[centre][h2][colour=DAA520]Yui Ren[/colour][/h2][/centre]
[hr]

People spoke, an arrow whistled out of the gloom, but Yui did her best to tune it out, bending all her concentration on the deep dark and the approaching enemies. Edging through her concentration, she heard a wordless tune in the back of her mind, felt her senses sharpen, her hands become quicker and her mind clearer; she smiled slightly as she realized what was happening. [colour=DAA520][i]Nanashi or Octavia?[/i][/colour] She knew one of them used Bardic Magics, but she couldn’t remember which one at the moment, not that is mattered.

She was a bit surprised when [i]Snake Men[/i] rushed out of the gloom, in a hail of arrows and javelins. [colour=DAA520][i]Would’ve put my soverns on Orcs…[/i][/colour] Just as quickly as they appeared, two were down and three were wounded; tracking one of the archers, Yui pulled the second trigger with her middle finger until she felt a heavy ’click’ as the set-trigger readied.

The archer stopped, drew its bow, Yui just brushed the first trigger with her index finger, and several things happened nearly simultaneously. The hair thin seer notch on the trigger broke free of the seer that was holding back the coiled hammer spring. As the spring unwound, it swung the hammer forward through the notch in the breech block allowing the hammer to strike the back of the thin steel cartridge and run its pointed ‘pin’ face to go through the hole in the cartridge and strike the Soul Stone inside. The stone flared a small burst of fire when it was struck, which promptly lit the compressed gunpowder that was packed against it. As the gunpowder burned the rapidly expanding gasses that it generated tried to push out and the easiest way for most of it to go was into the back of the bullet, pushing it into and down the barrel, pressure forming the hollow base of the lead round into the hexagonal rifling and imparting some spin into it.

All of this resulted in a thunderous [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJMbxZ1k9NQ&ab_channel=AnthonyCox ]‘chuf-[i]BANG[/i]’[/url] that battered the ears of everyone in the old temple, it was oppressively loud when fired [i]outside[/i]; indoors, it could make it hard to think. Less than half a second later a half inch, one ounce, mass struck the archer in the throat effectively taking the Snake Man’s head right off; Yui [i]had[/i] been aiming for his chest but the shot went a bit high.

Yui however was unaware of the effect, partially because the firing had enveloped her in a dense grey/white cloud of smoke and partially because she was paying more attention to re-loading. Bringing the muzzle up, she went through the reloading drill faster than she normally could thanks to the ‘singer’ behind her. Rocking the tensioning level back she re-cocked the hammer, then pulled the latch locking the breach closed, back, letting the breech-spring pop it open. With the breach open, she pulled the empty, but still hot and smoking, cartridge clear and brought it down to a pouch on her right hip. Flicking the pouch open, she stuffed the empty casing into an empty wool lined slot and pulled out a loaded one. Bringing it up, she stuffed the live shot into the breech and closed the breech block in one fluid motion. Bringing the muzzle down, she re-aligned her sights for her next target.

Another archer had gone up a pillar for a better shot and Yui fired. Unfortunately it was a snap shot, and between that and the smoke she wasn’t a good with her aim as the first one. She wasn’t sure wither she’d hit the archer or just the pillar near its face; the important thing was that she’d disrupted its shot at whoever it’d been aiming at. Reloading once more, she snapped a shot off at one of the fighters rushing their front line. She was pretty sure she hit, but the smoke was so thick around her now that it was hard to tell. There was no time for a fourth, so she set the gun aside and drew her blade as she stood, emerging out of her own stinking cloud to meet the attackers.  
[@Lyla]