Thar Shaddin

Saldrin entered the old textile factory with his wits about him. The place hadn't been in use for the past five years but one never knew who might be lurking about. Anything from an innocent, stray homeless man to a voracious demon with a thirst for human blood could have been waiting there for him, and the old man could do little to defend himself from a surprise attack other than pray for the luck of his staff to hold out.

The place was eerily quiet and a damp odour of machine oil and mould hung in the air. Rotting fabrics still lay in piles all around, food for moths and insects. Looking around, he took in the oddity of a factory designed by a gnome with the interests of humans in mind. Massive steam pipes, valves, clockworks and whirlygigs of god knows what purpose grew out of the ceiling and wound their way through walls and into the floor. Saldrin wondered what the place was like when it was running. Electric lighting, massive steam powered machines, the telltale sound effects of gnomish handiwork that laughed at the laws of physics and made no sense to anyone but its creator.

All this marvelous design and effort, he thought, wasted because of one man's greed to have a city to himself.

He inhaled deeply and proceeded further inside. As the darkness enveloped him, he conjured a small ball of light that hovered over his head, illuminating the drab surroundings in light whiter than the sun's. It made everything look colourless and gray, or everything actually was that colour, including the rolls of fabric that lay everywhere.

Saldrin found an old wooden stool and had a seat. His legs hurt already. The walk from his house to the factory had taken only half an hour, but it felt to him like he'd been walking for days. All up his back too the muscles felt like cords of electrified wire, and the humidity made his joints hurt. But none of it really bothered him. Saldrin knew the ways of the world too well to be bothered by old age. Having lived this long, in a place like Thar Shaddin, was a fluke in itself.

Resting his staff between his legs and clinging to it with both hands for support, he watched the door and waited for the others to arrive, and he wondered if he might some day manage to use his magic to numb the damn pain in his back.

Myrriah found herself walking through the industrial district, quite without meaning to. She looked around suddenly, realizing where she was, blinking a little with startlement. Why had she come here? She didn't want to admit it to herself, but she knew deep down that it was those strange words that she had heard at The Coin Purse the other night. They had mentioned a secret meeting in a warehouse that had something to do with magic. And even though she had made up her mind that she would have nothing to do with it since it wasn't her business...well, here she was in a place she had no reason to be, except that she had eavesdropped on a whispered conversation and the words had gripped her. Magic. Her mother had used magic as a Dreamrunner and Myrriah knew that she had done it illegally. Would her mother be at this meeting if she were alive?

Myrriah was still musing to herself when an old man appeared down the way, walking in her direction. She quickly ducked in the nearest door to avoid being seen and squatted down behind some barrels and crates that happened to be sitting nearby. Why she felt the need to hide from a harmless old man, she couldn't really place. Perhaps it was the whole clandestine feeling of the endeavor. Whatever it was, she didn't question.

Inside it was quite dim, and Myrriah blinked rapidly to adjust her vision. She heard the footsteps approach and she held her breath as she waited for them to recede. Instead, the kept getting closer and as Myrriah watched through a crack between a barrel and a crate, she saw the old man enter the very same door she had. Just my luck... she thought. Her lungs were beginning to burn from holding so much air and she bit her lip to keep from exhaling explosively. Her nostrils flared as she leaked air out through her nose, and she watched the old man steadily as he walked across the floor in case he heard her.

Once she was breathing normally she actually examined the man as he walked farther back into the factory. He was a dim silhouette now, but she had seen the cape and had recognized him. Not by name, because she'd never met him, but she had seen him around the city. Well, perhaps this was what she was here for after all? Maybe this seemingly harmless old man was part of the 'secret meeting' she had overheard? Just as she was musing over this she saw a ball of light appear over the man's head and her eyes widened. Magic! A delighted little-girl-smile curled at the corner of her lips and the reflected light glimmered in her eyes.

She wanted a closer look, so, finding another suitable looking pile of abandoned debris, she ever so quietly tiptoed closer. The spot was a good one and gave her vantage of the area that the old man looked out on from his seat. She settled in carefully and prepared to wait.

Waiting, however, was never Myrriah's strong suit. After a fairly short while she started to get fidgety and she got out her flute. She would never be stupid enough to play it, at least not at the moment, but she could play her fingers over the flute holes as if she were, and so she did. She was quite unconscious of the very small tapping sound it created.

Dargoth always wore a cloak, mainly to keep shadows over his yellow eyes. He hated drawing attention to himself, especially with his gift - or curse, as he liked to call it - should he be enraged enough to transform unwillingly. He shift forms occasionally, usually towards some purpose or another, and he planned on doing so tonight as he walked alone through the darkened streets of the Industrial District. He Cooley stepped down an alley and began rummaging around in the garbage like a homeless man might. A quick glance around, his yellow eyes piercing the darkness, revealed that he was a lone. He closed his eyes and thought for a second, before in a blink of an eye he disappeared. In his stead a Rat appeared in the garbage, quickly scurrying around until it ducked into a small hole in the side of wall.

In his Rat form, Dargoth quickly and unobserved made his way through the factory to what was supposed to be the meeting spot. His ears - now those with the senses of a Rat - picked up a tapping noise and he soon found the source: a woman on a pile of debris. His keen Rat smell also picked out that of a man, decidedly different smelling then that of those who frequented such a place and he moved off to investigate, his form as Rat more the suiting for such an environment.

The old man sat and waited, calmly oblivious to the others who were watching him. Though he had a wide variety of magical talents, he was no elf, and his age severely dulled his senses. The only thing that had thankfully remained spared was his keen eyesight.

He thought heard some clicking, off in a corner he couldn't quite place, but nothing out of the ordinary. He reasoned that it was probably rat or an insect of some kind, and he did look over casually, squinting through the artificial gloom, but saw nothing.

Saldrin was doing nothing wrong. A minor conjuring spell for a ball of light was an infraction on the magic laws barely punishable by a slap on the wrist. If the worst did happen, and he was being watched by a city spy, he would use his academic clout and status to lessen the charges. Indeed, he would then also have to worry about going to any future meetings, for then the city would know of his magic and keep a closer eye on him, but in the end he wasn't worried. The city officials were all bark and no bite when it came to punishing people with money and status, such as Saldrin.

He sighed deeply and continued to wait. Patience was one of his virtues.

Myrriah had spaced out, staring into some unfocused distance as her fingers moved along the flute. A very small rustling, a sound a small furry creature might make, brought her rushing back to her body and made her hair stand on end. She didn't like rats and mice much, and until that moment she hadn't really thought about what kind of vermin would be crawling around where she was sitting. She held very still, eyes searching the dark corners and crevices fruitlessly. She shivered unpleasantly.

Trying to ignore the idea of rodents crawling around in the debris around her, she turned her gaze back to the old man, only to freeze again her breath catching in her throat. The old man was looking right at her. Her mind darted among her thoughts as she wondered what she would say if she was caught hiding and spying. Yet another thing she hadn't thought about it previous to this moment. She was beginning to realize she was highly unprepared for sneaking around secret meetings. What would her do to her? What kind of powers did he have? Her imagination was quite capable of conjuring the nearly impossible and making it seem highly likely.

As Myrriah's worried mind began to reach fever pitch, the old man looked away and for a beat it seemed that the world had stopped to her. Wait...had he actually noticed her? Was he trying to entice her into making more noise? She chewed on her lip as a worried scowl creased her brow.

Between the two people who we rent too far apart from each other, Dargoth huddled in his rat form. He decided that they were most obviously all there for the same reason, and he had already checked to see if there were any other persons about - his heightened rat-senses able to pick up the smell or sight of such a person - and as there were none, he decided to transform into his regular self.

He stood up on his hind legs, something rats could normally do, and then in a blink of an eye the rat enlarged to nearly 6ft tall before revealing a cloaked man, who immediately fell to one knee. Dargoth's lungs screamed for air and it took him a few moments to regain his composure. He had transformed between the two other people and looked around to see if they had noticed him.

Obviously Saldrin noticed the transformation of a rat into a man when it happened right in front of him. He was all smiles about it, and didn't seem the least bit startled by the unexpected entrance. Mages were often odd and eccentric, and had a habit of pulling out their tricks in new and entertaining ways. In fact, Saldrin would have been more concerned if everyone had joined the meeting quietly and on foot like normal people.

Saldrin was all smiles and cheer, his weathered old face wrinkling up in a joyous greeting toward Dargoth. The ball of white light above his head cast shadows on his face that made him look older than he really was, putting dark spots over his eyes and underlining each wrinkle he had.

'Ah! Greetings! I was wondering when someone would decide to show up."

Using his lucky staff for leverage, he pushed himself to a standing position, hiding the temptation to grimace with the effort.

"I don't suppose you brought any others with you?"

Myrriah watched uncomfortably as a rat skittered across the floor, her nose wrinkling in distaste. Such ugly, filthy creatures! The little beast came to a halt in between herself and the old man and stood up on its hind legs as if seeking something. Wondering if it was planning to bite the old man, Myrriah started to worry. The old man seemed so perfectly harmless! And she knew that rats carried sickness...

Something imperceptible about the rat started to change. Myrriah cocked her head, looking for whatever it could be, when suddenly, impossibly, right before her eyes, the rat grew into a full sized man before she could even take a breath. Myrriah barely had enough presence of mind not to scream bloody murder, but not quite enough to silence her sharp gasp nor keep herself from scrambling backwards, rustling through the debris littering the floor. She would have ran right out the front door and not looked back if her muscles hadn't locked up from the pure shock of the sight, and she huddled there miserably, frightened to the core of her very bones, her mind racing. Had they heard her?

Dargoth turned to the old man and shook his head, pausing for a moment to regain his breath before speaking. "No, I am afraid i have not. No one else has shown-?" It was at that point that he heard a scrambling noise amongst the debris behind him and he whipped around, yellow eyes scanning the darkness. His curse was also a gift, his yellow eyes able to penetrate the darkness.

He saw a woman, a shocked look on her face, staring right back at him. He spread his arms to either side to show he was un-armed. "Who are you?" He called to her.

(( Dargoth unless I read your previous post wrong, didn't you already see Myr when you were in your rat form? You might want to go back and edit that. ))

Saldrin too heard the girl's gasp from behind a crate and looked her way. The poor young thing had been hiding there all along, and seeing a shapeshifter transform had frightened the daylights out of her! Often his students would start off the same way, startled and confused by the eccentricities of the magical arts, but they always got used to it after a while.

It tickled Sadrin's funny-bone to see such a sight, with her so terrified of a little magic and especially considering that she had been the one spying on them. He laughed a friendly laugh and spoke up.

"Indeed, you can come out from hiding little spy! We won't hurt you."

Myrriah watched the rat-turned-man spread his arms as he looked at her with his creepy yellow eyes and queried her. She opened and closed her mouth, unable to speak to the creature that terrified her so, and she inched back a little bit more. She wanted desperately to just run away, but she could not make her body obey her. The old man's laugh and friendly voice broke through her fear, however, allowing her to regain a little composure. But his words made her blush furiously. She got up slowly and cautiously edged out into the circle of light cast by the old man's magic sphere, clutching her flute until her knuckles were white and staring hard at her feet in utmost embarrassment. How on earth was she going to explain herself? Searching for words, she recalled the rat-man's question, almost forgotten in the rush of fear and self-consciousness.

"Um...I'm...I'm Myrriah...sir. S-s-sorry for intruding." It was a struggle for Myrriah to get the words out between desperate gulps of air. Except for a brief, nervous peak at the two men through her hair, she continued to stare at her feet, her hair shielding the chagrined heat burning brightly in her cheeks.

The scurry of a rat was a noise difficult to detect, except by keen ears. Could the same keen senses detect the even subtler step of a thumb-sized cockroach?

The cockroach walked at a characteristically cockroachy pace along the floor against the inner perimeter of the building. It was silent to the untrained ear. Its shell-like outer wings shone dimly in the limited light, and also held a peculiar glitter to them. The insect gave off the slightest trace of musk.

Eventually, the cockroach started hesitating in its path every few inches. It finally paused for several seconds. A sound came, like an inward sigh of wind, and the cockroach figure expanded in a blur of browns, at once both fluid and intricate. Then, a human was there where the cockroach had been.

The woman was tall and slim, a sepia rendering of an Olympic sort of grace. She wore a shapeless tunic-dress of a patchy suede that nearly matched her complexion for its tanned ashy color. Her thick and dark, shining hair was the only tangible thing about her that evoked luxury. It was her hair, and her intangible grace. The rest of her was understated: clean, aesthetic, but otherwise humble.

Her hands swept up along the sides of her frame, over her tunic, smoothing out apparent bumps of anatomy along her ribcage, pressing them away like clay, or like straightening rumpled feathers. She began to stretch her limbs, methodically, flexing and extending as she poised next to the wall, like a ballerina at the barre. A languid gaze gave heed every few moments to the gathering nearer the center of the building, which she could barely make out beyond the extensions of pipe and worm gears that partially obstructed her view.

"As you should be, Myrriah." Said Saldrin. "It's not polite to eavesdrop on people. Not to mention that this is no place for a girl to be alone at night. I should think your parents would be quite concerned to have their little girl wandering around in this part of town."

He clicked his tongue and shook his head at her, but never lost the smile he wore. The ball of light continued to hover perfectly still above his head.

"Come now, stand up and stop cleaning the filth off the floor with your backside. We're expecting more company any minute."

At that perfectly timed moment, Pagusel made her presence known with an entrance fit for a mage. Seeing her appear, so perfectly well timed, and in such a peculiar form as was unique to her made Saldrin smile even more. He really seemed to love everything to do with anything bizarre.

"What ho! Pagusel"

((Saldrin, dear, Myrriah IS already standing. *wink*))

Myrriah nodded miserably in agreement and shuffled her feet. She knew she shouldn't have been spying. She knew better. And all for a silly little word...magic...She sighed. But when the old man mentioned her parents, she looked up at him, her brows drawing together and sadness flickering in her mismatched eyes. She shook her head very slightly. She knew very well that her father was too drunk to care at the moment. And her mother...well, she was dead.

At the mention of more company, Myrriah moved to stand at the side of the old man and slightly behind, facing the front of the factory building. Her position was chosen decidedly further away from the rat man. And as the old man hailed the newcomer that Myrriah could barely make out in the darkness, she muttered under her breath "I'm hardly a child." Her grip briefly tightened on her flute.

Asiona was startled awake and, blinking, she looked out the window. Night had fallen and, except for the weak light from the street, it was pitch black. With a silent reprimand directed at herself, Asiona rose from her desk chair where she had accidentally fallen asleep and made it to her window. For a moment she listened intently for movement or any noises inside her home before scrambling up and jumping out. Again she paused to listen for a moment until she was sure there wasn’t a guard or some stranger about. Yet, the street was quiet other than the gentle sound of crickets and a few cicadas.

While Asiona walked briskly down the side of the road she wrapped a shawl of muted color tighter around her shivering shoulders. She had forgotten how cold it could get before dawn and regretted not changing to her heavier dress; it had been quite a long time before the mages had arranged another meeting. At least that she was aware of. She hoped they hadn’t left her out again.

But after her old friend left, who was there to escort her to meetings anymore?

Asiona huffed with remembered anger at the betrayal; hadn’t he foreseen the coming battles to free the magic users of this tiny realm? Of course he didn’t listen to her.

It was quite some time before she reached the old abandoned warehouse where the meeting was taking place. Again she scolded herself: they could have started without her! And she didn’t have time to pick up her new problem to show the others. Or perhaps brag about how coolly she had handled the surprise of the demon appearing. Would they believe her without proof?

She took a long look around until she was sure no one had managed to follow her slim form through the darkness, and she entered.

The girl didn’t even think to spice up her entrance and entered almost tripping over a pipe or god-knows-what on the filthy floor. She smiled as she entered the most welcome circle of light and looked at the others. Unconcerned she waved excitedly and skipped up to Saldrin, who she definitely recognized. “You wouldn’t believe what happened to me!” she whispered as she stood beside him, directing it mainly at him.