Looking for... something? (open/Mod please?)

[Elros Amandil]

TS: Last Cycle of the Last month of Summer, Era XIV. PF.

IC: Elros was back to work, like every other ay of his life. Looking for something. He was a treasure hunter. Looking for something of worth for himself, or that he could sell to someone else. One man's junk is another's treasure, so the saying goes.

Amongst riches, Elros was always looking for something that might give him the answer to his past. He knew nothing of his origins, the only reason that he knew his own name was because of his Visa. Who was he before, would he ever be able to pick up his life?

Elros didn't know the answers to that, but what he did know was how to open his eyes and look. Hense his meaningless job to treasure hunting. This day he started in the early morning. Near the taverns. In his experience if he was going to find anything it would be crowns, scattered on the ground, left behind by clumsy drunks, if they had any money left.

He started by the tavern door, and moved out from there, being very thurough. He looked himself as though he had lost something valuable. This helped on occasion as an innocent by-stander my notice him doing so and help him look for something of vague discription that Elros had thought up.

[Elric van Maer]

The cover of darkening was little more than recent as the sun had just gone down. The streets were already vacant with the brightening's business and bustling with the darkening's revelers. The taverns were aglow and pulsating with the sound of music, drunken laughter and loud conversation. While the light lit the street in front of the tavern windows, the alleys were dark enough to hide someone dressed in stark white. So they could definitely hide a creeping figure in dark grey.

It was then that Elric noticed a figure by the door of a tavern. What he was doing Elric did not know, as it seemed somewhat strange behavior. He was hanging out by the door, as if waiting for someone. Elric watched him closely from behind stacked crates. He wasn't sure if this figure was human, so he wasn't chancing being spotted by a half blood or dark skin who could see in the dark. That much he knew for sure.

He had never trained in what he was about to do, but it hadn't stopped him before. And in the alleyway, it seemed that there was no turning back. Elric looked over the scene and decided it best to travel several blocks up and cross there, coming up behind the unsuspecting person from the alley next to the tavern. He jutted down the alley and ran several blocks easily, so as not to break a sweat. Then Elric dashed across the road, hidden by the darkening's eveloping color.

He made his way between two buildings by jumping a small fence. He found the alley in the back to be open and made his way toward the tavern from behind. It was an easy four block jog, but he slowed to a walk as he neared the corner of the building next to the tavern. He creeped up, walking as silently as he could and peeked around the corner.

[Elros Amandil]

Elros looked around the ground, he thought he spotted the glimmer of a forgotten crown on the ground, it was the best thing to find, money. No selling needed! He approached the glimmer and it disappeared. "Must have been a firefy of some sort," Elros thought to himself, "Oh well." He crouched down to get a closer look at the ground near him.

Nothing here, he moved over a few feet and did the same. He had been doing this the whole day and now it was night. This tavern was clean of fallen treasures and trash by this time, to be sure. Elros decided to move to a new location, and he started heading towards his hut of a home, the streets were not as well lit there, but for some reason Elros felt more comfortable now. Perhaps it was his newly formed skills in K'tesh that gave him the confidence. His movements would bring him past the building and shrouded alley way that the human theif stood makeing his decisions.

[Elric van Maer]

The opportunity was near. Elric watched as the man appeared to pick up something off the ground and then a moment later, begin to walk to the right. Elric was in perfect position, able to come up from behind the man without jumping through hoops. Elric decided to run back the way he had come up one alleyway. He would have a quick moment before his target walked in front of the alley and Elric would then claim him a victim.

He waited until the elvish man was half way past the alley and then made his move. With a quick lunge, Elric reached out to grab Elros' shoulders and pull him in the alleyway. He would throw him to the ground naturally as the man would be unable to keep his balance. And then, Elric would come at his throat with his custom kris, explaining to his victim that he didn't want to hurt him, only to relieve him of his purse.

[Elros Amandil]

Elros fell for the trap, and he fell to the ground. His eyes struggled in the dark to see his assailent. His eyes locked on the humans eyes. "My purse?" Elros said, with a bit of doubt in his voice, "I think not." With that Elros risked his neck for his purse and slammed a clenched fist into the arm holding the blackened blade of young human. Nocking the blade from his hand, Elros pushed the human off of him and stood up, instantly going into the stance he learned in his recently completed K'tesh training.

His arms up forming a triangle to his shoulders, squatting slightly with feet shoulder length appart, his weight possitioned over his left slightly. He was ready to strike again if he needed too. He hoped that this thief was untrained in combat and would be scared off from attacking any further. Elros moved in his stance until he was between the blade and the human. "You picked the wrong man this night. Now go before I am forced to defend myself further," Elros said, trying to make himself sound more intimidating then he really was. He was glad he had his training, but he was unsure of how helpfull that training would be.

[Elric van Maer]

Elric was surprised, but with this being only his second attempt at this, perhaps he shouldn't have been. He teetered backwards a bit and then eyes Elros up and down. This elf seemed very adept at self defense, but there was no turning back. Elric hadn't given up on much in his life and being the hard-headed, competitive brat he was, he was going to rob this guy and that was that.

Elric shouted at the elf, "Damn you!" His tempered flaired, "Damn you! Give me your purse!"

With that, Elric reached behind his back and began to loosen his old knife he kept just in case he lost his kris. The knife was dull, but it would do the job of intimidation if necessary. He watched Elros' eyes, the air between them seeming as thick as black soup. The shadows seemed to grow and shrink around him as thoughts of what he had to do raced through his mind.

The alley was beyond quiet. Two blocks away a man dropped a coin and Elric could hear it hit the stone ground. His nose twitched, a single drop of sweat making its way between his eyes. He stared at the eyes of the man in front of him. The time had come. The instant was at hand. He took a breath, a deep breath, a very noticeable death...

Then he launched into an attack on the elf. He flung himself forward, his dull knife in hand. And as he rushed through the black soup of shadow between them, he let out a groan. It was a groan of determination, of self importance and of desperation (in reverse order). His hands rushed forward, his feet carrying at Elros as fast as he could manage. He was attempting nothing short of a full body tackle, hoping to get this elf in a better position for handing over his purse.

[Elros Amandil]

Elros heard the coin as well, it was almost symbolic. A dropped coin a few blocks away. That was what Elros was after tonight, and this human was after the same. But the accusition of each was much a seperate way. When Elric breathed deep Elros recognized it as a sign. To human ears it was audable, but to the elf it was like a grand parade of royal trumpeters! If you missed it, you were deaf or dead. Ready for anything the elf quickly stepped aside. He saw the blade pull from it's sheath, he saw the weight and momentum of the humans body, the answer to this problem was to simply get out of the way, and that he did. And as the blade came nearer to Elros he brought out his hands and brushed the attacking hand aside, away from him and toward the human.

Elros did not want to kill the man, or even hurt him, it was just that Elros worked long and hard for what little he had and he wouldnt have it taken from him. "Stand down," Elros said with a comanding cool voice. The type of statement and voice that would push an attacker over the edge. "Stand down, I don't want to hurt you," Elros repeated. His voice echoed in the dark, the air so thick the sound was like a drip in the puddles, one could feel the waves of sound ripple on thier ears.

[Elric van Maer]

Elric breezed by Elros, falling to the ground just past the elf with a hard thump. As the elf called out to him to "Stand down," a funny sensation ran over Elric, as if a warm liquid was washing over the young boy's body. In truth, on any other darkening he would not have stood down. In his stubborness, he would have continued his attack, shoving his victim back and retrieving his kris from the ground. But this darkening wasn't any other darkening and Elric would indeed be standing down, much to his dismay. He gritted at the thought, his jaw clenching, his teeth aching under the strain. Then he huffed a long breath.

The elf would probably ask Elric why he wasn't getting up, but the time to ask anything had passed. The boy's body wasn't going to move again. Turning him over would reveal that Elric had indeed fallen hard, hard onto the slightly raised blade of his lost kris, which laid fatefully on a small block of trashed wood. The ground beneath Elric was a crimson pool of life now lost. His grey clothing soaked in blood was now a deep black. Beneath his person lay his purse, half spilled open with bank notes. A number of them were bloody and among them was a room key etched with a number and the name of a tavern on the edge of town.

Elric had been a smart boy, but the corruptions that often take the mind had taken his in much the same way that they envelope all minds at some point. Some people learn easily, some the hard way, and some never get the opportunity to learn at all from their mistakes. Elric was one of those, a truly lost cause. His parents would lament, they would morn with the elite of Taralon. They would curse the evils of the world and especially Vortex. And secretly, deep in their hearts, they would blame themselves for letting him go astray. They had lost a son, though he had been away for some time. A son is never truly gone until he is dead.

[Elros Amandil]

Elros heard the final breath, a sigh from the already chilling lips. It was awkward, a sound Elros had never heard before. It sent a chill through him when he realized what happened. He turned the body over and a little gurgle slipped out of his opening as more blood came through the shallow wound. Elros folded cloth over from his outfit and pressed it against the wound attempting to stop the blood, but Elros lacked the knowledge or skill to prevent the death.

Elros didn't kill the human, but his blood was on his hands. It was Elrics greed that brought him to his death, but it was Elros's skills that avoided his own death. Was Elros to blame? Elros did';t think so. However, from each end there is a beggining, and Elros would take every advantage he could get with a new beggining in another city. Elros rumaged through Elrics body and took everything that he could find. He left the old dull dagger, he already had one of those, and he left the clothes on the body. But everything else he elf took. It was time to get out of Vortex, before to long.