Thar Shaddin

When someone tells you to be at the rocks, there was feasibly room for an argument about what rocks that was supposed to be at. The world was fucking full of rocks. But even feeling especially stupid, Leni knew exactly what rocks 'the rocks' referred to, and so she'd gone to the giant jut of them that towered proudly up towards the sky. Even the bones of the world felt like being phallic, sometimes. Maybe that was why men always wanted to meet up by the rocks.

"You're not dead," she said as she approached the broken body that sprawled over the lower bench-like protuberance of stone. "Get up. Who told you to get yourself fucking sacrificed before sunrise?"

The dead man sighed. "I was in a glorious tragedy."

Leni grunted. "Go to a whorehouse like a normal man."
"I was told to be here, not at a whorehouse."
"Coulda brought a whore here. Or a house of them."
"Then they'd be dead."
"So?"

The dead man sat up, pulling his flayed skin about him like a shawl. "Leni, we're not allowed to kill whores."
"So?"

There was a pause, during which he looked at her up and down.

"You're hungover, huh?"

Leni glared at him as he pushed organs back into the cavity of his stomach, wishing for a moment they'd cut off his fingers and scattered them. "Who'd you get sacrificed to? Some low level earth god? That'd be fucking rich."

The dead man pouted. "Farahu."
"No."
"Yeah."
"Well shut the fuck up, you're supposed to be dead."
"Head hurt?"
"I hope Diosus unmakes you."
The dead man, who was no longer quite so dead, smiled slyly. "No way, he likes me too much."
"What, you finally bend over for him?"
"Yup. Biggest cock I've ever had."

Leni rolled her eyes. "You're a fucking slut."

The man cackled in reply. When he'd finished being evil, they sat companionably on the rock with its dried gore, and he shared the ritual food and drink of his sacrifice with her as they waited.

Fay was, to be put very simply, drunk. She'd managed to ditch Jerial, find a tavern and get absolutely hammered. Now she staggered around, singing very off-tune, and happily polishing off a bottle of vodka, a full one still in her bag. Oh yes... tonight was a good night.

Well it was *supposesd* to be - then she kind of found this huge pile of rocks. And by the changers PEOPLE! Hell yes, perhaps they want to hang out with her?

"Hello there, fair people of these rocks upon which you dwell... how fare ye?"

Kori stood on top of the rock formation and looked around. It was pretty up here. He drained the last bit of whisky from the jar, and dropped it over the side of the formation. He pulled another bottle from his pack and drained it in one pull, throwing the bottle over the opposite side. Looking down, he noticed some specks that looked like people.

Grinning, he untied his pants and started to piss over the edge, trying to get it to spatter over the small specks at the bottom.

The rather alive man scooted to the side, and a splatter of piss sprinkled down, rewetting the dried blood. Both Leni and he looked down at it, expressionless, and got off the stone. Then they looked at the approaching, drunken woman.

"Stronghammer needs to be killed again," the man said.
"You're just mad he won't fuck you." Leni watched the weaving woman's approach. "She looks familiar."
"Yeah, like you when you're piss drunk."

Leni looked at Vexako, who'd recovered admirably from his ritual disembowling, and pulled her crossbow and a bolt from her back. She stared at him right up until she sighted down the length of the crossbow and pulled the trigger. A bolt thudded into Fayane's chest. Leni'd had a good long while to perfect her aim, after all.

"Leni, you know we're not supposed to kill the mudders."
"Twenty bishani says she's Diosus' reason for the call."
"Done."

As one they walked to the body of the woman, the sprinkle of urine yet falling in its almost-mist behind them. They looked over the spreading stain of blood, and Leni grinned. Ko swore and started digging around in his dirty pockets. "Ah. No bishani."

Leni punched him in the shoulder, and he grinned at her. She turned back to the woman on the ground. "Get up, idiot, you're not dead."

Ko sauntered back to the foot of the rock. "Oy, Stronghammer! Get down here, we got another turned t' welcome for battle!"

Changers be damned. Damn the weather. Damn the sun. Damn reason he ventured so far from the coast. Damn the idea of preserving oneself in a pool of water. Most of all, damn the reason water must evaporate into the sky and a thousand clouds must carry the vapors to the ends of Pal Tahrenor, or beyond for all he knew.

One moment he was trying to escape the blazing sun and the next he was falling from the sky in millions of tiny droplets. He had been ripped apart and scattered and now he had to pull himself back together before hitting the ground. What if one of his legs happened to be on the other side of the world? What if an ear ended up inside his stomach? He could wind up scattered between pools and never piece himself together again.

His mind was still racing through the scattered memories of the time proceeding this moment and he was having trouble trying to piecing them together. He saw ships, storms, lightning, men fighting each other aboard a ship, lots and lots of bodies, water, rain, sun, the ground...

SMACK!

His whole body ached. He could taste dirt in his mouth. The ground that he lay on had previously been very dry, so dry that it now absorbed much of the water that poured from the sky. Soon he would be covered in mud, but for now the bone-dry clay beneath him remained as hard as ever.

"Sam," said Leni, turning slightly from her thorough visual examination of the woman with a bolt in her chest, "you fucking tried to run again, eh? Nobody wants to fucking be here, so stop making me drag your ass back. I hate the fucking rain here, you got me?"

She glared at him through the very sudden downpour.

The arrow hurt, to be sure, but it wouldn't kill the ever (seemingly) invincible Fay! Up she sat - or rather tried to. Back she tumbled with a giggle.

"Who sho' me? Why 'ey do da' fo? I'm friendly enuf..." Fay hiccuped before squealing something about the world spinning and how much she loved the rain.

Sam slowly pulled himself off the ground. He brushed off his sleeves and knees, then he set about trying to pop his neck and shoulders.

He remembered the woman with with foul language that could put even some hardy sailors to shame. "This place is unnatural. Keeping us here is unnatural. Let us return to our homes, let us try to rebuild our lives. To what purpose do we serve waiting at these rock?"

The rain started to dissipate until it became but a light mist in the air. Rain never lasted long here, it came in quick bursts just long enough to moisten the dry earth but not much more than that. There was a reason that nothing lived here, but the rain wasn't the only one to blame.

His skin started to dry once again and the thirty-something year old man appeared to age rapidly. What might look like small brown scales took form around his eyes, ears and mouth and while the rest of his skin yellowed. Finally, his voice started to crack and come out harsh and scratchy, but that didn't stop him from his accusations. "You may enjoy it here, but the rest of us have better things to do."

He disdainfully glanced at the drunk girl on the ground and then back at Leni. "Well, most of us do."

Kori looked down.

"FUCK YOU KO, I DON'T HAVE TO DO SHIT!"

Goddamn it why couldn't I have pissed on their fucking heads.

Ko had Leni with him though, and he would go down there just to try to smack that bitch in the head and stick her crossbow up her ass. Grumbling, he walked down the rock formation, and spotted more people.

"Fucking fuck. More of these cocksuckers...."

And then he seen the girl getting up with the quarrel in her chest.

"GODDAMN YOU! IT'S FUCKING FAY! I REFUSE TO WORK WITH HER! I'D RATHER HAVE SEX WITH KO!"

Kori quickly looked and pointed at Ko. "And that is not a fucking offer!"

Fay hiccuped at Sam, trying to figure out why the man was getting scaly.

"I 'ave lotsa be'er thin's to do scaly person, but I can' think of any of 'em" Then she heard the roar.

"Koricans!" Fay squealed and (somehow) managed to right herself and tackle the rather pissed looking half-giant. "How are yoooouuuu? You're so taaaallll." Fay observed, then hiccuped and giggled.

Leni put a hand up to her temple, shifting her glare between Kori and Sam. "Me? Wanna blame it on me, eh? I wrecked the Seal by myself? I brought alla us back? Huh?

Shut the fuck up!" She turned briefly to stab a finger towards Kori. Ko was smirking, arms folded and expression cool.

She leaned closer to Sam. "I could make this easy, yeah? Keep you from flaking. We do what Diosus say, fight his war, and then we maybe get a little reward. Rebuild our lives? What lives? Diosus took our lives, and now we got this. Don't fucking pretend otherwise."

Ko rocked back on his heels, a salacious smile upon his lips. "Might wanna take that bolt out. How 'bout a hug for good ol' Ko, eh?"

Leni scowled. "Diosus unmake the lot of you."

From where he rested, Endra silently observed the others as they gathered by the rocks. Without eyes, it was not a matter of seeing. No colour, no light, but certainly depth; the sounds, the movement of everything, traveled all through the cold, hard stone and painted Endra a picture far more elaborate than one could ever glean from sight alone.

However unalterable the situation may or may not be, he detested their presence. All of them, especially Ko, and Kori wasn't much better either. He'd barely resisted the urge to tilt the rocks just so, to send the stupid brute to his death once again. But to play around with the mass of stone just seemed... wrong. The rocks themselves discouraged the idea, so Endra decided to leave them be.

After all, they'd played host to his awareness for the past few hours already. It was time, as much as Endra hated the situation, to make his own presence known.

As he drew softly from the distant planes, Endra noticed just how close Ko was standing to the formation of stone, how his attention was directed elsewhere. In a quick movement, Endra quietly slipped from the rock, behind the hideously unattractive man -- or, well, that's all you'll ever hear Endra admit, anyhow -- and, in one swift and practiced movement, reached up to tilt the head back and snap the idiot's neck. The sound was not an unpleasant one.

But now he was in the open, and the others noticed him immediately. He was, of course, completely nude. Clothing and other foreign items were almost impossible for him to send through the astral planes, and even if you managed it, maintaining the connection was a nightmare. In the end, it wasn't worth consideration, so Endra simply didn't think about it.

With hands on hips and an expression of utter boredom, he looked at each of the others in turn -- with the exception of Ko, of course, whom he blatantly ignored. A scowl or a snarl might more accurately portray how he was feeling at that moment, but he wasn't really in the mood for giving anything away.

Sam was in the midst of trying to form what he hoped would be the last reasonable debate between Leni and himself when the newcomer appeared. He had no recollection of having encountered this shamelessly naked man before, even though his mind was still foggy from the mix of foreign sights and memories among his own. This man, or whatever he was was, was somehow different from the rest of them.

The way he reacted to their setting, the way he snapped Ko's neck without a care, he was as unnatural as the rocks.

"Are you the one we speak to about leaving?"

Leni had been right about one thing, she wasn't the one holding them against their will, she just wasn't doing anything to help them escape.

"No," Leni snapped, "he's not Diosus. Did you leave your brain somewhere?"

Ko, meanwhile, had crumpled to the ground. Leni knew he would remain there for a little while; severe injuries in quick succession always took longer to heal. That was but one of the many reasons why Diosus had forbidden them to fight each other. Not that the rule had always stopped them, but he had his own forms of punishment and none of them wanted to be punished by a Changer.

Endra was just a little more stubborn than most of them. Not that she should blame any of them for foul tempers.

"You'd better hope that heals up before Saterre gets here," she said to Endra. Maybe there was a little bit of snideness in her voice. "And for Changer's sake get that bolt out of her chest, Stronghammer. You're supposed to be my fucking second, not a dumb kid throwing a tantrum."

"You knew what you were getting when you signed me on."

Kori pushed Fay off of him. "I ain't fucking messing with her."

Squatting, he looked up at Leni. Then he looked to Ko, who had passed out to the ground. Bastard did that on purpose. Must be some work coming, he was passing out to avoid it. Sighing, he grabbed one shoulder on Fayane and the bolt with the other, twisting and yanking. With a disgusting squelch, the bolt pulled free. Wiping it on the womans shirt, he threw it back to Leni.

"So what're tasked to do this time? Do I finally get to kill something? How about die? That'd be nice."

Rising, he looked over a few of the women in their sad little group of misfits.

"Hell, maybe I can find someone to fuck. Be a welcome change."