A Decade Under The Influence

[Slayer of the Rot]

((Closed.))

The walls were talking to him.

Or at least, that was how it felt, as he sat there at the bar, arms curlled around one another, his head resting on his leather clad forearm. A glowing cigarette with a long drooping ash sat clenched between two metal fiingers. The enforcer was surprised that he could hear them as it was; music with a hard, driving rythm and dirty lyrics (What he was only half sure was his favorite) pouring from dark holes in the wall, their edges glowing with spell sigils. One thing he had to thank his very few lucky stars over was the fact that it was dim enough over here to make the average man strain to see at times.

It wasn't so on the stage to the back and to his right. It was blazing with bright lights, colored violet and yellow, reflecting dimly off the stage upon which the women's heels clicked with every step. Men and the occassional female face was gathered around this stage, watched the topless brunette gyrate around a gold colored pole, the lights dancing across her sinfully bare flesh, shaking in all the right places. This was a place that wouldn't bother to judge them, because everyone just stopping by was a pervert in all senses of the word.

Dan Lagh'ratham had been here for about three months. The manager liked to keep him around because one look kept the rowdiest in line, and one punch put the most violent breathless on the floor.

The chill air in here was certainly a welcome change from the hot, arid winds of Fallien. Not to mention, they paid him well, and left him be when he wanted it so. He had refused to tell them his "life's story", as one girl had put it so lightly. Mostly for the fact that even he was trying to get it straight. It was why he'd left everything that was familiar to him, turned his eyes from the faces he knew so well. He'd done it once before...so why couldn't he simply do it again?

And now, without a single drop of alcohol in him, the walls talked to him.

But was it really the walls that were so fondly conversing with his whispering tongue? Maybe it was all in his mind? Or maybe they belonged to those that were lost in the Antifirmanent? He didn't know, but he continued to whisper with them, briefly forgetting that he wasn't paid for introspection.

The thick smell of cigarettes, cloying in such a small room, hovered heavily over his head, and threatened to turn his stomach. It incited hammerfalls inside of his skull, a thousand blows rained down upon the inside of his head. The music kept pounding and the enforcer kept muttering to himselfr, all unaware of the eyes on his back.

The voices from the wall told him to be ready.

They told him that his blood was ready to burn.

[Slavegirl]

If another man smacked her ass, Natalya swore to herself she'd gut him. Smiling sweetly to the patron of the smelly strip club, she raised an eyebrow in warning as she "accidentally" spilled his drink on him.

"So sorry sir, I'll get you a towel for that," she purred and stalked away angrily, not meeting the bartender's glare. Jack hated it when she got mad at the customers, and threatened to fire her everytime she poured a drink on one. Leaning against the bar next to the man she knew only as Dan, she waited for the barkeep to throw her a towel so she could take it to the rude man who'd fondled her. He was whispering to himself quietly, and she glanced at Jack wondering if he'd noticed.

She'd been a cocktail waitress at Bottom's Up for little more than a month, and she was the only one of the girls who hadn't swarmed around Dan like fruit flies around a rotting apple asking question upon question about his past. Natalya didn't care though, and had simply kept an eye on the strangely familiar man. Now though, he acted as though he was either on something or had a major problem. Shrugging, she turned away as Jack threw a towel at her like it was a weapon and slid a replacement drink across the bar.

"Here ya go sir, sorry it took so long, here's another drink," and before he could respond she spun away and wandered over near the stage to take a break. Cilia sat there too, sipping at a large bottle of tequila which she passed to Natalya with a grin when she saw the former slave's face.

"Ya gots to get used to their attitudes lovely, they think they own every girl here, ya know? I mean it could be a lot worse than a smack on the bottom, huh?" the younger waitress said. Cilia couldn't have been more than 15, and she'd been working there for over two years. Natalya took a long swig off the bottle of tequila, making a face at the taste, and then grinned at Cilia.

"Well you let them fondle you, I'll just pour their drinks on them, 'kay?" she smirked, and the girl giggled. Natalya patted her on the back and then leaned back in her chair, taking another long chug off the bottle. The burning snake down her esophagus was a welcome distraction from the dimly lit bar around her and the gyrating girls on stage.

[Slayer of the Rot]

"God damn, this dive sucks, Dog. There's plenty of other busier bars we could pick them up at..."

"Stop bitching, Terris," growled the scar eyed mercenary from his position in the finely upholstered booth, sunk down almost to the point of laying across the cushion. The lights were even darker back here, and the girls rarely wandered close to the booth packed tightly with the men in the dully shining chestplates. The was an air about them, one of unease, that smelled like blood, that seemed to keep the muttering man leaning over the bar tense. Their sneering eyes leered about, picking over the others gathered, as though they were choosing a prime cut of meat, but the mangled eyes of the one they called Dog lay on the back of the man with the leather clad right arm, and the titanium left arm.

He'd been a man with nothing. His mother had died when he was young, and his father, whom he followed in his footsteps, was an overly stern mercenary leader. The man had nothing to do with his son until the boy had been able to lift a sword. When the father had died att the barrel of a cannon, the boy lost his face amongst the sea of other soldiers for hire, until he became just another Dog of War.

But his luck changed, after many years of hardship.

After a raid on a mage academy, Dog came across a thick tome hidden in one of the spellspeaker's rooms, one that wasn't meant to be seen by the eyes of normal men. One page that didn't burn his eyes to read told of an ancient, sleeping incubus that could offer mortal men eyes to see into the hearts of their brothers. It was apower that could have many uses, even to one's self, but with his plots, it was a power that would bring him nobility and fortune.

Dan suddenly sat up, eyes squinting into the gloom, before he muttered a cuss and slipped a pair of glasses from his pocket, perching them on his nose. He could usually get by without them, and refused to carry them into battles, but there was no denying that his eyes weren't in the complete best shape anymore. The walls were still readily babbling to him, but he turned his attention away from them, and out into the seated crowd gathered around the stage, and the few regulars sitting quietly at their tables.

The music suddenly cut off, and the girl stooped to pick up her top, happy to give the lustful audience one last show of her full bottom, and a dischorded, broken orchestra of clapping hands broke out as she strutted away. Instead, the enforcer's eyes were scanning the crowd for the horny, rowdy men, who were looking to grab a handful. There was a rule against it, but the past bouncers had usually turned a blind eye against it, which had resulted in the resignations of a number of girls. It might have been just the right place for it, but that shit didn't fly with Dan. The girls were here to dance and earn money, not to get bruised knees and be called whores.

It was calm for now, but he hadn't tossed anyone out by the back of the neck in hours, so he was sure that someone was either working up the nerve or chugging a bottle of courage to do so. He stood up from his stool, brushing the untended cigarette and it's ashes off, and slowly walked out into the rest of the bar.

[Slavegirl]

The bottle was empty, and Natalya stood to swap it at the bar for a full one - preferably with something less corrosive inside. She'd barely gotten halfway across the room when, just as the music screeched to a halt, the former slave found herself dragged into the lap of the man she'd doused with whiskey only a few minutes before. With a loud harumph Natalya fell against his rather fat gut, and found herself unable to struggle from the man's affectionate embrace.

"Sir, I suggest you take your hands off of me immediately," she growled at him, reaching up a hand to remove his from her right breast. His right hand took over on her upper thigh, trying to move her skirt out of the way.

"Aww, c'mon lurve... y'know y'was flir'in wif me earlier when y'dumped m'ah drink on me," he slurred drunkenly. Natalya dug the four inch heel of her boot into his shin, but he didn't even seem to notice.

"I was not flirting with you, get off me you greasy tub of lard," she hissed, trying to get out of a lap that was becoming increasingly less appetizing as the man became more aroused. Natalya darted blue eyes around the room like a rabbit caught between a hawk and a snake, trying to avoid the lecherous stares of her admirer's friends.

The music had started playing again and Cilia was on stage now - it was her first night dancing, and Natalya was missing it. The rest of the patrons had turned their attention away from the scene at the table left of center, and were staring at the luscious young girl swinging around the pole on stage.

Trying to keep his hands from going too far up her thigh, Natalya was having a hard time keep his mouth from trying to lick and suck sloppily at her neck and ears. He reeked of whiskey and unwashed male, and it was all she could do not to knife him in that fat belly he was holding her against. Trying to hold her breath, she glared at Jack who watched innocently from behind the bar, a smirk on his pockmarked face.

"Dickhead," she muttered and continued struggling.

[Slayer of the Rot]

The towering form of a strong man seemingly materialized out of the haze behind the struggling girl and her assailant. The man's steps had been silent, and even those that had been turned towards them were startled by Dan Lagh'ratham's sudden appearance. A cold metal hand clamped down in a convincing iron grip around the back of the man's neck. His husky hands froze where they were, groping at Natalya's chest, and struggling to shove his fingers down her skirt, eyes popping open in surprise. Still, he did not dare to talk as the enforcer's other hand gently took hold of the girl's shoulder, and helped her to her feet.

"I realize that this is not a church, my overweight friend, but -- look at me." Shakily, the fat man in his crumpled business suit, leaned his neck back, straining to look into Dan's hazel eyes. "But these are women, nonetheless, and as long as I remain here, you will not not repeat what you just did." Then, the fat man was up in the air, and the enforcer showed little effort to the act, as though he was picking up some paper litter to throw in the trash. "Put me down, you buzz killing motherfucker!" The man's plump legs kicked hard in the air, struggling with the faux hand at his neck, and Dan began to walk towards the door, pulling the captive in closely. "Watch your fucking language."

One simple toss sent the hefty man tumbling out into the brisk night air, hitting the ground with a thump and an OOF! He knew what was coming then, even as the man scrambled to his feet. Moonlight reflected off a steel knifeblade as he waddled as quickly as possible towards Dan, and thrust the weapon forward, digging it into the enforcer's abdomen, but he didn't so much as flinch. "Don't come back, butterball," was all the warning he got before knuckles rammed into forehead, a restrained but powerful blow that sent him toppling into the darkness of unconciousness.

"That one," Dog hissed, jabbing an elbow into one of his cohort's sides as the enforcer walked back in, eyes set ahead of himself stoicly. "No doubt about it, that's Lagh'ratham. They say the crazy sonuvabitch killed a few thousand people in one day, all by himself." The merc grinned, and satisfied, leaned back ffarther into his booth, fishing a cigar out of his pocket. "He'll be the crown jewel, the creme de la creme of the hundred we drop."

Pausing at the bar, he took a bottle of vodka from the shelves, and walked back towards Natalya. He said nothing. Not so much as a "Are you all right". or a "You can thank me now". He simply unscrewed the cap of the bottle, took a deep swig, smiled a bit at the long forgotten taste of it, and held it out for her to take.

"You got something right...here, love," A passing girl on the way to her stage stopped suddenly staring down at Dan's stomach, and pointing at her own well toned abdomen. Puzzled, he glanced down, and realized the knife was still sticking out. Grimacing at the pain a bit, he pulled it loose and tossed it towards the bar, where Jack had already gone back to washing his mugs. "Thank you," he replied, and then his eyes took thhat far away look it did when he was thinking as he pulled a chair away from a nearby table and sat down.

[Slavegirl]

Natalya had already decided that she was going to be forced to handle this on her own, and was planning out how she'd escape once she killed this bastard who fondled her as though she were a cheap whore in a brothel. Jack had turned his back on her, and the other girls just stared at her or ignored her. This had happened to all of them once or twice; the difference was that Natalya refused to accept being treated like this.

Even as she leaned back against him slightly, lifting her arm to reach for the dagger which hung from a cord at the back of her neck, Natalya felt a gentle hand on her shoulder. She tensed, expecting yet another bastard who wanted to get in on the action, but when she looked up it was into the eyes of the man who'd been at the bar muttering to himself.

He helped her to her feet, and she backed away, pulling a dagger from her boot as she watched the towering man who'd saved her click into action. It was as though he had eyes in the back of his head, and not a damn bit of self-preservation instinct. He disappeared out the door, carrying the fat jerk by the scruff of the neck, and when he came back it was without the man, but with a dagger protruding from his stomach.

Natalya's savior didn't say a word to her though, he simply took a pull off of a bottle of vodka and passed it to her as though they were old friends. She took the proferred drink and drained the full bottle until there was barely half left, staring at her rescuer over its rim the entire time. Lowering the bottle from her full lips, she rubbed the back of a hand across her lips as a girl approached him and pointed out the dagger.

He didn't act like he expected thanks, he didn't try to offer a word of advice to her, or even tell her not to make him have to do that again, he just pulled out the dagger with a grimace and crossed to a chair to sit down. Natalya stood there for a long while with a blank look on her face, ignoring the stares of the other men at the table she'd escaped from, and then finally walked over to Dan.

Pulling out a chair, she sat down next to him at the table, straddling the back of it and resting her chin on her crossed arms. At first she remained silent, but finally she decided that she had to say something.

"Thank you," the former slave said in a voice so quiet it could barely be heard above the pounding bass and the catcalls for Cilia. Her accent was thick, and so was the emotion in her voice. "You could've just left me alone, I'd have handled it, but I think it would've been much messier."

[Slayer of the Rot]

He had only half expected it, the words of thanks. Most of the girls simply accepted it silently in stride, and a few of them begrudgingly, since a few feels would often get them heavier tips, in expectation. Opening his eyes, he looked over towards her, through his thick curtain of black hair, expression failing to change. Her words hung in the air, and it took him a few moments to recognize the tone. Then, his lips did move into a small smile, though it was slow, the sort seen on the face of a man who hadn't seen the sun in many years.

Gratitude. He'd heard it in every voice and seen it in every face when he'd limped out of the hospital after he'd destroyed the Phoenix Syndicate. On one part, it felt strange to not be able to recognize it instantly, and on another, it felt strange to simply be getting it. "You don't really have to thank me," he said, turning his eyes back to his lap. "After all, I was hired for that purpose." A few of the nearby serving girls paused in their duties and scowled at Natalya; thus far, those were the most words he'd said to any of them since he'd arrived.

He was silent again for a few more moments, partially because he didn't know what to say, and furthermore, because he was listening, picking the bits and peices of dialogue out between the riffs and rhymes of the blaring music. As a bouncer, he wasn't really required to talk, and Jack had never complained about his lack of social skills. He was here to break a bone or two and keep the troublemakers at bay.

Finally, he moved, leaning forward and past Natalya, his hazel eyes moving towards the remaining men at thhe table Natalya had made flight from. They froze suddenly, as though they'd just came from the ocean and caught a stiff Salvarian wind. Any thoughts of retaliation melted away under the fire that flickered in his green-ish irises, and he leaned back into the chair again, his roused spirit dying down again, tongue lost, eyes falling away from the girl who was still seated next to him.

Cilia's dance wound down to a smooth halt on the stage, and the music died away again. Suddenly, his silence made him squirm, shifting his weight roughly in the seat, tapping his fingers against the arm of the chair. A serving girl set another, unopened bottle of vodka on his table, leaning over the give him a full view of her bare chest, and gave the former slave a rather nasty look as she walked away, brushing suggestively against the man's strong, musuclar shoulder.

"My name's Dan," he mumbled numbly as he reached for the bottle, twisting the top off quickly and drowning his silence in a deep drink. The enforcer seemed to fumble again for words as he set the drink down. "Lagh'ratham, that is, Dan lagh'ratham. What's your's?"

[Slavegirl]

She watched him quietly, those strange azure eyes that seemed almost to glow even in the dim light of the bar never leaving his face. He was obviously not used to such a show of gratitude, and a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth as she tried to decipher his expression.

"You may have been hired for that purpose, but at least you actually did your job," Natalya said when the enforcer finally found words, "That's more than I can say for Jack over there."

His shyness intrigued her - it was strange to her that a man should be this way around her. Even though she was no longer a slave, it never failed that the men who entered her life thought that she was a possession to be had, an object to be controlled, something which they could acquire simply by grabbing for her like anything else they wanted. But this man was different, he seemed not even to notice how she looked, her curves that showed through the tight leather pants and fitted leather vest she wore over a sheer blue shirt that came down to her long tapered fingertips. He was not even shy because her beauty stunned him, but it seemed simply to be a matter of social anxiety.

As he leaned past her, his closeness seemed to chip away at the mental walls she had erected. He brushed against her as he glared at the rest of the men who'd accompanied the man who'd harassed her.

Misty walked by and brushed against the enforcer, who seemed oblivious to the scantily clad waitress. This only served to anger the lithe girl even more, and she stared daggers at Natalya, who only grinned broadly as the woman stalked away.

On the other hand, Dan was still staring at the former slave, mumbling his name over the deafening beat of the music. Natalya narrowed her gaze, raising an eyebrow. Supressing an amused grin, she extended her hand to him over the table, casting a mocking glance at Misty who fumed nearby.

"Nice to meet you, Dan. I'm Natalya Tichenyanchova," she told him quietly, and nodded toward the guys behind them, who still watched Natalya hungrily. "I've really got to thank you again, I'd probably be next on their menu if you weren't here."

[Slayer of the Rot]

Natalya Tichenyanchova. A name to go with the picture of a damsel in distress, or whatever one wished to call the jet haired beauty. He knew he'd never be able to pronounce that last name, but he doubted he'd be able to right now if he tried, as tongue tied as he was. He hadn't realized how thoroughly out of practice he was with socializing. He hadn't even talked to himself in the desert. The enforcer stared dumbly at the hand she'd reached across the table, trying to figure out what to do with it. After a few moments, he simply slid the bottle of vodka into her hand with a disconcerted frown.

"That one's being awfully chummy with him," Terris muttered, jabbing a finger towards Dan and Natalya. "Good," Dog replied, sitting up quickly in his seat. "That's all we were looking for." From his pocket, the mercenary produced a small black stone marked with a gold rune, and clutched it tightly in his palm. Almost instantaneously, the walls of Bottom's Up began to shake terribly, and the music instantly cut off, the lights halting their oddly hypnotic dance over a blonde girl's nude form.

The rumbling grew, escalated, shook drinks off tables and made footsteps unsteady. Then, a blazing wash of light glared in through the windopws outside, and the doors banged open, a flood of armored men and women bursting inside. People were either snatched up immediately in iron hands, or snared in nets. The enforcer gave her a scowl of irritance, and stood up slowely, shaking his head. "Nobody's job is ever easy," he told her with a shrug, and as one of the armored men approached him, Dan's hand swept him off his feet, launching him into a few more of his iron buddies, a clear imprint of his hand standing out vividly in the metal.

From the corner of his eye, he saw two coming up from behind Natalya. Grabbing the back of his chair, he vaulted easily over the table and her, driving his boots into their helms, landing as they staggered backwards, seeming to try and gather their blurred vision. Dan didn't give them the chance though, and drove his fingers into theiir chestplates, lifting them over his head and throwing them through the club's high windows.

"Natalya, run!" He turned back towards her, and produced his knife from it's sheath on his thigh, lips peeled back from his teeth. This was something he did know; fighting. And he did it damn well.

[Slavegirl]

It was as though they were caught within the maw of a beast who wished to crush the Bottom's Up, the fearsome rumbling causing the dancers and waitresses to squeal and scurry in a terrified panic. People hid under tables and behind the bar - Jack dove into one of the liquor cabinets beneath the counter, leaving shattered glass and one hell of a new mixture on the floor in his place.

Natalya jumped to her feet, glancing at Dan with wide eyes. As a blinding flash of light stole away her sight, she heard the enforcer comment nonchalantly about his job, but even as her sight returned Natalya was treated to the image of the man tossing an armored fellow away like an annoying kitten.

Her jaw gaped, and as she tried to gather her senses, Dan launched himself at her head, feet first, his heels eliciting a sickening crunch from whatever was behind Natalya. As she turned to see what he'd protected her from, she saw the two men who'd planned to detain her. When Dan told her to run, she didn't argue as she might usually have, the former slave simply turned tail and did as he said.

Unfortunately, she barely made it across the bar when she barrelled into the ugly mercenary who's group she'd avoided all night. His colleagues had called him Dog, and as he grinned at her, she realized he was the one responsible for all of this. Before she could change her direction - or her speed - the man had grabbed her with a menacing chuckle and quite literally tossed the small woman to another man with massive arms and no neck. This one made the enforcer look like a dwarf.

Natalya struggled against her living prison, but it was like fighting the earth itself - it barely budged, and simply collapsed on you somewhere else. The man tucked her under one arm, and here in her rather odorific new position Natalya watched as her place of employment turned into something quite different from a strip club. Her coworkers down to the last one (except Jack who was lying on the floor bleeding from a head wound - served the bastard right) were chained and linked together near the door. She looked around for Dan, although she doubted even he had any chance against this many.

"What the hell is this...?"she muttered under her breath.

[Slayer of the Rot]

The enforcer's eyes followed Natalya's flight and capture calmly, standing still and silent in a ring made from armored men, knife lax at his side. "Any reason why you're doing this?" The eyes beneath their dark iron helms were fleeting, refused to establish contact. "Fine then. I suppose you know that all yoour arms are useless?" Again, the eyes moved away as he tried to establish contact. Shrugging, he let his form fall into a common offensive position and lunged in.

The lives of innocents were on the line, and his regrets of killing fell away from him like a million years of rust to reveal the shining sword beneath. Sharp swords fell like an evil rain around him but missed his flesh, and the black knife moved like a swift snake, drawing jets of scarlet from chinks in armor until everyone of them had fallen in a macabre pool on the floor. His blood spattered gaze frell on the mountain of a man holding Natalya, and sprinted across the bar.

Everything that remained or stepped in his way was either crushed under foot or knocked aside. He lunged through the air, clipping the distance it would have taken to run it, and sheathed his knife, Barely wincing when the giant's fist came crashing down on his head. He reached up with odd arms and seized his wrist, then twisted, grinning darkly at the feel of bones shattering in his arm. His boot fell upon the giant's knee, sepearating it as it tore and brutally stretched ligaments. A bellow burst from the behemoth's lips and he released Natalya, falling back into the wall, and before he could make a move to stop it, the enforcer had leapt onto his chest and dug his hands deep into his thick, meaty neck, barely struggling as he bluntly ripped muscle apart, grabbed ahold of his throat, and tore it loose in a terrible spray of gore.

He was barely aware that his shirt was stained dark, and the hair on the left side of his face was matted down with blood. This man was a machine, a beast, capable of terrible acts that he was still repenting of. His face was frozen in an expression of calm indifference, but his nostrils flared at the smell of the blood, thick and cloying in the air.

"I'd expect nothing less from the one who killed all those people in Radasanth." Dog gave him a grin as he stood up from the counter he'd been leaning on, and began to slowly clap. The bar was mostly bare now...and it was time to move on to the crown jewel.

[Slavegirl]

The giant was slowly making his way through the mayhem toward the door, and what he would do with Natalya once he escaped from the strip club, and the wrath of the enforcer, was not a fate she wanted to contemplate. Struggling had proven futile, as had screaming and crying. The massive man simply ambled on, ignoring her wiggling and screeching in his single-minded pursuit of the door.

Fortunately, (or was it unfortunately?) the former slave was facing the direction of the action, and watched in horror and amazement as the man who'd saved her from a few hecklers earlier proceeded to single-handedly decimate the attackers.

When finally he stood with nothing but a ring of dead bodies around him, panting heavily with a bloody black sword in his hand, he looked to where Natalya was - about to be dearly departed from the bar once known as Bottom's Up. She hated the fact that she doubted Dan's ability to save her from this man - he wasn't quite as easy to throw out as the groper had been.

But somehow the enforcer managed to do just that. Not only did he seem not to notice that a huge fist just came down on his head, but he also seemed to possess superhuman strength. This allowed him to snap the giant's bones as though they were made of simple river reeds. Natalya fell to the ground clumsily, and scrambled away to hide beneath the bar, wishing that for once she'd broken the rules and brought her crossbow with her to work.

It wasn't necessary though, for within moments Dan had left the giant in a bloody mess on the floor, his trachea ripped out and his kneecap on the wrong side of his leg.

Natalya moved out from under the bar but barely made it across the room before an eerie voice spoke from the counter near her sanctuary. She froze in place, fearing to turn around and look at the owner of the words. Dan was covered in blood, but something in her wouldn't let her cross to his side to make sure that it was not his own.

[Slayer of the Rot]

For all his concern for Natalya, his attention fell away from the seductive women at the mercenary's words. "Aside from Citadel bouts, I haven't killed anyone in Radasanth." Dan's guard didn't drop though, despite the ease in Dog's posture in tone, arms and legs tense and ready to dash across the floor and break the man's neck in a single blow. "Playing innocent are we? I highly doubt anyone could forget killing a thousand people in less than a day." Patience obviously worn then, the enforcer stepped forward, holding his hands out as though to clutch something. "I'm afraid you've got my face mixed up with someone else."

As if one blinked, the Rotslayer appeared as though it had always been there in his grasp, shifting from an immaterial state. The lazily dancing yellow and violet lights reflected dully over it's scratched and worn titanium blade, though the gloom hid the maroon stains speckling the canvas bandages wrapped around it's hilt. With how thick the blade was, in addition to it's height, the sword had to be at least five hundred pounds heavy, but Dan held it as though it were little more than a short sword with a long hilt.

Slow steps carried him over the damp carpet of Bottom's Up, broken glass mugs crunching under his heavy boots. The floor was strewn with debris, organic and inorganic, glass and silverware and broken weapons and men in dented or toern iron plate. Some of the saturation that would ruin the carpet was alcohol, though a heavy amount of it was blood. Blood's scent was something that wasn't identifiable easily to those that had never been around it, but Dan had had so much of it bled from and out of him that it was like a thick syrupy mist in the air to his sensitive nose. "I have two options," Dog said, smiling a bit, sccratching at his closely cropped, dark hair as he reached into his pocket. "I can put you down, or let you chop me in half with that namesake of your's, and well, I've got too much going for me to go out so quickly like that."

He raised his arm and in his grasp was another stone, this one turqouise in color, marked wiith another strange gold rune. A few cyan sparks leapt from it's surface, preceding a score of blindingly bright, arcing blasts of electricity, striking Dan squarely in the chest. That cyan light glowed in his eyues for a moment before he collapsed on the floor.

Of course it hurt, but there was barely any time to register the pain as the Mother Mercy pulled a cold dark blanket over him. The smell of charred meat reached his nostrils as his eyes slipped shut, forgetting that brief pain in his heart, the sting of his lungs trying to catch oxygen. He couldn't breathe, couldn't feel anything from the burn all the way down every millimeter of his body as his nerve endings shined with a brilliant fire-red light. He lost it all and fell to the dark.

[Slavegirl]

Dan crumpled to the floor, the strange blue-green glow fading from around him, and Natalya stared daggers at the mercenary responsible. A sound akin to a growl came from low in her throat, and she crossed to Dan's side, kneeling by him and checking to see if he was still breathing. He was, or her anger would have been too great to bear. As it was, she was furious, and drawing both of her daggers from each boot, the former slave stood and faced the man who'd done all of this.

This wasn't a good idea you know... those who harm my friends don't typically live to tell the tale. her voice was in his mind, and did not disturb the eerie silence of the room. Most people would have bolted at such an intrusion into the privacy of their mind - it was not a human capacity to stand another in the silence of one's psyche. But this man seemed not to mind, he only smiled, and raised his chin.

A sharp jolt at the base of her skull sent Natalya careening into darkness. The last thing she remembered was collapsing onto Dan in a limp heap, her head lolling to one side of his chest as the room spun into oblivion around her. It could have been moments or hours before she woke up - or even days, she didn't know.

The carpet of the bar should have been softer, was Natalya's first thought as she slowly regained consciousness. Pushing her arms under her and lifting her face from the ground beneath her, she managed with some difficulty to open her eyes.

This was definitely NOT the Bottom's Up.

A wave of nausea swept over the girl as she sat up, and for several moments she could only retch noisily in the corner, as she braced herself weakly on her hands and knees. There was very little light wherever she now was, and as Natalya tried to stand and walk over to what seemed to be the bars of a jail cell, she discovered that she didn't have the capacity even to stay upright for more than a few moments.

As she fell once more, this time against someone else who she apparently shared this cell with, she muttered some very nasty curses on whoever had hit her so hard across the back of her head. It was almost a relief as she slid back into the silence of unconsciousness once more.

[Slayer of the Rot]

Time is difficult to measure in the darkness of your own mind.

His bloody body fell freely through that huge dark pit, uninhibited by the wind that one would be in reality. At times, images of his blurred past him like an oasis in the endless gold expanse of a desert. There, blowing out the first candles on his birthday cake. There, holding that little .22 on the shooting range while his step father watched closely at a distance. There, screaming and pulling away from the dry rotted, withering claw of the walking dead that had wandered into his room that fateful morning. There, first walking onto the fresh, green grass of Althanas. There, sleeping peacefully in the bed of his old apartment with Claire.

Just when he thought that this atramentous abyss had no bottom, his back struck a hard flat surface, and he laid there for a long time, stunned and blinking and trying to catch his breath. "This isn't hell," he muttered, slowly climbimg to his feet. "It's not hot enough." So he began to walk, and in this dream, there was no fatigue. He walked for what he could have only assumed were days before the ghosts came. The ghosts of a life ago, their faces taut in anguish, pulling and tugging at him with hands far too clean. The enforcer simply hung his head and kept moving forward, shutting his ears to their accusations.

He hadn't killed them.

He'd killed a lot of men, but they were almost all deserving. These specters of the spirit were the ones lost in a decaying shambling husk on the ruined world he'd called his home. They were demons of guilt created by his own conscience, and thus he ignored them. He kept walking, their hands like claws falling finally from his shoulders, their bodies fading away. Left alone to his own devices, the enforcer kept his legs moving in that endless fashion.

Warm soft arms wrapped around his bloodstained chest, and Meridith laid her head on his shoulder, her radiant golden hair a beacon on the charcoal night. With a sigh, he sank to his knees, then finally to the floor, almost collapsing there. She'd been what he'd been searching for. She was his light in the darkness, her amber glow that brought him back from any madness. Meredith was his rock and anchor in his own terrible soul. "I couldn't keep any of them safe."

"You did what you could." Her voice was as comforting as any summer breeze, as musical as any silver bell.

He shut his eyes, and wrapped his worn and rough hands around her own. He knew she wasn't real, but he'd take comfort as he could in any form. Beautiful Meredith, he couldn't help but still love her. His golden one from the sea, who had died at his own hands. "I trust in you to do your best." Her lips brushed against the back of his neck, and she began to fade away. That old pain in his heart came quickly, but he turned his eyes from it and forced himself awake.

Meredith was only a memory, but Natalya was real, and she and the rest were the ones in need now.

Cold dark iron greeted him when he woke up, and his stomach churned at the smell of his surroundings. Human waste, blood, and the half digested contents of a million stomachs filled his nose and made him gag. A weight sat across his chest, and as he continued to pull himself out of the dark of his own mind, he turned his eyes down and saw Natalya, he gave a small sigh of releif, and reached down wiith senseless fingers and carefully wiped the speckles of vomit from her lips. Slowly, he began to sit up, carefully cradling the woman's head, and set her down silently on the cracked tile floor. He stood over her for a few moments, scowling, then pulled off his shirt, rolling it up and easing it under her head.

Cockroaches skittered across the bottom of his cell, but he ignored them for a moment and approached the bars of his prison, and flciked a finger against them. The ring of it and the small dent in the middle brought a satisfied grin. Didn't these men know any better? The one that had put him down had seemed to know plenty; so why didn't he know that breaking these iron bars would be as simple as smashing a hollow porcelain figure? Still, he had no reason to escape just yet; through those bars he saw close to a hundred people imprisoned alongside him and Natalya. First, he wanted to uncover the man's motives...then, he wanted to get them all out, safe and sound.

"It's time for the girl's appointment with the Doctor."

Dan's hard gaze swung up and to the eyes hidden behind an iron helm. There was a group of them, perhaps a half dozen, all alike, of the men that he'd killed so many of in Bottom's Up. They were hesitant to open the cell, and for good reason. "I'd appreciate if you told me what this appointment entailed," he replied, slowly walking over to them, crossing his arms over his chest. "Errr...torture." The guard was obviously unnerved, and probably knew that Dan could be through the locked gate and tearing off his head without breaking a sweat. "To sort of...keep you all down and...and...break the spirit."

"Not her."

"I'm sorry, what?" The guard stared back incredulously, and Dan made a motion back towards Natalya. "She's weak enough," he lied, though it didn't show in his face the slightest. "I'll take whatever torture she'd be getting on myself." The guards exchanged nervous glances, but didn't seem to argue it. The enforcer followed them with no resistance down the hall, leaving Natalya to sleep silently and peacefully.

[Slavegirl]

He moved her to the floor and it woke her, but Natalya's head was pounding as though a hundred cobblers had taken up shop hammering away within her skull. She left her eyes closed, blocking out the dim light and the wildly spinning room. Between the massive headache, the sticky blood matting her hair, and the foul taste in her mouth, Natalya was anything but comfortable. What was worst of all though, was that she had no idea where she was or why. She didn't know who she shared the cell with, who she'd collapsed on, who had tried to make her more comfortable. But it hurt to bad to try to figure these things out.

It was quickly revealed though.

A voice muttered to her cellmate something about an appointment, and Natalya tried to block out the sound. But when her companion answered, she realized just how serious the situation was - Dan, the enforcer who was of a strength that was seemingly unstoppable, had been captured alongside her.

It took several moments and the sound of the bars scraping against the wall as they were opened, for Natalya to completely take in what had just transpired. As the gate slammed shut on the cell, and Dan left with the guard, the former slave jumped to her feet and blindly (for there were millions of stars dancing before her eyes as though someone had set off a drum of gunpowder in her head) crossed to the gate.

"Dan," she called out, and when the guard turned around she spoke to him instead, "Don't listen to him, I can handle anything you wish... Dan this is crazy, come back."

[Slayer of the Rot]

"She looks awfully lively to me."

Dan stopped and look silently over his shoulder at Natalya, he was leaning as far out of the bars as possible, desperation highlighting her face. The guard's hand was on his shoulder, and he looked back towards her, a smile hinting at the corner of his lips. Before he could say another word, Dan's forearm had him pinned against the wall, unrelenting, even with how powerfully he struggled. "I think this decision was already ruled upon," he growled, lips pulled back from teeth to sharp and long to be human. "D-Dog will kill me if -" Dan lifted a hand, fingers rigid, more than enough to shear through the iron hel he was wearing to rip the flesh and break the bone under it. "Okay! All right! Holy shit, let me go!" The gauntleted hands desperately pushed at his chest and grabbed at his bicep, but after some time, Dan let go of his own volition.

Though Natalya most likely had a number of complaints against his actions, Dan didn't look back and wordlessly walked away. After a few moments, whhen the guard realized that the enforcer was going to take his head off with a simple swipe of his hand, he followed the man, though at quite a distance.

These halls had seen better days. Dark stains marked the cracked and worn concrete floor, and the off white that the walls had once been painted were yellowed with tobacco smoke and age. A few swift roaches zipped by underfoot as he slowly strolled, eyes passing over old wooden doors with their lacquer peeling off, to reveal the cheap wood beneath it. If it disgusted him though, it didn't show at all. His face remained set as any stone would be, even as the guard asked him to stop and opened one of those ugly wooden doors, and ushered him inside.

"Doctor, this patient has double the usual time." The good doctor himself was at a on of the counters set in either wall, treated with black rubber. He set the hose down he was spraying several wicked looking metal tools with and turned around, giving the two a wide beaming grin. "Oh? Twice the time to hear the screams, I've no trouble with that. And what are you smiling at?" Dan gave a slight chuckle and gripped the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, shutting his eyes as he shook his head. "Stronger, far deadlier men have tried to make me scream...and none of them have gotten so much as a gasp." Stroking his goatee, the doctor's frown faded, but he didn't seem to lose his good humor at all. He turned away from Dan and smoothed out his dirty white frock. "Do lay down on the table now...and relax."
_____

"Bah! Take him away, and don't bring him back for a while!" By the time the guard had returned, the doctor had indeed lost any vestige of a good mood. "Oh, done already? I think you might have cured my bad back," the enforcer announced sarcasically as the doctor pinned the end of the roll of bandages around the numerous lacerations he'd inflicted on the man's abdomen. The doctor scowled and shooed him away irritably, grumbling to himself as he went to wash off his tools.

The return to the cell wasn't as easy a walk up the hall. He was dizzy from all the blood that he'd lost, thanks to the doctor's knives, and all of his senses were numb, thanks to the sporadic shocks of electricity. He was just as silent coming into the cell as he had been leaving it, and he walked past Natalya, fully expecting to be cussed out. With an inaudible grunt, he leaned against the wall and slid down it, leaving a few vague though disturbing smears of red in his wake. "Hey, gimme a smoke, eh?" The guard hesitated at first, then dug through his pockets for the crumpled pack of cigarettes and little dented lighter the other had taken from the enforcer, and slid them across the ground towards him before leaving. Sighing with satisfaction, he lit a cigarette, drew in a deep lungful of the biting smoke, and tipped his head back, expelling it from his nostrils in two thin white streams.

"Could've been worse," he remarked, grinning a bit.

[Slavegirl]

Natalya knew it was a bad idea, she knew it would hurt and it would do no good for her or Dan really, but it was like a compulsion. So she let herself slide down the bars to the floor, leaning her face against cool, slightly damp metal. As Dan walked away, she kept her eyes on his back, allowing her mind to ever so gently mingle with his.

He disappeared around the corner, and it was soon his eyes that she saw through. Her own eyes were blank, fixed staring at some point twenty feet away. What she felt that the enforcer didn't was the maniacal glee that emanated from the "doctor". This was a man who took perverse pleasure in hurting people - she'd only met one other person who held a candle to this man's twisted nature. Of course Kadran had been much worse, and had been her master for the longest 48 hours of Natalya's life.

The enforcer laid down on the table, and Natalya shivered. It was hard and cold, and the leather straps which they thought could hold him were tight enough to cut off circulation. As the doctor pulled out his instruments, Natalya fought down panic. Now was the time to escape, leave Dan's mind and let him take this torture that he insisted she didn't deserve.

Well, neither did he, and there was little she could do now to stop it. But she could lessen his pain throughout the procedure by sharing it with him. Clenching her teeth, Natalya choked on a scream as the first blade cut through Dan's abdomen. Guards looked at her strangely as they passed, but the former slave didn't even notice. It was all she could do to remain locked into the enforcer's thoughts, and as she realized that this barely phased him, she wished she'd left him when she could.

It was too late for that now though, and throughout the procedure she shared in the excruciating pain that Dan experienced. When it finally ended, she carefully extracted herself from his mind, wiped the back of her hand across the sweat beaded on her forehead, and scooted back away from the bars.

He returned to the cell, and she didn't take her eyes off of him. Curiousity killed the cat, but Natalya desperately wanted to know what made him able to handle the pain that had been dealt him. As the man slid down the wall, dragging wearily at his cigarette, she watched him quietly.

It took her several moments after he spoke to find the words to answer.

"I can't imagine how it could've been worse, Dan," she said in a very low voice, "Even feeling only a portion of what you did, it seemed more than anyone should be forced to take. Is he doing that to all of us here?"