Momo yawns quietly, trying with very little success to stay awake behind the bar. It had been such a terribly slow day, and she's really feeling the weight of it. In the kitchen, all activity has stopped, and a bored Chekirish is napping against the counter.

The door opening and then closing again is really the only thing to break the silence, aside from wearied footfalls...a death dancer who's been in and out several times in the last few days, clothes quite filthy with blood. She's not bearing any wounded...they were all taken care of yesterday. Today was spent burying as many of the dead as she could...she needs rest, at least a little, before she can continue.

The masked creature approaches the counter and sets a single copper on it, as she's done before.

Momo yawns again, reaching mechanically for a bottle of water. "Here you," she says, pushing the copper back. "It's on me, this time. Thanks for helping, it really was a mess out there." She blinks her one good eye, nose wrinkling a bit. "We have private baths, if you need to use the facilities, too."

The death dancer smirks beneath her mask at the more-than-implication that she's filthy, but bows her head, a loose fist on her chest. She takes the water and walks over to a table, mostly to avoid choking hte innkeeper and ogre with the stench of blood in the beginning stages of decay.

Momo grins to herself. Now that she's gotten over being thoroughly creeped out, she rather likes this death dancer. She takes up a cloth and begins to wipe down the bar in the time-tested activity that bartenders worldwide use to stay awake when nothing good is going on.

A moment later, a very particular sorcerer saunters into the inn, quite clean, but still smelling a little bit of a battlefield. Horsebreath, cordite, and ash are difficult to wash off after all.

Momo stiffens when he approaches the bar, as she usually does. This idiot, she has not gotten used to. She takes his two gold coins and hands him a bottle of violet juice, which he takes without a word. He turns to walk into the common area, but this time, Momo feels daring.

"When are you going to leave?" she demands of him, nose wrinkling again.

"Pardon me?" The sorcerer turns to her, black eyes shining. "Did you say something to me, cyclops?"

Momo growls. "I asked when you're leaving, girlymouth. I don't like you. This town doesn't like you."

"This town should revere me. I am defending it from an army."

Momo scoffs, aghast. "You're the one who got this stupid fight started in the first place, ass hole!" A few of the other patrons murmur. The sorcerer just laughs.

"I'll leave when I'm finished." He sits and calmly sips his juice, smiling at whoever dares look his way.

The death dancer glances at him, then away fairly quickly...she's probably more than half asleep, all told. The water tastes fantastic, though, sipped from underneath a tipped mask and raised hood. Fire's not bad, either.

About this time, another person bursts in... this one a soldier, whose broken armor does little to hide the flow of blood from an arrow sticking in his shoulder. 

"A raid," he calls, "the wall is breached...!" He holds up his sword, but drops it just as he topples to the ground.

"CHECKERS!" Momo calls, snapping the cook/burly ogre to his senses. "Help!"

The ogre all but smashes the kitchen door at Momo's cry, and immediately heads for the fallen man once he catches sight of him. 

The death dancer looks over at the fallen soldier, quite unruffled and very much much fitting in with the whole "masked, mute agent of death" thing...she waits to see whether the ogre has any medical skill. If not, she'll be right there.

Chekirish leans down, rolling the man carefully onto his back. "He lives. Bring pillow. You, man in dress. Get pillow from closet!" He looks squarely at a young, robed wizard, who does as told reluctantly. "Momo, bring whiskey. Make him forget pain. You," the ogre points at the sorcerer, "get..."

"No." The sorcerer calmly sips his juice. "He's already dead. Stop wasting your time and finish him off."

Hadone rises, still silent as a ghost, and walks over to the ogre. Sets a hand on his shoulder. Should she, no doubt a healer, help?

Chekirish looks up at her. "Dancer, stupid asshole sorcerer tells truth. This man dies. But, you help if wish."

The sorcerer chuckles. "Fool. Waste your time if you must. I," he rises, "am going outside to see about this raid."

Hadone narrows her eyes at the sorcerer, but looks back down to the wounded man. Scans his injury. Yeah...they're right. She reaches beneath her cloak...a slender hand returns with a small packet of powder, a labeled and extremely lethal poison. It will kill the injured man quickly and fairly painlessly.

Chekirish raises his eyebrow. "Medicine?"

The injured man, though, knows what it is, and why. He's a soldier, after all... he's seen his share of dancers. "It's... okay. Just... sing pretty for me."

Momo watches, her face on the neutral side of sorrowful. She's seen plenty of dead men in her day, and this guy looks the part.

The dancer's eyes soften in the mask's shadows, and she nods. Kneels beside the man, puts a gentle hand on his forehead...drops the packet in a patron's glass of water she steels right from under the guy's nose--it doesn't look touched, anyway, and holds it gently to the soldier's lips.

Chekirish holds the guy's head up, and the soldier drinks, his eyes strangely thankful. A moment later a harsh spasm moves through his entire body, but he's already gone. Hadone's poison was... remarkably efficient.

Momo's eye closes.

Outside, the sounds of battle are growing disturbingly near. Oddly enough, there are no sounds of mobilization from within the city.

There sound inside the inn isn't helping the eeriness outside...the death dancer's song begins as a low hum, building towards a true note in a few seconds, as she takes the corpse from Checkers and pulls it outside...senses peeled for whatever is going on out there, to be sure, but most attention on the song and this dead man.

Checkers helps where he can, knowing that this is a heavily armored, fully grown man that she's trying to pull. 

A little ways down the road, fires burn from dozens of flaming arrows plunging into the ground, and the sound of charging men roars over the night. However, the light that glows over the field is distinctly green as pallid tendrils of sorcerous energy whip out over the charging ranks. Patches of earth explode beneath the feet of man and horse as translucent images of the silver-haired sorcery flit along the battlefield. Corpses burst into flame and debris as their fellows pass over them... it truly is an amazing, hellish sight.

The death dancer's eyes widen behind her mask. Normally her ilk don't get involved while a battle is still on, but...the bodies are being incinerated! Still singing, and first very carefully situating this poor soldier off to the side, she takes off at a sprint towards the scene of the battle.

Momo and Checkers emerge from the inn just behind her. Momo squeaks and covers the ogre's eyes. "Don't look, Checkers."

The sorcerer is nearly finished with the invasion force. He's irritated as hell that they attacked again, after he'd paid them to surrender... but, it can't be helped now. He's only vaguely aware of Hadone's presence.

The death dancer is slightly taken aback at the magnitude of the slaughter...she can't prevent it, though, and doesn't think otherwise. Thoough to think just one man...grits her teeth and runs for some corpses being threatened by a fire, well within the battle-line. Needless to say, the soldiers aren't thrilled with her presence, which is one hell of a bad omen.

Moorn's hands snap shut, and the lights fade. He looks to the death dancer, curious. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Get back before you get punctured, idiot." A charging pikeman catches the back of Moorn's hand, one of few men still fighting the fight. "I'll burn them all for you."

The dancer glances up, back down to what she's doing. Rather neatly manages to "stack" two bodies and drag them through a thin stream, away from an encroaching fire.

The sorcerer flings a tendril out in Hadone's direction, his last warning to her before he attacks her as well.

"Run, dancer, please!" Momo shouts from the inn.

Hadone is dedicated to her dead, but neither an idiot...she drops the bodies and leaps backwards. Nimble as the manuver really is, though, one of the injured on the ground, for whatever dying whim, grabs ohe of her ankles and manages to hold on just barely long enough to send her crashing hard to her back, which isn't helped by being on a slope.

Moorn walks towards her, casually reaching down to that soldier and stabbing him cleanly through the forehead with his own dagger. He looks to Hadone, amused. "Wait a second. I know you." He studies her briefly, recognition lighting those eyes. "You're the dancer that the Ono's pulled out of Dothaven a while back. I was wondering what had become of you."

Hadone jumps neatly to her feet once the soldier's grip loosens, position slightly defensive. She's mildly startled and more than a little questioning at his knowing that, though, something that's visible through the mask's eyeholes.

Moorn stands as well, though slowly. His right hand burns with violet light, and begins to move in a symbol that might be familiar to Hadone. "It's an oubliette," the sorcerer notes, "things go there to be forgotten. As I still remember you, you obviously weren't there long enough."

About that time, a bullet pierces the sorcerer's shoulder, its retort drowned out by the vicious swirling of the portal behind Hadone. 

Momo stands not twenty feet away, holding her forty-five in shaking hands. "Leave her alone, dicksmoke! Or I'll smoke you, got it?"

Damnit...girl, be careful! The dancer takes the distraction, though, and darts off to the side at a full sprint. Now would be a really nice time to have some magic of her own, even as her swords are halfway drawn.

Momo has his attention, now. When Moorn moves, he moves fast, and is behind the girl in a moment's time. He lifts her from behind, taking a handful of her scruffy hair and holding her by it, laughing at her cries of pain. Laughing, that is, until she lowers her gun between her legs and fires backwards, shooting him squarely through the left foot, knee, and upper thigh. The sorcerer drops her, groaning, but her spring doesn't take her far. In a blinding instant another portal opens in front of Momo, and before she can stop, her entire body is enveloped by violet light, vanishing to Dothaven Quarters.

Hadone had been on the verge of throwing a sword...reconsiders this when the portal closes. Damnit! Sorry, kid...

Moorn puts weight on the leg, and is annoyed when it buckles from beneath him. Cute. "This is entirely your fault," he shouts to Hadone. "So, you can join here!" His hands light again, this time with prismatic glows that would be quite dazzling, were it not for the dozens of fires that roar into life from seemingly nothing, all around Hadone. Save for one direction... and that way will soon be blocked by another portal. Moorn obviously isn't playing around.

She doesn't waste but a bare moment to stiffen...she springs with all a trained fighter's speed towards the one remaining way out.

Hadone clears the portal by less than a second, much to Moorn's irritation. He roars rather uncharacteristically, spreading his flames out in every direction, and opening portals in Hadone's path at rapid intervals.

The death dancer avoided two, then skids to a stop just barely in time to miss a third, her foot actually disappearing into it. It isn't totally damning, her weight's on the other and she jerks it out to spin around, but..portals on three sides now, Moorn on the fourth. Her back's to a portal she doesn't want to pass, both swords drawn. Bad situation. Bad, bad situation.

The sorcerer holds up his hands, tendrils flailing from both. All traces of amusement are gone from his face as the whips shoot forward, attempting to shove the nimble dancer into one of the portals... which one doesn't matter. He's annoyed, and any one will do.

She's quick, but not nearly quick enough...one of the tendrils manages to catch hold of an upper arm, scorching through nearly instantly and flinging the dancer into a side portal. Bound, no doubt, for the Dothaven Quarters.

---

When the dancer reappears in the town...it's with a multitude of others. Her head is spinning quite insanely, and she puts a hand to her forehead, trying to still the spinning. Ugh...you okay, kid?

"I think I just threw up in here..." Momo answers inside of Hadone's mind. "Hey... this is my town! There's my inn!"

Most of the others are just confused. Almost everyone is accounted for; conspicuous by their absences, though, are Mi'ehna and Radivishe Moorn. 

Yeah...ugh...goddamnit. I think my mask is just a hair away from cracking now...I wonder where the sorcerer and Mi'ehna are? She's more worried about Mi'ehna as she stands unsteadily and brushes the dirt from her cloak. That's the part pompous assassins and necromancers won't tell you about wearing black.

"I don't know, sweety. Pumpkin. Hee hee! I'm dizzy. Hadone, who are these people?"

All the othe people from Dothaven, it looks like. The lot of them were sent back here...no idea how. But yeah.

Most of the people are still glowing, and they begin disappearing one by one, heading back for where it was they came from. A few remain... those whose planets no longer exist, and the like. Misao is one of about three, along with Hadone, and an older fellow who seems content to wander down the street.

About this time a particularly tall girl dressed in a fetching red dress parts the gathered crowd of the town, pretty eyes searching through them.

"Hadone. I am looking for Hadone, a death dancer," Yue says to them all, calling out in a soft voice.

She's still trying to pinpoint just how hard it will be to break her mask...and yet doesn't want to test this much, for obvious reasons. The death dancer looks up at this, though, and, checking her swords and resetting her black cape, heads towards the voice. It's hard to miss the crimson red gown amidst all the leaf-clothes, anyway.

Yue's eyes come to rest on Hadone, and he smiles smartly. "I suppose that would be you. You have something of mine, I think."

"Yue! It's Yue! Hadone, hug him! You have to! I missed him so much...!"

Of course, Momo's thinking so very hard about the gesture that Hadone doesn't have to tell her body to...somewhat to her dismay. Him? is all she manages through her perturbation.

"Yeah, don't let the chest fool you. He's got a behemoth under that dress."

Yue blinks. "Yes well, thank you. You may let go now."

Hadone does just that, face warm. Thanks for sharing.

You're welcome.

"I'm told that you have a certain impertinent brat in your mind," Yue begins with a slight smile, "and I was hoping I could persuade you to let her out."

Hadone tilts her head a little, though of course she doesn't speak. Take her. Take her please. This isn't entirely malicious, though, part jest.

Momo's quiet for a minute. HUG HUG HUG HUG!

If I could slap you, I would. But why don't you talk to him? I can't.

Spellbound, eh?

Yue looks at the dancer with a very curious eye. "Listen, I will ask you a simple question. Are you willing to travel with me, to another plane, to free her? You can nod, can't you?"

Hadone presents him with a shining finger for the last question...but then puts it away, and nods.

Yue just tuts. "Not very lady like. Follow me, bore." Yue turns and takes a step, trying to remember exactly where to go, as a portal similar to the Dothaven entrance opens in front of him, and takes him to Saea's Gardens.

Hadone hesitates at this, momentarily. Too many portals. Damnit. She's quite sure by now that she prefers dead people. AFter that initial hesitation, though, she follows.