Kuro sat at his table in the corner again, taking momentary note of the unconscious Serpentine lying on the floor besides Eli's seat. He paused mid-stride, looking from the woman whom he recalled by sight if not by name as one of the guild's doctor, just idly sitting there at her seat in plain view of the fallen man, not lifting a finger to check on him and the sword-puncture through his leg. Even more surprising was the sight of the other two Serpentines - Cedric Drake was still coolly mulling over his glass, apparently unconcerned for his comrade. His crony appeared to be angry at least, but was keeping his peace. The bartender didn't even seem to care about the blood splattered all over the lower end of the bar and the floor. It wasn't the most bizarre sight Kuro had seen,

[quote=Highwayman]Hey boss, those guards that were chasin' us just got crushed, dirt-nap crushed, by a mountain of watermelons that fell out of the sky! Ain't no airships or anything I can see tha coulda sent 'em nearby.[/quote]

...but it was nonetheless disconcerting. After a brief moment Kuro shrugged and sat down at his table in the corner. He figured, if nothing else, the unconscious and bleeding yuppie on the floor added some character to the bar's aesthetic.

Before he could even settle back into his seat properly, two children quietly barged in and greased the barman's palm, which was interesting enough on its own - Kuro though, had much sharper vision than most of the others in the bar, and as the girl crossed the room he caught sight of a particular detail of her person - something he had never seen before. His eyes immediately shot to the boy to see if he had the same feature, but if he did, it was well concealed. Either way, this was what Kuro had been waiting for - the coin Tribal had promised had just come in. Even just by being in the same room as them, Kuro could sell the information on what he had seen of the girl at least to the pursers back at Rider HQ for a favorable sum. Perhaps even more if he could get a closer look at the boy before he left...

Kuro was about to stand to try and get a closer look when the four thugs walked in. Kuro gave them the same discriminating eye he had given Ryza - two sweeping glances from head to foot for each of them. Immediately he knew - they weren't with the Riders or the Guild. They weren't unaffiliated assassins or cleaners either, and he seriously doubted they were from the Church of Aer. They were acting nonchalant enough, but any imbecile with eyes could have told why they were there.

Kuro's gut abruptly turned into a yawning abyss, and the hairs on the back of his neck stiffened. Over the many years, he had honed a sense for unseen, imminent danger - and it was here in the bar. Something massive, gigantic, greater than any threat he had even felt before, eclipsing even Tribal with its gravity. Kuro's eyes darted around the room - everyone was tense and eyeing the thugs, most of them Guild regulars with anywhere up to thirty spirits between them all and every manner of blade, pistol, explosive, and magic ready to be levied at any second. The room was a powderkeg, but even so it shouldn't have warranted such a nerve-wracking sensation. Kuro felt like he was standing on the edge of a great, bottomless chasm, darkness howling up at him with unfettered rancor, the Earth itself threatening to devour him.

For the briefest moment, Kuro's mask flickered, dismay spreading across his features like a pox.

He recovered shortly, his mind furiously racing to establish all available options. Taking the anguishing level of anxiety he felt, Kuro immediately considered making headway for the nearest available exit - a window immediately to his left. It had no latch or hinge, but the measure of some broken glass was of little consequence besides the enormity of dread that was hanging over Kuro's thoughts. 

Other than that, he could approach the table where three of the thugs had taken a seat and question them - that they had not already started a fight was indication that they were hesitant to do so. There was not much chance they didn't know the entire building - and the entire plaza outside - was occupied by Guild members. There was no chance they would risk starting a fight, even if Kuro had gone out of his way to antagonize them. Causing trouble so close to the Epicenter of the Adventurer's guild would be a death sentence. The downside being that, if they were to start trouble, he would be the foremost target of their ire due to proximity alone.

Kuro could sit where he was and simply observe, which as ideas went was the one he currently favored. It kept his body out of the firing line of everybody else in the bar, for one thing, and he would be surreptitiously placed to intervene at the moment of his choosing if the event escalated.

...None of those seemed appropriate however. Then, the gears in Kuro's mind clicked. He was thinking too much of himself. Distancing himself too far from the others present in the room. The various bands of the Guild might have found the Riders distasteful, but when there was a common enemy...

And besides, he was no longer Cutthroat Kuro, Bandit or Highwayman. He was a member of the Adventurer's Guild, and everyone in the room - bandless or blacklisted or not - were his comrades in arms.

Kuro grabbed his mug of water and turned it upside down beneath his table, emptying it. He then got up and casually headed for the bar hold holding it, adding a faint slouch and an exaggerated sway to his motion as he did so, and for once made no effort to reduce his noise as he crossed the room. Hopefully the thugs would simply think him a patron halfway into his cups fetching another drink. As he crossed the room, he looked around for any features that might be of use - and almost instantly his eyes were drawn to the iron candle-fixture suspended directly over the thugs' table. The chain connecting it to the ceiling was too thick for any of his pistols to sever it, but that wouldn't be a problem.

Shoving the ever-increasing sensation of apocalyptic portents screaming through his nerves out of his mind, he took a seat next to Eli at the bar. Not his first choice, but approaching the Hawks would have been awkward and the the doctor too obvious.

"I'm going to roll a billow canister at them once they start trouble." Kuro muttered to Eli without looking at him. "If you have any spirits that can cut the chain of that fixture above their table at the same time, it will illuminate their forms in the fog on top of the havoc it will wreck with them. Let us shoot at them while providing us cover. They aren't locals or affiliated with the Riders."

Kuro sounded completely certain. Perhaps he was being paranoid, but the sense of overarching peril, which had only grown by magnitudes as he had come to sit down at the bar besides Eli, made him sure that the four were going to start [i]something[/i]. What else was there nearby that could possibly be causing such a response?