163 PW

Given a preference, Tagi would have much rather been attending to the biological needs suffered by the shifters of Ciasse rather than playing bodyguard to...to...

She shifted her weight to one foot. She was on door duty with Sertor who, she was relatively sure, had threatened her with ...

Tagi and Sertor were heading in the same direction because Fariq had generally and deliberately let it be known that Tagi was cursed with an affliction that turned her into one of the Nehkhepera. Only the strength of opinion regarding her employer kept the villagers from running her out of town with ...

Tagi belched, the sound distorted through the mandibles of the deformed beetle head she wore. She clacked her mandibles, and seemed, for a moment, to be at a loss.

_________

The rainbow light of the vomited magic dribbled from Evren, suffusing him with a multi-hued glow. It lit up the room ...

There was one nice thing about the chips being down and desperation settling in: Tagi didn't have to cater to the delicate sensibilities of her companions any longer. Their enemies were summoning monsters, so she became one. Well, she already was one. She just made the outsides look like the insides ...

He never shut up. Tagi was bemused as she watched-smelled-heard Giacomo die, but it was only at the corner of her attention. Well, no one was really paying much attention to Giacomo, because by the time any of them could register what was going on, it was them or him, and everyone who might have ...

There was a joyous reunion with the three latecomers, the celebration of which largely consisted of Tagi's unenthused "oh," at seeing Fariq, and Giacomo's quiet sniveling. Ramon remained silent. Tagi had taken the time to switch to human form to look at his wound and dress it as best she could; it ...

"Try not to die," was Ramon's weary return, the implicit humor in the words mellowed by the grim way he said it.

Tagi didn't like the odds of two warriors and a walking dead man bumbling about in the tunnels. Well, her odds were just fine, but there was the little matter of getting paid, and the ...

"Fuckfest? Did he say fuckfest?" Tagi, as usual, broke the silence. She'd turned to face them, though they couldn't see her, confused. "That is not an appropriate joke, Ser -- ow!"

Her raised tail had found the wire. Though the pain, for Tagi, was likely not as harsh as that of normal living ...

Giacomo, as it turned out, was a weeper.

In the grand scheme of things, most scholars didn't have to deal with the rapid deaths of everyone around them. Certainly, most mercs on escort duty didn't need to deal with that either, but at least for them they'd likely experienced it at some point or ...

It was probably a good bet that anyone would prefer spiders to having their head crunched into a useless pile of slimy meat. Unless they were into that thing, in which case Tagi would happily see them a few hundred years down the road after they'd gotten a little crunchier.

She'd decided she didn't ...

A distinct whine entered Tagi's tone. "You are always with the complaining that I am not cultured , and now that I display learning, now I am making stupid noises? Who is it now who --" the light went out. She did not lower her voice, though she had not been overloud to begin with. "-- is uncouth ...

"We're going to --" Tagi stopped, glanced askance past the bulk of the Kerostriarii towards the other mercs and charges. " Die, " she clicked, her own use of the language sloppy and ill-formed. " If we don't get out of here soon ." There was nothing overtly melodramatic in the way she spoke, or in ...

"Oh." Tagi shifted in place, watching the light bob as Evren held the light up for Giocomo. She looked up. "Really, you should think about putting that out."

"It's important ." Giocomo's voice was dreadfully whiny.

"Important enough to die?" Tagi shifted again, watching the ceiling.

"I will not ...

Tagi was bouncing on the balls of her feet right up until Sertor identified the sound as having come from above him. She looked up, then looked back at him, eyebrows drawing together in concern. "Above?"

The rest had finished their inspection of the room. "It wasn't from above," Tagi grumbled to ...

Tagi was, thankfully, not burdened with an overabundance of sympathy. Or any. She understood the concept, of course, but felt only a mild hunger and dim eagerness (the urge to survive being felt most keenly by our djinn) to get a move on.

But all of that changed when he started clicking.

She ...