Board Thread:Roleplaying/@comment-17114085-20150516130656/@comment-5583506-20150521215318

Hassiri wandered along side the main road of the Imperial City, just a few yards away from its side. He wouldn't risk any direct encounters with either strangers or more of the creatures he had witnessed tearing the populace apart in the capital.

As a group bandits passed him by on the main road, he ducked for cover behind a bush. The bandits however seemed to have different things on their mind than robbing wayfarers.

"Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!" repeated a Bosmer archer hysterically.

"Calm yourself!" replied a Dunmer and slightly punched the Bosmer on the shoulder.

The men were both armed, but they seemed to be more upset than inclined to attack.

"How can I be calm?!" shouted the Bosmer. "The... the boss! He lunged at me! You saw it! The crazy bastard tried to rip my throat out with his teeth! And I... I stabbed him! Cut his fucking stomach open and yet he was coming for me! What the hell is going on?!"

"As I said: Calm yourself! We need to keep our heads together. Maybe he was infected with some disease or put under some spell. I have never seen a man take so many blows and cuts and still standing up straight."

"By the Divines", muttered the Bosmer incoherently. "Did you see his eyes?"

The Dunmer nodded and inhaled loudly. "Yeah, I did. I have never seen anything like it. But nevermind about that. We can just tell the others that the boss was mauled by some bear or something like that. As soon as we get back to the hideout in the Imperial City we should be able to straight things out without any of them coming for us."

Hassiri got out of his hideout. "This one wouldn't do that, if he were you."

The two elves flinched. "Woah! What the hell?! Who are you?!"

Hassiri raised his arms in the air as a sign that he meant them no harm. "A mercenary. On the run from the Imperial City."

The Bosmer smirked. "Trouble with the law?"

The mercenary shook his head. "Trouble with flesh-eating maniacs running amok."

The faces of the elves seemed to lose all colour.

"Y-you are joking right?" said the Dunmer. "Please, tell me that you are joking. Because our boss just tried to take a bite out of Alvenor here."

Once again Hassiri shook his head. "No. Otherwise this one would still be there, getting drunk after his latest job."

The elves looked at each other with worried expressions. Hassiri could only guess what was coursing through their minds at this moment.

"So... did you make any... gold... from this latest job?" asked Alvenor.

Hassiri could easily see where this was going, but nevertheless he slowly nodded. The two elves approached him with steady, lumbering steps. It was hard to blame them, even if they were bandits. This incoming battle was not something they would do for fun or profit, as they would have otherwise. This was a fight for survival. They believed that if they killed him and took his gold they could make it far away from here. He would have gladly shared some of it with them if they had asked nicely, but the moment where he could have asked them to lay down there weapons and share it with him had long since passed.

The Dunmer drew a longsword from a scabbard on his back and came rushing towards Hassiri in an impressive charge. The mercenary dodged the first strike to the side, before he released his long dagger from its sheath in his belt, slashing it against in a single sweep against the Dunmer's belly, spilling out his guts. The bandit died instantly, still locked in his momentum of attack and collapsed right behind Hassiri.

Alvenor, however was much more quicker than his longer companion and required some more effort to take down. He proved to be much more of a challenge, the way he danced around Hassiri's strikes and parried those who were bound to cut him severely. Ultimately he lost balanced when the Khajiit surprised him with a vicious kick to his rib cage, causing him to stagger backwards, before Hassiri rammed the dagger straight up through the Bosmer's chin and skull, all the way to the hilt.

There was a moment of awkward silence before the Bosmer collapsed to the ground as lifeless as a rock. Hassiri unjammed his dagger and then went about to scavenge whatever resources they were carrying which could improve his odds of survival. For as far as he had figured it out, this strange phenomenon involving the flesh-eating was not a one-time occurrence. Whatever it was, it would spread. And only the rule called "survival of the fittest" would be the law of Tamriel.

Judging from the way the two elves had run, Hassiri guessed that they had a camp nearby, where they had killed their boss. Presumably they had some goods there as well he could make good use of. It was a long way home after all...