Chapter I: Nyermersys

[Azalahn]

The armour cooled down and the burning pain in his side eased a bit. Whatever the dwarf did seemed to work.

"If ye be able ta keep 'im away from me, I might be able to weaken him fer ye."

Swords didn't seem to harm this thing, so if it wasn't for the dwarf then there was little he could do, but perhaps he could keep it focused on him, long enough for the dwarf to do whatever he had in mind.

Then he said: "I to occupy this thing try will, but too much don't expect. Swords don't work!"
 
”You owe me payment, do you not agree?”

Then the demon was upon him again and swung a fiery claw at his head. There was no more time for debate, and strength or armour wouldn't help him here. The only thing that could save his life would be his natural agility. He was fast and agile by nature and those qualities had been further increased by centuries of weapon practice, but in this game he was not unmatched. Actually he had faced his equals on more than one occasion. Apparently this was how it felt to be the underdog in a fight for life and death.

He barely sidestepped the descending claw of fire. He could feel the side of his helmet heat up, to an uncomfortable level, but still bearable. More by instincts than actual intention he dropped down to a low stance and turned a quarter of a circle to his left and slashed out with all his might at the fiery things knee or where a knee would have been on a man, and a part of the blade turned glowing red again.

Then he was up again and ready for the demons next attack. He had positioned himself so that the demon would have to turn away from the dwarf in order to attack him, but if the demon would go for the dwarf then he was close enough that he could grab the dwarf and get him out of the way, although it would probably not do much good in the long run. Perhaps he could taunt it into focusing all its effort on him and forget about the dwarf. 

"Yea I own you payment, you pathetic excuse for warrior. I own you a good arse whooping and a bath in the nearest well, since you stink like the rats you associate with. Why don't you come and collect it, or are you too scared." He yelled in styrash.

He was not scared anymore, if this was the time that he would return to the dream then what would be would be, but he was angry that it would be at the hands of such an abomination and angry that he wouldn't be able to see his beloved again.

[Roy Tmofl]

His spell was weakening now. He could not continue at this rate or he would die. Though of course if he failed he would die to.

The creature was starting to fall apart. It could not keep its deadly shape for much longer. It writhed in what appeared to be a struggle until finaly Roy's spell failed. He could no longer stand so he feel to his knees.

Luckily for him as his spell failed so did the creature. It was now drifting apart in many different directions slowly dissapearing into nothing more than wisps of white smoke.

Roy smiled and used his arms to support himself as he would have fallen other wise.

He would have loved to fall though. Fall into a blissful darkness and rest. But he could not. There was still a foul unholy beast and kin to the Demon who cursed him walking within his site so he must get up.

And do what? he thought to himself. He was almost unconcious if not about to die. Not to mention the most simple of spells was beyond his current power.

First things first. He needed his staff. He could not move without it but that guttless waiste of space he saved ran away. So he would have to get it himself. He stood up breathing heavily but only ever so often. He took a step. Then another. As he walked he became aware of a smell. It did not bother him much. In fact it kept him awake.

Finaly after five steps of agony he reached his staff. He feel to his knees once more. Yet once more he rose. His eyes never blinked his breath was coming slower and slower.

Soon he was oblivious to his surroundings. He could not hear anything except a pounding in his ears. Nor could his smell that terrible stench he had been so thankful for. Finaly he found himself no less than three peds away from an elf a child next to a dog like thing and a Ka'rii judgeing by the moon blade in her hands. It was only due to the fact that he no longer concentrated on the demon that he looked at his surroundings. The Demon still walked in his sight. Yet if he did not stop now he would never see anything in this world again. So finaly knowing his most extreme limits he fell to his knees a third time. But this time he did not rise he only fell farther into the darkness.

From there he did not feel his face hit the ground nor the sound of his staff falling.

[Fu Luft]

When it had left the Nethersphere and entered the world of humans, elves, orcs, and dwarves, the demon had taken pieces from the fabric of our world to fashion its body: its skin, its bones, its eyes, its claws. Its limbs were like primitive tools, such as one might fashion from driftwood when stranded on a desert island. Its body was like a makeshift raft on which it sailed an alien sea. Yet the longer the demon remained in our world, the more confident it became of its movements across Nyermersys' Pest Pillar Square, the less need it had for such paltry expedients. Blink by blink, oun by oun, the demon had assumed the form that was truly its own. What human eyes would make of it, were they to see it in its native Netherworld, I hope you will never be unfortunate enough to find out. Be content to know that on this disk, our cherished abode, the demon's true form expressed itself as flame.

The demon exhaled a cloud of smoke as it felt the last piece of sluggish materiality turn to ashes within its own body. It was all fire now. Purity had been attained. The flame fed on nothing a being of this world could see. It fed on things we can only feel: the anarchic wrath that grows from hurt, the blind fear of pain and death, the desires that know no inhibition. These things were everywhere, in every being that walked this disk, and the demon gathered them and thrived on them. Its flames burned ever brighter, ever hotter, ever hungrier.

Azalahn's sword sliced through the demon's knee, and it was like an ant biting a child that is engaged in treading an ant hill into the ground. Or it should have been. The demon hesitated: this ant, it seemed, had an unfamiliar poison. The sword-sting, the demon felt, sent ripples through its flames, a wavelike motion that belonged to blue windswept water or white sand, but should not afflict the demon's red fire.

And another thing happened. A dozen peds away, by the pest pillar, a human warrior began attacking the stone that had served the demon as its portal to this world. In determined gestures so obviously futile that they were worthy of a comical tale, the human struck his sword at the sculpted rocks, sending sparks of fire into the night air. The demon should have laughed at this, but instead it was affected oddly, as though the human was slicing through its very body.

A shiver went through the demon. For a moment, its flames lost their otherwordly glow and assumed the character of ordinary fire, flickering harmlessly as though they were burning subdued in a human-built stove, obediently cooking some placid creature's dinner. Before it, the elven warrior yelled the ancient tongue of the elves, which the demon had first heard a dozen centuries ago, and often since. Yet it could not understand a word. Claws of fire stopped their swinging motion, ears of fire twitched, eyes of fire darted around – darted to and fro, taking in the scene on Pest Pillar Square, looking for the source of this confusion.

The fire fiend had gone, disintegrated under the mind of its mage opponent. The beautiful giant rats had been slain. The hoard of their smaller cousins scurried left and right, no longer in sea-like unison, but lost and disarrayed like ants without a hill. This meant that the humans and elves in Nyermersys were rather more resilient than the demon had reckoned them to be. But there was nothing untoward in it.

Only then did the demon's eyes fall on the dwarf. He stood there, his staff firmly on the ground, looking like a stone pillar himself. But the world around him was alive with magic. The demon felt it now, the magic, like a breath of yellow fire wafting through the demon's red, interfering with its purity, meddling with its senses, confusing its will. The demon turned to the dwarf, focusing all its intention on the small figure standing there in darkness. Flames flared up out of the demon's head, reached out through space and began travelling toward the dwarf. The demon's shape distorted itself. Its eyes dissolved, its limbs melted into one another, its belly inflated itself and sucked up its head. Soon it did not look like a man any more, but like a hole of fire that had burned itself into this world. The hole of fire floated through the air towards the dwarf, bathing his figure in red hatred. Already the first flames bit at the dwarf's hair, lashed out at his beard, tried to pierce his eyes.

But it was too late. A kernel of sooty greyish yellow appeared in the centre of the demon's red anarchy, and split it apart. With an ear-piercing bang that would be the envy of any Golgnomish firework maker, the demon exploded into a thousand orange sparks, which hung over the square and illuminated everyone and everything as brightly as three suns. For an awful moment, it seemed as though they would descend and consume the world beneath them. Instead, as suddenly as they had been torn apart, they contracted again and gathered themselves back into a single body.

But this body was much smaller than it had been before, and its red looked sickly like a moon with toothache. It wavered in the air, looking lost and indecisive. Then, with the suddenness of a reflex, it  collapsed and turned into a bolt of lightning that struck into the pest pillar. The ugly sculpture shook and quivered, tearing at its foundations, and sent an earthquake through the ground of the square. All over the cobblestones, little rats stumbled and fell, toppled one another in panic. They had lost the mind that had guided them, and were nothing now but ordinary rats. Realizing that they were out in the open, far away from the safety of their hidey holes, they panicked and scurried off in all directions, sliding in the puddles of the blood of their giant cousins, darting into dark alleys, disappearing in house walls, hiding in holes that only rats can find.

The pest pillar stopped shaking, seemed ready to assume once more the dumb solidity of stone. Then, for one last time, fire flared up out of its top, and a shockwave of compressed air lashed out over the square. Claudirea was hit so hard that she did not manage to withstand the impact and fell over backwards, barely able to support herself with her arms to soften the fall. At the same time, a heart-splitting cry came from the pest pillar. The voice was childish, thin, despairing and awful. “Kale,” it wailed. And again: "Kale, Kale, Kale!"

Then the fire dissolved without smoke, the voice fell silent, the air found peace at last. Everything was still.

[Movash]

He could not stop her. The little strength of his thin arms, of course, would never have been enough. His voice he had no more. And his love – his love reached out to her, asked her to stay, to leave that last giant rat to the grown-ups, the fighters and the mages. His love touched her, he was sure. She felt it, must feel it. But it did not hold her back. Instead, it made her even fiercer, more careless of her own safety, more eager yet to run at the giant rat. When she fought, Humbaba was never defending. She was always attacking. One day, Movash thought, this would be the reason of her death.

The two animals hit each other running. Humbaba was healthy and strong, not injured like the rat - but the rat had had more time to gather speed. Its run was faster and more powerful. Also, it was twice as heavy as Humbaba. And it had nothing to lose. The rat jumped onto the underwhelp, and Humbaba's legs seemed to crack beneath her like sticks as she buckled under the force of the attack and the weight of the attacker. The rat's blood-drenched body seemed to bury Humbaba beneath it, as if it would crush her against the cobblestones. For a moment, Movash could not see Humbaba's tail, so completely did the rat cover her.

Movash's eyes darted this way and that in desperation. Was there no one who could help? There was the guard, who had run in their direction, and whom the rat had pursued; he was obviously scared. There was the woman who had fought so gracefully; she was pressing her hand to her side in pain. There was the elf, who had saved Movash's life; he seemed about to help the woman. There was the gaunt man with a staff, who had seemed to be in battle with a fire ball earlier; he had collapsed on the ground. None of them seemed ready to risk their life to save an animal from a giant rat.

Between his fingers, Movash could still feel the warm folds of Humbaba's furless skin, where he had held her but a blink ago. Those folds were now stretched with effort; her skin was being scraped sore against the cobblestones; her warmth was waning between the giant rat's yellow teeth. Movash felt her pain as if it was his own, and he could not bear it. Without thinking, he stood up and ran towards the battling beasts. He had no weapon and no plan. He only had one thought: that he must not leave Humbaba alone.

At that moment, a deafening bang split the night, and blinks later lightning struck the pest pillar. Movash did not heed any of this, but continued in his race to save Humbaba. He could see her snout now, half crushed under the giant rat's body. She was trying desperately  to free her neck and head, so as to get a chance to sink her teeth into her opponent. But it did not look as though she would make it. Movash was almost at her side now, ready to hurl himself onto the giant rat. But he never got that far.

The shock wave that erupted from the pest pillar hit Movash square in the front of his body. It was like being pushed in the chest by a battering ram. The boy was thrown backwards, his feet lost touch with the ground, and he sailed several peds through the air before his back thudded onto the cobblestones. Lithe and agile and trained in acrobatics, he rolled over his shoulder and made three somersaults backwards before he came to sit on his haunches.

His head hurt, and his shoulder, and his left ankle. He felt the throbbing of the pain, and heard his own heavy breath. Around him, everything was still. It was as if suddenly, from one moment to the next, everyone else had vanished, and he alone had remained behind on pest pillar square.

He had lost his sense of direction. He did not know which way to look for his friend. The fireballs were gone, the man made of fire was gone, and no lightning illuminated the night. The square was dark. Movash looked, but he could not find Humbaba. Where was she? Where was the rat? Why was there no noise? Was Humbaba dead?

[Ayaelia]

Soft as a night serenade
fearing not its ending,
Swift as shadows o'er the glade
fluttering, length'ning, bending,
Elegant as a lonely dance
composed of wind and light
Breathless as a death-romance,
Sudden as nightbird's flight...

Eyes in the reticent hue of twilight stared at the Cyhallrhim, and yet the words he spoke seemed to disperse like confused birds before they met her. The meaning they carried and the sincerity of their utterance evanesced before the shell of quietness closing around her. Every sense and sensation was falling into focus like the rain of a coming storm: the sound of footsteps and the smell of sulfur slithering like a snake through the air.

At once, a sleek shadow behind the elf leapt from out of the arms of a child. The woman tightened her grip on her moonblade as she sensed the motion. The urchin-child scrambled to his feet, desperately pursuing the creature, which had met a giant rat hurdling towards the group, and in an instant the woman was wind once more.

No longer did the reflection of humanity gleam through her in the form of fear and frailty. She had reverted, and the black cloak of a wind-swept warrior descended upon her slender figure. She heard the deafening sound of silence descend over the Pest Pillar, and turned to see the dust of a shockwave rumbling through the cobblestone streets. The dark universe was in collapse.

The woman crouched like a cat, pressing her blood-stained hand to the earth to brace against the violence cracking through the air and along the ground. Her shadowy-white hair fluttered around her pale face as the blast rode thunderingly by--and before the dust settled, she had come to echo the motion around her. Her feet hardly touched the ground as she followed the fighting beasts, which the shockwave had blasted into an alleyway. Every snarl and squeal and scream quickened her noiseless steps, and her blade was a silver streak in the night.

The giant rat, consumed with his first attacker, hardly noticed his second, who came as silently as the scythe of Queprur, and just as deadly. Her body was a measure of music, but the deed needed no complex patterning, no spins or crescendos through the teaming night. As she came upon the pair of beasts, the rat was still upon the black whelp. Her eyes focused, and her wrist loosened grip on her moonblade. She accelerated. The grime in the corners of the street vanished in the blur of movement--the strokes of a paintbrush that could not catch her flight.

She passed the two beasts like a sudden, cold wind.

As she reached the end of the alley, her feet left the ground for the wall. Hers was a briefly horizontal moment, for gravity coaxed her to the ground sternly as the wall stole enough momentum that, after a few steps, she was still at the end of the ally. She stared back at the rat. There was no sword in her hand. The hilt of the beautifully-crafted blade shone pressed against the rat's temple. The blood-soaked tip shone glittering on the other side of its skull.

The woman had not eased. She watched the dark underwhelp with a distant, icy gaze, waiting for the beast to pry herself from under the lifeless rodent. In a single, fluid moment the woman fetched her armoured fan from her side, and prepared herself should the creature pursue her.

Graceful as a butterfly
the lover of the breeze,
Strange as an aelirel's cry
in the starlit trees,
Quiet as a heartache
when numbness dulls the pain,
Mysterious as Erphirn's lake,
Inconstant as the rain,

Icy as the winter snow
that hides the fire's hearth,
Fleeting as the wisps that glow
but do not touch the earth,
Darkened as a candle's shade
with beams all thrown afar,
Fragile as a heart afraid,
Distant as a star...

[Thorgas Ironforge]

Everything was blurry; the demon, the people around him and even his own staff, which was standing a few nailsbreadths before him. Keeping the spell up was taking all his concentration, for his opponent is a powerful one, a being made out of pure fire. For a moment the demon was winning. Its control over the element of fire was strong and the sorcerer feared his attempt to reduce the potency of its energy would be for naught and instead would earn him the ire of the fiend. But Thorgas held on, weakening the influence of fire in the demon, and it trying to keep himself together. Little by little, the dwarf began to feel that his position was hopeless. How could he beat something made entirely out of magic?

To add to his list of troubles, the demon became aware of what he is doing. It felt his entire body becoming loose and tried to keep his flames from dissipating. With a valiant effort it lunged at the sorcerer, its fiery hands clawing away at his hair and beard. The demon meant to impale the dwarf's face with fire, but it was too late. The hex that kept gnawing away at his being had fully materialized and it can no longer keep his body together. Its face was distorted and began to "melt", and it can no longer control its limbs. A yellow void began to appear on its chest, which quickly expanded and finally tore the demon apart with a flash of light.

The sparks that once composed the demon's body began to coalesce again, this time into a smaller demon figure. Thorgas groaned. What would it take to kill this thing?

"Bah, just kill me already.." Thorgas managed to mutter.

Then without warning, the figure turned into something resembling a lightning bolt, and in a few blinks struck the pest pillar with a blast.

The impact threw the dwarf to the ground, and so weakened was he from the spell that he made no effort to rise. Thorgas closed his eyes and lay still, looking like a dead body on the ground. Some of his hair and beard are on fire, caused by the creature as it tried to defend itself from the dwarf's spell. He managed to sat up weakly, and immediately put out the fires that slowly consumed his hair and beard with awkward patting. He looked around wearily. The rats broke their formation and began scurrying towards whatever hole they could find. At the same time, he heard the scary demonic sounds again.

"Kale... Kale... Kale..." This time the wailing sounded different, as if the one making the sound was suffering.

Thorgas looked one last time at Buri's direction and saw that his pet was safe from harm. This is a welcome relief. "Yer safe Buri," he thought. Then the dwarf lay down and closed his eyes again.

[Garth Avery]

The giant warrior, rather than laugh at Mouse as he had half expected, actually ran with him to the square of the pest pillar - at least, it started out as Mouse leading and the warrior following. Before long, his longer strides had overtaken the small acrobat, and Mouse was left far behind. He ran as fast as his short legs would take him, but by the time he reached the square the fight had been resolved. He was just in time to see the square eerily illuminated, every detail visible and the light so bright and surrounding that there was not even a shadow. When the light disappeared, for a while Mouse was completely blinded. He had to blink several times, and even then he could still see the brightness behind his eyelids, only reversed somehow, like when he looked into the sun for too long.

There were movements at his feet, and he tried to concentrate. He realised they were the small rats, which had first overrun them. There were still many of them, but less by the blink, disappearing into whatever hole they could find. Mouse was relieved to find that they no longer moved as unnaturally as before. However, they reminded him that he would have to find Pepik soon.

After the lightning strike in the pest pillar, for a moment everything on the square was still, hushed as if waiting for something. And then Mouse heard the cry, a heart-rending cry that made him want to hug whoever was sounding like that and comfort them. He was ready to burst into tears himself at the sound that was coming from the pillar. He bit his lip to stop the tears from actually coming, though he felt the corners of his mouth turn down of their own will. The wailing stopped just in time to let him recover, though the memory of it still echoed in his head.

[Warrior Kaelan]

The pillar didn't respond. Kaelan half-expected it to lash out at him for his insolence, and a sneer was on his face as he began to gather his feet underneath him for another stroke. Bring it down; that was all that mattered now. Whatever it took.

That stroke never happened. The next instant the world was in an upheaval, and Kaelan kept to one knee, a hand on the ground for support, the other on his weapon, eyes trying watching the pillar heave and flash before him, trying to catch the tempo of its movements, trying to put an attack here, where something was obviously upset.

Another plan that didn't work. Having no experience whatsoever with quakes, Kaelan remained there on his knees for another instant, when something flashed into--or out of, he couldn't be sure--the pillar, and it blasted at him with an unseen force.

The warrior wasn't kneeling anymore; more sitting as the shaking, lights, and sounds died down. He struggled quickly to his feet, unwilling to let his enemy retreat, but was too late to do anything, approaching the pillar only as a voice began to speak from it.

"Kale," the warrior replied back at the pillar with an angry grunt. "What in the Twelve is Kale?"

[Seh'nara Celebrindal]

It all happened too fast, too fast for her to do anything but gape. In what seemed like seconds after she fell to her knees, gasping in pain, the creature had caught up to the drunk. And in turn, the drunk had scampered, propelled by fear, almost to her prone form on the ground. A hiss of condescension, which quickly switched to a plea for help, Seh could only shake her head mutely, not daring to unclench her lips. By that time, the pain in her leg had intensified, a direct response to the heat that rolled off the flamed creature. It was all she could do to not cry out; indeed, she ould not even shout some gesture of reassurance or a shred of advice to the drunkard in fear of releasing the scream of pain that clawed at her throat.

But she was an elf, she was a fighter, and beyond that, she was Tethinrhim. Her race gave birth to the famed and legendary Kaierian Warriors; she would not tarnish her tribe's image by succumbing to her injury. And yet, every warrior has a weakness, and hers was particularly debilitating. Especially when she was in mortal peril. Silver, a solid weight pressing at her side, gave her a measure of comfort. In a burst of affection, the elfess held her wolf close, winding her fingers into his fur. She was not alone.

And that was the mantra she repeated, even as she gazed upon the awful battles that raged in front of her. Another one of her kind, an elf, was tearing into another of those blasted rats with a grace and fluidity that reminded Seh of a dangerous lullaby. Quiet and deadly, the last sound one heard before death. And in the middle of the square, the stocky mage-dwarf with another, wilder mage battled the flamed monstrosity. It was a battle of destructive beauty; even in its fatality and its morbidity, Seh found it in herself to admire the dwarf and human - something she rarely did. When the dwarf dealt the death blast and the heat ebbed from the square, Seh let out a breath she was unaware she was holding.

And with the dissipation of the unholy heat came the dissipation of the pain that plagued her. The knots that previously tangled her nerves and tightened the ball of pain in her smoothened themselves out, the muscles unbunched. It was sweet, delicious relief that visited her now, the blood flowing smoothly throughout her body again. The elfess felt faint with the sudden reprive; the square wavered a little in front of her before rightening itself again. In the background, the last wail of the pillar faded into the air. The name was already a familiar one to her ears, but she paid them no heed for the moment. Instead, she let herself slump to the cobbled floor, her face buried into Silver's fur. For now, she'd stay there. She was within earshot of the group at the pillar; she would miss nothing, even if she took a moment for herself... to breathe.

[Movash]

The market square was a gloomy world populated by spectres and blurry silhouettes that stood still as if paralyzed, or else moved about in cautious, hesitant steps, numbed still by the danger they had just survived, their hearts still thumping with the echoes of fear. The spook was over and had left behind a hole in the fabric of the world that would gape until relief would descend and flow and fill it.

For one little boy, however, nothing was over. Movash ran around in mad, frantic circles, searching for Humbaba, trying to spot her among the shadows, though his eyes strained to see through the salty veil of tears that freely flowed down his cheeks, nose, and lips, and dropped from his chin. At one point, his desperate run took him past another boy. He took in the shape of the other. An odd shape it was: legs and arms too short, the head too big, the body sturdy and hobbit-like. Movash recognized this strange body. It belonged to the same boy who had seen him cry at the tavern. And now he was seeing him cry again.

This time Movash did not turn away. He stopped his run and looked the other straight in the face. Had he seen Humbaba? The strange boy was not at ease himself. He was biting his lip, and his mouth was distorted into a grimace of pain or sadness. Had he lost someone, too? Movash wanted to ask him.

Movash wiped his tears away and blew his nose into his sleeve. For a blink, he looked at the other with clearer eyes. He had not been mistaken. This other boy and he – they were both suffering. They were both  small, and weak, and free to cry. Movash managed a smile, tiny but warm. Then his sorrow and his worry for Humbaba took hold of him again, and he turned and resumed his run.


Smell of life, smell of death. No breath: too heavy. Legs stuck. Head pain. Want to bite. Cannot. Want to run. Cannot. Want to howl. Can. Do. Hoooowwwwl. No good.

Suddenly heavier still. Smell of death. Smell of life flowing out, ending. Smell of death.

Legs stuck. Want to wriggle. Can. Do. Suddenly air. Breathe. Good.

Free. Legs pain. Head pain. Smell of death. Woman with sting. Waits. Lurks.

Want to run. Cannot. Want to walk. Can. Do. Eye on woman.


And then he saw her. Humbaba was limping out of an alley back into the square. One of her front leg appeared to be useless, forcing her gait into a three-legged staccato hobble. Blood was dripping from her snout. Her head was at a funny angle, as if she had a stiff neck. She was looking back behind her shoulder. Movash's eyes followed her gaze.

Who stood there was the woman. The one with silver hair, the one who moved like music. In her hand, her sword was a blood-soaked snake.

Movash ran, ran towards Humbaba. The underwhelp did not take her eyes off the woman, but she let Movash sling his arms around her. She even let him feel her bad leg with his fingers, as he tried to find out whether a bone was broken. She was weak, she was bloody, she had barely escaped death. Her eyes spoke of her defeat. Movash had never seen her like this: frail, dispirited, timid. But she was alive. She was still with him. She was alive.

From the corner of his eye, Movash saw the carcass. The giant rat lay dead in the alley. He guessed what must have happened. Kneeling beside Humbaba, unable to leave her even for a blink, he looked up at the woman from where he was, and thanked her with his eyes. His life had been saved twice this evening. There was goodness in the world then. And, apparently, a lot of it resided in the hearts of elves with peculiar hair colours.

[Ridgen Sú'ufanán]

It all happened very quickly. There was a flash of lightning - the only warning that anything was about to happen - and then Ridgen found himself being blown back by the shockwave that emanated from the Pest Pillar. Everything became a blur of colours, and when his vision cleared, there was really only one thing he could see - the rat coming in to engage them earlier was now dead, standing over them the frighteningly powerful woman from earlier and the beast that the elf had assumed was the mute boy's friend.

Putting two and two together, Ridgen had a mind to scold them about running off and killing rats recklessly while injured, but decided against shouting at them - after all, they did eliminate an obvious threat. By the time he had made it to where they were standing, the boy had somehow recovered and made it there before him. Curious.

"You silly people shouldn't rush into action so recklessly, especially not if you're injured... It's dangerous!" A gentle chiding. Although to be fair, all he was doing was state the obvious. "To be fair, you two did manage to eliminate a threat. Good job."

[Altario Shialt-eck-Gorrin]

Gurrant paid no attention to the goings on behind him.  Whatever was happening was now beyond his control.  Instead, he stared at the girl and her wolf, stretching out a bloody hand toward her.  " 'elp me."

But, even though he could hear the sound of his own voice and knew he was not simply mouthing the words, she ignored him, burying her face into the thick fur of her pet.

This slight movement seemed to sap the strength from Gurrant and most of his will to continue drained from him.  His body relaxed, his face lay on the cold cobblestone, and he closed his eyes, simply listening to the pounding of his heart in his ears.

For several long moments he lay still, ignoring the sounds around him, nearly forgetting that there were indeed others there, and unnatural dangers.  There was only the sound of each breath drawn in and expelled.  There was no more sensation of heat, but only the cold stone on his face.

Time was lost on Gurrant, and he did not know how long he had remained prone.  Was it only a moment?  Was dawn near?  He went to open his eyes, but only one opened.  The other seemed stuck shut.  At the same time, he was aware of the taste of a salty, coppery, taste in his mouth.

No, he was not yet ready to give up and die.  Forcing his hand back, he ran a finger over his stuck eye and wiped away the thick sticky blood from his head wound that had run down over his face.  He then pushed himself up into a kneeling position.

A quick look to the girl and the wolf had them still locked together in her embrace.  Then not too much time had passed.  That was a good boding for his wound.  If it was still fresh, he might still survive.

Half crawling, half walking on his knees, he dragged himself over to the closest wall and threw his back against it, sitting with his legs before him.  The girl had proven useless, so he turned his head toward the square, where the activity level had dramatically abated.  Perhaps one of them could be counted on to help him.

" 'ey!  'ey!  Some 'elp 'ere.  I be bleedin' ta death."  He reached up and gingerly flopped the loose flap of scalp back onto the bare skull.  "Fer Koraya's sake, one of ye bloody sods has got ta have some thread!"

[Ridgen Sú'ufanán]

"Fer Koraya's sake, one of ye bloody sods must have some thread!"

Well, someone was desperate. He probably had a good reason to be, too, for when Ridgen looked over to see who it was that was shouting at the top of his lungs, Gurrant was bleeding all over the place and... flapping unsightly bits of his scalp onto his now exposed skull. In a sea of disease-carrying rats. He isn't a very good example for little kids to follow, now is he? Not that kids can try this sort of thing at home anyway.

Ridgen realised that he's still carrying his tailoring kit around with him, in his backpack. Why he still carried a backpack, he doesn't know, but he does know that it had clean threads and needles. With a gently spoken "Excuse me," he started running in the direction of the injured Gurrant, ignoring the squeaky protests of any rats he'd haphazardly step on along the way.

"You're in luck, I've my work equipment with me. Stay still. This will hurt." As the tailor reached the man in question, he took off his backpack and withdrew a set of threads and needles, tools of his trade. Admittedly, he has never used it for this purpose before, but it shouldn't be any harder than sewing two pieces of leather together. Before he began, he added this as an afterthought: "Keep your mouth shut, while you're at it. It would be hard to work with any distractions." Thank you, captain obvious.

Kids should never try this at home. Or the could do it. Yeah, trying to sew a loose bit of your mate's scalp back onto his head is such a good idea and is totally not dangerous.

In all seriousness, it was a good thing that gloves were included in the kit - otherwise goodness knows what could enter the man's bloodstream, and then what would happen? As a precaution, Ridgen put these on and increased the level of influence that serenity has on Gurrant's mind, and that was mighty hard in itself, because this person is understandably not calm at all. He managed to do it, though, and now comes the hard part. Multitasking. This is why they have women doing this sort of work.

As needle and thread pierced through layers of skin and blood, making a barely audible noise as they went, Ridgen was busy balancing forcing himself to keep bile and vomit from spilling out onto the unfortunate man before him, keeping him calm and sewing his scalp back together in the most efficient and safe manner possible. The toughness of the man's skin did not help at all, nor did the blood, or the hustle and bustle of people moving around them. At least there wasn't a demon trying to kill them off this time.

Five very long minutes saw the man's scalp sewn back together. It wasn't great, but it would keep him alive for now.

"We can discuss payment when this is over."
And then Ridgen cracked up, unable to keep a deadpan look on his face. "Damn, I almost got that one out. Relax, it's free."

[Calron Moonsilver]

It seemed to all happen at once, every facet of what had happened that night blurring together. There were to many people involved, and so much happening all at once that he could almost not keep track of it all. Some where in the jumble, the boy had some how gotten lost during his fight with the rat. For the time being he could only curse himself a fool for having lost the boy. Cloud on the other hand stood as majestically as before though, the fire and rats would have been more than enough to send a more common breed horse screaming through the night. It was lucky that nothing had attempted to engage the war stallion lest he crush innocents beneath his hooves. When it came to things like combat, everything was kill or be killed.

After he'd dispatched the rat, it seemed all hell had, quite literally, broken loose. Fire colored the cobbled stones, and nearby buildings. The force of explosion sent many of the towns people on the to the floor, Calron included. The minute they managed to regain their footing several people ran screaming into the dark of the night. Chaos had over taken most everyone, but there were still a select few who had managed to resist the madness. There were more rats of humanoid size that had been quickly dispatched by these others, but still the boy could not be found.

As his senses returned to him, he quickly realized that a strange sense of calm had descended on the square. The cry for Kale rang out yet again, and it seemed the pillar had returned to normal. No longer did rats carpet the streets, though several mutilated bodies of various sizes sprawled all over the street. The cobble stones were bathed in the blood of both the animals and people who had been unable to escape the rat hoards. In silence, Calron ran a quick assessment of his body, and aside from the cuts and scraps on his palms and legs he was relatively unscathed. The same could not be said for his clothing though, as much of it was caked in a layer of animal blood. There was no doubt in his mind that he would probably have to destroy the garments, because his tailors would surely have a heart palpitation upon seeing his appearance.

It was as he looked about at the now battle wary square that he finally spotted the boy. In his arms he cradled some sort of wolf like animal, and thankfully it didn't appear to be hurting him. It occurred to him then that this creature was probably the pet the boy had drawn for him earlier. With a great feeling of relief, he walked over to the boy, Cloud following in his footsteps.

Upon he reaching the boy he asked, "Are you alright?"

[Azalahn]

Somehow the dwarf made this abomination explode. Azalahn stood there and didn't understand what had happened. He looked around and saw quite a few people probably just as ignorant as he was. He was soaked in blood and he didn't like the smell around here, but he was just too tired to even bother to walk back to the inn right now, so he just stood there

Then his eyes came across the dwarf who was lying down next to a pig, that was actually a very good idea to sit down and get some rest.

There was also the big human brute screaming for help. Azalahn decided to just ignore him for the time being, and it seemed that someone was attending to him anyway.

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