(Closed) New World Blues

I pushed open the door into the small tavern, letting the sounds within wash over me as I stepped over the threshold. Loud and cheery, the sounds of everyone inside was swirling around in an incoherent mixture. The voices were unknown to me, but the atmosphere was not - boisterous and rambunctious, the energy of people relaxing after a hard day of work. I felt a smile stretch my face as I headed over to the bar, catching the eye of the bartender who was in the middle of washing a mug as I came up.

“You look like you got on the wrong side of a woodsman’s axe.” I glanced down at the bandages on my arm, where the man was looking as he spoke. The wounds from the fight with the weird cat-like creature were still fresh, stinging slightly even now. I had found a healer’s workshop, and gotten my arm treated and re-wrapped with clean linens. That said, the new bandages were already becoming tinged with red from the seeping injuries beneath. I shrugged slightly, feeling the curiosity emanating from the man and a few people nearby who had heard him speak.

“Met a weird beast while I was traveling to town. It tried to take a bit of a nibble, and I disagreed with it.” Understanding lit the bartender’s eyes as I sat down, taking a spot on one of the wooden stools. A hand clapped my shoulder as one of my temporary compatriots leaned over.

“Aye, some rotten beasties are buggerin’ around nowadays. Goin’ alone’s a good way to get yourself kilt.” I nodded as the man sat back - he wasn’t wrong after all. Being on my own in an unfamiliar world had definitely been going rather poorly for me. Hells, I had barely found my way to this town from the last one, and that was on a single road. Satisfaction. That was not surprising to feel from the man, since most people liked it when people agreed with them. With my nod he went back to talking to his companion on his other side, and I focused my attention back on the bartender, who was looking at me expectantly.

I drummed my fingers on the varnished dark wood of the bar as I thought for a moment before resting my injured arm on the countertop. “A mead, please.” One eyebrow rose slightly before he nodded and pulled a mug up from beneath the bar. He walked away from me, heading over to a small oaken cask to start filling up the mug. It seemed like the honeyed alcohol wasn’t quite as popular as straight ale or beer was here. The bartender brought the drink back over, setting the frothy cup in front of me.

“Seven copper.” I nodded and pulled the coins from the pocket on the inside of my vest, handing them over to him. He grunted and walked over to where someone else had started waving their hand for his attention. I closed my eyes for a moment as I curled the fingers of my good arm around the handle and brought the mug up for a drink.

The Whan-Kher tavern was situated at the heart of Stonevale, pushed into a dark corner of the one of many filthy alleyways comprised the innards of the township. It was a crooked, quaint and almost decrepit sort of building, barely propped up by its cracked limestone walls and protected from the elements by a sorry excuse for a brittle slate roof, one that looked as if it had been held together with tape and spit. Almost any time someone slammed the heavy front door, fragments of splintered shale tile would rain down over the pavement and pepper the vermin scurrying in the gutter below. Despite its apparent architectural poverty, the tavern still boasted a healthy turn out. Through the grimy windows, a handful of oil lanterns burned brightly and the even in the early afternoon shadows of patrons jigged merrily about against the inner walls. Myriads of conversations crept through the crevices of the doors, catching the ears of those passing by. These types of back alley inns, traditionally, tended to play host to all sorts of rough, mysterious types.

That was exactly the reason he was here.

Shinsou Vaan Osiris had been there a whole night, and hated it already, but it was located far enough from Tylmerande, the Brotherhood and gun toting assassins to merit staying in whilst he investigated a niggle at the edge of his senses. At least that’s what he had thought, before he had once again found himself the butt of some cosmic joke. This time, all he had done was leave his room and come downstairs to pay his tab. In the two minutes he had been waiting to be attended to at the bar, someone had recognized him as the co-leader of the Brotherhood and had taken exception to his existence.

Shinsou, with golden eyes locked firmly on his prey, held the edge of Enpera steadily against the throat of the stubby gentleman standing in front of him and, for the final time, challenged the man to move out of his way.

“Last chance, dickhead. Move.”

Before the short, stubble beareded man said a word, his friend decided to clear up any misunderstanding about the reputation of the place Shinsou was in. A wooden bar stool suddenly found a whole new purpose as it was launched an admirable distance across the bar before colliding with the back of Shinsou’s skull. The Telgradian’s legs folded underneath him, a trickle of blood forking down the back of his pale neck as he fell, and the dwarf went for him. He screamed in Shinsou’s dazed face as he pinned him to the rickety wooden floor, throwing a balled fist into his right cheek. The Telgradian’s head recoiled horribly off the wooden, sticky beer soaked planks that made up the floor.

Everything was fuzzy around the edges. The blow to his head hadn’t done him much good, but Shinsou was still holding his sword, and although he wasn’t in the mood for slaughtering random people the Telgradian wasn’t partial to getting gang beatings either. Deciding actions spoke louder than threats, the bruised Osiris kicked the floor to his left, using the momentum to get onto his side, and log rolled with his miserable mount to his right. With a deft thrust forward, Shinsou’s blade slid neatly between the folds of flesh covering the offender’s kneecaps. The dwarf cried out in horror while Shinsou, bloodied and beaten, challenged the other patrons with a cold stare, his sword still stuck in his victim. They backed off from around him and his new friend slowly.

“I’ll give you something; you have balls, kid. One twist of my wrist and that nasty looking wound isn’t closing anytime soon.” Shinsou announced, gesturing dizzily towards the tip of Enpera. “Now, does anyone else have a problem with me being here?”

The question was met with abject silence as those who had thought about insurrection quickly reconsidered. It took less than twenty seconds for Shinsou to brush himself down, pull his blade out of the dwarf’s leg and get a beer.

It was now half past midday, but the air still seemed bitterly cold for this time of year. Even wrapped in the thick of his trademark white greatcoat and a smattering of uniform underneath, the chill seemed to cut through Shinsou as he sipped his beer. He stood with Arius, his long time advisor and friend, in the recesses of the tavern.

“You can’t even get breakfast without someone baying for your blood. I can already see today is going to be shit.” The wiry, bespectacled man muttered to the Telgradian as he wiped away the froth from his mouth. Signifying a change of subject with a slight drop in tone, he shot Shinsou a sideways glance. “Can you still feel it?”

The Telgradian wiped the dwarf’s blood from the flat to the tip of Enpera with a white rag. It was well known that a sword’s worst enemy was rusting, and it was important that his weapon was well maintained at all times. Shinsou took considerable care to ensure he wasn’t taking any chances with his. Blood had a surprisingly adverse effect on weaker metals. With this in mind carefully sheathed the clean blade into its ivory and marble sheath, neatly lashed to the inside of his greatcoat, and turned to face his friend.

“Yeah,” Shinsou replied, somewhat grumpily, “There’s a ‘special’ in here, somewhere. It’s there, but less focused. Raw, even.”

“Honestly, you need to think of better names,” Arius chortled to himself, lighting a cigarette with a concealed match. “’Specials?’ Might as well call them window lickers. Or threats.”

“Or, more appropriately, ‘persons of interest’” the tone of Shinsou’s response rang heavily with a granulated ambience, “There aren’t many that give off this kind of aura. Hayate was one; Cromwell another. Look how they turned out. I’m yet to be proven wrong about these types; when they find their footing, they grow. They become virtuous, they fall, or they hold the middle ground and become unpredictable.”

Shinsou brushed aside a bang of brown hair and stiffened his arms, straightening his back as he did.

“I just want to make sure that I know where all the pieces on the chess board are at any one time.”

Anger, shame, resentment, fear I blinked twice at that mix of emotions-they had flashed rapidly through each other before settling on fear, then fading rapidly. I looked around slowly, to see a short, stocky man clutching at his leg as he left the tavern. From the thin trail of blood that followed behind him, the reason for holding onto his limb was rather apparent - but also a bit confusing.

Emotions had surged up rapidly behind me while I was drinking my mead, too jumbled from too many sources to accurately tell what was going on. But there had not been a bar brawl like I would have expected - something must have happened that put paid to the situation before it escalated any further. But if that had been the case, then wouldn't they should have also had heightened emotions to match it. Nothing like that had pricked my sense though, and looking around I couldn't really see anyone who had the kind of anger on their face to have shut a bar brawl down before it could begin.

Curious. The other option was someone with at least some level of emotional control. Or someone who actually felt nothing about dealing with the actions of the dwarf, and handled it swiftly and forcefully enough that no one else dared try to follow up on whatever had happened. I chewed on my lower lip for a moment as my eyes scanned the tavern. There was now an undercurrent of fear in the air, tainting my empathy just enough to be constantly prodding me.

There did seem to be an area of the tavern that other people were now avoiding though. Hmm, seemed like the contender for 'who kicked the short man out of the tavern' was over there. I took I slow drink of my mead, humming in thought. Whoever was over there clearly was in no mood to take any grief or stress, so probably for the best not to -

"Damn bastard thinks he can get away with whatever he wants, don't he." I hadn't noticed the rising resentment boiling up next to me, and if I hadn't caught the words and associated them with the emotion that was surging upwards, I might have continued to ignore it." I'm gonna -" The man speaking was the one who had warned me about going out alone again. I set my mead down and clamped my hand on his shoulder.

"Probably not the best idea to be muttering aloud things like that, neighbor." His eyes snapped around from the corner, where he had been glaring, to settle on mine. I could see, and feel, the shift in his emotions. Whoops. Leaping before I looked, again.

"You're with 'im, ain't ya, ya bastard. S'why ye're alone earlier, he abandoned ya didn't he?" He spat the words out. "Or ye came early to wait for 'im." Resentment - anger The shift between emotions was smooth, feeding each other in a spiral back and forth. Damn it. I'd hoped to interrupt his focus on the target of his fury, not give him a new one. If he'd gone after whoever was in that corner, he'd probably end up like the short stocky man from earlier, bleeding from a wound.

"No, can't say that I am. Never met 'him', whoever he is." My words fell on dear ears, though. Fury He lashed out, smashing his fist into my injured arm, and I had to grit my teeth hard to avoid screaming in pain. My hand was still on his other shoulder, and I dug my fingers in hard. "Apologize."

"Fuck ye, ye Brotherhood sympie." He ground his fingers against the cuts on my arm, and I could feel a hot wetness spreading around and under the bandages. My patience and friendly demeanor ran out real fast then. I took the flicker of anger that coiled in my gut, and fed that heat into a spot under my hand on his shoulder.

Unseen to anyone, the fabric of the man's sleeve began to smolder. It hurt us both, the sudden flame springing up and almost immediately being smothered, but even that flare of pain was enough to make the man jerk his hand away from me and stagger back. I had been expecting the surge of heat after all, and he hadn't. His hand shot to his shoulder and I narrowed my eyes,watching him quail for a moment before I shook my head. "Not worth it." I finally unclenched my teeth and turned back to the bar. My fingers curled around the handle of the mug I had been drinking from and I drained the sweet alcohol in one long swallow, then set the mug back down as I stood up.

Now I had to go change my bandages, again. The crimson stain spreading across the white linen was rather telling, even if it was slow. I left the man clutching at his singed shirt and started heading for the door, ignoring the bewilderment/fear/anger that was still simmering in the man. If he wanted to try continuing with me, or trying to start something with whoever had sent the short man packing earlier, he was welcome to it - but I'd rather be on the street in either case.

More than thirty or so men were abandoned to their hatred of Shinsou’s Brotherhood in the inn, and the Telgradian quickly decided that after the brawl there was nothing more to be said to them. They were drunk, after all.

A handful of perhaps the more neutral patrons mixed with with them, and they were drunk too. Amongst it all Shinsou could sense very little energy as they mulled about the tavern; their vitals dulled like the victims of a plague.

There was one, though, who was different; a diamond who stood out amongst all of the coal. He was a man of tall build, with brown hair and a linen shirt stained with blood from a fresh wound, and he moved among the bodies which sat and sauntered in the vault area of the cold tavern towards the door. His interest was not in the stupefied drunks, or in the political disagreements that soured the atmosphere, but seemingly in avoiding conflict with another man sat opposite him. Mild chatter over the air suggested one had accused the other of being a Brotherhood sympathizer, to which Shinsou’s quarry had retorted with some form of magic.

Not a fan of their work, obviously, but still intriguing.

Shinsou had first felt the tell-tale signs of this standout from across town whilst drilling a small, advance force for the Castigars in Stonevale. Most of these kinds of people he found had joined the Brotherhood because of crime or desperation, and because the Brotherhood gave them a third of a pint of rum a day. Some, though, didn’t join at all. Instead, the Telgradian mentored them out of curiosity, or challenged them to keep his own skills sharp. John Cromwell, Hayate Amatsukami, Philomel van der Aart, and even the mighty Joshua Cronen ranked amongst those numbers; people he had worked with and against who now truly had carved their names into history. Joshua, his only other true friend aside from the powerful Storm Veritas, had even ascended to Thaynehood, so it was to be believed. Shinsou had found heaven on a miserable Althanas when he had discovered these people, no matter their goals or allegiances, because they kept him strong. If they became a threat, they would be left to the mercy of the Brotherhood.

“Come on, Arius.”

Shinsou had already finished his beer, and was starting to stand. Arius gulped his own ale into oblivion and then stared at the thirty or so strong tavern mob that he found staring at him.

“What do we do with them?”

Shinsou looked back at his right hand man, and shrugged. “Nothing. I’m more concerned about this guy, for now. Get him down.”

They angled their heads towards the gentleman who had been briefly set on fire. He had obviously taken offence at this, and, quickly, the once-discrete patron reached beneath his coat for a still unseen weapon, moving with a slow, unflinching deliberation in the direction of Shinsou’s “person of interest”. Quick and decisive action would be needed to bring the Telgradian’s latest “experiment” safely away from the place. Like two human sidewinders, the Brotherhood contingent human pressed themselves closely together and slid across the breadth of the tavern, allowing themselves to come between the two men and the door with arms deliberately left in view.

Shinsou spoke first, pulling his coat back a bit to reveal Enpera’s sheath. His bright golden eyes peered in a harsh squint.

“Think you might need to rethink your next move,” His voice was disquietingly articulate and sharp as he gestured to his “interest”, “The man you have a problem with there is under Brotherhood protection. Which means my protection.”

“Think I care? I want nothing to do with any Brotherhood pricks, and I don’t give a shit whether it’s a random dickhead or the “mighty” Shinsou Vaan Osiris in my way,” The venom poured from the man’s lips like liquid; it burned with the same hatred he had spewed up against Shinsou’s quarry. He moved to step about the tandem. Arius pressed his hand against the door, stepping once again in front of the man. “Sorry, but it really is best for everyone that you re-consider.”

The man’s eyes flashed briefly with rage, a wildfire ready to go off. Shinsou’s eyes glanced at the hand holding a dagger to his stomach, and snapped his fingers. Instantly, vines of dark matter sprung forth and wrapped themselves around the shaft of the poorly fashioned blade, before dissolving the steel entirely. The hilt collapsed gruesomely about the man’s left hand; a mixture of molten steel and cord smothering the hand and scolding it.

Shinsou shot a glare at his initial interest, and finally addressed him.

“Meet me outside. I’d like to talk to you.”

Hatred/rage/spite/fury - agony The wash of emotions that roiled behind me was nearly potent enough to send me to my knees. The rage and hatred was vile and foul, a thick and choking miasma that drowned out many of the other emotions - which in this tavern had rapidly become fear and nervousness, shot through with undercurrents of anger. Anger that paled in comparison to the brew that emanated from the man behind me -

At least until the agony and scream erupted. I heard a weird sizzle, almost like bacon popping in a pan, but lacking the scent of heat and cooking meat - then the sharp tang of copper flooded my nose. Blood. I spun around to see my would-be assailant falling to his knees, one hand clutching desperately at the other. The injured hand was somehow coated in metal, and I could see where drops of blood had fallen to the floor.

The agony/pain/terror made bile rise in the back of my throat. I almost didn't hear words spoken to me - a murmur, noise that filtered in one ear and out the other. My stomach heaved as the pain tore through my mind and emotions, drowning out everything in the tavern except for the unrelenting agony and the mind-numbing panic. I fell to one knee, catching myself before falling over completely as I forced myself to steady out my breathing. Trying to mute the feelings that were thundering through my head, pounding through my chest.

Blearily I focused on the man in front of me - and the emotions cut off as he passed out. I let out a gasp of pure relief as the excruciating pain and the heavy fear vanished as his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed onto his side, his good hand still clutching at the ruined one. With my own uninjured hand I tentatively reached out and touched the man's neck, checking for a pulse. My relief intensified when I found it - reedy, weak, but steady. I slowly forced my way to my feet, staggering slightly.

The intense emotions had run me ragged, and even in their absence recovery wasn't immediate. But I had my own emotion fueling me at the moment - resentment mixed with disbelief. I didn't know just what the absolute Kholis-taken hells was going on here, or what the 'brotherhood' was that spawned such deep emotions, but now a man's hand and life were ruined over it. And I had been dragged into the middle of it. I'd tried warning someone and then been attacked by him - and then again, if the actual target of his fury had not intervened.

I needed answers. And the white-clad man who had done this, the one who had walked outside, he was my only chance for those now. Everyone who remained in the tavern was staring at me, and I didn't need to be an Empath to feel the fear, shock, simmering anger in those gazes. "M… Make sure he gets to a healer. He still lives." My voice was shaky, unstable and weak as I spoke. Leather trod across dusty, blood spattered wood as I stumbled out the door into the streets.

Immediately my eyes swept around, to see the white-clad man. He and his companion seemed almost to be waiting for me - maybe from what he'd said as he left, the words I'd lost in the wash of the agony. "What… The Kholis was that all about?" I rasped out when I got over to the two of them. I normally was more polite about this but at the moment, my own arm was hurting and I was still recovering from the man in the tavern's emotions. I was a bit too off-kilter to really be polite.