Dirty Work

[Rayse Valentino]

Open to one or more. Post in the thread if you're interested; My PM box is perpetually full.

Fifty miles from the Aleran-Salvic Kachuckian border, the little town of Asmoria had become a bustling trading city. With the derailment of the inter-continental railroad, there were new opportunities in a land devoid of law enforcement and brimming with desperate people. It was easier than ever to exploit people.

Makeshift shacks and huge, empty buildings marked a new age of despair. Dozens of wagons entered and exited the city on a daily basis, their contents unknown and their destinations to foreign lands. The hilly environment helped conceal the activities of the town, although not many prying eyes were left after the war.

"Emilio Garaan," Rayse said, leaning against the wall in a brand new, window-less building with maze-like walls. Several lamps were mounted on pedestals, giving what little light they could. Even in broad daylight, the despair of darkness filled the minds of anyone who entered. After all, this was a slavery ring. He wore a bandanna and sunglasses to conceal his appearance. His usual arrangement of clothes was replaced by a green blazer and half-torn cotton pants. There was no getting rid of his shiny, black oxford shoes however. He simply wasn't a businessman without them.

"What d'ya want, man?" Emilio replied. He was a man with a thin mustache, a bald spot at the top of his head, a long brown jacket, and pressed pants tucked into fancy white shoes. "Can't you see that we're running late on the latest shipment?"

Rayse took a drag on his cigarette, "Tell me about this new drug they're bringing in."

"Oh, that," Emilio walked over to Rayse. They were in a room filled with basic furniture and more light than the rest of the warehouse. It was a command room of sorts, guarded at the entrance by several thugs and filled with important documents detailing their operation. At the first sign of trouble, this whole room was to be torched. "It's called 'Grow'. Apparently hot off the laboratories in Ettermire."

"I see," Rayse replied, taking the cigarette out of his mouth and spinning it on the tip of his finger. "So, the nobles intend to use it to control people. With the devalued currency, looks like you could hook quite a few people into taking this drug instead."

"I hear it makes your dick bigger too," Emilio smiled, displaying his half-rotten, half-golden teeth.

Rayse cringed, turning away from his business partner. With the rising needs of labor in Aleran factories and the sudden case of poverty that afflicted Salvar, The Contractor found himself in a unique position to sell his impoverished people to the elves. It was dirty work, but he realized long ago that he couldn't achieve his goals without it. This operation was in Emilio's name, and Rayse wasn't even known to be connected to it in any way. He couldn't be tied up in this nonsense if he wanted to make The Company into a world power. He let Emilio handle day-to-day operations and took a large cut, mainly because of his large investment of money. This irritated his business partner, but he endured it for now.

Deciding to see how things were going, Rayse left the room, nodded to the guards, and went to where all the action was. Lines of poor people, blindfolded and wearing only the minimal amount of clothing, assaulted his senses. Blood, sweat, and tears filled the small walled-off tunnels that the people moved through, oblivious of their surroundings. They were like cattle. One of the women fell down and prompted a thug to whip her back up, which caused Rayse to intervene and grab the whip out of the thug's hands.

"What is your fucking problem?" yelled the thug, ready to pull out his shiv and shank The Contractor.

"Forget about it," Emilio said, coming out of the planning room himself. He pulled the thug aside and told him not to hit any women in the Bandanna Man's presence.

"T-thank you," said the tired, beaten woman.

"Save your hope," replied Rayse, walking away. "You'll need it for ten years." It seems he still had a contradictory chivalrous attitude towards women. Despite shipping them off into slavery, he couldn't stand to see them in harm in his sight. It was a hang-up from his childhood. He turned to Emilio, "I'm outta here. Get your hands on some 'Grow' before all the nobles do."

"Sure thing," Emilio smiled insidiously. He wasn't going to take orders from Rayse for much longer.

[Revenant]

Salvar, William thought, is a broken place full of broken people. He let his finger absent-mindedly trace the outline of an old graffiti scratch on the top of the bar table he sat at while he mused. It was plain to any observer’s eye that William’s observations were correct, and that the soul-draining wars that had rocked the nation had left the people of Salvar with a listless spirit and a blank look in their eye. They were like whipped dogs, forever dreading the heavy-handed slap that they had been conditioned to know was coming. It didn’t help matters that the natives were left with no protection from the outsiders who descended upon them like carrion vultures, swooping down on blighted wings to glut themselves on the bloated corpse of a dying nation. But the vultures only feasted because the dying beast of Salvar was too weak to throw them off, a fact which William knew would never come if things in the nation stayed on their current course. Salvar would crack and shatter under the weight of its own demise, and like many nation’s, its name would be lost to the ever ebbing tides of history.

But the fate of Salvar and its people weren’t William’s concern. At this point, the revenant was nothing more than a weary traveler letting his feet rest for a while in the border town of Asmoria. His meandering journey had taken him far from the ice-gripped plains of Berevar to the north, and would continue within a day or two out of Salvar and into the Dark Elven stronghold of Alerar. It had been a long and wearying journey, trekking alone across the entirety of Salvar’s poverty ravaged landscape. More than once, the roving warrior found himself beset by thugs and highwaymen seeking any scrap of wealth they could get their hands on. To them, a lone traveler in sturdy, well-kept clothing must have been like a gift from the Thayne to their coin purse. But William was a living weapon, the essence of human and demon magically forged together into a single entity, and the bandits had proven to be nothing more than a minor nuisance in his path. Still, the sheer volume of them that he had had to wade through on his trip had left him exhausted and glad to be leaving the decaying, broken country of Salvar behind him.

“Didja hear about Ferris’ daughter?” William tried to tune out the conversation coming from the two ragged drunks sitting a bench down, but the liquor was already flowing through the two men and it had turned the volume of their voices up until William had no way to block it out.

“Heard she gone missing bout a week ago,” the second drunk leaned conspiratorially into his companion, unaware that the entire common room could hear what they were ‘whispering’. “Why, what have you heard?”

The first man glanced around him with bloodshot eyes, though if he took notice that half the tavern was tuned in to their conversation, he made no show of it. “Word is that she’s been taken to by the slavers to be sold off to the pointies.” Hearing the conversation, the bartender nodded to one of the serving girls who hurried over to put a hush to the two men, though the damage had already been done.

Slavers, huh, William grunted at the thought. He had been bound into slavery and forced to fight by the sorcerer that had created him had soured William’s attitude towards forced bondage, though he was not surprised in the least to hear that the practice was happening in the poverty-stricken ghetto these people called a county.

“That look on your face says you’ve just smelled something rotten, stranger,” a thin, easy-going voice spoke up behind William.

“Your whole damned country smells rotten,” William replied from the edge of his glass of dark ale, not even bothering to look at the intruding speaker. He hoped that his very apparent hostility would be enough to get the man to shove off. It wasn’t.

“Not my country,” the man snorted derisively, as if the thought were darkly humorous, “and not yours either, from the looks of you.” William’s burning orbs stared hard at the pencil-mustached, slightly balding man who had taken the liberty of pulling a chair up alongside William’s table. “But even if you’re not from Salvar, that look I saw on your face just now told me that you’ve got a serious dislike for the notion of human trafficking, a personal dislike if I’m not mistaken.”

“You are mistaken,” William’s voice had dropped to a low grumble, “and I’m not interested.”

“Not even if I can tell you and three other ‘concerned citizens’ exactly where the head bastard is going to be tonight?”

William’s first instinct we to slam his glass into the bridge of the man’s nose, but he pushed that away. Here at least was an opportunity for him to turn his demonic aggression to positive ends, and William felt like he needed to have at least one fond memory of Salvar for all the effort he had put into crossing it.

“You’ve got thirty seconds,” William nodded, settling back into his chair, “start talking.”

[Rayse Valentino]

"It's a simple matter," Emilio began, his sly tongue worming through the sentences. "I give you four a down payment of 30 crowns, and after the kill 300 to each of you. If any of you betrays us or tries to run off with the down payment, I'm paying 200 to the one that slits the traitor's throat." In a land where every coin was now sacred, trust was hard to buy. Hiring multiple mercenaries and introducing consequences was Emilio's style. This also gave the mercenaries the notion that the job was easy enough for one of them, but the extras were just for security, so it was low risk. "I'm sure that won't be an issue, but we don't have the old honor system like we used to. What do you say?"

Meanwhile, Rayse was taking care of some loose ends. Across town, he was visiting a propped up shanty with a couple of his men. He knocked on the door, and a half-starved man with bags under his eyes opened the door.

"Ah, you're here," he said weakly.

In the little one room shack lived an entire family, with grandparents as well. They were all wearing rags, the walls looked like they would crumble at any moment, and looks of fear and confusion flooded the faces of the dwellers inside. Rayse pressed his sunglasses against his face and told the man to hurry up. An equally-dirty woman exited with the man, but a little girl grabbed her ragged skirt.

"Daddy! Mommy!" she yelled, with only a faint idea of what was going on. "Where are you going?"

"Ah, sorry about that," the man apologized to Rayse. He bent down and put his hand on the girl's head. "Mommy and daddy are going away for a bit. Be good to your grandparents, alright?"

The little girl nodded and Rayse instructed to take them away. It wasn't unusual nowadays for families to sell themselves into slavery voluntarily. There was no work in towns like these and food was becoming scarce. Rayse felt no remorse.

"Why?" the little girl piped up after her parents had left. "Why did they have to go?"

Rayse took off his sunglasses and looked into her eyes, "Their fates were already written for them."

Some time later, he found himself in a derelict structure that used to function as an opera house before the war. Before the grand stage, all of the chairs were torn off. The stage itself had holes in its wooden frame, and the whole place reeked of something rotten. He wondered why Emilio asked him to inspect this location. It was of no use to him, since it was likely to collapse under the slightest strain. He stood up on the stage and walked over to the thin paper wall at its back. Each step of his creaked and shuddered the surface below.

He pulled out a cigarette and lit it, exhaling smoke into the air, "This was a waste of time."

[Revenant]

“Yes it was,” William’s gravelly voice replied as he and the three other hired killers entered the opera house. William had been given the lead position, drawing their target’s attention towards him while the other three men slinked in from varied entryways to block off the slaver’s egress. It was a decision that William took with practiced ease.

“You’re no idiot, from the look of you,” William continued, watching his companions maneuver their way from the shadows to surround the slaver, “I’m sure you know what we’re here for.”

He could tell that his fellow assassins, whose names William hadn’t even bothered to learn, were already counting the heavy weight of their blood-money in their hands as they closed in. They were thieves and rats, all of whom wanted nothing more than to stick their target with knives and then collect their pay. While William had accepted the hefty fee Emilio offered, he alone wasn’t doing this solely for the cold, hard coin. And, he supposed, he was the only one who actually watched their target. The man was scum, that was certain, but he also moved with a practiced ease and grace that told William that he wouldn’t be the easy mark that Emilio had led them to believe.

And that’s the whole crux of the matter, he thought. The fee that Emilio was putting up for this hit seemed rather high to William, even for the local slave master. Seeing their target in the flesh made William wonder just what Emilio was getting out of this and whether a bag of gold awaited them should they succeed or if a knife in the back would be their reward. The latter was the most likely case, but William suspected that their group wasn’t even supposed to get that far. The thugs that even now closed in on the slaver seemed like brutish savages compared to their target; surely Emilio knew that as well. More likely than not, there was another, more experienced group of killers waiting for William and his compatriots to draw out some of their target’s strength.

But looks could be deceiving, and if Emilio thought that William was just another thug for hire then he would think again when he saw just what William had to offer. Sallow light glinted off the long, dull blades in the hands of the other three assassins, but William’s hands remained empty and twitching, as if the revenant could already feel the steel-hard bone claws of his demonic power pushing through his skin.

[Rayse Valentino]

Rayse's silence left the still air unperturbed. He turned around to meet this new challenger, looking him over with sudden skepticism. William's presence threw him off. There was something off about him. Maybe it was his bright, glowing blood-orange eyes. Maybe it was the hints of what appeared to be haphazard black tattoo lines anywhere his skin protruded from his clothes. To Rayse, appearances were everything, and when something looked out of place, there was a chance... a slim chance...

He could be a Fateless.

Of course, the odds of that were astronomically low. Of all the people in the world, Rayse estimated that the amount who he could consider 'Fateless' numbered in the hundreds. They were people who could pose a threat to him; they had the potential to be his greatest allies. Rayse believed that they possessed the power to change the world.

However, he was doubtful that one of them would find him here. Not only that, but to be accompanied by...

'We?' he thought, his eyes darting to and fro. Despite their sneakiness, Rayse could tell he was being surrounded by an unknown amount of assailants due to the squeaking from the floor.

...Common thugs, rather than simply seeking him alone, maybe this was just a misunderstanding on his part. After all, not everyone who looks funny was a Fateless. This was just a coincidence.

Rayse looked up at one of the furthest entrances, "Emilio, I know you're up there. You wouldn't want to miss all the action, would you?"

Turning the corner, Emilio came out with a wicked grin sprawled across his face. He wasn't the least bit surprised that The Contractor knew that this was his doing.

"Hmhmhm," Emilio chortled. "Aren't you gonna try to persuade them? Tell them something like 'he's the REAL slaver here!' or some garbage?"

"Why, and spoil such an opportunity?" said Rayse anxiously, reaching into his pocket and pulling out what looked like a tightly-wrapped ball of purple thread. "I was thinking of finding some poor saps and trying this out on them, but it's not really my style to be so low class. After all, the intention is for self-defense. I figured you would try to double-cross me eventually."

Emilio was absolutely furious at Rayse's reaction. Not only was he nonplussed by this whole affair, but he was downright anticipating it! The balding slaver slammed his fist into the rotting wall, sending wood chips falling to the ground and letting loose some stored up dust.

"Just kill him already!" he yelled. "I'm sick of that smug attitude of his."

Rayse fiddled with the ball of threads in his right hand, attaching a small noose around his middle finger. From his experiences, he could feel certain premonitions from people sneaking up on him. A sense of foreboding, always accompanied by a tiny hint of evidence. William's diversion was meant to make Rayse face him, after all, which meant...

He suddenly turned around, hiding the fact that there was a brief flash of light hidden in his hand. Extending his hand suddenly, a bright ball of white was flicked from his palm, tearing through the paper wall and striking the assassin behind it. There was a blast, another short display of brightness and a scream of pain, and the ball of light rebounded back into Rayse's hand. It was his spidersilk yo-yo, a new weapon meant to conceal his true abilities.

That is what this was all about to him. If he could fight without showing anyone that he was fused to the element of fire, then no one would draw the parallel between him and one of the vanquishers of Denebriel. More importantly, no one would consider him a magi, which was a term that became akin to a slur due to the war. Denebriel was not the goddess people thought she was, but simply a magi.

The man fell through through the paper wall, making the whole thing fall down on top of him as he clutched his bleeding gut in agony. Having the flesh seared off one's chest would normally illicit such a response. The other assassins did not capitalize on this new development, being too stunned by the ordeal to make their moves. William, however, was different. A difference that sought Rayse to target him next.

He turned to William and dropped the burning yo-yo, but it did not hit the ground. It hovered above the ground, spinning in place, with an almost-invisible thread running from it to Rayse's hand.

"Why you're here? That's not important," Rayse finally replied to the glowing eyes man. "Ask yourself this: Why am I here?"

With a jerk, the yo-yo whipped back into his hand. The follow-up motion of him extending his hand at William as if he was saluting him sent the yo-yo flying toward the outspoken one.

[Revenant]

William watched the slaver’s hand, waiting for the snap that would send the blazing projectile hurtling towards him. It was an odd weapon the likes of which William had never seen before. But though the revenant had seen much in his travels, things that any sane man would deem impossible, the unexpected always lurked just around the corner to pounce on the man that let his guard down. Besides, the wailing moan from the first of his three companions to fall attested to the thing’s deadly efficiency. Though the weapon looked more like a child’s toy than an instrument of death, William was the first to acknowledge that things weren’t always what they seemed at first look.

The thing came fast, a spiraling ball of fire and energy that seemed to jump from the slaver’s hand towards him. It came so fast that, despite his observation, William nearly missed the motion. But demonic power coursed through William’s veins, power that gave him strength and speed above anything a normal man could expect, and that power ignited under the touch of his warrior’s instinct. William was moving even before his mind could actively order it, dropping under the sizzling orb and diving into a defensive roll that took him behind a rank of worn, tattered opera seats.

Emilio was shrieking now, an incoherent string of curses that drowned out even the pain filled wails of the dying thug behind the paper curtain. “Kill him,” the weasel shouted, “kill him now.” Again and again. William supposed that it was possible that the remaining two thugs could kill the slaver, but it was more likely that Salvar would disappear beneath the waves before the coming of the next dawn. William felt nothing for the men who would find themselves on the Pyre before another minute had passed. Instead, the revenant felt the power locked within his core and pulsing at the tips of his fingers. It begged for release and William was not going to deny it the freedom that it craved.

Demonic power flooded through William’s body, blackened lines of corruption spreading quickly to cover his body with a shell of thick, charred flesh. This was what he was here for; this was why he had accepted the worm’s blood money. He was once again a living weapon, forged through infernal magic with the sole purpose of destruction. And it was time to fulfill his purpose. Emilio’s incoherent shrieks turned first to shock and then to triumph as the demonic figure of the transformed William rose from behind the covering seats.

“Why you’re here doesn’t matter,” William snarled in a voice that ground like charcoal, “All that matters is destruction.”

The restraining bolts that held the rusted, broken chair before William in place snapped with a squeal of protest as the inhuman strength of behind William’s steel-hard bone claws tore it free and sent it arcing through the air towards the slaver.

[Rayse Valentino]

The yo-yo hit the spot where William stood, bringing with it a flash of light and a quick blast that shook the old opera house. Trails of dust fell from the ceiling, and the ground Rayse stood on squeaked under the force of his shoes. The weapon rebounded back into his hand, where he squeezed it hard to choke the fire engulfing the ball of threads.

'Shit! I wonder if he thinks that was a fireball or something. I'm supposed to look less like a magi, not the other way around. Time for plan B.'

He slipped the yo-yo back into his pocket and cut the noose around his finger with a fingernail. The blood in his body began circulating faster and faster, until his skin almost seemed to stick to his flesh. He looked at William and anticipated the broken chair he had thrown.

'I can dodge this... wait. If I dodge it, I'll look like a magi won't I? What would a normal sell-sword do? No shit. They would dodge it, but not the way I usually do.'

Unfortunately for Rayse, it was too late to dodge this thing like a normal man. He wrapped his arms around his head, turned to his left side, and braced himself. The chair slammed into his figure, his feet sliding along the floor and the chair almost sticking to him for a moment before falling down onto the stage floor. He let his guard down and a stream of blood trickled down his right arm, which took the brunt of the force. However, the cuts were only skin-deep. His sunglasses fell to the ground and he ripped the bandanna off his head. The Contractor was pissed.

'That fucking hurt! Looks like this body ain't perfect yet.'

Despite making his skin as hard as steel, there were still a few flaws in his ability. Not only that, but his assailant had been replaced by some sort of devil.

Taking advantage of the confusion, one of the assassins burst from the shadows behind one of the tattered curtains that lined the sides of the stage, brandishing a dagger that aimed for Rayse's back. Without even looking or turning, The Contractor caught the man's forearm with his left hand, completely stopping him in place. The assassin's surprise turned to pain as he felt his forearm burn as if someone had pressed it against a burning stove. He didn't scream, but he bit down on his lip and tried to pry himself from Rayse's grip.

The Contractor would grant his request, but followed it with a swift kick to the assassin's chest, sending him flying back whence he came. There was a slight, almost unnoticeable metallic noise as the kick occurred. The remaining mercenary was still nowhere to be seen, so he was left here with this freaky monster and Emilio. The monster's words were filled with sadistic urges, which were irritating for Rayse to notice.

He looked up at the slaver who looked like he had a new lease on life, "What the fuck are you doing? Hiring demons? Did you sell your soul or something?"

Emilio drooled with anticipation, eager to see Rayse crushed into little pieces. He didn't seem the least bit concerned that he was in over his head.

'Then again...'

This was the perfect chance to try out his new body. He punched his right fist into his left palm, cracking his neck and letting his rage boil over.

"You know, I'm starting to like the way you think."

He jumped off the stage, landing on a space before one of the chairs and breaking into a sprint. He cleared a path through an empty section of the chairs, holding his left hand up as a guard with his right fist at his side, ready to pull it back and thrust it at William.

[Revenant]

There’s no fear in him, William noted the slaver’s actions approvingly. The man was faced with an unknown number of assassins and, if William understood correctly, had been betrayed by an associate and yet his calm demeanor had never wavered in the slightest.

Not entirely true, because hitting him with a chair broke him calm, William amended. It pissed him off.

What impressed William the most, however, was the complete lack of fear in the man’s eyes when presented with proof of William’s demonic nature. There were too many times that the revenant riled up the heat in his blood only to see the object of his bloodlust devolve into a whimpering mass at the mere sight of his power. While such occurrences didn’t keep William from slaughtering the gibbering fools, they disheartened the revenant. He just didn’t feel the same thrill in tearing the life from a simpering weakling as he did from a worthy, defiant opponent. Him, his thoughts lingered on the slaver, he shows promise.

But something felt off about the man as well. Between his unorthodox choice of weaponry, the unnatural scream that his grip elicited in the second thug that he had dealt with, and the apparent ease with which he had shrugged off being struck with an opera seat, William felt his combat instinct screaming for him to be wary. His normal mode of close quarters combat was to just let his rage take over and tear into his opponent with bestial savagery, letting his supernatural physique and healing ability absorb and repair whatever damage his opponent managed to throw his way. But reason told him that to fight that way this time would be folly. And yet the blood rage savaged within him and the weight of the red tide, as always, bore down on his mind.

“Be silent, worm,” he hissed at Emilio, tired of the man’s gibbering, “Or you will find that no matter what the outcome of this contest, you will share the fate of the loser.” The revenant cared little if he offended the man’s sympathies, or if his blatant threat wrote away Emilio’s promised blood money. There would be little room for distraction here and William had honestly become annoyed with the imperious way with which the man commanded him. And so he threatened the man, though his threat was patently false. William was going to end the fat slob’s life regardless of whether the man silenced himself now or not.

When found that there was no more time to be had for idle chatter or threats as he turned his attention back to his target. The man came on like a bull, all muscle and fury thrown forward in a headlong charge. William smiled savagely, a hint of fanged teeth flashing from between his charred lips. This was it, where he felt most at home, where he felt most alive. This was the purpose that he had been created for. Care for life and death faded into obscurity in the face of the joy of combat.

Overcome by the raw emotion of the moment, William uttered a single long, ferocious snarl and, completely forgetting his mental warning in the heat of passion, leapt a counter-charge at the oncoming slaver, stretching his razor sharp talons to flay the man’s flesh from the bones of his leading arm.

[Rayse Valentino]

Permission to potentially use Kapteyn in this thread? edit: Got a confirmation via PM.

A small bead of sweat dropped down Emilio's cheek. It had just occurred to him that the demon may have not only been suddenly disinterested in collecting payment, but aiming to take the life of his employer. The balding slaver decided to dip out of the opera house calmly, instead intently watching from across the street. It was a shame that he would not personally see Rayse suffer, but his own welfare came first.

Rayse continued his assault, unfazed by the reckless retaliation of the demon. He caught the claws in his view as they approached his left arm, confident that they would prove ineffective against his reforged body. When such a foolish attack would fail, he would have such a good shot at virtually anywhere on the demon's body. Using their combined momentum, he was likely to not only rip through the craggy exterior but maybe puncture through entirely with his fist.

However, this was only an expectation that was fulfilled against normal, non-Fateless opponents. The claws made contact with his leading arm, and in the heat of the moment he could feel them clashing against his skin. It wasn't until this point that he considered that the claws may have been made of stern stuff, and that the demon possessed considerable strength. When the demon jumped at him, he stopped his own movement and dug his feet into the ground. Pulling back his right fist, his teeth were gnashing on his cigarette and in his eyes were the reflection of the demonic man and his thirst for blood.

If his arm was strong enough, he would have his attack without worry. If this was just a regular assassin, this battle was over.

The Contractor could feel it in his gut. The demon's steel claws started to carve into his skin, and he thought about the tests he performed in secret. He cut through a stack of iron plates, he even smashed a hammer against the back of his hand. He was sure that his skin was now as durable as steel, but what would happen if something of similar quality was thrust against it with enough force? The answer was simple:

They would both break.

In the demon's case, it was just some claws, but for Rayse...

He shifted his body weight, ducked, and jumped out of the way of the attack, crashing into a couple of knocked over audience chairs. The claws scraped against his left forearm as he dodged, creating several parallel gashes that extended to his elbow. He got up and pressed his right palm against the wounds, but the cuts were ultimately only skin-deep and did not bleed greatly. He felt the sting from the cuts on now both his arms, but they were nothing compared to all the dust in the air affecting his senses and the confusion in his mind. He wasn't sure if the claws would give way before his skin, but he wasn't about to experiment.

'I'm not a damn masochist!'

What the hell was going on, anyway? He never thought that a demon could be a Fateless. Maybe all demons were? He actually had very little experience with them. Also, why was he human at first? A disguise to blend in? Not only that, but Rayse felt a strange warmth when he was near the demon. Maybe an ice demon would be out this far, but it was clearly no place for something that exhumes so much heat. Since the demon apparently had no regard for his own safety, Rayse returned to mid-range combat, or at least he would try to. If he was forced up close again, he wouldn't be able to keep pretending he wasn't a magi.

He quickly reached for his wrists and pulled the bracelets down, revealing tightly-wrapped purple thread at the base of his hands. With his hands pulling at the others' respective threads, he produced two long threads hanging from his arms. With a flick of his fingers, both of the threads were lit, turning his arms into the base for fiery whips.

It was then that the final assassin made a break for the front door of the opera house, attempting to run along the side of the room where there were no chairs. He had spent the last minute or so trying to find an exit through the black, but it was all blocked by old debris.

'Leaving so soon? Take a damn seat and enjoy the show.'

Rayse turned around and flung one of the whips at him, wrapping it around the mercenary's leg and pulling it back, causing the man to trip and fall down. The assassin quickly reached for his leg but couldn't bring his hands near the flames surrounding the whip, instead opting to attempt to unbuckle his pants to get rid of the constricted clothing. Before he could even start, however, he felt his body being dragged along the floor.

"So," said Rayse, turning his body back toward William while pulling at the whip with both hands, the other whip lying limp on the ground. "Where the fuck are you from?!"

With a thrust, he dragged the now screaming assassin off the ground by his leg and in a circular motion, flung the man at the demon.

[Revenant]

Everything reconnected the moment William’s outstretched claws made contact with the slaver’s skin. The warning his instinct screamed at him returned to cut through the red tide of his demonic rage, leaving William with a cold, hard pit in the center of his gut. One touch from his razor-sharp claws should have flayed the man’s flesh away like chaff flailed from wheat. But where the flesh should have been soft and yielding, the steel hard bone of William’s claws slid the length of the man’s arm as if it were heavy armor with no more effect than to leave a light gash.

Thaynes be damned, he cursed, all of his instincts were proven right in a single impetuous swipe. His bloodlust and rage got the best of him and now he was inside the guard of a man that had proven far more deadly than he could have imagined. But instead of taking the strike, the man disengaged, apparently having the same second thoughts that William was.

What the hell is this guy made out of? the revenant thought as he pitched forward, thrown off without the slaver’s weight counterbalancing him. Overextended, William crashed to the moth eaten velvet opera carpet. He was like a dropped brick compared to the darting slaver and the dilapidated wood panels beneath him bowed and cracked as he fell, throwing up a cloud of ancient dust. “Damn,” he coughed through the dust cloud and jumped back to his feet. The fine grit clung to the charred throat like sandpaper but it more of an annoyance than a hindrance.

The slaver had somehow manifested twin flaming whips in the brief second that William was down and was using them to terrible effect on the third would-be assassin. Had he been the slaver, William would have used the split second his fall provided to attack the revenant and finish the fight. For some reason though, the slaver had decided to deal with the thug rather than strike William down. Now that William had seen a glimpse of the slaver’s true power he knew that the man had never been a true threat to the slaver, something he assumed Emilio hadn’t known when he started this betrayal. The fat weasel struck William as an opportunist of the worst kind and would doubtless have put his greasy skin on the line if he had known even a fragment of the true power his ‘business associate’ possessed.

There was little time left for William to ponder the intricacies of what Emilio had or had not known though, as the slaver heaved the screaming thug in his direction. William slammed his hands into the improvised missile, using his superhuman strength to brace against the impact. The thug’s wailing cry ended in a spray of visceral gore. The blood invigorated William, sent a shiver of thrill running up his spine. The slaver had spoken to him, and though William was not normally given to conversation during a fight he was in a good mood. It also gave him a chance to look for any sign of weakness in his impressive opponent.

“The land I come from is far from here. Far enough that there are few who even know its name,” William growled, picking his way cautiously through the battered seats and keeping an eye on the slaver’s nasty, thrashing fire whips. “But I’ve wandered for so many years that I could hardly call that place my home anymore.”

“And you?” William coughed slightly as he turned the conversation back to the slaver, the dust in his throat catching every now and then. “I’ve never met anyone like you in my years of travel. I’d be worried for my life if there was anything that could permanently harm me.”

“As it is…” William shrugged as his voice trailed into nothing. Every ounce of his molten core screamed for action but William denied it, forcing the same calm demeanor that the slaver showed.

Wait for it, his mind chided the agitation he felt, wait for an opening.

[Rayse Valentino]

'Is he talking about Haidia? For some reason I get the feeling he's not.'

"Me? I'm a home-grown Salvaran, born and raised."

Rayse batted an eyebrow to the remains of the thug, who was entirely unrecognizable. His whip around the assassin's leg had retracted and dangled on the ground. It was by his will that his whips were not burning his surroundings.

Expecting another attack, The Contractor braced himself to get his whips around the demon, but there was no reprisal.

'He must have noticed my priorities,' he thought, referring to the fact that he wanted to make sure nobody got out of here alive. Usually, letting an assassin live would send a strong message for people not to mess with him again, but in this case he wanted to stay incognito. To do that, he had to kill the demon, or...

His eyes scanned the area until he realized that Emilio had bailed, "Looks like our... audience is gone. That's good news for you, because you're smarter than you look." He spit out his cigarette, which was now just a chewed-up butt. He couldn't fight the way he usually did with something like that in his mouth. "These whips are special: Every four feet, there is a small portion that's wrapped in an insulated substance immune to fire. This allows the fire to not reach my arms, and also as a way to tell me to stop pulling at the fifty feet of thread around my arms."

This was not information he would share with Emilio. For all intents and purposes, there was no reason to do this tactic of non-magi fighting anymore. Not only that, but without anyone else here, there was an opportunity for something more. Rayse was sure of it now: This demon is a Fateless.

"Just so you know, this work I'm doing... It's just a means to an end. What I'm aiming for is much bigger. There's a name that's starting to float around of a certain leader of a certain syndicate, a name that I circulated myself: The Don. I'm going to make you an offer you can't refuse." He slowly tilted his head, the flames of his whips reflected in his eyes, absorbed in the darkness of his piercing stare.

"Join me, or die."

[Revenant]

“Well that doesn’t give me much choice, does it?” William chuckled, flashing a shark’s grin at the slaver’s words. He held his claws out and flexed them tauntingly, “Your skin may be tough but I’ll bet it can’t keep me out forever.”

William paused there. Despite the bravado he showed, the man’s offer coiled around the base of his mind like a hungry serpent. As much as he hated the man’s trade, the people of Salvar had shown him nothing that had endeared them into him and their reluctance to stand up and fight for their freedom disgusted him. He certainly wasn’t willing to risk his life for their well-being of people who wouldn’t do it for themselves. While it would take an enormous amount of effort to permanently destroy the revenant, he wasn’t exactly sure that the lashing tendrils of fire twisting around his foe weren’t up to the task. And even if the man couldn’t destroy him permanently it would take months to recover. Three hundred coins and the thanks of a bunch of hand-shy peasants were hardly consolation for that amount of hassle.

“But if what you’re saying about this syndicate is true then I assume that keeping this charade going any longer than it already has will just bring far more trouble than I really want down on my head.” William relaxed his combat posture and stepped in out to stand in front of the musty chair he had been using as cover. All of his instincts, his desire, cried out against the actions he was taking and he idly wondered if anyone in Salvar felt with the same passion that he did.

“I really don’t want that kind of trouble right now.” William forced his power back into his deep core as he spoke, letting his human side fill in the cracks in his flesh and restore his raw flesh to a rosy, healthy pink. “But there is one thing,” William waved a dismissive hand at the ruined mass of the thug he had killed, “I can still feel the desire to destroy pounding through me. I want to kill, and I want to make it messy and painful.”

“Give me the fat man, Emilio, and you have yourself a deal."

[Rayse Valentino]

The Contractor clasped his forehead in his hand, his arm muscles tensing in frustration. He dropped his hand and inhaled deeply through his nose, his head shaking and his eyes refocusing on William. He was disappointed. This man, demon, or whatever, was turning out to be the wrong guy for the job.

"The terms are not negotiable," he said through his teeth.

The killing intent in the demon to take out some hapless little man irritated Rayse. This demon simply didn't understand the kind of organization that The Contractor was trying to create. He didn't consider himself the leader of a bunch of thugs who go around murdering for fun, much less a bunch of ingrates that dared to talk back to him.

However, he kept his cool. A fiery aura formed a border around his figure, and he shook his arms in a circular motion to retract the whips, whose flames died when he slid the bracelets back on top of his wrists.

This was forgivable. After all, up until now there hasn't been a syndicate to come up that was as... advanced as his. Many assumptions were still around from the pre-war crime lord days. He could let this slide, just once.

"If I wanted him dead, then he would be dead already. I do not alter my plans for some damn charcoal de-- Actually, forget about it." Rayse crouched down for a moment and lifted up his pant leg, keeping his eyes focused on William for any sudden moves. He pulled out his knife Kapteyn and tossed it to his left hand. "Let me just tell you something: I hate repeating myself. I also hate weaklings, so tell you what: in approximately one minute, I'm going to give you my offer again. If you're still alive by then, feel free to answer. Got it?

Good."

Breaking into a sprint, he charged at the demon once more. This time, his entire body suddenly disappeared into flames, and the plan was that in the next moment he would reform his body behind William, his right index finger pressed against the small of the revenant's back and ready to trigger his Firearm for a deadly blast.

[Revenant]

So much for trying the human approach, William thought. His compromise was met with the ugliest picture of scorn that William had seen in a long, long time. Despite the extremely generous effort made on William’s part, the two of them would waste their lives in pointless combat after all. It might have dragged a lesser man’s spirit down, but William had been created with no more purpose than to be a living weapon and no amount of the ever growing sense of humanity within him could quell the rush of pleasure that combat brought.

“Have it your way,” William growled as he summoned the full force of his power, once again bringing the demon full to bear on the Salvarian slaver. He moved with inhuman speed, leaping forward in time with the slaver’s charge, a feral grin of violent pleasure plastered across his charred lips. It was to be glorious, primal slaughter; two combatants ripping and tearing at each other until there was nothing left but red ruination.

At least, that was supposed to be how it was.

Mere fractions of a second before the revenant made contact with the slaver, the man burst into flames. The moment struck William as odd not because a human being should suddenly and inexplicably burst into flame, he had seen strange enough things in his life that such a triviality wouldn’t faze him, but that the fire should consume the man so quickly and utterly without burning anything else around him.

“What in the pyre…” William’s mutter of confusion was cut short by a crack and a lance of fire which speared into the small of his back. William’s aura of heat shielded him from minor burns and his thick demonic hide could withstand much more than a man’s flesh could, but even that wasn’t enough to stop the blast that tore into him. Only his forward momentum kept him from being torn completely in half as he moved away from the point of impact. William’s heavy clothes disintegrated under the force of the fiery blast and the revenant was sent hurtling bodily across the broken theater to smash through a moldering banister.

A shriek of torment escaped William’s lips as he thrashed about in the ruined splinters. “Well that settles that,” he croaked when he could get control of himself. The whole of his back had been flayed by the explosion and he was in mind-numbingly agonizing pain. “Looks like I never had a chance against you.” William dragged heaved his body back onto his staggered feet, clamping his jaws shut to prevent another shriek from escaping.

[Rayse Valentino]

The explosion engulfed him, passing over his body like a warm breeze. The flames dispersed, their lively desires to expand stopped short by Rayse's will. His right index finger was smoking like the barrel of a musket.

'Still alive, is he?'

The demon's charred back conjured images in his head of his fight with Denebriel and her First Lieutenant Stefan Tyray. They were not beings that were not bound to the laws of this world, so it took the impossible to defeat them. In terms of Tyray, it was burning him with fires hotter than this world. For Denebriel... he didn't know. The wizard Blueraven is the one who sapped her of all her powers.

A strong flame grew up on Rayse, his whole body glowing with a radiant red aura, "A chance... against me? You think that is what this is about?" He pulled out a carton of cigarettes and lit one off his burning body, sticking it into his mouth and taking a drag while keeping the carton in his right hand. "There are people out there. People who could destroy kingdoms on a whim, people who can tilt fate's dial on this world any which way they want. You don't need to survive against me, you need to survive against them. Because of The Fateless, I am one of the weakest."

He rubbed the sweat from his forehead, his eyes suddenly darting off to a corner. In this quiet, any small sound was a thunderous boom to him. He looked back at William.

"Looks like your minute's up. I don't know who or what you are, but I can tell a reasonable creature when I see one. Since I've caused you some undue influence, I do not want to imply duress. How about this: This is a town near the border of two countries. When you're here, the destination is either Salvar or Alerar. I can hook you up with a wagon ride, free of charge, to Ettermire or various locations throughout Salvar. Hell, if you're still feeling the bloodlust I can throw in the guy I kicked in the ribs back there. He's still alive."

He tinkered with the carton in his hand and produced a small scrap of silver paper from one of the carton's slits. Fishing out a pencil from his other pocket, he wrapped the paper around it and tossed it at William's feet. This demon had potential, maybe even more than Rayse himself.

"Everyone in this world runs, because when you stop running, you accept the inevitability of death. Up until recently, all of my abilities contributed to fleeing or escaping. I stopped running, and I accept that my fate will lead me to cross swords with the terrible beings that hold Althanas hostage."

In this darkness, Rayse was the shining beacon of light. It was as if he was putting on a show in the opera house, standing in the seats off-stage and imploring to the audience to participate in the production.

"Sign this paper with the name you identify with yourself the most. That's all you need to join... The Salvaran Mafia."

Rayse knew that he had no other option to give him now. There was no telling what Emilio told these assassins. This demon-like person did not necessarily have to work for him in the traditional sense, but having his address would be helpful for the future.

[Revenant]

Pain screamed from every part of William, making concentration impossible. Even standing was a taxing effort. But no amount of pain could block the Salvarian’s impassioned speech. His words, his belief, rang like the fiery shot the man had used to put William in this condition. Despite the man’s cool demeanor, William felt a fury coming from him that burned hotter than any wildfire. Yet there was something in that fire that called to William, spoke to him on a most basic level.

William looked at the silver paper on the moth-eaten carpeting in front of him. “I accept,” he said finally, gasping from even the slight strain of speaking. William stumbled forward to reach the paper, focusing all of his will into holding back the screams brewing behind his clenched teeth. One hand went out to steady his shaking body, but the rusted banister that he had chosen could not support the weight of his demonic form.

For the second time in a minute, William collapsed into a screaming heap, the pain of his wounds too great to fight. This much pain was nearly maddening, but William remembered fighting through the deadly tests of the Trap Master. He promised himself that there would be no amount of pain that could stop him after the pain of being forced to burn himself to ash, but this situation came closer than any other he had ever felt to completely tearing him down.

Fire gripped his mind, but William locked the screams away with an almost inhuman determination. “Pardon the interruption,” William’s voice rasped. He let the demonic power fade fully from him, watching as the charred demonic flesh was replaced by blasted, raw human meat. His supernatural physique would have an easier time healing him without the self-destructive demonic power struggling against it.

Flecks of twisted bone fell away from William’s shaking hand as it reached to sign his name on the Salvarian’s paper.

“What you say rings true.” He struggled to even push himself to his knees under the crushing weight of his wounds, but doggedly pushed himself to breaking.

“My name,” William panted, “is William Arcus.”

[Rayse Valentino]

A grin was sprawled across Rayse's face. He walked over to the fallen Arcus and threw his knife down onto the scrap of paper. Gripping the handle of the knife, he picked it up and held it in front of him, concentrating on the writing on the paper. Invariably, his eyes were drawn to the man on the ground in front of him. This was a legitimate signature.

"Nice to meet you, William."

He was slightly concerned over William's pathetic state, but he could see the smaller cuts and scrapes starting to close up. It was not uncommon for demons to have a more advanced regenerative system than humans, or so he read. He would be fine. Leaving him there, Rayse started walking towards the exit.

He stopped just before the door, saying without looking back, "Whether you want to kill the last assassin or not is entirely up to you. He'll die from his wounds eventually anyway." He pulled out a small sack of coins and tossed it over his shoulder. "Let's say you killed me and received your payment. 'The Slaver' is dead now, that's what happened here tonight. Over by Burrows Street is a warehouse. Knock twice, pause, then three times and when the little window slit opens, whisper the pass-code 'Necklace'. They'll fix you up if needed and give you a lift to wherever you want. Consider it a favor from me.

In the future, I expect this favor to be returned."

As he left the opera house, he concentrated and covered his body in flames so thick that his form disappeared within them. They soon disappeared, leaving him without the cuts and bruises that he sustained in the battle. However, immediately after this his breath was heavy and sweat starting to drip down his forehead. The fire memory of his body was hard to conjure up in its entirety, but he had successfully restored himself to a previous form. Cracking his neck, he looked around before exiting the canopy of the theater balcony. He knew where Emilio was hiding.

Looking through a window in an empty room on the second floor of an abandoned bakery, Emilio worried about the explosion he heard. Before he knew it, Rayse had appeared behind him and put his knife to Emilio's throat.

"Don't say anything," The Contractor started. "I don't take kindly to attempts on my life, especially by my alleged business partners."

"B-b-bu-"

"I said shut up! You know, I admire that greed of yours. That penny-pinching desire to squeeze out the most money you can out of everything you do. But you have no limits, no tact, no strategy. It would take me about two weeks to find someone like you to take over this operation, and that's two weeks too long." He let Emilio go and stepped back, allowing the balding man to pull out a handkerchief to wipe the sweat off his face.

"Y-you mean, you w, won't kill me?!" he asked incredulously.

"Consider this my final warning. You even think of double-crossing me ever again, and I won't kill you. No, I'll torture you and keep you within an inch of your life for the rest of your miserable existence."

"Thank you! I promise! I-"

"Can it. Make sure you do your job and forget about this little incident."

Rayse lit another cigarette and walked out of the room, leaving his associate with almost soiled trousers. There was no guarantee that William simply wasn't using this opportunity to get as far away from here as possible, never to see Rayse again, but now he had something that allowed him to track the strange creature. He would call him in to pay his dues one day, whether he wants to or not. Not only that, but maybe someday he'll grant William's condition as well.

'Murdering some penniless thug is meaningless. They have nothing to lose. The ones you want to kill are the ones that have everything to lose.'

Go ahead and make your final post and submit it. I recommend regular, full rubric.
Requested Spoils:
-The Salvaran Mafia gains control of Emilio Garaan's Slaving Ring in border town Astoria as well as a fledgling drug trade of 'Grow' coming from Alerar.
-15 TSM operatives in Asmoria.
-5 TSM informants throughout Salvar.
-Magic silver paper that allows the holder to track the people whose name is on it, provided they had written it voluntarily.

[Revenant]

William let the slaver’s words wash over him without indication that he had heard them, choosing instead to focus on blocking out the flaring pain of his wounds while his supernatural physique did its job. There wasn’t much he could say buy this point anyway, for he had already signed himself over to the slaver’s whims.

What a fool I am, he chided himself inwardly once the pain had receded enough to allow rational thought, letting go of my freedom so easily. He couldn’t kill me, not permanently. I’m as pathetic as the rest of these Salvarian milksops. But, despite his self-flagellating scorn, William knew that there was a fundamental difference between them and him. Unlike the trade stock that the slaver took from the border town here, William hadn’t given up out of fear or despair. He had reluctantly relinquished victory to the better man out of expediency. In other words, he had only signed the silvery paper to avoid being stuck in this backwater country for the time it would take for his restorative capabilities to rebuild his body.

Expediency was definitely not the same thing as cowardice.

The last of the would-be assassins was dead and cold by the time the last bit of William’s charred flesh had knit together. Despite his earlier bloodlust, William felt no remorse over the wasted death. It had taken his body long enough to heal that the violence had faded from the forefront of his mind. He always seemed to think more clearly when the demon was slumbering.

“Well then,” William said to no one in particular, finally rising and stretching out to release the tension in the bunched muscles that had tightened while he had crouched and regenerated. Feeling more loose and relaxed, William stopped to heft the weighty bag of gold that his new “employer” had dropped for him. It certainly had more heft to it that what that rat Emilio had offered. “At least the new job’s a lucrative one,” he chuckled, tying the bag off in a loop around his belt.

But even though his pockets were lined, William couldn’t help but worry about the contract that he had signed and the ominous feeling about what he had just gotten himself into.

[Silence Sei]

• STORY ~

Rev 14 Rayse

Continuity 4/ 7 ~ Rev, I really didn’t see your character doing anything that would have had him in Slavar, or even to Alerar for that matter. There was really nothing here that I could have tied in with anything else to William. If our characters misadventures were categorized in comic terms, I’d consider this battle a ‘one shot’ for Willie, nothing really connecting any stories but at the same time showcasing the character’s stuff.

Rayse, you did really well here. I understood Rayse’s connection with Emilio, as well as his role in the mafia. The spot about taking in the couple for the people trafficking bit confused me a little. Why weren’t the people there with Rayse? He just picked em up, dropped them off, and then went to the Opera House? It just really had me scratching my head at that point.

Setting 5/5 ~ Both of you did okay here. Aside from chairs being thrown and some wood breaking, there wasn’t any extremely cool use of setting. Rayse, you used an NPC to come from behind a curtain to try and attack your character, which was cool. I just would have liked to see more opera house exclusive stuff in this fight. Some ropes strewn about, some ripped sand bags being thrown. A spotlight or two that had fallen from the rafters. That kind of thing.

Pacing 5/5 ~ The pacing in this thread dragged out a bit much, and there were a couple of posts I noticed that could have been consolidated into one post if the two of you had roleplayed the scene via AIM and bunnied the others character. However, barring that, this fight ended when it needed to end.

CHARACTER ~ Rev – 22 Rayse – 20

Dialogue 7/6 ~ Rev’s character did better here because I could easily find myself watching this scene play out, without any of William’s dialogue being forced. Rayse, your dialogue was good, but the reference to being the don and then ‘making an offer you can’t refused’ sounded like it came from a b-list movie after The Godfather was released. I use a lot of pop culture references in my writing as well, but I try to ‘Althanas-ize’ it so to speak. If you would have made a reference to a play you had seen in Scara Brae involving the Godfather, you would have probably tied here.

Action 7/8 ~ What was lacked in setting was made up for in action. While the thugs weren’t part of the scenery, they made for very convincing projectiles and fodder for Rayse. Likewise, William managed to counter the thrown criminal very well. Rev scored lower because a lot of his action was in about 3-4 posts, where the rest of it was hurting or talking. Rayse managed to keep the action going in almost every single one of his posts, after post 2 of course.

Persona 8/6 ~ Rayse, your character is a bad ass, that much is sure. There is a draw back to this, however, as bad asses don’t seem to convey emotion very well. The empathy that radiated during this fight made me kind of wish you showed a bit more personality outside of the ‘I’m so cool, but got to hide my –supreme- awesomeness’ motif you were going for. Rev, you kept William’s demon and human persona’s just the way I like them; in character. I could clearly distinguish a difference between the two sides of your character. Good job.
• WRITING STYLE ~ Rev – 26 Rayse – 26
•
Mechanics 7/7~ Rayse, when not using dialogue, you shouldn’t write things like ‘Don’t and ‘doesn’t’ and whatnot. It is much better to write ‘do not’ and ‘does not’ and the like. Those were the biggest things I caught from you. Rev, I caught a few typos out of you, but you too were otherwise okay.

Technique 5/5 ~ Not really much to say here. I didn’t catch any literary devices being used, other than a pop culture reference I already deducted for. Good job you two.

Clarity 8/6 ~ Rev, I could understand almost everything that had happened with Willie almost perfectly. The only confusion I had was during the next to last post, where I wasn’t aware where William’s position in the opera house was. It was small, but enough to keep ya 2 points away from a ten with me. Rayse, a lot of your attacks, while cool, required double and sometimes triple re-reading on my part to understand what they actually did. The yo-yo was confusing, and the whips explaination had me scratching my head trying to understand the dynamics of it. If you could find some way to simplify how your arsenal works, it’d do wonders for your score.
• Wild Card 6/8 ~ You both did a good job, but Rev’s using Willie as a sword for hire really put me off. While it wasn’t out of his character, it did leave a bad taste in my mouth. Rayse, you have a pretty neat character when he’s not phasing through everything thrown at him. While I’m aware the fire motif is a huge part of the character, the being able to go fire-intangible would be better if there was some sort of limit on how many times he could do it. You did it once in this thread and you got a good score because of it. That’s just my personal opinion though.

FINAL JUDGEMENT!

Rev gets a 62, Rayse gets a 63

Rayse is the winner and receives 2500 exp, and his spoils approved, and 50 GP.

Rev gets 700 exp, and 350 GP. He did –try- to kill Rayse, after all.

[Silence Sei]

gp-exp added.