Follow Your Nose <Earth Kingdom>

[sun]

Sun was grinning like an idiot when the mob started picking up the nearby bench. The adrenaline of his lust for combat combined with his new toy had him almost dancing from one foot to the other. His fingers began drumming on the pole making a tinkling noise that soon got drowned out by the thud of the bench against the door. Suns giddiness increased with the second strike and by the time the third strike had smashed the door open he was practically hopping up and down.

The initial charge was greeted by two flashes caused by the fire benders roasting the two people that came through the door way first. Over the yelling Sun was able to hear a ‘twang’ sort of sound a fraction of a second before a crossbow bolt sailed over his head. There was a second set of flashes and matching screams just as the last few men filed through the door likely overwhelming most of the remaining guards.

“Dibs on the benders birdnose,” he said kicking up his staff. The last man was going through the doorway but instead of waiting he leapfrogged over that mans shoulders. In his brief moment of hang time he was able to gauge the location of each guard. The crossbowman were being overwhelmed by the swarms of prisoners and the doors were being held two men wielding sabers and keeping the swarm from busting out. The fire benders were in the center of the room with considerable space around them. Sun vaulted over the men between them on all fours as if he was on the ground and hopped towards them using the prisoners shoulders as a makeshift floor.

“HELLO!” he said grinning as they turned to respond. They both cocked an arm back to turn Sun into a crisp but Sun pushed his staff under his feet and kicked out sending a gold banded end into them, one in the throat and one in the mouth. Twisting in midair Sun landed on one knee and caught the staff on his shoulder.

[iikagen]

Iikagen waited patiently after the door burst open with a resounding crack of splintering wood. Those first few men in line took the brunt of an ensuing blast of flame, but the rest of them just piled on through. Iikagen suspected that the main reason these men were also enveloped in torrents of fire was due to the wooden construction of the building. The firebenders seemed to be limiting themselves to controlled, small bursts that could take down a man without lighting the walls or cieling on fire.

Unfortunately, their restraint was the deciding factor that presented the rushing convicts the moment they needed to close the distance and swarm them. Even when Sun rushed in to join the fray, Iikagen wisely held up a few more seconds to make sure that he wasn't hit by a stray arrow or fire blast. When the Igni finally took a look into the main lobby, it seemed like anyone who could pose a threat was either beaten unconscious or was too busy with one of the convicts to pose him a threat. Iikagen grinned as he stepped into the room over the charred, still-moving bodies of the first men through the door.

He loved it when others were so willing to do his dirty work...

The Igni passed by Sun, barely taking note that he'd managed to dispatch a pair of benders on his own. Instead he headed straight for the door and pulled it open. A rush of cool night air swept into the room, and he swiftly poked his head out to look around. All seemed quiet one way, and to the other...

Iikagen frowned slightly as he spotted a latern swiftly boobing its way down the road being held aloft by the spear of a soldier. A handful of other men were with him, and it seemed that their prison break had not gone unnoticed. At the very least, he reasoned, there were still enough convicts left standing to provide some parting cover for his escape.

"Well, gentlemen," Iikagen said, glancing back into the building, "It's been a pleasure! No I suggest joo run like jour ass is on fire... or it will be!" And at that, he offered every in the room a salute with his shortspead in hand, and then took off running down the street away from the guards.

[sun]

Sun scampered out of the door a few seconds behind the bird nosed one. He adopted a strange low slung gait using his left arm as an occasional third leg while his right arms held his staff trailing behind him. The guards were just entering the plaza by the time he reached them. Instead of attacking them or running away like one would expect, he brought his new toy in front of him and planted it into the ground. Using his momentum Sun vaulted above the ground right into the lead soldier.

“Good evening!” he cheered planting his foot into the mans face. In the split second it took the guard to start falling back Sun pushed off his face and sailing onto a nearby roof while pulling his staff up with him.
When they looked up where he was they had trouble making him out because the lantern that was on the guards spear had ‘mysteriously’ disappeared and was now hanging off the end of his staff. With a nod and a grin he used his staff as a catapult and sent the lantern flying across the small plaza and into the side of the jail between the second and third stories. After only the slightest moment of savoring the smell of burning pitch he turned and began running along the rooftops using the moons light to see where he was going.

-Sun has left the rp-

[iikagen]

Iikagen was already onto the opposite street by the time the guards encountered Sun. His long legs gave him quite a hefty stride, and within about 10 seconds he long gone from sight of the plaza in front of the prison. The Igni managed to catch sight of a cluttered alleyway near the end of the lane and on a whim he decided to head for it.

Iikagen ducked between the two buildings, avoiding even the meager moonlight that might make him visible to the soldiers currently chasing down the escaping prisoners. Just a few steps into the alley, he came across a barrel filled with water. After a moment of glancing down at his bloodstained chest, Iikagen swiftly pulled off the barrel's cap and began splashing himself down. After pulling a few handfuls of water onto his chest and wiping away the majority of the red stains he dunked his entire head into the barrel and sucked in a mouthful. The Igni withdrew his head, spitting out the bloody mouthful of water without caring to avoid the barrel.

The sound of running footsteps reached Iikagen's ears as the water cleared from them, and as a guard yelled out for back-up he realized that they were chasing some prisoners his way. He immediately looked around him and spotted a window on the building beside him. Without so much as a second thought, he turned around, took one step to build momentum and then hopped at the opposite wall. He planted his foot, turned around and then lept at the window. Leading with his shoulder, he smshed right through the wooden shutters and landed inside the building on a workbench, scattering the onjects that were laying atop it. He quickly composed himself and lay still for a moment as the running prisoners and pursuing soldiers passed by.

Iikagen rolled off of the bench and stood up, dusting off what he realized to be woodshavings from his shirt and pants. A quick survey of his surroundings alerted him to the fact that this was a woodworking shop. Carvings, statuettes, and masks lined the walls. There were plenty of dragons, as well as an assortment of rather flattering effigies of the Fire Lord in regal and dramatic poses. However, what caught his eye were the demon masks that lined the back wall over what he assumed to be the register. Some looked quite fearsome, but one in particular made him grin ear to ear.

The Igni reached up toward the wall and hooked his fingers around a crimson red mask with bright yellow eyes. White feathers with black tips lined its crest and a mane of white hair seemed to flow from its back. It hard a large, beaklike nose and a grinning mouth with a set of protuding fangs. Iikagen recognized the features immediately from a matching description of a popular demon in Igni lore. His tribe even borrowed its name from this bird-like spirit. He hadn't even known the mainlanders knew of the story, but this was just too serendipitous to ignore.

Iikagen had found himself a Tengu mask...

After waiting for the noise outside to die down, the Igni climbed back out the window and managed to scale the side of the building and make it onto the rooftop. From that vantage point, he could pick a route out of the town. Torchlight still illuminated some areas, and other moving sources of light showed the location of some of the soldiers who were searching for the escaped convicts. Iikagen stayed low and followed the rooftops toward the nearest wall. Unlike the others who may have headed for the main gate, he figured that there would be less attention paid to the more difficult escape route.

Dropping to the ground and continuing on foot where the rooftops ended, Iikagen made it to the wall within a few mintes and managed to engineer a fairly straightforward escape. Using a few clotheslines he'd collected from some nearby houses, he found a deserted portion of the high wall and managed to lasso one of the ramparts.

Within another few minutes he was outside the town's walls and running with all speed toward the woods. Only after a mile or so did he finally stop for breath. With nothing to his name but the clothes on his back, the mask on his head, and a set of broken-off spears, Iikagen realized that the road ahead would likely be a bit bumpier than before. He had two bounties on his head and a score to settle with a certain bounty hunter. Consideration of a certain useless Earth kingdom wander er briefly edged its way into his mind, but that matter was quickly replaced by the thought of what to do about the itch on his left foot.

Iikagen took a few minutes to catch his breath and then resumed his running. He had a vague outline of a long-term goal formulating itself in his mind, and he figured the best setting for this endeavor would be further inland.

(Iikagen has left the RP)