

Fool girl! He'd told her to run! Had she been hurt too badly to escape, or had she come back for him against orders? In the moment all he could feel was worry, it left no room for anger. Trev tensed even as the smith started to move, side-stepping as the man reached for the brick to place himself between Eythen and Nessa again. "Girl - !"

Trev didn't finish the sentence. He heard the soft thump and darted towards her. The smith had already been walking away, back towards his smithy, but Trev kept a wary eye on Eythen in case he tried to approach, and scooped Nessa into his arms. She was still responsive. She was weak, bleeding from a hundred smaller cuts and scrapes, and he could hear her breath coming harshly, but she was conscious. Good. If she was conscious, she could swallow.

"Here, girl. Drink," he told her as he brought one of his spare vials of pewter up to her lips. She needed medical care, but this would hold her together for now. "Everything's going to be alright."

[Nessa]

Nessa had barely hit the ground when she felt arms around her, scooping her up and holding her steady. She tensed at first, but then Trev's voice spoke to her, and she felt the familiar sensation of a vial of metal being held to her lips. She gulped it down, and it immediately ignited within her, pushing away the pain and strengthening her battered body with its steady burn.

As the pain faded, the fog began to clear from her mind, and she remembered very clearly the tone of Trev's voice when she had intervened. The smith might not be that angry, but Trev probably was.

"I guess... I'm in trouble, aren't I?" she asked softly. "I couldn't just leave you. Not by yourself, against..." Against a full Mistborn. Trev would understand that. Wouldn't he?