End of Night One
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On the streets of the Diamond Quarter
There was silence in the Diamond Quarter; it was late and the brightly burning torches of the city had long been extinguished, with only the molten glow of the magma far below the reaches of the city illuminating the streets now. The dust had settled hours previously as the news of Lady Dordan's death had grown subdued around the city itself and instead headed behind closed doors.
The heavy stone doors of the Royal Palace opened a mite, releasing narrow shards of light from within; a short figure slipped out into the night, veiled beneath a charcoal-coloured cloak. The dwarf began to walk slowly down the quiet streets, mail-clad footfalls barely making an audible sound upon the cold ground; a pair of alert eyes flitted from left-to-right from the folds of the hoods as though expecting an unseen assailant to leap from the shadows, but nothing came and the dwarf continued to move.
The dwarf passed the sealed entrance to the Assembly, pausing briefly to embrace the silence that covered the city; the sensation of solitude lasted only a moment as the thudding footfalls of plate-metal permeated the peace, a gutteral battle-cry managing to cut through the air quicker than the swing of his axe could.
With a deft sideways roll and the flash of a silver blade against golden clasps, the blackened cloak fell to the stone to reveal Romanic, clad head-to-toe in sparkling chainmail and wielding both a pair of sharpened daggers and a look of intense determination.
The plate-clad assailant wheeled around with surprising agility and struck again with a heavy-handed vertical strike that Romanic narrowly evaded; the axe slammed down upon the cold stone where he had been stood and a crack emerged along the impact zone, such was the power behind the blow.
But there was no respite there; Romanic had barely managed to catch his breath before his foe recovered, raised the weapon and began swinging it horizontally, vertically, diagonally... strike after strike rained upon Romanic, though his agile frame managed to evade the attacks with ease.
The plate-clad dwarf grunted a sound of clear impatience beneath his helmet, and he instead turned to spinning his axe around his arms quickly, the hilt of the weapon attached to one of his gauntlets by way of a chain; Romanic dipped and weaved around, the spinning of the hatchet getting closer and closer...
*WHACK*
Romanic was thrown backwards a few feet from the force of the blow to his chest, his weapons scattering across the cold stone; his assailant had launched the weapon forward, catching Romanic off-guard before reeling the axe back with the chain. Again, showing surprising speed for one clad in platemail, the dwarf was towering above the fallen Romanic within seconds, preparing to deliver the final blow.
"No!"
The blow that should have ended the pitiful wretch's life instead thudded against a reinforced buckler; cold, unforgiving eyes glared from the narrow visor of the assailant's helm, trying to distinguish the identity of the defender while they both pulled and pushed to gain the upper hand.
With a forceful shove of his buckler, the hatchet still embedded within, the shield-bearing dwarf pushed the attacker back, who responded with a tug of his chain that pulled the defender to the ground; this gave the assailant time to evaluate the situation, which he deemed to be against him now that the number of foes had doubled, and he swiftly darted off into the darkness as quickly as he had appeared.
Romanic climbed to his feet, rubbing his stomach through his chainmail and thanking the ancestors for their untimely intervention; he turned to thank his saviour, but the shield-bearing dwarf had vanished too.
The sensation of solitude returned.
