Heirot

Jhaptal let the bandits press him against a corner. It actually made fighting easier for him. Though his range of movement wasn't as good in a corner, he didn't have to worry about being attacked from the back or his sides. Those were his weak points in group fighting. Now, only two, at most three could attack him at a time, and they could only do so from the direction he was facing. Man after man was killed as they charged him.

Soran let the men crowd around him, taking his time making strategic attacks to disable them, many falling to the ground in pain. However, when Rustef saw that his men were losing and fled to the next room, the rogue grew less patient. In a flash of liquid metal, the five men surrounding him seemed to all topple over at once, blood spraying from their throats. The men crowding in behind them suddenly stopped pushing and stared at their fallen colleagues in horror. One shouted angrily and rushed Soran, but met immediately with a bladed elbow to the chest, gurgling out a scream as he collapsed. The other men seemed hesitant to approach, dropping their weapons and raising their hands nervously. Soran took the opportunity to stare them down warningly and run after the leader. He glanced at Jhaptal, who seemed to be running out of opponents and was surrounded by gory corpses, then gave him a signal to follow when he was ready before running to the adjacent room.

Jhaptal quickly slashed up the two attacking him, and hopped up, propelling himself off the wall, slicing two more on his flight, then tucking into a roll, he came up and spun, cutting up the rest of them, either slitting throats or spilling intestines. When they were finished, he quickly ran over to join Soran.

Rustef ran to the corner of the adjacent chamber, which was curiously barren for its size, and looked back at Soran and Jhaptal with a dangerous smirk. "I don't know what you're here for, but I can assure you you're not leaving with it," he sneered, pulling a lever on the wall. A low rumbling sounded, and then a large wooden barricade fell down from the ceiling and blocked the entrance they had come by. "Have fun!" Rustef grinned, disappearing into a passage in the wall that closed behind them.

Soran looked around warily. Small shinking sounds were sounding from the far wall of the room. The rogue narrowed his eyes, noticing tiny holes in the wall, and guessing their purpose. He raised his blades tensely as a dense barrage of daggers shot from the wall, all flying at or below head height.

Jhaptal had bolted for the door way that Soran had run into, leaving a few of the bandits alive. However, when he got there the door closed behind him, trapping him, Soran, and one other bandit that had managed to keep up with the ninja on his sprint.

The Jhaptal's eyes widened as he recognized the trap that was about to be released and quickly clocked the bandit in the face, stunning him, and grabbed him before shoving Soran back, all in an adrenaline fueled rush. When the knives started flying, Jhaptal held the man up, using him as a human shield.

When the barrage ended, Jhaptal dropped the bandit. His right arm hung limply at his side as some of the daggers had pierced through the man completely and stabbed into it. He also had a few more minor wounds on his arms and his face from the knives passing on either side of the bandit, who was smaller than Jhaptal.

Soran's thoughts raced as he felt himself shoved backwards and saw Jhaptal and the bandit in front of him while the blades rained in at them. He used his blades to block the few daggers that approached him, coming out unscratched except for a single wound on his tricep. The barrage was over in an instant, leaving Soran staring in shock at his client.

"Hey!" he called to Jhaptal, rushing to his side and surveying his wounds critically. His arm was a mess, and he had several more minor wounds. More sounds were coming from the wall - this time a low hissing sound. "Shit," Soran said darkly. He hadn''t predicted a bunch of roving bandits would possess this technology. "Get down," he ordered.

Jhaptal dove to the ground, also recognizing the sounds of the next trap being triggered. He hit the ground with his injured arm first, not having much control over it, and hissed in pain. He twitched a few fingers, trying to send commands to it.

Soran dove down and kneeled close facing Jhaptal with one knee between his, pulling his coat around both of them just as columns of flame shot down from the ceiling a few feet away from them. Inside the coat became extremely hot, but the only thing that seriously burned was the backs of Soran's hands. The rogue endured it, knowing the flames could not last more thanaa few seconds, even on these people's budgets. Why he knew this....he didn't care.

When the flames extinguished, Soran released his embrace on Jhaptal and leaned away. Jhaptal's wounds needed attention badly. "We need to get out of this room," Soran said, guessing that there was more in store for them if they stuck around. He prepared to help Jhaptal if the man could no longer walk alone.

Jhaptal stood up. "I can walk," he said, and immediately got up to go over to the door they had come in from. He picked up and sheathed his kodachis on the way.

"There has to be a switch to open the doors," the ninja stated. "In case one of their higher ups get trapped in here by accident. And judging from the speed of the dagger trap, it would be somewhere within quick reaching distance..." Jhaptal found the switch close to the door and activated it, jumping out and back into the original room, where some bandits were left. He drew a kodachi with his left hand, preparing himself to fight without the aid of his right.

"Good," Soran said when Jhaptal managed to get the barricade open. He fought close to the ninja in case he lost the upper hand, taking down all the men who hadn't fled the room at the sight of their reappearance.

Jhaptal fought fine with his left hand. he had learned ambidexterity early on so he could fight as well with either side of his body. He also learned how to use a single kodachi before he learned how to use two. Not being one to forget the basics, Jhaptal fought on, letting Soran watch his back.

When the room was clear, Soran looked back at Jhaptal. "You're losing too much blood," he frowned.

Jhaptal smiled weakly. "Maybe I am," he replied, looking quite faint. "I think we should hurry up and return to camp for now, don't you?" he asked.

"Yeah. Let's move," Soran said, leading Jhaptal briskly through the nearly pitch-dark maze they had come through. The base was in chaos from their invasion, and men kept discovering them. Soran dispatched them as efficiently as possible to avoid letting them make a sound, no longer taking provisions to salvage their lives.

The two managed to escape the bandit's hideout relatively unscathed and retreated back to their campsite. They had set it up earlier that day so that Jhaptal wouldn't have to carry all the equipment around with him in battle. As they escaped, Jhaptal kept up his awareness as much as possible, to make sure they weren't being followed. However, his awareness was getting smaller and smaller as they continued to travel and as soon as they reached their campsite, he passed out from the lack of blood.