Dreamwaking: Chimera - Sacrifice.

[Seth_Bloodmoon]

Shook his head a little, "I have no idea what sort of mind could come up with this... I am not sure I really want to know, either..," he knew his mind wouldn't have. Oh no, were this his mind it would be a war torn landscape covered with dying people. People he had killed himself or ordered killed. No, this was surely not of his own creation.

Seth nods with Kurt's suggestion, "Fair enough..." He rarely spoke of himself, as well, or at least of his past. So he will listen quietly as they walk and Lent speaks. There is a nod to the question if he had heard about Haberdasher's Row. He had heard of it but knew little of what all had occured there. Seth was truly out of the loop on a lot of matters!

Now it comes his turn to speak and for a moment there is silence as they move. That moment ends with, "Last winter I arrived in Myrken... I was a pathetic, foolish creature then. Starved, drunk, weak and ready to embrace death if death would have me..," here's a slightly grim smile, "Death wanted nothing to do with me, obviously..," seeing as he was still alive. Well he could only assume he was still alive, given the current situation, "Encounters with some of the Dagger's patrons, good and bad, began to pull me out of my rather morbid state of being..," another moment of silence, "My recovery of Twilight Heart..," touching the sword's pommel as he speaks its name, "..brought me back the rest of the way... Fully rekindled the spark of life that had been so weak... Odd sounding, no..?" another faint smile forming.

"Since that point in time... I have helped do battle against The Fiend... I have helped fight Zayken's creatures..," speaking of such but not speaking as if he should be given great honors for his aid in those times. No, he deserved no honors, no praise. He was just as much a monster as those he mentioned.

It was not the most detailed story of himself he had spun of his experiences in Myrken. He was most certainly no expert tale weaver! It was a start though, no? His gaze shifts to his traveling companion in this tormented place. It was the man's turn to speak again or ask questions of the tall elf if he wished. Conversation was a good distraction in a place like this.

[Jirai]

There is a look for Tebrin, a smirk twisted awry by the scarring on her face. He wanted to kill her. She wanted to laugh. In fact, she did giggle. "I'm sure you will be." The woman turns, then, stalking off in a direction chosen not quite at random.

No doubt Tebrin will follow, her vulnerable back a constant taunt... But it was not so vulnerable as that. The spiders are swarming up her legs, her back, all over the woman, more appearing with each squishing step she takes, welling out of the ground. And all of those tiny eyes are staring at Tebrin.

The slender female seems to take no notice of her tiny companions. In truth, she held quite a distaste for them - but she had no choice in the matter, never did. And so she accepted it. Besides, the hunt had begun.

She had no idea what, who it was she was hunting, and neither did it matter. The dark elf was uncaring, her hatred having free reign. Tebrin was fortunate that it had not turned on him - yet. But watch her closely, Tebrin, for she cared little for the words written on that scrap of paper and much for the knife she held so closely.

[channe]

Speed is a hallmark of the students of Ariane Carnath-Emory; she's moving just as fast as him, and thus takes the brunt of his fist just below her eye, rather than her nose; and that enrages her. She doesn't take her knife out; she simply lets loose with her own speed, a knee coming up to hit him where it counts, a fist coming fast for his gut.

"Bastard!"

[Glenn]

"You underhanded whore!" Glenn has excellent, excellent reflexes. If Agnie's greatest attribute as a fighter is her speed, which is certainly arguable, Glenn's is his reflexes. That knee is blocked soundly, even arrogantly. Just like the barfighting, bottom feeding scum that she was to try to hit someone below the...

Glenn also has a complete inability to deal with a one-two attack unarmed. That punch slams right into his stomach taking the wind right out of him. His body keels over forward and it is only in absolute desperation that he is able to pitch his body forward, pushing his entire weight upon her, trying to drive her to the ground and press down upon the misanthropic misfit. He's trying with all his might to buy a few seconds to regain his breath before she can attack again.

[channe]

That was a lesson from the Brotherhood, Glenn, not from Ariane; fights aren't fair. You use what is at your disposal. You use all of your tools. You strike below the belt. Fair? Nothing's fair --

The force hits her; she staggers back, but does not fall. She has excellent balance. Instead, she lets loose with her right foot, barefoot heel coming down on his in an attempt to *stop* him. If this gambit, he might be able to push her down, having only one foot up for a few seconds -- is he fast enough? "Leave me alone, you Guv-lovin' powerfucker!"

[Glenn]

In fact, he had done the opposite. When she went to slam down on his foot, instead of pushing forward, she would have found that he drew back. He was low to the ground, again, his breath still lost from her shot to the stomach. All he wanted there was a second's breathing room and she had given it to him.

Now, he stared down to the slowly closing hole in the skin-like ground that his foot had just tread upon. If she wanted to cheat, he could as well. If this disgusting land would be ruined by his every step, then damn it if he wouldn't make use of that. The mapmaker's hand dipped down into the gaping, writhing space, only to grasp a palmful of that unholy flowing blood. As his body straightened once more, he tossed the wretched fluid right towards Agnie's eyes.

He wasn't going to escalate the language, but he certainly escalated the cheating. "You want to be blind to everything and everyone around you? Here's some help." And he would follow that statement up with another punch straight for her jaw. It was pretty much the only attack he was taught how to do.

Unfortunately for him and fortunately for her, Glenn's unique effect upon the dreamworld only affected him and the land in contact with him. The blood would pass right through her like a phantom. How distracting it was when it came to the punch that followed it, however, remained to be seen.

[channe]

Words once said cannot be taken back.

Mud can be scrubbed off, but not the insult behind it. That stays. That stains.

So while Glenn threw the blood at her, she blinked; she saw it coming and yet it didn't come; her skin took on a scarlet tinge, her eyes blazed, and she remained bloodless.

"You're the whore," she says, "and you know it. You're a whore an' a liar. I only ever been wi' one an' I'll not have you tellin' lies t' pet your dirty conscience."

And her left arm comes up to grab at Glenn's, to try to cinch her fingers around his wrist as he punches; the other moves out to clock him in the face. She's fast, Glenn. She's had years of beating on aspirants like you in the Brotherhood ring. Maybe she'd never beat Jons in a fistfight, or Ariane, or others. But maybe, just maybe, you'll remember that she can beat you.

It's in her eyes.

[Glenn]

Maybe Ariane couldn't or wouldn't outcheat her, but Glenn would if that's what it took. The problem was that the screwed up, demented world around them wasn't cooperating. He had been counting on that blood and it had failed him in the most absurd way possible. She caught his wrist, and her blow flattened him right in the face. Two things saved him from complete unconsciousness. Those reflexes were one. The other was the fact that he had WATCHED her fight this way, with great attention, many months before. He had watched her fight with Alastir Savoy, who claimed to provoke that fight just to prepare Glenn such an encounter as this, so he knew what it looked like when a punch like that was coming. It didn't change that he could do precious little to stop it, but he knew and could prepare for the impact.

Glenn crumpled to the ground. No, he could not beat Agnieszka Kaczmarek in a fistfight. Few in Myrken could. That didn't mean he was going to quit, not against her, not like this. He could no longer open his left eye. Fine. His head was throbbing. FINE. The world was spinning. Well that was fine too! It didnt matter. He still took both of his hands and grabbed at her legs, pushing forward once again with his shoulder while pulling up upon those legs. He knew something about that balance of hers. He lived that balance every morning of his life. He knew just how hard he would have to pull and push to have an effect. Yes it would leave him open to a few blows as she went down, but it was worth it just to make her pompous ass fall to his level.

[Vanidor]

Aeryn mirrored Cinnabar in that motion to touch fingers against his collarbone. Fingers to explore this gem there for a moment, and then fingers to outstretch to acquire this extended shirt. "I did no expect to wake up like this. Hah. At least I would have thrown on a breech cloth, eh. There do be no sense to showing off." Feet squelched upon the strange terrain beneath them. "And for sure, boots I would have put on."

The shirt, hope you do not really care for it to return, for Aeryn wound it around his midsection the tails of the shirt hanging down the front. The world can see his ass, seeing as he dares everyone to basically kiss the damned thing. The other end, on the other hand, there was more than enough of that making up the various flora and fauna of this landscape of Hél.

"Lovely fucking place though. If you do like gangling flesh and rotting bowels for your morning walk. Wonder where we be." And here Aeryn would narrow his eyes slightly. "Strange though. Despite the lack of clothes, I do no be cold. Or chill." Indeed, the man did look a bit... flushed. As if heat was radiating away and around him. Looking down at the ground beneath his feet, it almost looked as if the flesh was being -charred- by his presence upon it. Looking backwards, it seemed a trail of foot-prints marked his passage. "Well. Look at that."

A tight smile, then a glance upwards as Cinnabar mentioned high ground. "Aye. Might be a good idea. I tell you, I would prefer to keep you alive, and myself, for that matter. Trust me to that, Calomel." A strange sort of honour, that Aeryn had. Or not so strange, if you thought about it. It was just that his loyalties were strange. "And from up there. Perhaps we can see if there do be anyone else in this shit-pot. Besides, I do think I hear shouting."

[channe]

"I told you to stop it! Just stop!"

That request repeated, Glenn's shoulder gets what he wants, and Agnie goes down. She hits on one side, on her shoulder, and immediately is all action again: trying to push off from Glenn and extricate herself as soon as she can, trying to roll to one side and back up to her knees. Perhaps she'll need to kick his legs to do so; she certainly tries. "Stop, you dumbass!"

[Glenn]

"No." Glenn grunted in some pain as her foot hit his leg hard. He still couldn't quite manage to open that left eye but at least his breath was more or less returned to him. He was even getting a grip on the adrenaline which meant he was able to get some words out again. "You said something about me being the whore and then about my conscience, unless that's New Dauntless for stop."

Talking was about all he could do while he was recovering from that sharp, paralyzing pain in his shin. He was down on one knee now about six or seven feet away from her. Then, the angry look on his face started to crack just a little. It had suddenly become some effort to keep it up. "ty'zh... Ha. You know, I DO know one other of your crazy swears, not just that first one, but I was informed that it was probably in my best interest never to call you it." The mapmaker's hand idly went to scratch at the back of his neck, even as he tenderly tried to make it back to his feet. "We should get moving again, huh?" He was almost smiling now and couldn't quite explain why. It hardly mattered. One look at their surroundings would take care of that.

[Lent]

Hnn. This was a good partner for him, one that he wouldn't have to take care of. Good thing, that. Xanth Grange soldier, Nicephorus, was competent, but he was new to Myrken. Makes things difficult. Less civil, stranger, than what Nic's used to and does he ever like to remind everyone of that.

Lentham had to take care of McCoy. Everyone knows how well that went. Poor kid.

"Looking for death and crawling out of a bottle, huh? That's what they say I used to be like." It was why the alcohol didn't affect him much now, the tolerance that he built up. "Bet you knew a lot of loss over all those elf years of yours to reach that point. Me, they were all pressed into thirty-four years or so."

He was trying NOT to look at the scenery still, save for trying to find either an end to it, a final destination, maybe, or another set of people. Karolinger was out there. He knew it. Probably others too. Better to keep talking, really. "Ah, well, from what I've picked up, I had a pretty happy life. Son of a cobbler, surely expected to take up the family business. We lived on the very edge of town, near the woods. Like playing in them just fine until the day that I woke up to find my parents dead and eyeless. Baie, or one of those copycats." Wasn't that pleasant? Myrken Wood sending him spiring towards adulthood around the age of seven.

"Myrken doesn't usually give second chances. It's given me two. I was a good kid. Hard working, quick to pick up things, even words. Quick to make friends. Whole life ago, this was. Made a friend out of a merchant girl. She taught me to read. I took her heart for it. Got apprenticed within her family. Got married not long after. Had kids." It takes away and it gives, isn't that what he told McCoy?

It gives and it takes away. "Can't remember how to pronounce his name anymore, but there was a drow wizard. A bad one. Caused a lot of damage a few years back. Good people got killed in the crossfire. She was one of them. It's funny; only just remembered her face a little while ago. Had a dream, nicer than this. Snow. She was up on a hill." He wasn't fishing with that at all. For all he knew, Bloodmoon was a figment of his imagination, after all, but at least he was a well armed one.

[Cinnabar]

"Boots would've been good, certainly." Once Karolinger's done arranging the shirt about his waist there's a nod from Calomel and he starts heading up the gradual incline of the ground, some care taken to mind his step on the strange and pulsing ground, to skirt round pools and streams of... whatever that is.

A wry grin at that statement of intent, of preference; ha, so he'd got the same note as well. From the look of it the mercenary's opting to be pragmatic about things, so that at least is a small blessing. And then there's a pause at mention of shouting, a brief stillness as he tilts his head to listen intently over the keening of the foetid wind, carrying faint and disembodied sounds of torment; he nods a moment later, as there's a different voice mingled in with it, someone calling not in anguish, but in search of... someone. Hard to make out.

"Sounds like it. Easy with the knife 'til we find out who, though." That was the agreement. At least, that was the idea. No sense in starting anything stupid, not with the death of either of them being the death of both.

Keep moving. A glance back for Aeryn every now and then, focussing more on the terrain ahead of him and beneath his feet than most else, though there's a look around as the rising grounds brings more of the landscape into sight; not that that's any great comfort, given the view of flesh and bone warped into unspeakable shapes, gouts of foulness spewing from oversized orifices to pollute the air above, rivers and lakes of vile sludge.

After a time, maybe a few score unpleasantly moist and yielding steps, there's another glance back for Karolinger, speculative.

"What happened in the taproom, anyway?" In the commons in the Broken Dagger, the day young Constable McCoy had bled his life out onto the floorboards. Curiosity, certainly, but something more than that. It's no idle whim compels that question; there's a need to know the facts of it, of what happened that day. Perhaps Karolinger should thank the novices of the Monastery of St Thecla for Calomel even asking at all. Seeds of uncertainty, and all. And besides, if the pair of them are going to talk about anything in this place, where neither can sensibly murder the another, they might as well cut to the contentious stuff. While they've got the opportunity, and some degree of mutual protection from knife and noose.

"What's your version of events?"

[Vanidor]

"We were arguing." The knife, here, he spun the thing like it was an old friend. Swirled it in his hands with the motion of a man well versed in the use of the thing. Certainly, to have risen so fast as he did in his company, one had to be more than competent at the martial arts. Aeryn, however, like knives. He always carried one. Or four. Something along those lines.

"He did be mocking us, Agnieszka, myself. The Brotherhood. So I spat at him." Aeryn rocked his shoulders at this and continued to spin the knife in his hand. Spin. Spin. "He hit me with a blackjack, right in the throat. I did think he wanted to hit me in the head. Sometimes. Sometimes I want to hit myself in the head, you know?" A grin. A GRIN?! See, really, Aeryn was a rather personable individual. Just a tad crazy. And less than moralistic.

"So I stabbed him for it. No less than I would do if it were on the battlefield. Or an assassin trying to gut me in the night. I did make sure to make it quick, no reason to prolong the pain of dying." He looked down a moment, licking his lips lightly. "That be it. Nothing else to be saying about it. I am a soldier, Calomel. When someone do hurt me, I kill them before it can be happening again. Me or my loved ones." A sideways glance here, as his foot stepped into something less than mentionable. Aeryn didn't even bother to look down, though he heard the sizzle from the extra heat that seemed to seep from his flesh. The smell that wafted up from whatever was just... cooked was even less mentionable.

[Carnath-Emory]

It might have gone differently, if Ariane had found the note tucked into the satchel strapped at her thigh. There it has rested all this time, folded neatly up against the wooden curve of what that satchel was made to contain, and with nary a rustle of sound to alert her to its presence. If she'd known it were there, if she'd read those important words, she might not have continued in this way:

"Oh, no; of course you don't. Watching it done is satisfaction enough for you, isn't it?"

It's a grin that's stretched her lips now, and Rhaena will know this when the swordswoman twists upon one bare heel mid-stride; takes some steps backwards now, all bright eyes and easy smile.

"Wasn't it? For you? For her? And you know, there is a sort of person who'll ask questions and close their ears before they hear the answer; they fear the sound of it, you see? But Rhaena Olwak, I'm not one of those sort. I'd like to know. I've always wanted to, but I've stayed my hand from you, and I've stayed those questions, too."

With a shift of the thin shoulder, she's turning back about, is giving the girl her back again as they make their way through this visceral landscape.

"I've no fear of those answers. However vile, they could not compare to what you did. I think that you are my answer to the Governor's sureness: I tell him that there is no atonement, that there is no real justice -- for there's no undoing a crime, mn? And there's no visiting it back upon the criminal -- if the criminal is Rhaena Olwak, and the weapon's locked in her head."

Is that a chuckle? But there is a fondness to the sound, a warmth which conflicts with the atmosphere of slow chill that has enfolded them. That is a battle it cannot win, which nothing can at all.

"Is that all that your lungs are capable of, young sera? Shall I encourage a better effort from you?"

Ah. Shot back across her shoulder, then: that is a smile.