[center][h3][color=C0392B]Rudolf Sagramore[/color][/h3][/center]

[color=c0392b]"... I'll handle Miina, then. Stay safe, people. Good hunting."[/color]

Hardly ideal as he saw it, but they didn't have time to fight on the issue— not with Valheim already on the move. Galahad and Izayoi both trumped him in wartime experience— if this was their perception, smart money bet on it sooner than his. He nodded, and the four of them bounded out of the hovel in short order— the pair of veterans beelining for the Cathedral towards the city's center, whereas for him and Eliane...

The snapping report of distant gunfire sounded, bouncing off the mazelike corridors their hideout had been tucked away within. They were too en masse to be anything but Valheim at work— part of his extensive lesson that night outside Ramuh's domain had included his pink-haired teacher's opinion that differentiating factions by the report of their weapons was paramount; before now, they'd all been more or less the same broad-brushstroke "boom" to his ears. He doubted he could tell the manufacturing difference in timbre, but caliber and quantity had been fairly intuitive once he'd been made to think about it. No other faction would both be here and reasonably expected to muster that many.

And it [i]wasn't[/i] coming from the cathedral, either, but rather to the northern edge of the city. They'd both quickly concluded that Esben wasn't likely to get into a shootout, especially not without at least utilizing the concealed gun in that buckler of his— leaving only one realistic assumption that could be made.

[color=c0392b][i]Just hang tight, Miina...[/i][/color]

There was a brief moment of weightlessness, as the cloaked swordsman sprung off the rooftop, and across the narrow gap between Brightlam's buildings.

He'd split off a few minutes ago, rapidly firing off a plan to grab their diminutive counterpart, then hopefully link up with Eliane and Esben or, failing that, falling back to the Cathedral to back up Izayoi, Galahad, and Chisato. Truthfully, the words had spilled out almost in time with the thoughts as he'd had them. Hopefully it had come out coherent. He was in a rush.

Landing, he wasted no time in sprinting across the terra cotta shingling of a quaint general store before leaping again, this time onto a lower-hanging, but sturdy branch of one of the larger trees that dotted the arboreal city. Due to the growing tumult below, this was his fastest option— he and the others had been neck-deep in the throng more than long enough during their information gathering phase to know how clogged it got down there. Time being of the essence, he'd have to just eat whatever attention this garnered. Best he could do was to stick to the more shaded parts of the upper highway, and, to Brightlam's credit, they [i]did[/i] hate their open skies[sup]1[/sup].

...

Perhaps it was the lingering sensation of the battle with Leviathan. A phantom pain at the edge of his movement, invisible shackles on a mind that had only once touched upon the Godspeed, but even as he bounded with all the agility his body could muster, Rudolf couldn't shake the sensation that he was still a little [i]slower[/i] than he'd been before the Trial of Tides. 

But whether he had lost speed, nerve, or nothing at all, soon enough his path towards trouble had taken him to a warehouse, and an opened window near the roof that he could hear a great clamor leaking out of, multiple voices from within carrying the [i]wrong[/i] accent for this place—

His eyes narrowed, as he crept closer. It had been a pretty simple task for an athlete of his caliber to get up there, and he was better than most at doing it quietly. Another of the upsides to how light his armor was...

He could hear it, far below. Clanking metal, ill-fitted armor, drawn swords. On the air, a sharp, lightly sweet, scent. Cordite, if he'd remembered Eliane's lesson right— a primary propellant for bullets. He'd found the source of his gunshots.

He swallowed his nerves, forcing them down into his gullet and slowly exhaling. He needed to play this right, it sounded like there were a lot of them in there, busy as bees. A hornet's nest someone had just taken a bat to. Sure enough, the next few seconds were assaulted by the telltale roar of raging wind[sup]2[/sup], buffeting the steel walls and rushing out of the window. She was down there, in the middle of all that racket— and as quick as it had spooled up, the dervish inside had again abated. He had to get moving!

He steeled his nerve, and made for the rafters. First things first— get a lay of the land below, get his eyes on Miina... then figure out how to get the both of them out of this.

Quiet as he could muster, the leather-clad warrior vaulted through the ajar windowsill, and landed... into a field of white. The place was a granary, and it had been thoroughly kicked up until every surface was dusted by that whirlwind of hers. An ample smokescreen if there ever was one, but of all the rotten luck on the timing! He wouldn't be able to pick her out through all this any better than—

[i]Wait. Flour?[/i]

[color=c0392b]"Oh [i]no[/i]."[/color]

His heart dropped past the pit of his stomach, as a lone point of orange painted itself upon the white cloud, a mote of flame that had met two things upon its birth— still air, and a surplus of stuff it could burn.[sup]3[/sup] Had he any room left to assuage those prior concerns of not being at top form, he may have taken solace in catching it the instant before total bedlam—

— but as things were, it was all the man on the rafters could do to wrench his greatsword in front of him, keep it wrapped behind the thick fabric of his cloak, and brace it against himself while he desperately exhaled.

And then, the earth ripped open and its fiery blood spewed forth, as though the dawn of creation. Were the wind from before deafening, the sound alone of the blast rang through all the steel, all the muscle, and all the bone of his body, a mighty hammer to the flat of his blade, smashing into ribs as Rudolf was sent through the roof—

And into the cold of the open air again. Through ringing ears and grit teeth, he found the focus to force his eyes open as he felt the familiar hold of weightlessness take hold of his body. Below him, a curtain of thick smoke, ringed by more of that orange-yellow flame... And no way of knowing where Miina, or whatever was left of her quarry, had ended up through that.

A short breath out, as the vertigo ended. His lungs burned, but luckily weren't shredded by the wave of sound and heat when it had slammed into his sword. His arms ached like hell, but were working— the adrenaline of impact seeing to whatever debilitating effects might have come from the contact with flash-fried steel. Sagramori were the folk of wildfires, of eruptions, of the flame of Himstus itself— training amongst them, he had weathered the blaze of their blood long enough to shrug off a few burns. He drew his knife from his belt as he began to fall again, angling his body. He had, miraculously, not lost his white-knuckled grip on the fell blade that'd shielded him.

He had a job to do, and a friend to bail out. In a way this was lucky— the access route to his red mage and her hunt was now as simple as it got:

Just head down.

Blades drawn, Rudolf seemed to slice through the smoke as he fell, biting at the edge of his thoroughly-ruined outerwear and pulling it, as best he could, over his mouth and nose. Far from perfect, but some form of filtration was better than none. He had to ensure he could extend each breath as long as it'd muster until the blaze began to die.

And sure enough, beneath the curtain, pandaemonium awaited him.

He narrowed his eyes, squinting past the stinging haze, searching for form, for frame, for sihlouettes against the grey and orange that smothered the interior— finding many, but none nearly as short as he was looking for. Armored man, armored man, armored man, where the hell was [i]Miina[/i]?

Finally, there was a stern tamp as his boots hit the floor, and the dazed mercenaries suddenly found another unfamiliar presence in their midst, licking, smoldering orange embers at the edges of his form—

And then it burst into motion, a sabretooth's fang tearing at the throat of the nearest man-at-arms and wrenching his exsanguinating corpse off its feet and into another two, before only hurried footsteps remained as it sprinted off into the gloom. Rudolf's eyes strained, trying to make sense of the chaos, and his ears fought to deaden the ringing and pick apart voices again. They didn't seem to enjoy the same enhancement suite as Isolde's Paladins, so maybe Alambert was incapacitated, or worse—

[color=c0392b][i]Either way.[/i][/color][sup]4[/sup]

He needed to [i]find[/i] her, and run like hell before these guys could regroup!

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[*][sub]1. I get it.[/sub]
[*][sub]2. Now that he mentions it, the little thing [i]has[/i] been steadfastly working on some sort of gambit involving Aero when they're off doing their respective things at camp. I didn't really note it much— If you'll recall, I've been trying to stay quiet lately.[/sub]
[*][sub]3. Never thought I'd say it, but credit where it's due to the little bastard— the answer was "dust explosion", and he got there before me. Embarassing. I'm going to blame it on nobody kicking up dust in my part of the ruins before him for five hundred years— that or generational trauma from when his family were hapless copper miners up in the highlands. I like that one too, it gives me extra reason I don't respect him.[/sub]
[*][sub]4. I'm keeping my sense for shifts in the aether as peeled as I can. Either we find some hint of the little mystrel, or I get as early a warning as I can about that Grovemaster kicking around. I do [i]not[/i] want Rudolf here any longer than we need him here.[/sub]
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