A Dark and Stormy Night [Open]

[Mutant_Lorenor]

Lorenor had come across many souls in his life time.

A few were even present in the tavern at the same exact moment he happened to be in it.

Irony? Fate, or perhaps something more sinister at work? Lorenor held secrets at his disposal, secrets that would someday change the course of Althanas history. As he sat there writing, he carefully listened to those voices of the gathered. Many he did not recognize. Many were lost with the sound of the storm outside. Plus, Lorenor kept himself busy with his journal entry. There was much that needed to be chronicled. Many parts of his life, and the historical events he'd undergone. He remembered much of it...some were currently lost in the ebb and flow of his mind. Lorenor shook his head. Jozie had brought him a drink of water, clear and reflecting his face. The chalice was a simple one. He drank the water deeply, it refreshed his troubled soul. His eyes took a moment to look away from the scribbled notes in his journal. Sometimes he would do a doodle or a sketch of this or that historical land mark that he'd been to. Part of his Paladin training with the Ixian Knights was a rudimentary education. Lorenor had been brilliant before, and that thirst for knowledge never ceased regardless of his current stage of evolution.

As he sat there, he took a sip of the chalice.

His eyes were narrowed as he took in the scene.

Some of the figures present were familiar...many were not.

He placed the chalice back on the well structured table. Lorenor guessed it was likely oak, or some other similar wood. It had a cherry finish. He began absent mindedly sketching various ideas in his head. He was not a skilled craftsman yet, but he was open to learn. In the meantime, the vast weight of history had developed an over abundant imagination. So he used that to full extent. He sketched various ideas in his head, concepts, ideas and dreams. As he sat there, for the first time since he awoke in the ruins of the Ixian Knight's castle...Lorenor allowed himself to feel whole again. Though he was far from being a complete individual...he was blessed by being an avatar of The Holy Light. He would train his growing skill level to great effect. In the meantime, he had time to ponder his next move and enjoy the companionship of fellow Adventurers. His eyes began to scan the tavern room itself for the various patrons. A few were out of sight, but that was all right. Some folks would prefer to be by themselves. I can understand that. Though Lorenor was an older man, he was still young in the ways of the Paladin's apprentice. Squire. That's what Sei Orlouge's associates had called him.

He found himself constantly thinking of Sei Orlouge.

Is he still out there...? Somewhere...? Lorenor thought to himself as he considered the pondered thought at hand.

[Ignis]

I was I looked up as the two women working the bar were arguing over the job they had. I smiled and shook my head. With this many people here, surely they could find someone else to work here as well. Sitting there, I helped myself to another sip of the ale. Part of me wanted to stand up and talk to the two of them about helping out, but it seemed like they had everything under control. I took a hold of the side of the mug, and decided against it. Keeping in my seat, and taking another dink of the ale. I looked around and saw many people. They were all... different. Turning to the mug again, I looked at my hands, shaking, I kept to myself. Instead, raising a hand for my drink to be refilled.

There was no reason for me to stand. There was no reason for me to extend myself to others. I was just trying to get by. I wasn't here to make friends.

[Chopsalot]

Cath tried not to stare as the stranger ate his dinner. At first she looked elsewhere, listened to an impromptu minstrel strum his lute and sing a mournful ballad, and engaged her gaze to the fireplace whose flames hypnotically flickered.

Eventually, Jozie came back with her meal and drink and another bowl for her companion. She softly smiled at the notion that she “had guts,” her grey eyes twinkling with sprightly mischief in only the way an Elf’s could. But then her face grew serious again as she listened to the stranger’s story of Scara Brae City. She held her spoon like a noblewoman would but slurped it like ill-mannered dwarf.

Riveted to his words, her eyes widened when this Commander of the Knights of Brae got to the end of his story. She barely realized she’d eaten all of the stew until her spoon scraped the bottom of the wooden bowl. While Vorgak and his band of brigands were quite powerful – enough to keep the Bard captive for five years – she was utterly sure they would not be able to defeat a Goblin Shaman.

“Is there a cure for his curse, or will you suffer with his malevolence twisting your soul at every turn?”

[Lye]

Life. People. So much naivety and ignorance.

The blissful path of those whose souls hadn't been consumed.

Shrouded by the shadow of his damp, dark and dripping hood, the stranger's verdant gaze watched. Head hung low and hands folded calmly, they poured in like cattle. Different walks of life, different faces, different motives, but all the same. All with a heart that beat, blood that stained, and futures that could be lost to the tip of a blade.

The figure grinned, and chuckled softly as though reflecting fondly on a better time. Then, he sighed, heavy and deep. In the empty cavern of his chest, he felt the throbbing ache of muscle pump rhythmically. No, not a heart. Something else. Something coiled with a curse and empty of the warmth and compassion of a heart. Yet it still ached, almost painfully so.

Almost.

Until, they entered.

"Why here?" he thought. "Why now?"

The leather about his hands groaned as fingers clenched tightly against one another.

Anger? Pain? Anxiety?

Helplessness. Like an animal caught in a steel trap. Bleeding, devoid of struggle, waiting for the end.

The husk relaxed his grip and broke his hands from one another. He raised a gesture, catching wary eyes from some as well as his intended target. She came, practiced as she wove trough occupied seats.

"Yessir?" the girl he overheard as named Jozie asked. Her rehearsed and refined pleasantries couldn't disguise her assessment of him. Liars, all the like, were common in his trade. He could see her disdain though warm smiles and the faint glimpse to the trail of mud from his entrance with bright, youthful eyes.

"Water, if you would," he asked in deep and hoarse tones, worn ragged by travel.

"Right away," she replied falsely sweet chords.

As she left him, the stranger reached into the folds of his cloak. From it, he produced two objects. One, a small glass vial no bigger than a finger, filled with a thick, blue liquid. The other, a trinket of sorts. It wasn't crafted of gold or precious metal and lacked the sparkle of gems. Instead, it just exuded an aura of balance - something that once held light and dark from one another. A trinket which held the memories of an entire lifetime - a lifetime cut short by not one, but two monsters.

The stranger trailed his eyes from them toward a mask of mithril.

Then he waited. For his drink, or something else entirely.

[Tobias Stalt]

Lightning arced across the firmament as a monsoon swept over Scara Brae. High winds whipped dangerously across the path, and trees creaked as they bent under immense pressure. The deluge sounded more like pebbles slammed against concrete than raindrops, and the report of thunder rolled from one horizon to the other. The hooded figure shifted and glanced skyward, disinterested in the slightest that his head might get soaked.

A shrill cry in the distance quickly drowned beneath another drumbeat of lightning, and the world turned white for an instant. His golden eyes strained to see the raven as it circled over a copse of trees easily a kilometer away. He could see the faint glow of a fire as it burned somewhere at the heart.

Tobias trekked along the dirt road. He could feel ancient anger in the heartbeat of the storm. His fingers absently touched the weapon sealed away at his hip, and it seemed to seethe with every bolt of lightning that streaked the heavens. "You're still afraid, aren't you?" the black wizard crooned as he ran his fingers along the dark scabbard. His youthful features twisted into a smirk. "No. Fear is an unkind word. You're like me."

He gripped the hilt of the weapon tightly as he flowed across the drenched plains toward the tavern that the trees no longer hid. The raven flapped its wings several times as it alighted on his shoulder, and he leaned against a tree as he peered through a murky window. "Do you ever wonder, Namerokth," he asked as he scratched under the bird's beak with a finger, "why insects struggle against nature? Why they scamper and hide from inevitable fate?"

The raven seemed to enjoy this scratching, and did not reply.

"I've always admired the insects," Tobias sighed. "The smallfolk, those who give their lives to protect them- the meek, my friend, and those who seek only to live are the ones who understand what it means to live in this world. The bastards who walk on their backs and break them are a sickness."

He glanced at the bird from the corner of his eye and smiled softly. "You want to be dry, is that it?"

Namerokth tilted his head, then cried out.

Tobias made his way to the door and forced it open, and the familiar sounds of a tavern at play greeted him. Men and aomen conversating at the bar meshed with a bard who strummed his lute in one of the dark corners. Several deep, rumbling laughs rolled through the room, but it stopped for a moment when the hooded man stepped within. The door shut behind him and water sloughed off his cloak.

"Let me take that cloak for you," Jozie hurried over and offered, "and you can get warm by the fire-"

Tobias held up a hand and spoke quietly. "No, that won't be necessary." Namerokth went winging toward the rafters and perched there, eyes keen on the crowd below. "I appreciate the offer, miss...?"

"Jozie," she answered with a bright smile. "If you need anything, just ask."

As she walked away, Tobias remembered a time where he would have spoken much more to a young lass and woven a tangled web with her. His lips parted and he sighed in silence. The Dehlosian took a seat at the bar and reached into his cloak to produce a nicely sized eastern coin. He rolled it between his fingers deftly.

"Something to drink, lad?" Tobias glanced up to the man behind the bar and locked eyes with him for a moment. He considered the ale he once drank, but his thrist for lavish things had dried out. Honeyed wine no longer pleased him, and highborn delights made him sick. "I have all manner of Coronian stock, and a few imports from Raiaera. Unfortunately, due to strains with Alerar and their close ties with Salvar to the north, it's been a bit difficult to get anything else. I hope you understand."

"Apple wine," Tobias answered suddenly. It was a simple pleasure, and something he had not indulged in many years. "Dehlosian apple wine. Do you serve it here?"

The shopkeep looked perplexed, then glanced over at Jozie. "Do we have any apple wine?" he called over to her, since she was the one who always ran to the cellars when an odd request cropped up.

"Well, we certainly don't," she said as she shrugged helplessly, "it's expensive to import, especially with all the current tariffs on foreign domestics. "But I remember you having a cask in your private stock, if you were inclined toward the sale of it."

His expression tightened. "That was a gift for your name day," he explained. "I wouldn't dare sell it."

"I don't mind," Jozie folded her hands and smiled. "On the condition that he let me drink it with him, since it was for my birth-day." Tobias glanced over as she spoke and Jozie leaned in close to him. "Come on, it's the only way he'd ever let me drink on the job," she whispered conspiritorally. "How about it?"

He tossed the golden sovereign onto the bar and nodded slowly. "I'll share a drink with the lass," he said gruffly.

Jozie clapped her hands merrily and skipped off toward the storeroom below. William leaned forward and glared at Tobias beneath his hood. "Don't you get no funny ideas about my daughter, now." He collected the payment and tucked it under the counter. "She's sharing her birthday present with you, but that don't mean she'll be sharing anything else."

Namerokth cackled above, and Tobias nodded his head slightly. The hood slipped down and covered his eyes. "How boring," he muttered to himself.

[Mutant_Lorenor]

Lorenor noticed as the tavern had grown quite lively at that point.

His face was serious, but completely calm. His glowing blue eyes held a fierce intellect about them. He concluded the journal entry, his eyes observing the gathered. Many of the adventurers appeared to be quite skilled. As Lorenor sat there in silence, he drank of the chalice of water he'd ordered. He never did care for alcoholic beverages. They poisoned the body, and he needed to be strong in his war 'gainst N'Jal. Lorenor closed his journal and replaced it back in his packs. He was hungry. He'd also noticed that the rain continued to downpour outside. Thaynes. That's a serious fucking storm outside. Wonder how long it's gonna last? He thought to himself as he sat there casually observing. His eyes met with the eyes of several patrons. They were simply adventurer folks who were coming in to avoid the storm outside. As Lorenor carefully observed the scene, he closed his eyes. The glow seemed to vanished for a brief moment, casting a shadow on his face.

There were some pretty women present, and Lorenor nodded at a few of them.

One or two...the Paladin wouldn't have minded bedding that night.

Lorenor relaxed against the comfortable chairs, listening to the sound of lively chatter in the tavern.

He also was listening to the sound of the rain on the window. It had a strangely calming effect on his troubled heart. Lorenor signaled for Jozie or whatever her name was to his table. "I'd like some food. What beef do you serve here?" Lorenor didn't really need to eat being Undead, but he wanted something to do. Food was as good a way to pass the time as any other. "I mean what is the house specialty?" Lorenor asked of the girl. He waited for her response and decided he would listen until it was all taken care of. The Paladin had money, gold was never an issue. He'd accumulated a large chunk of it in his adventures across Corone.

[Revenant]

“My soul was twisted long before this one joined me,” William’s lips twisted into a malevolent grin. “And what makes you think I want to get rid of it?”

He closed his eyes, letting the strands of void tied to his soul reach out across the bar. There was magic here, plenty of it. Magic of all varieties. So much magic that it was easy for his cursed nature to caress the edges. Where it did the woven strands loosened, making all the magic in the Silver Cup Tavern more erratic and unstable. Prone to warping in random, chaotic ways or else winking out entirely.

“That poor soul is simply one of the essences bound to me,” William explained. “And it, like all the others, has its perks.”

William sunk further into his seat, relaxing more and watching the tavern room with a renewed interest.

[SpudNotSpuddy]

The door flung open, and a stiff cold breeze blew into the tavern as a hooded man clad in blue stepped inside. He hovered in the doorway, drenched in water as he panted deeply, his breath hanging in air as fog regardless of temperature. His icy blue eyes scanned the room, seeing all sorts of ruffians, villains, and ragamuffins. His hand went to his blade instinctively before his other went to the pouch at his hip.

“Is this a good place for you little friend?” Jack Frost asked, his words leaving his lips as fog.

“Yessir!” A tiny voice chirped as a furry snout poked out of the satchel. “Thanks for the ride, my butt gets all stinky when I get wet.” The frozen butcher of Salvar let out a brief chuckle as a large otter scampered almost impossibly out of the bag at his hip. Spud the otter plopped onto the ground clumsily, and the mercanry passed the satchel to the large otter.

“I have a ship to catch, be careful my furry friend.” With that, Jack Frost vanished back into the rain, slamming the door shut behind him, leaving Spud to look sheepishly at the crowd. He adjusted his bright orange jumper, and shouldered his satchel before taking off towards the bar. Ignoring everyone else, he simply scampered up onto the counter and sat cross legged, tucking his tail in his lap.

“Escuse me.” He said to no one in particular. “What bevvies youse gotz?” He waggled his tail a little and pondered for a moment. “Alzo, do you serves taterz? I have many coins!”

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

I followed Hyperion's gnarled finger to see who she had spotted in the crowd.

The figure was sitting along the far wall, and was immediately recognizable--and not because the unique shade of his hair and iconic constantly-agitated looks.

Lichensith Ulroke, former master of the Crimson Hands. A man who I have a storied and checkered past with. The one who sent me to Eiskalt to murder thousands for some ill-defined endgame, the reason I'm a twisted husk of vines and bone today. A man who currently wore a ring of vines around his heart to keep him in line, which I honestly forgot I planted there... gosh, how long ago was it?

After usurping control of the Crimson Hands from him, the tiefling Aurelianus Drak'shal--there's another name I haven't thought of in a while--and I imprisoned the silver-haired assassin and forced him to undergo a little re-education and released him a year later.

And here he is.

Had he been hunting me down? Had he been stalking me all this time?

Most people would have run right then and there. However, I felt oddly compelled to sit down at his table and catch up with the old bastard.

Someone called my name and snapped my attention back towards the bar. I recognized the voice--it came from a young woman, not exactly bubbly but otherwise not dull. She stood behind the counter, looking at me inquisitively. Rayleigh Aston. A highly-intelligent little thing, good with machines and well-read. Once, she accidentally found herself in the middle of a biological experiment gone wrong, and we were able to escape the doomed village before our skulls were caved in by the subjects and our brains consumed.

I opened my mouth to reply, and glanced back over at the assassin. He hadn't moved an inch, his steely gaze still fixed on me.

I turned back to Rayleigh. "Um, hi, yes, Rayleigh, it's good to see you again." I awkwardly stumbled over my words, already looking to get away from her. Not that I would have wanted to, of course; she's a charming young thing. It was just that I had more pressing matters to attend to.

"Look," I said. "This is Hyperion, my assistant." The briarbane immediately glanced at me, a confused look in her glowing amber eyes. "I don't think you've met her? Can you keep her company for a bit? I have someone I need to see right now."

I pulled Hype by her shoulder and pushed her into the bar. "I'll be back, I swear!"

Without waiting for a response, I turned and pushed my way through the crowd until I was at Lichensith's table. But now that I was here, what would I do? What would I say? I mean, the man kind of ruined my life and all; but it could be argued that I took away the purpose of his own, what with everything that happened after Eiskalt...

After several moments, I motioned towards an empty chair. "May I?"

[Fez_The_Kid]

Lightning streaks danced to the booms of thunder, coloring a weeping empyrean in a lurid blue stain. Mild winds howled across a gloomy Scara Brae landscape. Between the cobbles that formed the high road, rainwater coursed through uneven grooves, a flowing stream disturbed only by the hooves of Anubis’ mare; its footfall was drowned under the rumbles overhead, but in the youth’s ear they registered with a repeating click. Shifting in his saddle, he guided his mount down the wet cobblestones.

A small figure raced across the road in a hazy dash, before disappearing into the undergrowth. Spooked, the mare reared, neighed its displeasure as it thrust its dark frame into the night sky. “Calm down,” Anubis urged, tracing a rune with his index and middle fingers. The spell traveled like a pale, revolving quarrel that marked the horse's hairy scruff. It then landed back on its forefeet, shook its drenched mane.

The youth pulled at the reins, guiding the beast to a stop. Distant laughter from a nearby establishment faintly surfaced, the sound growing clearer with each stride taken toward its source - a preeminent travelers’ inn. After hitching his horse at a nearby post, Anubis approached the entrance, his body a drenching mess.

A score of travelers had scattered across the room, hunched over tabletops holding tankards brimming with the bitterest Salvic ales; Anubis had just recalled - he’d had been to this tavern before. Ah, yeah, how could I forget... Merka and I'd just out to rescue Siranna.

A fusion of alcohol and stew hung in the air as one tonic bouquet. Cooking instruments and pots clattered together in the kitchen as armed men and women sat in wait, jawing away about local gossip and unfounded canards. They leveled him but a glimpse as he passed, searching for an empty table between the clutter of its occupied brethren.

There, he thought. That one oughta work. Anubis approached one beside the hearth, sat with a heavy thud. That’s traveling with minimal sleep for you, he mused, his mouth wearing a half-smile to none other than himself, then raised a hand for the waitress.