Thar Shaddin

Camulous sat in the empty private booth waiting patiently and trying to keep himself from brooding over all the havoc that had happened in the city recently, along with how much he was beginning to dislike his superiors.

Damn that Oslun, keeping him in the dark and treating him like an orderly. Bending over backwards to appease the Judges and worst of all the Mages that worked for the city. Mages! Of all the hypocritical nonsense! Weren't they the dangerous ones? How could they be allowed to maintain their own wing of the military and operate in secrecy?!

He snapped the pencil he was holding and immediately broke out of his chain of thought. As captain of the guard, he had to keep his own reservations in check while he did his job. The city had functioned as it did now for centuries, and however strange it seemed, he needed those battlemages to help when the fighting got nasty.

Flicking the back half of the pencil away and sending it skidding across the dusty wooden floor, he watched the door again. The room was lit by a fireplace along with a few dim yellow light-bulbs that occasionally browned out when the power fluctuated. Situated downstairs and beneath the rest of the tavern, he could hear all the people moving about upstairs, drinking and whoring and trading drugs no doubt. The kind of petty crimes he liked to deal with because at least those people knew what they were doing. They didn't turn into dragons and possess automobiles and blow up city streets.

No, the petty criminals were nothing like what he was waiting in the tavern basement for. This meeting was organized by some of the top city officials, as well as Oslun and presumably the vampire to help establish a new crackdown on the underground mages guild. Camulous had been reluctant about the whole afair, preferring to use ordinary people to set up a proper spy network and an old fashioned campaign against magic... But he had been ordered to come, and so here he was. Waiting for complete strangers with no background checks or even official citizenship in Marn to show up and start figuring out what to do with the mages. It was sure to be a mess.

There were no time keepers in the room, but Camulous always knew what time it was within the hour anyway. The ad said 9:00 and he was promised by Oslun that two "special agents" would also show up around then. Camulous was curious to see just what sort of rif-raff he was getting this time.

Upstairs a guardsman waited by a door near the rear of the tavern, ready to escort anyone who knew about the secret meeting to Cam's little room.

She saw the bulletin posted by a guard a week ago. She had been sitting across from the tavern and speaking with the wife of a blacksmith who sought to purchase something special for her husbands birthday, a healthy dose of deadly amantia mushrooms. As the woman left, she heard the pounding of the hammer and saw the guard leave when his work was finished. After crossing the street and reading the notice, she was struck with curiosity. From what she gathered, seems this was to be a gathering of the troops of sorts. She tore down the notice and tucked it away for later.

She didn't care if others used magic or not, it was none of her business so long as it was not used against her. Her stake in this is purely financial for the time being. Although she can go without for long periods of time, money talks here, and she needed it.

Now, she stands within the dank confines of the tavern. Watching the patrons shuffle drunkenly about in their ale induced stupor. Morons, she thought, as she pushed passed those who stood in her path towards the back of the tavern. A large man blocked her path to the stairs. Reaching into her bag she produced the notice she had torn down. Wordlessly, the guard nodded and stepped aside, opening the path to the stairs that lead down into a darker room. Without thanking him, she slowly descended.

Her eyes adjusted to the softer light quickly as she reached the bottom stair and looked about. Across from her, she saw a lone man sitting alone. Without hesitation she crossed the room, the sound of her heavy boots echoing across the low ceiling. As she got closer she recognized his frame, the captain of the guard. Inwardly she grinned, thinking how amusing this meeting is going to be. she has spent time in jail before, she wondered if he might recognize her.

Wordlessly, she walked over to the booth, placed her bag on the table and slid into the seat, only her eyes regarding the captain.

Damn humans. Ryosha snarled again, rubbing at her skull. It throbbed painfully from being hit not only once, but twice and both times she had lost a horn. It ached and made her want to vomit but she ignored it in favor of reading a message mere inches from her nose. The crazed one had read it twice already but wished to do so again, wrapping her brain around the words it contained.

A chance to kill more humans. I think I should look into this. One clawed hand snatched it away, leaving bits of paper behind as she lumbered off. It had been a bit of time, a few days maybe, since she and the fire keeper had destroyed the tavern. That had been a good bit of fun. But she had been in control for nearly a week now, and that meant she was beginning to actually think things through.

That was a danger that Ebony had always been afraid of and why she always fought so desperately to regain control. But now, that one was beyond hope and beyond salvation, having given up completely. The crazed one grinned, and lumbered to the location of the meeting.

The guards at the door only gave her a bit of trouble until she waved the notice in their faces. They exchanged glances and let her enter. She didn’t walk across the tavern proper to the second guardsman: she stalked, each footstep lost among the din of drinking and whoring that roared in her ears. A muted growl rumbled in her belly as she passed along, wanting to kill them all but not daring too.

Too much attention then. Must play carefully. The next sentry also gave her paused but yielded to her piece of paper. Strange how something to simple can mean so much. Stairs took her downward to the meeting place, where two others waited. Her silver hide appeared gray in the low light as the dragon slunk along one wall to a place in the corner. Her ruby eyes darted back and forth between the two already there as she joined in to wait.

Alalia slipped into the tavern, cloaked and hooded as she always was in public in order to hide her more unusual features. The dim light threw odd shadows across her face, which aided in the concealment of said features. Her cat-like nose wrinkled as it was bombarded with scents of alcohol, sweat, and smoke.

Humans, she thought with disgust, a cat's air of arrogance rising. The whole species seemed rather pointless to her, other then as a source of prey for stronger creatures. It shamed her that human blood and bones had been used in her creation, and that a human mage had given her life when she was so obviously superior to them. Life was such a cruel irony.

In truth, Alalia would have preferred to skip the meeting. She had always worked alone, and was not looking forward to doing otherwise. If anyone but Belatucadrus had sent her, she would not have attended. However, it was obviously not a good idea to anger such a powerful vampire.

The cat-girl pushed her way through the bar's occupants, trying her best not to make any sort of eye contact. For the most part she was left alone, ignoring any comments made to her. However, one particularly persistent, and intoxicated, man did not seem to get the point that she wanted to be left alone. With a sigh, she released the retractable claws that were in the place of her fingernails. With one quick swipe she laid open the man's face. Blood splattered to the ground as she man fell, writhing in agony.

Alalia coolly stepped over him, retracting her claws and licking the blood off her hands like the cat she resembled. Approaching the guard, she stated her business and was allowed to enter the room. Looking about at the strange occupants, she merely raised an eyebrow and allowed her hood to fall back.

Elsor muttered something rude to himself in a language five hundred years dead. The little girl he seemed to be stuck as had even shorter legs than he had thought, he was almost certainly. In the same tongue he cursed his vampire employer. Why had he agreed to this? Oh yes; power. Idiot. At least he seemed to have got rid of that haughty cat-girl-thing.

Far more confident than he should have been given his six-year-old body, Elsor stamped into the tavern he had been sent to and looked around. It was busy and noisy and stank of cheap alcohol. Humans, Elsor thought, You've got to hand it to them- give them a barrel of ale and they'll forget every problem they've ever had. Hopefully that would mean they would also forget that six-year-old girls didn't come into taverns like this.

The logic seemed to work as Elsor crossed the tavern common room uninterrupted, heading for the door he assumed was the right one. It was logical to expect that a private meeting would be guarded, he thought as he reached it. The guard moved to block Elsor's passage. "That isn't a place for liddle girls- be on your way."

Elsor sighed and batted Elsie's eyelashes, "But I was told to come here, sir."

The guard shook his head, "I don't think so. Get on home to bed with you, little madam."

Elsor rolled his eyes, said a very rude word and then head-butted the guard in the groin. The man wasn't wearing a protector. More fool him. As the man doubled over, Elsor passed him and shoved open the door. It took all of little Elsie's inconsiderable strength, but he was through. Elsor ran down the flight of steps to the meeting place, feeling horribly self conscious about his ridiculous child-form, and entered to sit silently and inelegantly among the others gathered there.

If Camulous recognized any of the people who showed up, he didn't display it on his fair face. He was by far the most ordinary person in the room and as the 'recruits' entered one by one, he looked less and less like he would be capable of ordering them around. Reasonably muscled and broad shouldered though he may have been, he was still a blond haired fair skinned young man who looked barely 25.

To further things, he wasn't wearing his armor, so while normally he could hide behind a rather impressive looking sallet helmet and a fancy elven curiass, this time he was in a plain green tunic and tight cloth pants.

In his defense, they didn't intimidate him. Not even the creature that looked like a dragon. He sat there in his chair with a small desk at his side, holding half a broken pencil, and making eye contact with them as if to judge their persons from what he could see as they entered.

First was the dark skinned woman. That was no big surprise, even if most of the people in Marn were white and mostly elven, at least she was human. Glancing her over, he figured an assassin of some kind. Hopefully she didn't have some strange foreign magic up her sleeve.

Then came the dragoness creature, the likes of which he'd never seen before but knew existed. He was sure the local populace would shy away from her because of her appearance, but not him. Even if she was a real dragon, he wouldn't be hiding. He hadn't heard reports yet of exactly what happened in the Black Rose, but eventually someone would probably recognize her.

Next the feline woman. Another woman? God, he thought, all women. A female assassin was good for certain obvious reasons, and a pair of strange exotic ones was sure to come in handy, but along with the dragoness it was getting a bit much. They were still woman, and he was going to have to deal with them. How could it possibly get any worse...

The child entered and had a seat, and camulous just stared, holding the pencil remains still between his fingers. A little girl? Surely it was an illusion, or she was a shapeshifter of some kind. Right after her the guard he'd posted at the door came down the stairs, holding his groin as he hobbled along. Camulous looked at the guard and shook his head, indicating that it was alright. His relationship with his best men was close enough that a signal is all that was required. The guard was too embarrassed to say anything and left quietly.

Camulous sighed and ignored who he was dealing with in favor of just doing his job.

"You should all be here for the same reasons. You either read the notice or you know the vampire. I'm not interested in which, I don't answer to him, I answer to the city. You're here to help fight a growing problem in Marn, and that is a ring of underground mages. If that's not why you're here, leave now."

He glanced at each of them in turn, giving plenty of time to up and leave.

She regards each person ...or creature, that enters behind her. Only with a glance and nothing more, she'd rather not speak with them until she better understands their demeanor. Besides, she wasn't here on a friendly social call.

After the captain speaks, she sits back quietly and waits, wanting to know who will back out and who will she have to share this new venture with.

"You should all be here for the same reasons. You either read the notice or you know the vampire. I'm not interested in which, I don't answer to him, I answer to the city. You're here to help fight a growing problem in Marn, and that is a ring of underground mages. If that's not why you're here, leave now."

Ryosha only shifted with a roll of her eyes, wanting to throttle him to get things started. She was here to kill mages. Simple as that. She did not care what the others were here for nor would she ask. The woman that entered before her, and the cat after held no interest. The child actually looked tempting in the way of a late dinner but she would restrain that impulse.

She shifted again, already on edge and eager to fight.

Alalia sunk into a chair, never taking her unerving green eyes off the man who had spoken. She was impatient to get started, but she masked her feelings. She did not wish to allow anyone inside of her head, especially people who she did not know.

The cat girl waited for someone to respond, but so far, no one had said anything. Her tail lashed about angrily, seeming to possess a life of her own. She tapped her fingers against the table, extending and retracting her claws as she did so.

Elsor glared around the room at his fellow almost-employees, screwing Elsie's face into a rather unpleasant pout. All of them were female. Did the vampire have something for women doing dirty work?- it had been certain men's thing in the past, there had been at least two emperors from some long dead empire thousands of years ago that Elsor could think of off hand, and they were people he'd been quite familiar at one time or another. There would probably be many that he couldn't remember properly, his memory wasn't what it had been when he was incorporeal. Nevertheless, Elsor had thought a little higher of Belatucadrus than that- he hadn't liked the vampire, and he certainly didn't trust him, it- but still, he would have expected a slightly higher calibre from somebody as old as Bela. However, worse than the feminine nature of all but the leader of the gathering was the feline nature of one of the females. I thought I'd got away from her, Elsor snarled, silently of course, he suspected he wasn't supposed to have slipped away from the cat-girl as soon as was physically possible, but he could deal with that later. Much, much later, if possible.

At least the other man didn't mess around, Elsor thought, he cut straight to the chase with his statement about the business in hand. The fact was, Elsor hadn't known what on earth he was actually being sent to get involved in; he'd received word from the vampire- how Bela had known where he was at the time, Elsor didn't like to speculate, the vampire had too much power to comfortably contemplate- with instructions to go to such-and-such a tavern at such-and-such a time to meet with so-and-so, along with apparently the world and his maiden aunts. All three of them.

However, when Elsor heard the task in hand, his blood chilled. He could translate- the rogue mages were goners, and since he himself was also a rogue mage, albeit one who could make nothing more than a candle flame without incurring a splitting headache- yet- he was probably at the end of that list, alongside something on the lines of 'terminate when use has run out'. Damned if he was going to hang around and wait for that to happen. Ignoring the other occupants of the room, Elsor pushed himself off the chair and, as calmly as his nerves and a six-year-old girl's figets would allow, he walked away. Even in this form there had to be better alternatives.

Camulouscould sense the restlessness of the two beastial females in the room. The dragoness bothered him far more than the catgirl in that respect, but he was the captain of a whole army of violent, brutish, often psychotic men, and he managed to keep them in line. He could do the same for these women... He hoped.

He watched the little girl hop out of her seat and walk away. That was indeed confusing, and as she went up the stairs and out of the meeting room, he could do nothing but watch. Initially, he thought he would have to take action against anyone who actually was foolish enough to find their way into the private meeting and didn't belong there, but it was only a little girl. A strange little girl in a strange little city. It was all part of the job.

He looked to the three he had left and was quiet for a minute before he got back on track and spoke.

"Right... Well... We can make due without a child, I think. My name is Camulous and I'm captain of the guard, on the off chance that you don't already know this. Do not think for a minute that whatever antics you have up your sleeve or whatever secret plans you have will work while you serve under me. Your assignments will come from me, you will report to me, and you will take no actions against anyone without my consent, am I clear? I say again, you work for me and I answer to no one but the city. The guard will cut you down like dogs if you dare to think otherwise."

He pulled three sheets of paper and pencils off a small desk beside him and handed one to each of the ladies. The dirty yellow pages had several lines pain-stakingly inked on them in fine calligraphy worthy of a royal document.

Contract of servitude, said the header, followed by a dozen lines of fine print outlining what Camulous had just explained to them. They were to answer to him, and only him, and payment would be recieved only when he decided the job was complete. It didn't say how much they would get for it, only that they agreed to do what he said. Following this was a place to sign, and to write their names in print.

"Fill these out." He said, and while he waited for them he withdrew from under the desk some sort of contraption made of wood, with a series of intricate glass tubes that ran into three brass spheres about the size of a fist. Etched onto the spheres were rings of runic writing in a language only the mages of the city could know. Leading to the tubes was a hose with a sharp silver needle on the end. The tubes were stained with a crimson colour on the inside. Unmistakably blood.

He placed the device on the desk and then sat back to watch the three finish with the forms.

After listening to his little speech, she reached across the table and slid the paper over to her. This was highly unorthodox for her. In her dealings she learned it was best to not leave a paper trail behind, should someone seek revenge for an act she was responsible for. Being that this was a city matter, she gathered that this contract was for the benefit of someone more important than the lackey guard sitting across from her. Perhaps, with a job well done, this new adventure could benefit her in more ways than monetary.

She fingers were poised to sign her name, when her thoughts were interrupted by the bulky contraption placed on the table. She leaned forward and allowed her curiosity to break her silence while reaching out to poke it with the pen.

"And just what in the hell is this heap of junk?"

One clawed hand took the piece of paper with unusual care, a quivering nose sniffing at the parchment. She read the words, noting that they matched with what he had said, only with more fluff. It was agreeable with her, since if he didn’t find out about her not following his orders, it didn’t happen. With a smirk she signed it with the pencil that had come with it.

This was all too easy. Not only would she be able to kill mages but also she would be paid for her services. A fair-trade in her eyes.

It was the object that came out a moment later that raised her hackles. The woman that had entered before her voiced an objection and she followed.

“Yes, what is that abomination?” A threat was rumbling in her throat, a muffled growl that showed her distaste.

(( ala is away so skip her ))

Camulous gave a smug, all-knowing smile at the questions he predicted would come his way. The magical device was known to all the guardsmen and especially well to the mages, but it was unique to their agency and there was nothing else like it in the world that he was aware of.

"This contraption is my assurance that you will follow the contract you just signed."

He reached out to collect the papers and placed them side by side in front of him on his desk. His eyes glanced over the names and signatures on them, and he made a mental note of who was who. At least now he knew their names.

Reaching over to his side, he took the hose and pointed nozzle from the elabourate device and held it over the first piece of paper on his desk. Twisting a tiny valve on the nozzle immediately started the flow of blood through the various glass tubes as if it was being kept under pressure inside the metallic rune covered ball.

The hoses turned the opaque red color of old blood, and a droplet of the stuff fell down from the nozzle onto the page. The instant it touched the paper, runes on the device began to glow bright indigo. The same procedure was done to the following two papers, after which he put the hose and nozzle away, pushing the device to a side.

He turned the papers around again, so that they were right-side up for his new employees. Each one had a droplet of red blood beside their signatures.

"Place your index finger on the blood, and press it onto the paper," he began, "and it will seal our contract. If you should try to break our deal in any way, you die."

Now was the time to see who was -really- willing to work for him. He sat back and waited, watching the three.

The tiniest of grins revealed itself along the corners of her lips as she reached over, finger outstretched, and pressed it firmly in the drop of thick blood there.

"Seems to me that you and your employer has some trust issues to work through, Sir. Just as well, I assure you, that you have my loyalty. "


She glanced at her "blood sisters" before speaking again.

"So, what devious acts will we be performing first?"