The Drunken Rat

[Theo]

To anyone who was looking, it was obvious that Theo was day dreaming. Not only that, but but it was obvious he was intoxicated. Theo didn't have a care in the world at the moment, but that's the way he wanted it.

He was staring into the empty tankard. Everyone around him continued to talk as he continued listen to the buzz of noise that surrounded him. The group sitting at the bar continued to grow as he heard them talk of drugs and plans, and even a soft voice of accusation of a thief.

Theo's interest began to grown when he overheard the accusation. He couldn't help but think that this was going to be something of interest. It could have been the alcohol talking, but he was truly intrigued.

Leaning towards Kat, in a not so subtle way, he began to listen for anything he could respond to. Theo knew the best way in was to listen or at least get enough dirt to come after them later.

[Talion]

Master shook his head in disappointment, "You stupid, stupid fool..." Though Talion could not see his face, he knew the demon was quite displeased with him. Come to think of it, Talion had never actually seen the face of Master but he assumed the demon had reasons for hiding himself from view.

Soon, he forgot all about the cloaked figure or the lizard still sitting on the bar as he was overcome by yet another wave of uncontrollable pain. His mind felt like it was going to exploded from the pain. The ringing in his ears grew loader as all the voices of all the demons that tormented him laughed.

"Ahhh..."

Slumping forward, he nearly fell off of his stool. If not for the bar right in front of him, he may have fallen. He leaned against the bar as he felt the various muscles in his give out on him.

Talion didn't want the others to see him like this and hoped that they would dismiss it as simple drunkenness. It was not like him to let himself get so weak, the withdrawals were defiantly getting worse. If he didn't find a place to medicate himself soon, his health would surly take a turn for the worse.

Trying to lift himself off the bar, he only managed to kick over his walking stick which had been leaning against the bar. As it crashed to the floor, it made a noise loud enough to draw the attention of others.

"I..I need to get out..out of here" He turned his head slightly to look at the half breed. "You live here... got a place we can go to?" It was painful to speak but he really needed help and at a time like this, he needed more then the insults of demons.

[Tsaikatlaua]

Tsaikatlaua eyed the girl as she climbed onto a bar stool. Tsai felt almost certain that she wouldn't run away, and so she released her grip on the girl. "You do not run." it was phrased like a question but said like an order. The honey-eyed girl fixed her would-be robber with a stare and began to speak.

Then she stopped. This was, perhaps, not the greatest place to talk business. especially not when it concerned breaking into a government building and stealing from a heavily guarded library. She noticed the man to whom she'd given the flowers shaking slightly, which she recognized as a sign of withdrawl. A slight frown touched her face. A dead drug addicted man would be no help.

She nodded to the barkeep and paid for her now-empty glass of wine, then stood smoothly. "I tired of speaking in bar. And speaking of things certain is not good with guarding around. I bought small building for home here. We can privately speaking there. You may all come." Looking around at the small group she gestured like a queen and turned to the door, walking like a gently moving combination of mystery and secrets, and not entirely human.

[Cimri Mayensis]

As her blackmailer led the way out of the bar, a dozen options flashed through Cimri's mind. A few of them involved her dagger and the other woman's ribs. It was nothing she hadn't had to do before, but - she sighed - there were too many witnesses. She would just have to hope that there was a job and that it was interesting.

She cast a thoughtful glance over at the dwarf who'd been her intended meal ticket. He was watching her curiously, apparently wondering why she was no longer headed his way. That could be a problem. For lack of a better idea or anyone's cooperation, she flashed a smile at him, then slid her eyes towards the woman exiting the bar and back to the dwarf, her lips curving from a normal smile to sensually suggestive. His eyes widened; she shrugged and turned her back on him, her false point made.

However, the lady was now pretty close to the door, so Cimri stood, deliberately unhurried, and wended her way after her captor. No point in letting the lady know how good her threat was, but no need to risk pissing her off either. She reached a door and looked at the man who'd been at their table, whom to her heightened senses was shivering all over. She'd seen enough drug-users to take a wild guess as to what was wrong, but he wasn't her problem. Yet. And unless someone made it her problem, he could abuse his body however he wanted. At least the skinny elf-man they'd left behind had lost the glazed look in his eyes. What a band of freaks she'd found herself entangled in.

[Theo]

The room was spinning, or at least it was to Theo. It took all of his effort just to stay seated at the bar, but lucky for him that wasn't his plan. He turned to stand, and promptly fell off his stool landing solidly on the hard, cold floor.

Quickly, before anyone would noticed, he hoped, he stood back up using the bar itself as a crutch. he rummaged in his pockets and threw his last few coins on the counter top to settle his tab. His pockets were now empty and getting home on his own would have been challenging.

best bet he thought to himself is to head back with this lot so at least I have someone to follow.

He turned to the now shivering elf next to him. "Come on... oh... whats your face. Lets just get out of here."

Theo held out his arm and concentrated on being able to extend his arm to help prop up the elf and make their way back to Kat's house.

And I just wanted a quiet drink... damn.

[Talion]

Talion had struggled to try to pull himself up from the bar. The sudden weakness that came over him accompanied by the intense muscle pain, only made it that much harder of an act to accomplish.

The half-breed Elf had held out a hand to help him but Talion was not about to rely on others for assistance. By accepting help, he would even weaker then how he did right now. Maybe it was the stubborn mind of a growing adolescent that wouldn't let him accept help or maybe it was that he had given up on others long ago.

As a young child, Talion had lost all of those that were close to him. First, his mother disappeared, though he barely remembered her, she was a shining light that sought to spread joy wherever she went. Then his father, the selfish bastard that he was, killed himself leaving his two young children to fend for themselves. Finally there was his brother, Kurzainous had been the only person in his life that he ever really trusted, they had been much more then just best friends or brothers but twins.

He remembered the last time he saw Zain, it was on the day of of their father's funeral. The boys were still young and didn't fully know what was going on but what they did know was that they were alone with only each other for company. Talion had stood there, staring at the boy that could almost be called his reflection, they did not need to use words to express their feelings, they were that close. Had they known that they would be separated and left for dead later that day, then they might have tried to flee together or at least try to find a way in which they would not be separated from each other.

That had not been the case though, Talion had been separated from the one person in the world in which he could tell everything to. He didn't even know if his brother still lived. At times, it almost seemed easier just to believe him dead, then maybe he too wouldn't be wondering the world alone. That wasn't fully true though, Talion had the Master for company.

Master had always been a part of his life but with the loss of everything else, Master became the driving force that kept him going. The demon was there to in courage him to grow stronger and to take care of himself. As much as he didn't want to admit it, Master had became like the carrying parent that Talion never had. And it was Master that told him not to rely on strangers for help.

"I..can do it myself" Pushing Theo's hand out of the way, Talion slid off the bar and reached down to pick his walking stick up off the ground. He looked as if at any minute he would fall flat on his face but his determination kept him going. Getting the stick under him was not an easy task but he managed to pull through. With a smile on his face and the stick in his hand once more, he limped to the door leaving Theo standing at the bar.

"For a pointy-eared idiot, you did good..for once"

[Tsaikatlaua]

Tsaikatlaua felt no fear walking the streets of Marn after dark. She sauntered down various alleyways and streets easily, confident in the fact that if she was attacked she could easily overpower her opressor. She could shift into an anaconda and crush the foolish attacker, or a jaguar and tear his throat out. If they were near water, a caiman the size of a small boat would do the trick as well. She could drag the idiot into the water and drown him, vise-like clamp made of her jaws...

She dragged herself from these morbid and jet oh-so-amusing thoughts with a mild sigh. Human form was so confining. Ever since she'd been blessed she felt like humans were nearly powerless... except for their abilities to channel magic. Tsaikatlaua herself was a water-summoner, low in the rankings of her people. Water was common in her lands, so her mild powers before she'd been blessed were also common.

She walked at a moderate pace, then looked back to see her small group. She sighed again slightly. It wasn't an ideal picking she'd gotten from her first foray into this dark, cold society, but these people would do for now. She was quite pleased with finding a thief--Tsaikatlaua had anticipated that to be the second hardest, as theives rarely wanted to be caught, but she'd thought that without her heightened senses from the blessing. The theif, along with finding someone who knew the insides of the closed building would have been the hardest.

She would make use of the rug addicted one easily as well... a smile curled around her lips once more. She loved feeling in control.

[Cimri Mayensis]

Cimri trailed out of the bar, trying not to walk any closer to the girl than she had to. Groups draw attention. Between the threat hanging over her head, having the other two behind her back, and her normal wariness while on the streets, she felt like the skin on her back was crawling with little spiders. Her entire body was twitchy. To burn energy, she shoved her hands into her pant pockets and shifted back and forth, back and forth. Claws burst from her fingertips then vanished, only to reappear. There then gone, over and over. After each time, she paused to rub her thumb over the tips of her fingers.

She used to worry about someone feeling the magic use, but shifting magic had a distinct, wild taste to it, a furry feel, and it was completely legal, so she'd eventually learned that the regular guards wouldn't bat an eyelash even if she shifted right in front of them. Unless she was shifting back, of course. Any man would bat an eyelash if an animal suddenly turned into a naked woman right in front of them.

Back and forth, over and over. Her shoulders jerked then hunched as all the hairs on the back of her neck raised. She turned and glared at the two men behind her. She blamed her companions for the feeling of eyes boring holes in her back.

[Yyan]

Yyan had been following the sounds of faint music and laughter, using them like a beacon to navigate the unfamiliar streets. As he moved, he searched through his memory, trying to piece together how he had come to this place at all, but those thoughts still evaded him. He blamed the fever for that, and checked his forehead every so often to be sure his temperature wasn’t on the rise again. A chill breeze rushed through the street, and Yyan clutched his jacket tighter to ward off the cold.

The sounds grew louder until they drew him towards a tavern with its door flung wide open. Several people stood within the pool of light spilling from it onto the street… and Yyan halted in his tracks. Waves of energy rolled across his senses, a feeling so intense it made his knees wobble. Magic, very powerful magic, of a nature strange to him.

It was not just one kind of magic either. Yyan caught a sense of wilderness, and one of darkness, each totally separate from the other.

But the strongest of them… He drew himself into a darkened alleyway, pulled in several deep breaths, then peered across the street cautiously. It was one of the women, the one with the gold glittering conspicuously in the lamplight.

Yyan’s stomach growled at him, and he felt weariness gnawing at his bones. He wanted rest, but he couldn’t draw his gaze away from the woman.

[Talion]

With his purple-green lizard demon in tow, Talion exited the tavern. His was still weak from the waves of terrible pain that racked his body but he was determined to keep up with the others. Leaning heavily on his walking stick, he limped out into the street. His left foot dragged against the cobblestone road as he attempted to follow his two new female companions.

"Why follow them? Why not just leave now? You got what you wanted, lets just leave the city before you get yourself in trouble."

He chose not to answer the lizard because he didn't even know why it was that he was following the others. Sure the female had said that she wanted a favor in return for the drugs but what could she possibly do if he were to sneak off into an alley and disappear from sight. He could do it, it probably would have been the smart thing to do but that was not what he did.

No, he followed the others, if not at a much slower pace. Each time his walking stick hit the road, it made a loud sound reminiscent of the wooden mallet his father used long ago. As he made his way down the street, memories from his childhood flooded his mind again. With a lack of drugs in his system, he had nothing to hold these memories at bay.

His mind wondered back to a time when he was a small child. Talion and Zain would spend hours watching their father as he worked feverishly on whatever his latest project had been at the time. The man had always been more at home in the woods then he had been with his family, what little time he did spend at home, he buried himself in any project he could. With home repairs and improvements, the man always kept himself busy. Talion remembered how he would watch his father, being the young child that he had been, he had aspired to be like his father at the time.

Now that he was older, Talion realized that he never really wanted to be like his father, he had wanted more the attention his father instilled in his work. With the disappearance of his mother, his father had buried himself in his work to avoid having to deal with the trouble he was going through at home. The boys had been well cared for but they had lacked the presence of a loving parent.

Not that he felt sorry for his father, in fact he could have cared less about the mental state of his father. Deep down, Talion still blamed his father for much of the suffering he had gone through in his life. It was his fault, why Talion walked to world with only demons for company.

But no, he had to remind himself, he was not alone. He had met an odd group of people inside a tavern and with but a short exchange of words, he was following them to the house of a woman he had just met.

[Tsaikatlaua]

Tsaikatlaua led the motley crew along several side streets. She was guided by the awareness that the god's gifts had given her, and her own shapr memory. Before she was gifted she would have been as lost as a blind girl in a desert, but she didn't have that problem anymore. She felt powerful and confident, and certainly not nineteen years old.

She delibrately walked past the building, tall and secure, that housed the book. She slowed and motioned her theif near, murmuring very softly so that the others wouldn't hear, "That is where what I need is." She looked into the other girl's eyes as she spoke, noticing with some satisfaction that her language was getting much better, and quickly. Parrot's gift was a nice one.

Moving on, she stopped next at a darkened house. Pressing a key gently into the battered lock she opened the door and motioned her guests into it. Tsaikatlaua lit a few lamps, illuminating a shadowy house. The wood was dark and there was a humidity and heat to the air, vaugely like a tropical. She appeared to visibly become more alert as the temperature and dampness increased, and she started a fire in the grate.

"Sit, please. I have proposition for you."

[Cimri Mayensis]

"That is where what I need is."

Her alert senses noted the rapid dissipation of the other girl's accent, but it didn't strike her as immediately important. She glanced up at the structure as they strolled by before speeding back up.

Cimri's eyes flashed golden as the words sank in. That was a secure building they'd just passed. Regardless of anything else - ownership, financial status, et cetera - it was a very, very secure building.

"I love a challenge." Her nerves calmed slightly as she realized that her blackmailer really did have a job for her, and she dismissed the tension remaining in her as stress from allowing the other two to follow so closely. Deeply hidden in her pockets, her fingertips retracted their claws for the final time and she slid her hands free of the black linen.

Her eyes darted along the street again, out of habit, but aside from a few familiar street urchins smart enough to stay away from her, there was no obvious threat. "I hate being leashed," she muttered under her breath. Being caught in this snare is enough to make anyone twitchy. One hand slipped towards her sword sheathe, caressing the metal lightly before she caught herself.

[Yyan]

Yyan trailed after the gold-bedecked young woman and the assembled group that she led, keeping to the edges of the streets and ready to duck into an alleyway if any of them turned in his direction. As he followed, he mentally mapped the route back to the tavern. If he was correct in assuming that he would be in this city for a while, it was best to start learning the routes. The vague headache gnawing at the base of his skull made concentrating more difficult, but he grit his teeth and pushed through.

They left the slummier sections of the streets behind for taller and neatly kept buildings. It seemed to Yyan that the woman slowed her pace as she passed by one building in particular, but he could detect nothing special about it, at least not from without. He had no spare thought to ponder it; the weight of her strange magic pressed his mind, and the longer he followed, the harder it became to think at all.

Such strong magic is dangerous. It could have adverse effects. I have to know…

The woman led her party to a nondescript house at the end of a side street. She opened the door for them and drew them all inside, then closed the door again behind her. Yyan hurried forward, his worn boots making no audible sound on the stones. He ducked around the side of the house, out of sight from the street, and pressed himself against the wall underneath a window. His heart pounded ripples of dizziness through his brain, but he strained his ears to hear inside.

“Sit, please. I have proposition for you.”

[Talion]

Talion hardly even noticed when the girls slowed their pace to look at a rater large building in front of them. Instead of joining them in this little admiration of architecture, Talion decided to put this time to better use by catching up to the others.

They may not have realized that his limp had slowed him down and every step they took had put more space between their little group. There was nothing he could do to help this but if they were going to be stopping to gaze upon the local establishment, he might as well put what time they gave him to good use.

Sooner then he had hoped, the group had turned again to their voyage through the city. It was one of the largest cities that he had ever been in, the darkness only helped to make him feel more lost then he already was. If it were not for his female companions, he might be wondering around the town aimlessly like he had already been doing all day.

The tavern had been the first thing that he had stumbled on that looked to be inviting enough to spend the night but that was gone now. Now, he wondered the streets again heading off to some unknown destination.

He was about to inquire as to the length of the journey when he noticed that they had stopped once again. Good,he thought. My body is killing me and I can really use a smoke about now.

He allowed himself to be led into the small house where he took a seat on the floor, propping his back up against a wall. Once he concluded that he was about as comfortable as he could get, he reached into the small pouch on his belt to retrieve the old pipe.

"Is that all you ever think about?" The lizard took pleasure in mocking his weakness. "You and your drugs, you would die without Master and the rest of us."

“Sit, please. I have proposition for you.”

"Yeah, sure...maybe."

[Tsaikatlaua]

Tsaikatlaua nodded as they came into her house. She didn't bother closing the door all the way, though it was more from forgetfulness than trying to ensure her guests were comfortable in the hot, humid interior of the room. A quick glance around with cat-like eyes told her that all in her motley little crew were present, and she set straight into talking.

"Know you I am not local. I live in far away land, many miles to the south and west. My people do like not to venture from our homeland unless in times of great need, such as now. I am speaker from my people, blessed by our gods to complete task.

"If you want out of proposition by the time I am done, you may leave. However, if you speak one word of what passes, I will hunt you down and kill you." It was simply spoken and she carried right on. Truth was, Tsaikatlaua had absoultely no qualms about killing--it was simply a part of her culture. "I know you do not want death, especially in the form of fangs and coils."

She smiled, a Cheshire Cat grin. "I am need a book, from inside the library. I do not have means to get the book myself--I am powerful but I have no skills at stealing, nor do I knowing the layout of inside library." A dark look dimmed her smile for a few seconds, as she hated admitting that she couldn't do something. "But you people do know. And you will help me or leave now."

Tsaikatlaua fell silent, waiting for answers.