“The old saying about how fighting side by side breeds friendship or love has merits to it, honestly. There’s just something that prompts you to feel closer to someone you’ve shared life and death with, though it does not necessarily apply to everyone. Nor does it always lead to further relationships either, though that happens from time to time indeed.” - Aideen deVreys, the Silver Maiden.

“My, my, these fellows have no patience at all,” jibed the old knight as he blocked and parried strikes from two of the thugs on his side. The alley they were in was wide enough for three to walk side by side, but that would have made fighting difficult since it would be too cramped. “Youth. Always no patience.”

“For all you know their mothers might have dropped them on the head when they were babes,” replied Aideen from behind him, as she pushed aside an axe and took a cudgel to her forearm, which she ignored in order to land a strike of her own against the axe-wielder’s shin with her staff. “Deities know they all already got faces only a mother could love.”

“Touche, Miss. Honestly though, whoever was behind this must have had no mind for strategy at all,” said the old knight as he pushed away his assailants with a grunt, and scored his blade along the side of one’s neck, which caused blood to flow profusely from the seemingly shallow wound. “First they sent five and then they sent ten when they failed? Why not just send fifteen from the start?”

“You know what they say. That the commander is reflected upon by the men they command,” said Aideen as she struck hard and broke the arm of the cudgel-wielding thug while the other end of her staff struck against the kneeling axe-wielder’s throat hard enough to snap his neck on the spot. “With this kind of misbegotten bastards to command the commander can’t be that much better off.”

“An oaf to command more oafs indeed, Miss,” replied the old knight with a chuckle. If the thugs had accosted them in a space wide enough for all five of them to fall on him at once, he might have had trouble dealing with them. As it was though, only two of them could face him at a time, which was not hard for the old knight to deal with.He punctuated his word by piercing his blade into one man’s belly after he deflected the man’s cudgel, tearing the wound wide open as he withdrew his blade out. “As it stands these oafs are poor ones even for the standard of oafs. Almost an insult to oafs to call them oafs, I daresay.”

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“My, my, Sir Rodolfo, such words. You might hurt their fragile feelings with them,” replied Aideen with a chuckle as she systematically finished off the injured cudgel-wielder as he turned to run with a strike to the back of his head. The remaining two thugs tried to strike at her far more tentatively with their machetes, while a third used a spear to strike from behind them. Their coordination was lacking though, and Aideen had little issue deflecting their blows. “Though they probably would be too dead to care about it soon anyway.”

“Well said, miss,” answered the old man as he expertly parried one thug’s machete into another thug’s axe and tangled them both for a moment, before he took their necks on his return swing, sending two headless bodies toppling to the floor as blood spurted from the stump of their necks. “I should be done in a jiffy here. Need a hand on your side?”

“Not really, almost done as well,” said Aideen as she shattered one man’s head with her staff after she struck the third man’s spear to the side of his other compatriot, which dazed the thug for a moment. Before either thug could react, the back end of Aideen’s staff rose up from below and struck the dazed thug’s chin hard enough to shatter it.

The thug behind thrust his spear at her, but Aideen weaved around it as she thrust her own staff at the man in reply, directly against the hollow of his throat, with enough force to collapse his windpipe and crack his spine in one hit. The thug collapsed to his back as his hands clutched his throat while Aideen took the time to finish off the one whose chin she had shattered with another blow to the forehead.

“All done,” said Aideen as she turned around towards the old knight. The last thug she paid no attention to, as the man would suffocate in a bit anyway. She saw the old knight clean his blade on the clothes of one of the thugs, the last thug on his side also reduced to a dead body, taken down by a clean blow that nearly bisected his head vertically. “I see you’ve finished as well.”

“‘Tis just a light workout, Miss, nothing these old bones can’t handle,” replied the old knight as he sheathed his greatsword once more. The old knight sweated a bit after the exertion unlike Aideen who looked completely relaxed, but it was still a surprising feat of arms, given his age. “Just worked up an appetite for a good dinner after all that.”

“Not a bad suggestion, actually,” said Aideen as she whirled her staff around to clean it from the blood and bits of brain stuck on its surface. Amongst the many enchantments on her weapon was one that kept its surface easily cleaned, and that one whirl had flung away the filth on her weapon just like that. “Should we inform the authorities about these corpses by the way?”

“Eh, it’s the capital. Thugs killing each other and getting killed is a common thing in the back alleys here,” said the old man as he spat to the side with distaste. “Just leave them be, the guards were likely already bribed to turn a blind eye to any ruckus in the region and later clean it up anyway. No reason not to let them do what they’re paid for.”

“Good point, Sir Rodolfo. Let’s get some good dinner then, as you mentioned,” replied Aideen with a smile as she stored her staff back inside her storage. Both of them had taken care to avoid getting the blood on themselves, and had not needed a change of clothes. “You know this city better, so show me a good place. My treat.”