An empty roadway in WestEnd...
From the shadows comes a rythmic, soft ringing sound of steel on steel, accompanied by the sound of dusty, worn boots on the ground. There's nothing to be seen, at first - and suddenly, as though a sheet were blown asied by the wind, he appears, a tall figure dressed in clothes that look like they came straight out of the old American West, and as dusty as if he had crawled out of the hardpan of the desert after a sandstorm. The man inside them looks as grizzled and old as the clothes he wears, and he walks with head down, features hidden by the wide brim of his hat. The sound of his footfalls - a rythm so perfect it might have been accompanied by a metronome - stops as he reaches the intersection of road and alley. From the alley comes the sounds of a struggle - the voices of two or three people, engaged in beating down some poor helpless soul. He shifts his direction, stepping into the alleyway. The sounds of the spurs on his heels rings its way into the senses of the hoodlums there, and the three of them turn away from their victim - a young girl, no more than thirteen by the looks of it - to look the stranger over.
He knows what they will see - to their eyes, a single man, old and weathered, perhaps had a few drinks too many and believes himself capable of taking on a situation that a wise man would stay away from.
He's been here a while, walking around Rhy'Din, and he is angered in his own, quiet way at the apparent lack of law and justice. He's heard of the Temple of Scathach, knows their purpose, but law is not about vengeance. Oh, there are laws here, sure enough - he's had enough time to become acquainted with them - but he has, thus far, seen no signs of enforcement. Which is what brings him to the present situation.
"Y'all boys need to leave that little lady be, 'fore you end up in a world of hurt." The voice is a dusty as the clothes he wears, delivered in a drawl so thick that it's only just intelligible.
One of them snickers, the other two just grin like he had just delivered the punch line of a joke that, while funny, is also stupid.
"Buddy, you need to leave, else we'll be needin' to teach you a lesson." This is uttered by the gutter-scum on the left, a brutish looking man with maybe three or four teeth. At the same moment, the one on the left - in a motion that is surprisingly fast, for someone who looks like he has maybe a quarter of his brain cells remaining - draws a knife and gets ready to throw it.
The knife never leaves his hand. It is as if the man never even moved, but suddenly there is a huge pistol in his hand, polished, lovely steel that spits tongues of fire and sounds like a small cannon. The sound of three shots is so fast that it's like someone amplified the sound of paper tearing a hundred times. For a moment, nothing moves, except for the lazy drifting of bluish, hazy smoke...
...and all three thugs slump, each with a neat, round hole in their foreheads.
One of them falls face-forward, revealing the mess the back of his head has become. It looks like someone took an overlarge spork and dug a bit of his head out.
The man stands there, pistol in hand, smoke drifting from the barrel for a moment, before reholstering it with a swift, fluid motion. No fancy twirling, none of that drek - just straight into its holster at his waist.
In the midst of this chaos, the girl had disappeared. Probably fortunate - she would have gotten splattered, he thinks.
He turns, swiftly, pacing out of the alleyway, leaving death in his wake. A moment later, he vanishes as suddenly as he appeared, leaving only blue-hazy smoke, the acrid smell of spent gunpowder, and those same rythmic footsteps in the air...
From the shadows comes a rythmic, soft ringing sound of steel on steel, accompanied by the sound of dusty, worn boots on the ground. There's nothing to be seen, at first - and suddenly, as though a sheet were blown asied by the wind, he appears, a tall figure dressed in clothes that look like they came straight out of the old American West, and as dusty as if he had crawled out of the hardpan of the desert after a sandstorm. The man inside them looks as grizzled and old as the clothes he wears, and he walks with head down, features hidden by the wide brim of his hat. The sound of his footfalls - a rythm so perfect it might have been accompanied by a metronome - stops as he reaches the intersection of road and alley. From the alley comes the sounds of a struggle - the voices of two or three people, engaged in beating down some poor helpless soul. He shifts his direction, stepping into the alleyway. The sounds of the spurs on his heels rings its way into the senses of the hoodlums there, and the three of them turn away from their victim - a young girl, no more than thirteen by the looks of it - to look the stranger over.
He knows what they will see - to their eyes, a single man, old and weathered, perhaps had a few drinks too many and believes himself capable of taking on a situation that a wise man would stay away from.
He's been here a while, walking around Rhy'Din, and he is angered in his own, quiet way at the apparent lack of law and justice. He's heard of the Temple of Scathach, knows their purpose, but law is not about vengeance. Oh, there are laws here, sure enough - he's had enough time to become acquainted with them - but he has, thus far, seen no signs of enforcement. Which is what brings him to the present situation.
"Y'all boys need to leave that little lady be, 'fore you end up in a world of hurt." The voice is a dusty as the clothes he wears, delivered in a drawl so thick that it's only just intelligible.
One of them snickers, the other two just grin like he had just delivered the punch line of a joke that, while funny, is also stupid.
"Buddy, you need to leave, else we'll be needin' to teach you a lesson." This is uttered by the gutter-scum on the left, a brutish looking man with maybe three or four teeth. At the same moment, the one on the left - in a motion that is surprisingly fast, for someone who looks like he has maybe a quarter of his brain cells remaining - draws a knife and gets ready to throw it.
The knife never leaves his hand. It is as if the man never even moved, but suddenly there is a huge pistol in his hand, polished, lovely steel that spits tongues of fire and sounds like a small cannon. The sound of three shots is so fast that it's like someone amplified the sound of paper tearing a hundred times. For a moment, nothing moves, except for the lazy drifting of bluish, hazy smoke...
...and all three thugs slump, each with a neat, round hole in their foreheads.
One of them falls face-forward, revealing the mess the back of his head has become. It looks like someone took an overlarge spork and dug a bit of his head out.
The man stands there, pistol in hand, smoke drifting from the barrel for a moment, before reholstering it with a swift, fluid motion. No fancy twirling, none of that drek - just straight into its holster at his waist.
In the midst of this chaos, the girl had disappeared. Probably fortunate - she would have gotten splattered, he thinks.
He turns, swiftly, pacing out of the alleyway, leaving death in his wake. A moment later, he vanishes as suddenly as he appeared, leaving only blue-hazy smoke, the acrid smell of spent gunpowder, and those same rythmic footsteps in the air...