Catching Up With A Friend

[Aurelianus Drak'shal]

Closed to BlackAndBlueEyes. Adult content, rated Aur

Knife's Edge, Salvar

Styr Oakheart stood outside the door, fist raised hesitantly for the tenth time in as many minutes.

The screams were quieter now, but the Salvaran could still hear muffled laughter behind the heavy, iron-banded oak. He had been working at the House of Sin for nearly a month now, at the behest of Lichensith Ulroké, but this was not the sort of work he had expected. Sabotage was one thing - the satisfaction of dropping an entire roof on a room full of people was one he had long ago grown accustomed to - but the tiefling's antics were just unpleasant. He had often wondered if Master Lichensith was punishing him for some unknown transgression. Ruffling his ash-blonde hair, the man lowered his fist yet again. He was an assassin of the Order, like many of the other workers in the brothel, but even he was hesitant to interrupt the Master of The Word as he.. worked.

Sighing in frustration, pinching the bridge of his nose, Oakheart straightened his finely tailored silks and finally mustered the courage to rap on the door. Three solid bangs and the laughter within stopped.

There was an ominous silence for a moment.

Styr was considering knocking again when the door was hauled open violently. Aurelianus Drak'shal stood in the doorway, his bare torso slick with blood and other, less easily identifiable fluids. His tattooed and scarred chest rose and fell rapidly in panting breaths, beads of sweating cutting channels through the already congealing gore as his slit pupils narrowed angrily.

"Thought I told you to sod off 'til I was done," he said, his voice a low growl squeezed out between clenched fangs.

Styr tried not to let his discomfort show - it only seemed to spur the half-breed on. "You also--"

He was interrupted as the warlock turned on his heel and sauntered back in to his domain, his underling forced to follow into the last place he wanted to go. His eyes, merely human, had some trouble penetrating the gloom at first but eventually the burning iron braziers around the room allowed him to see. Flicking his blonde locks out of his icy blue eyes, the assassin saw men and women locked in passionate embraces.. no, he thought, correcting his eloquent turn of phrase, discarding it as too classy, they're fucking. It was true - all races and genders were locked together in sweaty heaps around the edges of the stiflingly hot room, writhing and crying out in ecstasy. Their arousal was inflamed by the aphrodisiac incense smoking from censers on the walls. The scent of the smoke, along with the heady scent of raw sex on the air was overpowering. Oakheart covered his face with a lace handkerchief as he trailed the tiefling, trying not to breathe. Once before he had made that mistake, and come to his senses three days later, naked, in a room full of people he couldn't remember ever meeting before.

"Aurelianus," he started again, ignoring the orgy around him and pushing away unpleasant memories.

Ignoring him, the plane-touched sat back in front of a wrought-iron construction, starting to whistle softly as he picked up a curved needle and thread from a small side-table. Styr glanced at what was strapped to the painful looking frame, but turned his eyes away after a moment. Killing people was one thing - what the devil did was just wrong. Instead, he fixed his gaze on the tattoos inked all over his boss' exposed torso and arms, losing himself momentarily in the myriad seals and sigils.

"Boss," he tried again, this time standing next to Aurelius as the inhuman sadist worked, "you also told me to come find you when your guest arrived."

That got his attention.

"Bright Eyes is 'ere? Already?" he pondered this a moment, running a crimson palm over his scalp, leaving a trail of glistening red over the tattoos there, the colour perfectly matching his quills. "I only sent 'er word yesterday."

Styr cleared his throat, his eyes drawn again to the men and women slathered in each others' fluids in the shadowy recesses of the chamber, uncaring of the gore they writhed in.

"That was a week ago, boss."

Serpentine eyes flashed with reflected firelight as they glanced up at the human, the obsidian rings in Aurelius brow glinting as it rose quizzically.

"Really?"

Styr nodded trying to remain nonchalant.

"Ah, bollocks!" the warlock spat, throwing a glance at the ceiling, to where his office lay through layers of stone and wood. Styr followed his gaze, realising how long it had been since he had left Ms. Freebird alone in the room - he had warned her to keep her eyes averted from the demonic mirror hanging above the fireplace, so she should have been safe. But knowing the master of this house, safety was not something that could ever be expected.

The Cager's swearing snapped him back out of his reverie.

"Right, drag 'er arse down 'ere," he ordered.

"Really?" Styr asked, his mouth twisting in a grimace, looking pointedly around the dim chamber. "Well, if you insist."

Dismissed, the human turned on his heel and left the dark little pocket of unpleasantness as quickly as he could. The lust-fuelling smoke was starting to get to him, and his pupils were gaping pits of black in tiny rings of blue.

In the meantime, Aurelius turned back to his other guest - the man currently bound to the black-iron frame. With a smirk, the tiefling returned to stitching up the former-man's wounds. If his underling was to be believed, his work had taken up the better part of a week, and it showed in the trauma on the man's ruined flesh. Can't rush art, he mused with a cheerful grin. Both arms had been removed just below the shoulder, before the warlock cauterised the hideous damage with a few well-placed bursts of Hellfire, leaving two stumps of flesh like molten tallow to wave piteously. Oh.. the screams had almost burst the half-demon's eardrums. Not nearly as loud as when Aurelius had broken the poor bastard's hands in the vice.. but that was before Aurelius had taken his tongue, and stitched the bloody, gaping maw shut with steel wire. Granted, the sod had tried to scream more than once since then and ruined the graceful stitching, so what remained of his lips were ragged and torn scraps of meat, punctured a dozen times and then a dozen more for good measure.

His right eye was gone - he had convulsed like a marionette in an epileptic's hand when his captor had plucked the optic nerve like a lute string - but his left was still intact and rolling around his skull in mute horror as he tried to scream, to weep; his teacher in the ways of pain wanted him to see how much his suffering was feeding the half-demon's depraved lusts. Once he had no more pleasures to show the sod, it would be plucked out like its twin. As it was, a slender steel needle was impaling the soft, yielding eye, sitting in the centre of the pupil just shallow enough to avoid blindness. It flicked like the feeler of an insect with every delirious roll. His mouth wide in a rictus grin, Aurelianus flicked his fingernail gently against the pin, just to savour the muted, traumatised moans.

The list went on and on; strips of flesh peeled back with flensing knives, and left to dangle like streamers; slivers of iron under each toe-nail so that when Aurelianus was finally ready to let the mangled wretch leave, every step would be agony; his pike had been sewn to his inner thigh more than once, just so the sculptor of his flesh could watch it tear away when the smoke dragged his consciousness into a fugue of arousal again.

The door to the room opened again with a soft buffet of cool air, Styr calling in to announce the guest, but did not deign to set foot back in the pain chamber. Aurelius heard the man mutter an apology to the guest as she was shown the entrance.

"Come in, luv," Drak'shal called over his shoulder, carefully sliding an awl into each of the human's ears in turn to penetrate the eardrums. The work was nearly done, he realised with a sudden pang of disappointment. Sadly, he had often been forced to accept there was only so much that could be done to living flesh with the tools at his disposal.

Happy to stop here for the moment, the half-breed stood up to admire his work.

"Silly sod tried to cut on one of me girls, then duck out on his tab" he grinned to Madison, without looking round. "Think if I let 'im loose to wander, it'll send the message well enough?"

Finally, the gore-streaked deviant turned his attention to the woman he had invited here personally. Slipping a cigarette between his lips, Aurelius threw another handful of the stimulative powder into the nearest brazier and leaned against one of the tables laden with the tools of his playful trade, turning his inhuman gaze to one of the women screaming out her orgasm between two lean, sweat-lathered men. They slid away from her, instantly replaced by an ebony-skinned hermaphrodite that had been procured from Fallien, who impaled the woman's ravaged openings with a lust and eagerness bordering on manic, mouth drawn to heaving breasts. The motions of the living, breathing carpet of bodies was mesmerising, but with one last hungry look, he turned to Madison. There would be time for him to join them again later.

"So," he hissed sibilantly, lighting his roll-up from the black flame in his palm, "how have you been luv?"

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

I understand that Aurelianus Drak'shal is a very busy man with a business to run and... well, clientele to entertain and see to the needs of, but I wished with every single fiber of my being that he would've picked a different place to meet me.

As I sat in the tiefling's upstairs office, I desperately wished for some sort of noise that could drown out the screams and moans of ecstasy that seemed to drown the House of Sin. A phonograph, casual conversation with one of the Order-appointed henchmen, a noisy pet bird, anything. I shifted around in a leather chair uncomfortably as I tried to focus my attention on anything that would take my mind off all the disgusting and depraved acts that were taking place all around me. I counted every single scratch and dent in Aurelianus's desk (67, from what I could make out from the distance I was sitting at), flipped through books I had in my traveling satchel about necromancy, fungus, and diseases, and then settled on twiddling my vine-braided thumbs without accidentally tying them into knots.

I had only been here for ten or fifteen minutes, but it seemed like hours had passed. I took a deep breath, reclined back in the chair with a small creak from the leather, and softly exhaled.

I decided to try and occupy myself some more by cataloging the rest of my old fighting partner's office. His desk was a bit of an unorganized mess, with stacks of papers, books, an overflowing ashtray, and other clutter amassed in piles similar to the naked, sweaty bodies of his patrons in rooms close by--

No, stop right there. I shook my head to try and clear the horrible visage out of my mind. Let's look at something else, Maddy.

The dark leather chair behind his desk was all ripped and torn, presumably from all the spikes and shit on the demon's armor. The office had a various assortment of leather chairs and end tables in front of the desk, one of which I was seated in. The carpet was dark and basic, with various, unidentifiable stains in spots. Of course, you had a couple low bookshelves lining the far wall, containing tomes featuring gods-know-what sort of knowledge. To my left, there was a stone fireplace with a mirror mounted above it that I was warned several times not to look at. For a split second, I was curious as to why--but then I remembered who I am a guest of this evening, and immediately thought better.

I had begun to count the individual threads in the carpet, getting up to 349 when I heard the door open behind me. A man by the name of Styr entered the office, looking a bit pale. "Aurelianus is... ready to see you now, Madison. Or, at least as ready as he's going to be, I suppose."

Aure's underling seemed to be a bit on edge. It didn't take much of a mind reader to see that he didn't really enjoy his job here. They staff this place with members of The Order, right? I would have to talk to him later to see if he could get a transfer elsewhere.

I took my sweet-ass time picking myself up off the couch. I straightened my pants, waved my cloak around a bit, and rested the palm of a vine-braided hand on the grip of my new pistol. I knew that, should something unsavory decide to pop out of a random doorway as I walked through the House of Sin, a few bullets would do little to protect me; but it still reassured me somewhat knowing that I had such a powerful weapon at my disposal.

Reluctantly, I allowed Styr to lead me through the candlelit stone hallways of the horrible, wretched brothel. We passed rooms with various intoxicating scents emanating from the cracks underneath the reinforced wooden doors. I breathed in sharply and uneasily with each pained scream and moan of ecstasy that bled through the walls. My stomach tied itself in knots, and I felt panic beginning to set in.

Fuck you, Aurelianus Drak'shal. Fuck you and your stupid fucking vices. Fuck you for dragging me into your lair.

I'd slap the perverted bastard Halfling, but in here he'd probably take it as a sexual advance.

I grit my teeth and tried to focus my attention solely on the back of the guard's head as we made our way down stairs and past the occupied rooms towards the lair of the demon, so to speak. After what seemed like hours, we came to a stop in front of a door in the basement. Here be demons, I found myself thinking, in both an actual and metaphorical sense. My escort twisted a rusty iron handle and pushed the heavy door open. A rush of warm, sticky air rushed out to greet me. The scent of blood, sweat, and not-quite-perfume filled my nostrils, causing me to gag a little bit.

"Boss, here is Madison Freebird," Styr announced. He turned towards me, and in hushed tones, offered me a short general apology--as if it were his idea to bring me to this hated hellhole in the first place.

I briefly touched his shoulder reassuringly as I stepped forth. Before me stood Aurelianus, in all of his scrawny yet muscular, ashen-skinned, heavily pierced and tattooed glory. The only thing covering him up was a pair of leather pants that were covered in the gore and fluids of countless individuals yet surprisingly free of cuts or gashes, which is a feat that one assumes doesn't occur in this place very often. Well--the pants, and all of this blood.

It wasn't the prettiest thing to focus my attention on, but I absolutely dreaded to look at anything else in the room. Out of the corners of my eyes, all I could see was a disgusting, writhing, sweaty mass of human flesh. Bodies of all shapes, all sizes, all colors, all... configurations...

I wanted to vomit. I wanted to run away, I wanted to get out of here, out of this House of Sin...

I think Aurelianus could tell that I wasn't exactly comfortable. As he took a few steps closer to the door, his serpentine grin grew wider, revealing the pearly whites of his shark-like teeth. He threw a fistful of powder onto a smoldering brazier which released a small pinkish cloud of stuff that reminded me that I probably shouldn't be breathing right now, unless I wanted to end up like... like everyone else in this forsaken room.

"((So, how have you been, love,))" The demon asked, a lit cigarette dangling between his pale lips. (I should point out at this moment that, for the sake of brevity, I'm going to translate the tiefling's wretched vocabulary into something more palpable.)

"Yeah, uh, I've been alright, I guess." Uneasily, I parted my cloak and raised my vine-knit hands and arms into the air between us, allowing him to see what sort of lovely transformations I've gone through in the months spent in Eiskalt.

The ashen-skinned demon whistled as he stepped closer, tilting his head to get a better look. "((Heh, I knew that Ulroke's stupid little war had changed a lot of people, but I always thought it was more of a metaphorical change.))"

Aurelianus removed the cigarette from his mouth and blew a puff of smoke over my shoulder as I dropped my arms back into the hidden recesses of my cloak, my right hand returning to the hilt of The Last Resort. "Yeah, well, I always seem to fall in with the worst crowds and have the weirdest shit happen to me because of it. It's just something that I've learned to accept, is all."

He snorted. "((Yeah, last time I remember seeing you, your right arm was a giant, multi-jointed metal vibrator. You wouldn't happen to still have that lying around, would you? I can think of a few parties here who might enjoy it.))" My face turned sour as unmentionable thoughts flickered in my mind of what might become of that mechanical masterpiece around here.

"It's already been sold for scrap."

A wistful sigh. "((Bloody shame, that.))"

I shook my head. No, not a shame, Aure. "Look, I know you're a very busy man, and you know that I'm quite preoccupied with things lately as well. You wouldn't have dragged my ass halfway across the country for small talk. So, let's get down to business, shall we?"

[Aurelianus Drak'shal]

As always, Madison was straight to the point. It was one of the things Aurelius liked about her - she didn't piss about. He let his eyes wander over her for another few silent moments.. well, silent on his part. The rest of the room's denizens continued on with their debauchery with wild abandon. She had definitely went through a fair bit since he'd last seen her, but the warlock could taste the power radiating from her so it had obviously worked out to her advantage. There was something caustic about it, though. Almost like a bad taste left in the back of the throat. His pupils widened for the merest fraction of a second, almost eclipsing the golden-yellow irises as he examined his favourite murderess through the lens of witch sight.

The flare Aurelius saw when he looked at her soul left his eyes stinging, and he hissed through clenched teeth, turning his gore-streaked face away. Rapidly blinking through watering eyes, the tiefling chuckled, sucking another lungful of smoke from his cigarette.

"Pikin' Hells, luv, you 'ave been a busy girl. But, you're right on the mark as per usual. I 'ave got a reason to call you 'ere."

Scratching at the quills atop his head, he glanced around the round chamber. Once again, his lusts were stirred by the sex-scent hanging thickly in the air, but now that Madison was here there was an even more enticing prospect on the horizon. Aurelianus sauntered back to the subject on the pain-frame, his hobnailed boots sloshing through the thick soup of blood, bile and other fluids splashed across the floor. The floor of the chamber was dotted with drainage grates here and there, but the ones nearest had been clogged with the scraps discarded as the sadist worked. Grinning around his cigarette, the plane-touched dragged his nails across the exposed musculature of the man's torso making the wretch howl between stitched lips, before he turned away finally. The haze of incense clouded his mind for a heartbeat before he decided this room was not going to make it any easier for him to concentrate. And he could practically see Madison's skin squirming as the seconds drew on in his private sanctum. It's bloody temptin' to see 'ow long she lasts in 'ere before runnin'... the half-breed shook off the devilish thought with a soft smirk.

"No-one touches my toy while I'm away," he called over his shoulder to the orgy surrounding him. There were several moans and incoherent syllables in response, but Aurelius couldn't tell if anyone had actually heard him. He shrugged, throwing another handful of the aphrodisiac into the brazier as he headed for the door.

"Let's go," he grinned to his companion, gesturing with a crimson-stained arm. "Ladies first."

With a whirl of cloak, the raven-haired beauty with the heart of stone turned on her heel and left the room. She clearly needed no further invitation to free herself from the fleshy nightmare.

"So you consider yourself a lady?" he chuckled, following her. He pulled the door closed and instantly felt the temperature difference between the spiralling staircase and the sweating, balmy heat he'd spent the last week dwelling in. The vitae was already congealing on his tattooed torso, and the alabaster flesh broke into goosebumps as they climbed back to the House proper. Aurelianus made no attempts to explain his request for the Briarheart's company yet, quietly puffing away on the roll-up between his fingers. The white paper was smeared with red-brown stains, but that was hardly going to put him off smoking it. They made their way through the corridor Styr had led Madison down not five minutes before, the woman clearly trying to pretend she couldn't hear the symphony of delights that rang through the House of Sin; screams, moans, desperate pleas for pleasure, fervent cries for more pain, the gun-shot crack of whips against naked flesh... it sang to the half-demon's black heart, putting a spring in his step and quickening his pulse. If his body hadn't been quite so filthy with gore, Maddy might have seen the black veins marbling his white skin. But as it was, she could barely even see his all-encompassing tattoos.

As they passed one of the establishment's many bouncers, Aurelius snapped his fingers impatiently. Whether it was to try and get the man's attention, or because Aurelius simply couldn't remember his name wasn't clear. Either way, the dark elf turned his violet eyes on the pair, before turning his eyes to the floor and bowing slightly at the waist.

"Masters, good day to you both," he said, his voice surprisingly deep for an elf.

"Bring us some towels, cutter," Aurelius replied, his tone not even remotely commanding as one might expect of someone who held the imperious title 'Master of The Word'. Despite this, the dark-skinned elf nodded and instantly wandered off into a small side-room.

After another few moments they came to the base of the stairs leading up to the brothel-owner's office. It was perched on the top floor, overlooking the main foyer with all the architectural charm of a pregnant spider. The elf appeared at Aurelianus' elbow with a handful of fresh towels and offered them to the pair of Crimson Hand commanders. Madison was about to refuse one politely, until she saw the elf pointedly staring at her cloak. There was a dark smear on the cloth, barely visible against the darker material, but still discernible. Her frown could have soured milk and Aurelius started up the stairs, trying to hide his amusement behind his hand. He flicked away the end of his cigarette as his heavy boots clanged up the iron stairs, shoulders hiking with silent laughter.

"C'mon up, Bright Eyes," he said simply, wiping himself down with one of the formerly-white towels. It was already covered in clots of thick blood, leaving a clear patch on the warlock's flesh. "You'd think I was on me pikin' bad week," he muttered under his breath. He heard the footsteps behind his own and when he arrived at his heavily secured door, he waited for her to catch up. She joined him on the last step, one vine-knotted hand trying to wave the last of the smoke Drak'shal was breathing out of her face. He shook his head, clearly amused, and over the ringing of the many piercings in his tapered ears he muttered three guttural syllables. Before Madison could ask what they meant, there were three resounding clicks from within the office, and the door swung open on oiled hinges. Once again he nodded for her to proceed him and once she was inside he took one last look down the stairs. Styr was there, leaning against one of the walls with his arms folded across his chest, observing his Master. There was something about his expression that raised the half-demon's hackles. But, after another second, the blonde-haired human readjusted his tailored tunic and strode off down one of the hallways with nary a backwards glance. Coming in and locking the door with the same growled incantation, Aurelianus tried to ignore the nagging feeling in the back of his mind.

The warlock visibly relaxed now that they were alone. Shaking off thoughts of the uppity Salvaran, Aurelius brought his hand to his mouth and winked as another cigarette appeared from nowhere. Lighting it with a finger-tip, he stalked across the room and threw himself down in his tattered chair with a sigh and a puff of stuffing from the multifarious gashes and tears in the leather padding.

Madison opened her mouth to ask if he was finished wasting her time, but the warlock shushed her with a wave of his hand. He barked out three names in the Infernal tongue, and the mirror hanging above the crackling fireplace flashed a lambent green before settling to a mild glow.

"There we are. As safe to rattle our bone-boxes as can be," he smiled in a genuinely friendly manner and put his boots up on the desk-top. Another draw on the cigarette as he gestured for Madison to sit down, make herself comfortable. He nodded towards the fully-stocked drinks cabinet in the corner of the room and set out two empty glasses from the top drawer. He waited on her pouring them each a measure of whisky and getting comfortable.

Without any further preamble the tiefling met Madison's gaze, glacial blue meeting shining yellow. Pierced eyebrows drew together over hooded eyes, and the scar across his mouth seemed to twist it into a scowl without ever moving.

"Eiskalt was a pikin' shambles."

He took the roll-up from between his lips and lifted his glass. Allowing the familiar burn to tease the tips of his forked tongue for a heartbeat, the tiefling finally swallowed a mouthful with a satisfied murmur, but even the booze wasn't enough to mask the dark mood that was on him. He threw the rest of the drink back and set the glass down again.

"Soon as I marked which way the wind was blowin', I pulled my lads out of there," he sucked on the cigarette before turning his attention back to his former partner-in-mischief. "I tried to send word to you and yours, but the place was a pikin' shit-storm." He let the smoke coil from his nostrils, and Madison could tell that this walking epitome of treachery and deception was being honest with her. He had tried to warn her of the danger coming down.

"You were there longer than me, luv. You got dragged through the grinder more than most," he gestured with the glowing tip of the cigarette at her arms. "An' I don't need to mark those to know it. Chant is you were all that 'eld the Order together when things went South. And didn't they bloody just?"

As he spoke, his voice steadily became more strained, but he fought to keep his calm, to restrain the feral temper simmering just below the surface. The cigarette flicked from one corner of his mouth to the other and back again before he snatched it between two slender fingers and brought his boots thumping back down on the floorboards. He got up from his chair and paced the length of the room, clearing the last of the blood from himself and throwing the now irrevocably stained towel angrily into the fire. He watched it burn for a moment, his shoulders rising and falling as he tried to take a deep calming breath. It didn't work, so he filled his lungs with smoke again.

"Something needs to be done about him," came the quiet, level response.

Exhaling a cloud, the tiefling froze. He turned his horned head slowly towards Madison, a vicious grin splitting his inhuman features.

"I'm listenin'.."

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

If there was one person I could truly trust in this world, it was the tiefling.

Ironic, seeing that the man's livelihood is based entirely on deception.

Ever since the fateful meeting in the Citadel during which we fought each other tooth and nail, telekinetic wire and hellfire, jammed game rifle and... well, even more hellfire; we had formed an odd sort of bond. I would hesitate to call it a proper friendship, given who and what we are--but no other word can properly describe it. The two of us have been through an awful lot together, from the Lorinus Corporate Challenge to our service to the Order of the Crimson Hand. You could throw the debacle that was Eiskalt onto that pile that made our bonds strong and respect and trust for one another impenetrable.

And now here we sit, the leaders of our respective divisions within the Order. The Tiefling, the master of spies and assassins; and the Briarheart, the master of tinkerers and alchemists.

A dangerous combination, as parties were to eventually find out.

The malicious grin revealing his shark-like teeth told me everything I needed to know about the situation. The proposition of casting Lichensith off his ill-deserved throne was certainly appealing to him. I knew that I could count on Aurelianus to help me in these matters. It would all just come down to what he--no, we could gain from such a dangerous venture. Of course, there are all the promises of power that taking over the Order of the Crimson Hand could give to us, but I'm not entirely sure that Supreme Ultimate Power would be enticing to either of us. People like Aurelianus and I... We very much prefer to run things from behind the scenes. The two of us could install a puppet leader at the head of the Hands... Convince them to promote us to Left and Right Hand, where we will truly rule the organization without the rest of them ever knowing... Maybe have Erikar Impossiblelastname and Max Dirks instated as Masters of Janitorial Arts or something...

...I'm getting ahead of myself here.

"You saw the way that Ulroke simply disappeared from the battlefields," I said flatly as I leaned back in the leather chair. I licked my thumb and furiously rubbed away at the splotch of bodily fluids that managed to somehow get on the edge of my cloak. "You've no doubt heard of his desperate attempts to heckle Jensen Ambrose into unleashing the savagery that sleeps deep inside him. He spent precious, valuable time stalking him in the snowy wastes, trying his hardest to do something really stupid. Why Jensen didn't kill him right then and there and put him out of all of our miseries, I will never know."

I went to lick my thumb to get it wet again, but thought better when I realized that I had no idea what the stain actually was, and that I could get some of it that rubbed off my digit in my mouth on accident. I'll just have to put it through the wash a few dozen times when I return home. ...Or, just get a new cloak. That's probably easier.

"But," I continued, my voice remaining calm despite the fury that the subject brewed deep inside me, "I think it's safe to say that his decisions have caused no small amount of dissent among our ranks. You were there for that meeting, right? The one where that girl from the Blades mouthed off at him and then sprouted a knife from her throat?"

Aurelianus nodded. "((Aye, I remember that. Another wasted life when we can't afford to lose any more.))" He walked back over to his desk, a trail of cigarette smoke lingering behind him as he sat on the edge of it.

I leaned forward in the chair. "That's not how you lead an organization such as this. I think we can both agree on it. I mean, sure; fear can be a powerful tool to curry favor. We both know that well enough." The vision of the bloodied, stitched-up, amputated man in the sex dungeon below us briefly flickered in the back of my mind. "But it shouldn't be your go-to choice, you know? Like this stupid piece of shit right here!"

I reached into my pants pocket and produced the folded piece of parchment which had the Crimson Assassin's tournament decree scribbled onto it with ink blacker than night. The tiefling's eyes narrowed into suspicious slits as he looked at it. "((What's this?))"

I arched an eyebrow. "You didn't get one of these? Everyone else in the Order damn near found one nailed to their foreheads."

"((Perhaps it got lost in the mail,))" the pale bastard muttered. He took several seconds to read over the decree, his brow knit as snake-like eyes scanned the page. His lips twitched as he silently read the words to himself that the Master of the Crimson Hands had himself written down.

There was a long silence before he spoke again. "((Looks like I'm going to be pretty busy in the coming weeks.))" Aurelianus' eyes flickered with a hint of maniacal lust, no doubt imagining the infinite pleasures he would derive from being fed all of the Hands who refused to be pawns in Lye's little game.

I changed the subject to get him back on-point. "It's one stupid move after another with Lichensith. The man is too lost up his own ass, suffocating on his lies and deception. He's clawing around in the dark, trying his damnedest to climb out of the hole that he's dug himself into." I looked at my associate over the top of the piece of paper he held in front of his face. "That man is going to kill us all in his rage, Aurelianus. We both know it."

Another long pause filled the room, broken only by our shallow breathing and the dull screams of ecstasy that managed to leak through the walls of the House of Sin. It was after several moments that he offered me a single quick nod of his blood-quilled head. Aurelianus Drak'shal took a deep drag off his cigarette, nearly burning it down to his fingers before exhaling a puff of light smoke that seemed to fill the entire room from wall to wall. "((So, Bright Eyes, what's your plan?))"

The truth was, I didn't have one yet. "I'm still putting out feelers, trying to get some support. That pale bastard needs to be put in the corner like the childish brat that he is, that much is for certain. We need to take the power he doesn't deserve from him and right the wrongs he's made against us; against everyone in the Order." I sighed deeply and closed my eyes. So, so much planning to do... "I don't have much more than a goal at this point. But the details will come to us soon enough. As soon as we have enough support..."

I tilted my head down towards the floor of Aure's office. Time to change the subject again. "But you didn't drag me all the way out here to hear my troubles. Your letter mentioned that you have something specific in mind that requires my particular... talents, we'll say."

[Aurelianus Drak'shal]

The feral grin split Aurelius' face wider, and he let his mind wander over plan after plan - each flickered ephemerally through his mind for the shadow of a heartbeat, before something new and more fully developed took its place. Each and every one with the same end goal in mind.

To tear down the lord and master of the Order.

The half-demon liked Lichensith Ulroké, no doubt about that. The human's violent streak was something akin to his own. But even that fondness couldn't overcome his insurrectionist instincts. There was a throne; there was a man on that throne pissing away all his power and resources on petty and insignificant targets; that man had to be torn down and made an example of. Such was simply the way of things. That doing so would garner the tiefling even more power than he was already granted was just the icing on that delightful little cake.

He hadn't realised that he'd been standing stock-still for almost a full minute, wolf-lean frame backlit by the crackling hearth. Aurelianus came back from his reverie with a start, realising Madison had spoken to him. He flicked a glance one more time to the document in his hands, and with a dark smile, incinerated it in his palm.

"Sorry luv, was a thousand miles away. What were you sayin'?" he asked, scratching idly at his horns.

Madison repeated herself, shifting in her chair to get more comfortable. Her keen eyes narrowed in what might have been impatience, concern or simply with the effort of drowning out the noises of his haven. Aurelius let his black tongue slither over his serrated gnashers habitually, casting the remains of his cigarette into the fire-place and wandering back to his chair. The torn leather was cold against his bare skin.

"Well, ain't this just the damndest little co-inky-dink," he chuckled, clasping his hands together behind his head and reclining languidly, to the jingling and clinking of the rings through his flesh and the charms bound around his wrists. His quills rustled like snake-skins being drawn over each other.

"Just so 'appens, Bright Eyes, that my little adventure might be the first step to gettin' the support we're wantin'--"

He was interrupted as a flutter of movement from the corner of the room grabbed both murderers' attentions. Aurelius marked Madison's hand snapping to the grip of something under her cloak before he stopped her short with a bark of laughter. A second later, she recognised the revolting form emerging from the shadows. Her hand stayed close to the gun. Junior took to the air and landed on the top of the dark-wood desk, claws skrtching for purchase. Its malformed features turned to the Briarheart, and it whisper-shrieked its pleasure at the presence before it. Madison, smartly, hid her sneer of disgust for the warlock's favoured pet. Though she would never understand why, Aurelius was fiercely protective of the little abomination.

"Awww, 'e 'as a soft spot for you, luv," Aurelianus smirked, knowing just how much Madison disliked Junior. He deigned not to bother mentioning the fact he was making an exception to one of his only rules in the House of Sin, allowing her to keep the gun. It would be a grievous insult to ask a fellow assassin to disarm herself in his presence, especially when the assassin in question was the closest approximation of a friend he had in this world. But by all the Hells, Aurelianus Drak'shal loathed the weapons. His hand drifted absent-mindedly to the two small, circular scars on his torso - his little keep-sakes from the last time he'd been shot.

Focus, cutter. Work to be done, get back on track.

Nodding almost imperceptibly to himself, the tiefling sat forward in the chair to creaks and groans of tortured leather. His slender hands came together under his chin, fingers steepled - his eyes glanced momentarily at the truncated ring finger on his left hand. Fire-light glinted from the rings he wore. His smile was a predator's display, eyes shining like balefires in the shifting light.

"You're comin' with me on a wee jaunt to Corone," he started, his tone making it clear he already counted her acceptance as a given.

"And once we get there, I 'ave a nice little gathering of mercs awaitin' my orders. You're right that somethin' 'as to be done about Ulroké, but way I see it, e's not the only one I should be markin' in my bad books." The plane-touched killer's tongue lashed over his fangs once again, and there was the faintest hint of a growl burbling softly in his throat.

"Those Orlouge wankers got off far too light in Eiskalt," he snarled, "and I'm lookin' to spill a damn sight more of their blue-bastard-blood before the week's out.They went out, bled us every time we gave 'em an openin', stood up to the worst we threw at 'em an' then they saunter back to their kip like the conquerin' bloody 'eroes."

Aurelius didn't realise it at first, but he was grinding his teeth, tendons standing out in his neck. With a slow breath, he forced himself to return to his usual cheery demeanour.

"I don't know about you, Madison," her name whispered sibilantly from his forked tongue, "but that doesn't sit right with me. Oh no, not one soddin' bit. And believe me, I ain't the only one in the Order with that notion. I don't need to be Master of the pikin' Word to know that. Just think of the respect we'd garner were we to give the pricks a decent kickin' on their 'ome-turf..."

Reaching into one of the many drawers in his desk, the Anarchist produced a sheaf of papers, each of them covered in his spidery script - Madison lifted them from the table and her eyes darted over the relevant details in seconds. Guard rotations for Ixian castle; rough estimates of the man-power that had managed to return already from Eiskalt; various lists of mercenary teams in Aurelianus' employ and their rather illustrious backgrounds - ah, the perks of being a spy-master; and finally, and the very sight of it tickled the tiefling pink, was a schematic he had procured at no small expense from a contact in Alerar. Its charcoal-sketched lines and the notes scribbled alongside it painted a very pretty picture to anyone with an imagination half as devious as he knew Freebird's to be.

Aurelianus sat back in his plush armchair again, throwing a leg casually over one of the arm-rests and spiriting another glass of whisky into his hand.

"What d'you say, Maddy - you up for some proper fun?"