Almost immediately a dozen steel blades appeared in the hands of Tony's crowd, the eyes of his assembled guests narrowing darkly they moved to approach the black-clad old man who'd dare stumble into their meeting. Teric stopped smiling and blinked rapidly several times, wondering why in the world he couldn't seem to focus on any of the armed men and women stalking him down from across the tavern.

"Woah, easy folks." Tony placed himself between the blade-toting rebels and Teric, his arms outstretched. "This is Teric Barton, the man we were just planning to free from prison." That statement drew a few mummers from the crowd, the people still gathered leaning in to talk to their neighbors. There was a lot of grumbling, some finger pointing, and some nodding, but the people seemed to take Tony at his word.

"What's he doing here?" One of the armed rebels asked Tony, jabbing a finger at Teric. "He broke himself loose or something?"

"How should I know?" Tony shot back, turning from his brothers-in-arms to face his friend. "Teric, what do you mean you're here to kill... are you ok?" The barkeep's words trailed off into a question, but they were all a mumbled mess to Teric, who was finding it harder and harder to stand up. The burning in his stomach, what he had originally believed to be the pains of a glorious meal, was intensifying, and not lessening - as one would expect it to as the food was digested. The burning made the bile rise in the old warrior's throat, bringing a panicked look to his face.

"I don't feel so..." The veteran made a gagging, choking noise as he vomited, emptying the half-digested contents of his stomach onto the floor on the tavern. The people gathered in the room started, jumping back from the old mercenary as if he carried the plague. Teric stumbled to his knees, almost falling face first in his own puke as the haziness in front of his eyes worsened.

"What's wrong?" Tony's voice seemed far away, as if the man was calling to him from deep inside a cave. "What happened to you?"

I don't know. Teric wanted to answer, but he thought the words rather than spoke them as another heave sent more of his dinner onto the floor. The smell of bile was everywhere, surrounding Teric as it clawed at his eyes and his nostrils. The stench burned like sulfur, and the third time Teric vomited, he vomited blood.

"I think I've been poisoned." The mercenary's brow furrowed in concern as the words spilled from his mouth alongside the blood and bile trickling down his chin. There wasn't any sense of urgency or fear in the old man's voice, just a tone of surprise. The look on his face was like that of a small child who doesn't understand what's happening, and no matter how hard he tried, Teric just couldn't seem to focus long enough to care.

"That was fast." Those were the last words that slipped out of Teric's mouth as he passed out, falling forward into his own mess as darkness rushed in around him.