A not so warm welcome|Aegestrom, Maelstrom

[Northen Light36]

Evans stumbles, nearly dropping his sword in pain from Taurus' attack, and Amaro lashes out with his, trying to get the advantage. A lightning bolt from Mathew reminds Amaro that he's fighting two enemies here, not one, and that he can't win like this. With no other choice, Amaro begins the difficult job of leading the fight towards the stairs - his only escape route.

---

Acqua looks furious as she and Taurus arrive in the inn again and she has quite a number of unflattering comments to make about Amaro's intelligence, common sense and sanity even as she imeditately turns her attention to tending to her injured pet, using just a couple of drops of healing water to bring Faith back around. As soon as she's awake, Faith is scrambling into Acqua's lap and licking frantically at every bit of exposed skin she can reach, like a mother cat tending to a lost kitten and making Acqua laugh a little. "I hope he gets back safely," Acqua murmurs to Taurus worriedly, her anger dying away as she pulls Amaro's jacket more tightly around herself and shivers.

[Kender Bard]

"Do you think I should go back?" Taurus asks anxiously. "I only left to get you out of there, honestly. His pride be damned, nobody should have to face that sort of thing alone."

[Northen Light36]

Acqua hesitates a moment, a flicker of discomfort settling into her mind at being alone, but then she nods firmly. "Go. He'll get himself killed facing those two alone."

[Kender Bard]

Thinking fast, Taurus glances around; he wants a way to ensure Acqua's safety. "It takes very little energy for me to ocassionally teleport objects back and forth." He finds a piece of parchment in his pocket, crumpled, and hands it to her. "If trouble comes, rip it in half. I'll ocassionally be teleporting it to and away from me to make sure things are okay, and so you know that I am as well. Okay?"

[Northen Light36]

Acqua nods, giving Taurus a grateful smile. "Good idea. Be careful, Taurus."

[Kender Bard]

Taurus nods and smiles wanly at her before brushing his sign and teleporting back to where he was last, hoping it wouldn't be in line of a stray bolt. His reflexes were good for shielding - but not nearly that good.

[Northen Light36]

Luck holds out for Taurus, he arrives safely. However Amaro's not doing so well. His clothes are burnt and singed and there's a long bleeding gash in his left shoulder. Evan and Mathew are practically making a game of this, whenever Evan makes an attack on Amaro with his sword, Mathew sends a bolt of lightning at Amaro. If Amaro tries to take out Mathew, he's left wide open to Evan and it seems Evan and Amaro are too evenly matched for Amaro to get the upper hand in the sword fight.

[Kender Bard]

Taurus turns his fury on Evan; after all, he did have it out for him more than Matthew. Reaching out with his mind, he tried to get a hold of the man's mind long enough to hold him paralyzed; this was a hard manuever, even for two-signers, and so he was more optimistic about just averting the man's attention.

[Northen Light36]

While Evan isn't paralyzed, his attention is turned away from Amaro for a moment and Amaro takes advantage of that to slice deeply into his cousin's wrist, forcing Evan to drop his sword. He'll keep the use of the hand, if he can keep from bleeding to death long enough to get help, but he won't be in this fight anymore. With that settled, Amaro turns his attention to his uncle, ignoring the fact that pain and blood loss is causing him to have a serious case of double vision.

"You couldn't just leave well enough alone?" he comments, sounding very tired. "You lost your nephew, but I lost my brother as well," he adds with a growl. "Fine, you all hated and blamed me! You made that plain when my father disowned me! But I can't change the past and all I want is get on with my life."

"AND WHAT GIVES YOU THAT RIGHT?!" bellows Mathew. "What the hell makes you think you deserve to live, you worthless little worm?! You tore this family apart! It was the shame of having brought weakling scum like yourself into this world that killed your parents!" Furiously, Mathew sends a flurry of lightning bolts at Amaro.

[Kender Bard]

Taurus throws up a shield to block the worst of the bolts, though he sways under the force of them before rallying his mental concentration together again. Not daring to say anything, lest he disrupt Amaro's concentration, he lowers the shield to give the other man a chance to get a hit in; at the same time, he teleports the paper to himself to see how Acqua was holding up.

[Northen Light36]

The paper is in one peice. Acqua's fine. Amaro sends off a few attacks of his own, before moving in with his sword to try and smack Mathew over the head with the flat of the blade. As angry as he is, and as much as he hates this man, Amaro can't bring himself to kill his own blood. Too bad for Amaro that Mathew doesn't share Amaro's concern. He brings his cane up hard between Amaro's legs, causing the younger Storm to crumple to the ground. Then Mathew brings the other end of the cane down hard on his nephew's head.

[Kender Bard]

Taurus swiftly teleports the paper away and then reaches out with his mind towards Matthew. In something akin to shouting next to a person's ear he shrieks ~LEAVE HIM ALONE!~ Then procedes to batter around in his skull.

[Northen Light36]

Mathew, having just picked up Amaro's sword, drops the weapon again and falls to his knees with a scream of pain as his hands grab his pounding head tightly. Amaro however see's none of this, the blow to the head that Mathew inflicted on him knocked him out. Evan too is out cold, in his case from blood loss.

[Kender Bard]

Taurus takes a deep breath, walking over to where the sword was and scooping it up. He slowly stopped his mental assault as he leveled the blade at Matthew's neck. "Slimeball." In his opinion, this man was very lucky that Taurus didn't kill easily. "I'm going to give you one more chance to live. I've got family nearby; family that can see and hear wherever they want, whenever they want. That includes your blood soaked mansion here. So don't think about doublecrossing me. I want you to take your sleazy son there and get out of Maelstrom. And run. As fast and far as you can. Leave Amaro and Acqua alone forever. If you can't do that, then you might as well impale yourself on this sword because it'll be far easier than what I, and my brethren, will do to you!"

[Northen Light36]

Mathew glares hatefully at Taurus, but growls out bitterly, "Fine."