Post by Kin on Sept 9, 2023 7:57:44 GMT -5
"PARADICE" - ONE
Drenched in sweat, his scarred chest shivering up and down as he shakingly hyperventilated, Kin explosively sat up on his bed and grabbed his aching head. Slowly returning from this desolate world of dreams, the ink mage’s expression deepened in pain, a gloomy grimace of misery and agony. He clenched his remaining fist, the muscles on his equally garbled lower arms bulging, and moved to the side of the soaked bed, resting his elbows on his knees and placing his feet on the dirty wooden floor of the inn he currently called his home.
The room’s curtains billowed in the light breeze entering through the widely open windows that allowed the hustle and bustle of Aries Garse’s night life to calm the Qadir’s nerves as he took one last deep breath in an attempt to push away those nightmarish memories. These traumatic fragments of the past perpetually haunted the mercenary, resurfacing in dreams, as sudden visions or simply as emotional torment, and while he had vowed not to let these remembrances hinder him anymore, making such a vow was far simpler than adhering to its words.
A couple minutes later, Kin managed to get himself back together and up from the bed. A frankly frighteningly huge yawn-and-stretch combination exorcized every last bit of sleepiness left in his body, automatically putting him in his ritualized auto-pilot ‘morning’ routine: meticulously shaving and washing every little inch of his body, ensuring wherever he was staying to be equally clean and dressing for whatever daily endeavor might ensue. While his habit of.. hrm.. sleeping in his birthday suit sure had its perks in his opinion, it came at quite the cost depending on the circumstances.
Renting a single room in an establishment such as this one almost broke his budget, but setting his priorities had never proved too big a struggle for the rogue. Given the prudishness Kin suffered from, sharing a room would’ve promised extensive horrors after all. “With these people especially..”, he further talked himself into reassuring thoughts as far as renting this room went, as he closed the door behind him, comfortably buried his hands in the pockets of the wide, simple pair of brown pants he had taken on for today, after fiddling with the equally plain black shirt spanning his wide back. “I have a couple of hours left..”, he lamented his waking up in the middle of the night, annoyance visibly molding his facial expression.
The Qadir had decided to simply take a stroll around Aries Garse to kill some of the hours left before the designated meeting with his colleagues in a nearby casino, as a way to also get his mind off his haunting past. The ink mage and some fellow mercenaries had been called upon by a rather prestigious figure among the gambling scene of this comparatively illicitly governed town. A quite surprising amount of shady people flocked around the gambling district of Aries Garse, resulting in corresponding amounts of conflict among said people of course.
Their equally shady client had appointed them to escort pretty large a portion of his humongous profits across the city, promising decent payment in return, well, reasonable compensation given the certain ambush, Gorain, as was the name of Kin’s client, was sure would happen. The aforementioned annoyance resurfaced quite visibly, as the mercenary turned the corner of the shabby, run-down staircase and took a fleeting glance at the inn’s bar.
A fleeting glance, as to avoid any resemblance of eye-contact with his comrades for tomorrow, who were visibly, audibly and most of all olfactory overwhelmingly occupied with preemptively spending every last Yul they would earn on their soon-to-begin job on cheap alcohol and frankly disgusting looking.. eh, you couldn’t really call those concoctions of wasted ingredients food, to be honest.
The passionate cook, trying to rid himself of such horrifying sights and smells, shuddered as he turned towards ‘The Rusty Helmet’s entrance, only to vigorously collide with quite a small woman attempting to enter the building. In their collision, Kin got an almost painful whiff of her.. bodily evaporations, immediately drawing quite the vivid picture of her evening: the frankly nauseating blend of what could only be a drunkard’s phlegm, hints of disgustingly ancient, crusty sweat and the metallic note exclusive to dried blood, among the evident and frankly mandatory sharp smells of various high-proof alcoholic beverages.
“Whoaa whuu?!”, the woman barely managed to pronounce her confusion at the sudden disturbance in her path, culminating in an aggravated “Urgh!”, as she found herself on the floor, splattered in the mud and.. other dubious substances scattered across the dirt roads spanning this part of the town. Involuntarily resorting back to aspects of his rather.. chivalrous up-bringing as one of the eldest sons of the Qadir family, they had adhered to comparatively old-fashioned standards in some parts of their mannerisms, particularly the treatment of women and children, Kin immediately squatted down, his deep voice rumbling: “Sorry, are you alright?”
While it was a tad unclear to the rogue, whether or not she had even understood his apology, her furious expression didn’t falter after all, Kin also wasn’t sure if she could even clearly see him, given her eyes didn’t really manage to lock onto his face. “Wow, she must’ve had quite the night..”, the mercenary amusedly thought to himself, a slight smile crimping his lips. “Come on, let’s get you back up.” On closer inspection, Kin got a good look at her face hidden behind disheveled locks of orange-y red hair, he recognized her as a part of the rag-tag band of mercenaries gathered by Gorain, one of the lonesome warriors that didn’t belong to a larger group or organization among clover’s underground, Clementine her name.
Of course, along with his ‘chivalry’, there was his immense prudishness complicating the situation, seeing as physical contact in general wasn’t really the young man’s most favorite of activities, especially given Clementine’s apparent attractiveness despite her current.. hrm. condition. Nevertheless, the urge to help the struggling woman back to her feet weighed heavier, and pushing his strong arm under one of her shoulders, he easily hoisted her back to her feet, only to immediately let go of her as though she might be contagious, carrying some deadly disease. “Hrm.”, he harrumphed to ease his discomfort with the situation, quickly turned his back and waved her good-bye without looking back. “Well, see ya tomorrow!”
“They’ll be useless in the morning..”, the ink mage further lamented his colleagues’ irresponsible behavior. Sure, Kin wasn’t a stranger to.. let’s call it excessive indulgences in consumption of various befuddling substances, but the Qadir limited those to after finishing his given tasks or missions, logically. Fishing for the cigarette rolling equipment from one of the many pockets attached to his handy pants, swiftly procured an expertly rolled cigarette and lit it in a smooth motion. “I shouldn’t rely on them too much.” Strolling along the partially lit up messy flophouses, overrun shady gambling caverns and equally crowded palaces of voluptuousness, gluttony and greed, lining one of Aries Garse’s main roads, Kintsugi had one of his hands deeply buried in his pockets, the other occupied with smoking, absent-mindedly staring at his surroundings.
He didn’t have a clear path or destination, getting his mind off of his dreadful attempt at getting some rest was his only goal at the moment, quite the bad decision actually, especially given the mission he’d have to carry out at the break of dawn. They were scheduled to meet their client and his own bodyguards at said man’s own gambling hall at 5am sharp, a couple of crossroads down from the inn they had been advised to stay in for the night. “Urgh.. A smooth job for once.”, he internally expressed his wishes, a pretty normal conclusion given that most of his recent jobs as a mercenary had either proved to be pretty problematic or outright gone south. “Or a team to rely on..”
Despite the glaring hatred Kin harbored for the leader of the organization that had brutally murdered his family and abducted him as a child, he was at a place now, where he could.. almost appreciate the ‘Usurper’s Children’ for what they were.. or, well, their organization’s structure at the very least. Most members had to undergo rigorous preparatory training, both physical and mental, before the leader and his entourage even considered them for a potential job.
Granted, going to such lengths was necessary given the type of missions the ‘Children’ were usually sent on, at the mere thought, Kin’s fists clenched to the point of his knuckles turning a ghastly white color, he shook his head as though to physically rid himself of the thoughts and took a closer look at his surroundings to distract himself.
“The subconscious, huh?”, apparently, he had been inadvertently wandering to the aforementioned meeting point, a comparatively decent looking establishment, befittingly titled ‘Paradice’, which elicited a contemptuous scoff from the rogue. Judging from the pretentiously luxurious curtains hanging in each of the many windows, framed in neatly ornamented wood, which the golden paint was flaking off of, and the cracked red walls, someone really wanted to be a part of the aristocracy. Visibly annoyed, Kin rolled his eyes, when a trusted voice suddenly broke his internal lamentation on even taking this job in the first place: “Kin?”
Flabbergasted and utterly confused, the ink mage averted his gaze from the gambling hall’s decorations to the front door, only to find himself staring at one of the two massive bouncers with equally wide eyes and mouth. “K.. Klaus?”, Kin stuttered with his entire body frozen in shock. “It’s you Inky, ahaha!”, bursting out in somewhat of an ecstatic laughter, the massive hunk of.. well apparently more fat than muscle these days rumblingly ran towards his best friend, whose brain was way too empty in perplexity to procure an answer or even the slightest hint of a reaction. As the light coming from the Paradice’s entrance was blocked by the significantly larger and wider wood mage, his former colleague in arms just stood there, unable to move, suddenly drawn back in time.
“.. and we haven’t seen each other in.. Ah doesn’t matter, hahaha, I am so glad to see you!”, the sudden lack of oxygen in the ink mage’s system had him confusedly return to a surprisingly dark reality, vigorously pushed out of him by the concerningly firm embrace with.. one arm? “Wai.. Wait, Klaus.”, Kin just barely managed to squeeze out some words under his limited breath. “Oh, sorry Inky.”
The Qadir desperately gasped for air, cawing as he curled his body in a futile attempt to ease the pain on his aching chest. Taking deep breaths in between words after returning to a standing position and wheezing one last time, Kin took his usual jab at his friend: “Still rambling as ever, eh?” Which immediately conjured a huffy pout on the kind-hearted ex-rogue’s face and in turn a honest and wide grin on Kin’s.
“Still the same teddy-bear character though.”, which came as honest relief to the rogue, Klaus had seemingly stomached the Children’s falling apart much better than he himself did. Lightly punching the now-bouncer’s intact right shoulder, the mercenary chuckled: “Ah, I’m joking buddy, you know that. But.. Your arm was lost, huh?” The ink mage’s question immediately dampened the mood of their otherwise quite endearing reunion, as Klaus’s facial expression darkened in an apparent reliving of his memories and used his hand to rub the remainder of his left arm. “Hmm, yeah. Nothing could be done. It had to be fully taken off, bud.” The cheerful man-child trapped in a golem’s hunky body promptly returned to grinning though, raised one of his more than bushy eyebrows and leaned in: “I knocked that fire Knight out though, hehe. No chance I lose to a girl.” Scoffing in annoyance and rolling his eyes, Kin simply took a step back. “Still a misogynist, as well psh.”
“HA, of course I trashed her!”, big boy spouted, obviously proud of his pretty respectable achievement, despite belittling her just a couple seconds ago. “Hardly any brain mass gained either, some things just never change.”, Kin intended to quickly change the subject though, dealing with Klaus’s age old values, salamander knows where they even came from, was far, far beyond the Qadir’s capabilities. “Yeah, she kinda reminded me of Mariah, to be honest.”, the mere fragment of a thought of that woman sent shudders down the ink mage’s spine, for Mariah, one of the Usurper’s closest subjects, was among the eeriest, scariest and most frighteningly powerful people Kin had ever been unfortunate enough to meet. Klaus seemingly held her in similarly.. unfavorable regards, seeing as the two of their faces showed almost the exact same expression, utter terror, with both of them merely staring into the distance.
“Ahh, enough of the past, Inky. What in salamander’s name are you doing here?”, this time, it was Klaus attempting to divert the attention from the topic at hand, and rightfully so, Mariah and the Usurper’s entourage weren’t really a topic to dwell on in a random conversation on the bustling street in front of a casino Klaus was apparently a bouncer of. “Well, I take it you work for Gorain?”, the Ink mage initiated, crossing his arms with a wide smile. Slightly confused, Klaus raised an eyebrow and nodded in response. “He took me in after..”, the wood mage dismissively waved his hand as though to avoid returning to the downfall of the Children, and leaned in with a rather serious expression. “You know.. I don’t like him too much, but he’s the best boss to work for in this part of town. Decent pay, and I kinda owe him.”
“Decent sure is a word.”, Kin internally commented on the apparent greed of their common sponsor and was about to explain his presence in Aries Garse, when a sudden: “EY, BIG GUY!”, prompted the two of them to glance behind the Qadir’s back. Funnily enough, both Klaus and Kin almost naturally reacted to someone calling for a big guy, seeing as they sported quite the amount of height between them.
“Wow, I really did make her angry huh.”, the mercenary commented on the aggravated woman from before swayingly approaching him and his best friend, continuously mumbling and rambling to herself. His eyes slightly widened as she got into what could only be described as.. a wild iteration of a combat position, should we call it ‘Drunken Style’ for now? At the mere thought of her physically attacking him in her current state, an almost frantic grin started to morph the Ink mage’s face into a grimace of joyful anticipation.
He turned his head to Klaus, whose visage made it clear he knew the woman and most definitely wasn’t all that happy to see her, which in turn prompted Kin to raise an eyebrow and tilt his head as though to question why. “Ah, she got kicked out for cheating earlier today. And she roughed up my colleague, haha.”, he answered the unspoken inquiry, his body shaking as he laughed about the memory. “YOU!” Welp, the woman obviously came here for Kintsugi, not to get her revenge on the Paradice’s bouncers, given that she pointed her finger at the Ink mage. Or rather, she tried. She could’ve easily meant anyone on the street, given the wobbling and waving of her body. “Com.. hea!”, the red-haired woman managed to spout at him and once again took her wildly confusing attempt at a boxer’s stance. “M.. all dirtea now.”
With a pretentious sigh and roll of his eyes, the Qadir was always down for a quick little bout after all, he excitedly approached her, raising his hands in a gesture promising peace. “I already apologized, and I will do so again.” Deescalating this situation seemed like the better option in this case though, as he needed her in somewhat of her best condition for the job on the next day and this wouldn’t be a fair fight given how obnoxiously drunk she was.
In his approach however, the woman took her swaying to an entirely new level, scrambling to keep her balance as she stumbled a few steps to the side, which immediately prompted the Qadir’s chivalry to kick in and have him speed forward to prevent her from falling. Her previously absent-mindedly confused and angry face instantaneously switched for a cunning smile though, as she made use of her favorable position to swiftly deliver a kick to Kin’s face, halting his advance.
Noone could’ve expected the quite frankly impossible contortion she performed to manage this swirling kick to his face, an actual example of someone expertly using their drunken state of mind in combat. Utterly perplexed, the rogue just stood there, entirely still. While her attack didn’t pack enough of a punch to just straight up knock him out, she hit exactly the right spot on his chin. A deep rumbling growl started in his chest, manic excitement and a hint of anger combined to procure a vicious smile on his face and a spark in his eyes as he turned back to face his still swaying adversary.
WC: 5.819
TWC: 5.819
”Such force..”, Kin just barely managed to dodge the wooden arrow hurled at him by hair’s margin, the dangerous projectile passing his tensed face almost in slow-motion with the rogue’s desperate eyes following it. ”How do I close the gap?”, the next arrow had seemingly been aimed at his lower body, prompting the mercenary to rely on his ‘Mark of the Dead’ to provide the speed necessary to scarcely avoid it by jumping backwards with an arched back. Using a grotesquely disfigured handstand to regain his balance, Kin mustered up the required strength to push himself back to a standing position and explosively exhale.
His enemy didn’t give him enough time to properly react and counterattack, obviously a part of the skilled archer’s plan. Getting hit by these arrows would most definitely provide fatal for the rest of this more than unfortunate altercation, as they obviously carried enough of a punch to pierce his mana skin and knock him back a couple of meters, and that’s not even talking about the injury they’d inflict on his body itself. His evasive maneuver had only taken roughly a second, and as Kin turned his head back towards his adversary, his vision was blocked by the swirling tip of yet another one of those dreadful wooden projectiles: ”Fuck..”
Suddenly, he was staring at another plant mage’s visage, the smiling face of one of the only friends the Qadir had ever had, Klaus the goofy wood mage. “You know, Kin. The wood I create with my magic is really sturdy.”, he reprimanded the Ink mage for attempting to simply rely on his physical prowess to break through the wooden defenses and lamenting the pain Kin endured in his fist, eliciting a laugh in return. “Every single thing about you is sturdy Klaus, it just makes sense for your magic to be the same.”, Kin retorted with a slight punch to the utterly massive hunk of a man’s easily disturbed confidence. “No, no. You’re wrong about that, Inky.”, the brazen wood mage’s favorite name to call his friend. “My mother’s yew magic was weak, but poisonous! My oak magic is slow, but sturdy.” Wood really did seem like a flexible element, capable of mimicking individual types of woods and their qualities. ”Interesting..”, Kin’s face had taken on a rather contemplative expression, granted Klaus’s usual.. lacking in the brain department, he seemed to have been thinking on this topic for quite a while. “Let’s go again, big guy.”, he provokingly tempted his best friend, whose grin widened even further in response.
As though teleported back to the battlefield, the confused Kin failed to dodge the arrow, when a piercing pain suddenly shocked him back to the reality he was currently in. He could feel the warm blood running down his cheek from the surprisingly deep slit the sharp wooden arrow had cut right on his cheekbone. His face, a mess of tension, confusion and perplexity at the strength of his enemy before, immediately warped into a menacing grimace of anger and hatred, an aggravated growl left his body and every single muscle on the bulky man tensed in preparation for his advance. The animosity rushing through his body voided every last thought on the mercenary’s mind. “Ink Style: Black Counterfeit”, he raspily rumbled the necessary incantation for his signature sword creation spell and stuck his finger into the pool of ink his magic elicited from the grimoire.
Explosively dashing towards his cowardly adversary, the Qadir swiftly stuck his finger into said pool of ink and drew a slightly curved line in the air. Upon grabbing one end of the line, it turned into a black sword in the style of a katana, periodically dripping with viscous ink. Another arrow hit his shoulder and slowed his advance, elicited yet another terrifyingly deep and raspy growl and spewed blood behind the quickly moving Kin. While the pain was bearable, it surely hindered the mercenary in his approach, but it most definitely didn’t serve to calm his already raging emotions. The only thing on his mind was slashing that wood mage’s head clean off. At this point, one last dash was all it took for Kintsugi to gap the remaining two meters between him and the archer and in speeding past his enemy, the image in his head became reality.
As though waking up from a dreadful dream, the rogue took a quick glance at his surroundings, realizing this plane of existence was even worse than whatever you might want to call the headspace he had just escaped from. The background noise of a large battle started swelling up again, swords clashing, aggressive shouting, cries of pain and anguish and the otherworldly whirring noises of magic spells blitzing through the air. Hastily trying to find the best of possibilities for his next action, his head and eyes jolted around, looking for an opportunity to aid his comrades in arms. “KLAUS!”, an uncontrollable, guttural scream for his friend’s life left his body, which immediately started moving towards the oak wood mage. And a desperate cry it was, as his friend just barely managed to hold himself.
Granted, he was entangled in a battle with a fire mage of all things, and a quite powerful one as it seemed. She continuously danced around Klaus’s defenses, rendering his friend’s magic almost entirely useless with both her speed and advantage in the elemental rock-paper-scissors game all magic users naturally had to play in any type of combat situation. “Fuck, I need to help him.” While Klaus was pretty good a fighter, especially considering his much more than kind-hearted nature, this match-up could prove deadly for him, as neither his defense focused magic, nor his large and slow body did him any favors at the moment. He was already covered in relatively deep cuts, one of his arms had apparently been broken or dislocated, seeing as it simply dangled to the side of his body and swingingly followed his movements, his face was distorted by the obvious pain he was enduring and half of it seemed to have been burned viciously, judging from the large blisters all over the left side of his visage.
“KLAUS!”, the desperate Kin shouted again, frantically spurting across the battlefield, when he luckily spotted yet another projectile whizzing his way from the corner of his eye, allowing the rogue to just scarcely dodge the frankly huge rocky boulder by throwing himself on the ground. Anger, frustration and utter wrath boiled within, as he immediately jumped back to his feet, turning the direction said boulder had come from, only to spot the earth wielding Knight responsible for this attack preparing to hurl a piece of dirt at him once more. A rumbling growl emanated from the Qadir’s body, culminating in a menacing shout: “COWARD!” But apparently, fate had his back, his old friend Roberta’s signature slashing wind technique came to the rescue, eliciting a honestly bone-shaking scream from their adversary as the capable wind mage sliced right through the Magic Knight’s armor and sent his arm flying through the air.
Following Roberta’s spell’s trajectory, Kin swirled around, spotting his mother figure’s disfigured face a tad bit too close to the ground. She was lying on the ground, curled up in agony and drenched in blood that was obviously her own, barely hanging on to life. Roberta smiled though, the aching pain hidden behind a grotesque mask of love, as she mouthed: “Run.” The periphery of Kin’s vision blurred and what had been hatred raging within, converted to sorrow, a different kind of anguish than before, a deeper and less physical one, a feeling of emptiness almost. The terror of this battle seemed to dissipate, its sounds muffled as though wrapped in cotton and the rogue’s muscles relaxed, he just simply stood there in pain: “Ro..”
Oozing said feelings of sorrow, his words were cut off though. An incredibly powerful explosion halted the scenery and swept him straight off his feet, knocking him out.
Drenched in sweat, his scarred chest shivering up and down as he shakingly hyperventilated, Kin explosively sat up on his bed and grabbed his aching head. Slowly returning from this desolate world of dreams, the ink mage’s expression deepened in pain, a gloomy grimace of misery and agony. He clenched his remaining fist, the muscles on his equally garbled lower arms bulging, and moved to the side of the soaked bed, resting his elbows on his knees and placing his feet on the dirty wooden floor of the inn he currently called his home.
The room’s curtains billowed in the light breeze entering through the widely open windows that allowed the hustle and bustle of Aries Garse’s night life to calm the Qadir’s nerves as he took one last deep breath in an attempt to push away those nightmarish memories. These traumatic fragments of the past perpetually haunted the mercenary, resurfacing in dreams, as sudden visions or simply as emotional torment, and while he had vowed not to let these remembrances hinder him anymore, making such a vow was far simpler than adhering to its words.
A couple minutes later, Kin managed to get himself back together and up from the bed. A frankly frighteningly huge yawn-and-stretch combination exorcized every last bit of sleepiness left in his body, automatically putting him in his ritualized auto-pilot ‘morning’ routine: meticulously shaving and washing every little inch of his body, ensuring wherever he was staying to be equally clean and dressing for whatever daily endeavor might ensue. While his habit of.. hrm.. sleeping in his birthday suit sure had its perks in his opinion, it came at quite the cost depending on the circumstances.
Renting a single room in an establishment such as this one almost broke his budget, but setting his priorities had never proved too big a struggle for the rogue. Given the prudishness Kin suffered from, sharing a room would’ve promised extensive horrors after all. “With these people especially..”, he further talked himself into reassuring thoughts as far as renting this room went, as he closed the door behind him, comfortably buried his hands in the pockets of the wide, simple pair of brown pants he had taken on for today, after fiddling with the equally plain black shirt spanning his wide back. “I have a couple of hours left..”, he lamented his waking up in the middle of the night, annoyance visibly molding his facial expression.
The Qadir had decided to simply take a stroll around Aries Garse to kill some of the hours left before the designated meeting with his colleagues in a nearby casino, as a way to also get his mind off his haunting past. The ink mage and some fellow mercenaries had been called upon by a rather prestigious figure among the gambling scene of this comparatively illicitly governed town. A quite surprising amount of shady people flocked around the gambling district of Aries Garse, resulting in corresponding amounts of conflict among said people of course.
Their equally shady client had appointed them to escort pretty large a portion of his humongous profits across the city, promising decent payment in return, well, reasonable compensation given the certain ambush, Gorain, as was the name of Kin’s client, was sure would happen. The aforementioned annoyance resurfaced quite visibly, as the mercenary turned the corner of the shabby, run-down staircase and took a fleeting glance at the inn’s bar.
A fleeting glance, as to avoid any resemblance of eye-contact with his comrades for tomorrow, who were visibly, audibly and most of all olfactory overwhelmingly occupied with preemptively spending every last Yul they would earn on their soon-to-begin job on cheap alcohol and frankly disgusting looking.. eh, you couldn’t really call those concoctions of wasted ingredients food, to be honest.
The passionate cook, trying to rid himself of such horrifying sights and smells, shuddered as he turned towards ‘The Rusty Helmet’s entrance, only to vigorously collide with quite a small woman attempting to enter the building. In their collision, Kin got an almost painful whiff of her.. bodily evaporations, immediately drawing quite the vivid picture of her evening: the frankly nauseating blend of what could only be a drunkard’s phlegm, hints of disgustingly ancient, crusty sweat and the metallic note exclusive to dried blood, among the evident and frankly mandatory sharp smells of various high-proof alcoholic beverages.
“Whoaa whuu?!”, the woman barely managed to pronounce her confusion at the sudden disturbance in her path, culminating in an aggravated “Urgh!”, as she found herself on the floor, splattered in the mud and.. other dubious substances scattered across the dirt roads spanning this part of the town. Involuntarily resorting back to aspects of his rather.. chivalrous up-bringing as one of the eldest sons of the Qadir family, they had adhered to comparatively old-fashioned standards in some parts of their mannerisms, particularly the treatment of women and children, Kin immediately squatted down, his deep voice rumbling: “Sorry, are you alright?”
While it was a tad unclear to the rogue, whether or not she had even understood his apology, her furious expression didn’t falter after all, Kin also wasn’t sure if she could even clearly see him, given her eyes didn’t really manage to lock onto his face. “Wow, she must’ve had quite the night..”, the mercenary amusedly thought to himself, a slight smile crimping his lips. “Come on, let’s get you back up.” On closer inspection, Kin got a good look at her face hidden behind disheveled locks of orange-y red hair, he recognized her as a part of the rag-tag band of mercenaries gathered by Gorain, one of the lonesome warriors that didn’t belong to a larger group or organization among clover’s underground, Clementine her name.
Of course, along with his ‘chivalry’, there was his immense prudishness complicating the situation, seeing as physical contact in general wasn’t really the young man’s most favorite of activities, especially given Clementine’s apparent attractiveness despite her current.. hrm. condition. Nevertheless, the urge to help the struggling woman back to her feet weighed heavier, and pushing his strong arm under one of her shoulders, he easily hoisted her back to her feet, only to immediately let go of her as though she might be contagious, carrying some deadly disease. “Hrm.”, he harrumphed to ease his discomfort with the situation, quickly turned his back and waved her good-bye without looking back. “Well, see ya tomorrow!”
“They’ll be useless in the morning..”, the ink mage further lamented his colleagues’ irresponsible behavior. Sure, Kin wasn’t a stranger to.. let’s call it excessive indulgences in consumption of various befuddling substances, but the Qadir limited those to after finishing his given tasks or missions, logically. Fishing for the cigarette rolling equipment from one of the many pockets attached to his handy pants, swiftly procured an expertly rolled cigarette and lit it in a smooth motion. “I shouldn’t rely on them too much.” Strolling along the partially lit up messy flophouses, overrun shady gambling caverns and equally crowded palaces of voluptuousness, gluttony and greed, lining one of Aries Garse’s main roads, Kintsugi had one of his hands deeply buried in his pockets, the other occupied with smoking, absent-mindedly staring at his surroundings.
He didn’t have a clear path or destination, getting his mind off of his dreadful attempt at getting some rest was his only goal at the moment, quite the bad decision actually, especially given the mission he’d have to carry out at the break of dawn. They were scheduled to meet their client and his own bodyguards at said man’s own gambling hall at 5am sharp, a couple of crossroads down from the inn they had been advised to stay in for the night. “Urgh.. A smooth job for once.”, he internally expressed his wishes, a pretty normal conclusion given that most of his recent jobs as a mercenary had either proved to be pretty problematic or outright gone south. “Or a team to rely on..”
Despite the glaring hatred Kin harbored for the leader of the organization that had brutally murdered his family and abducted him as a child, he was at a place now, where he could.. almost appreciate the ‘Usurper’s Children’ for what they were.. or, well, their organization’s structure at the very least. Most members had to undergo rigorous preparatory training, both physical and mental, before the leader and his entourage even considered them for a potential job.
Granted, going to such lengths was necessary given the type of missions the ‘Children’ were usually sent on, at the mere thought, Kin’s fists clenched to the point of his knuckles turning a ghastly white color, he shook his head as though to physically rid himself of the thoughts and took a closer look at his surroundings to distract himself.
“The subconscious, huh?”, apparently, he had been inadvertently wandering to the aforementioned meeting point, a comparatively decent looking establishment, befittingly titled ‘Paradice’, which elicited a contemptuous scoff from the rogue. Judging from the pretentiously luxurious curtains hanging in each of the many windows, framed in neatly ornamented wood, which the golden paint was flaking off of, and the cracked red walls, someone really wanted to be a part of the aristocracy. Visibly annoyed, Kin rolled his eyes, when a trusted voice suddenly broke his internal lamentation on even taking this job in the first place: “Kin?”
Flabbergasted and utterly confused, the ink mage averted his gaze from the gambling hall’s decorations to the front door, only to find himself staring at one of the two massive bouncers with equally wide eyes and mouth. “K.. Klaus?”, Kin stuttered with his entire body frozen in shock. “It’s you Inky, ahaha!”, bursting out in somewhat of an ecstatic laughter, the massive hunk of.. well apparently more fat than muscle these days rumblingly ran towards his best friend, whose brain was way too empty in perplexity to procure an answer or even the slightest hint of a reaction. As the light coming from the Paradice’s entrance was blocked by the significantly larger and wider wood mage, his former colleague in arms just stood there, unable to move, suddenly drawn back in time.
“Di’you hear wha I said, frieeend?”, such babbling could have only been produced by the mercenary’s closest friend in arms. “I schwear, she dooooes!” Said friend wafflingly leaned onto an impromptu wooden construction, specifically erected to procure a makeshift countertop for the designated cook of the larger band of mercenaries, pillagers and plunderers, more or less voluntarily clumped together under the banner of the ‘Usurper’. Kin amusedly raised his eyebrow and grinningly stared right at Klaus’ halfway closed eyes, as he expertly continued preparing various poultry specimens for a soon to be held feast, which had been rung in via excessive alcohol consumption a couple hours prior to the actual event of course.
“My, she really does now, doesn’t she?”, Kin intentionally encouraged poor delusional Klaus in his more than apparent endeavor. “This guy..” As the bulky professional drunkard lifted his enormously huge body off of what one might generously deem a table, the obligatory hiccup interrupted the pretentious affirmations Klaus spouted: “I’m g.. hick. Gonnago over sere!”
Quite surprised at the state of his friend, who could hold his drink fairly well in actuality, Kin watched the massive body wonkily make its way over to the blistering fire that acted as a centerpiece to this traditional monthly gathering of rogues. ”A drunkard’s confidence..”, the Qadir silently mumbled to himself as the last chicken for the night lost its head in the flickering light of the large flames, spouting glowing sparks in their attempt to reach for the stars.
It didn’t take long for Klaus to scuffle back towards Kin’s comparatively peaceful kitchen counter, situated fairly far away from the tumultuous center of the clearing the ‘Usurper’s Children’ had chosen for this month’s gathering, his proverbial wagging tail now stuck between his legs and a fresh red swelling on his cheek. “Didn’t go as ya planned?”, the made-to-be chef presumed with the pity clearly showing on his freshly shaven face.
The defeated warrior of love merely shook his head, let out a sigh accompanied by yet another “Hick!” and plopped down next to the aforementioned wooden construction, prompting said construction to jump a rough centimeter high into the air. Perplexion warped Kin’s face as he tried to salvage most of the ingredients that had fallen victim to such sudden rupture and given in to gravity.
“You know Klaus..”, he started somewhat of an uplifting speech to calm his friend’s shaken feelings. “She just might not be the right one for you, buddy. I mean look at you!” He knowingly leaned on the counter and used the tip of his knife to point at his friend’s physique, whose sheer size and muscle mass couldn’t possibly be overstated. “You’re an animal! You’re massive! She couldn’t handle you, I mean look at her.”, he continued to point at Klaus’s love interest for the night, Clarissa, a vicious blood mage bandit from a neighboring fraction of the Usurper’s underlings. “She looks like a literal child if you stand next to her.”
Yet another understatement. Klaus was almost twice as tall as her, his arms alone probably the size of her whole entire body, and Kin knew to emphasize his friend’s oh-so-manly physique as often as possible. The best thing to do, to get this muscle-for-a-brain guy back up to emotional speed, it worked roughly 95% of the time. “Yee, I haf gotten biiiiig latel.. hick!”, Klaus almost shouted at himself.
“Yees, you have!”, the mercenary affirmed his friend and kept hacking away at the literal mountain of onions necessary to season a meal for a group this size. “You need someone you won’t crush during.. you know.”, Kin merely waved the kitchen knife around in the air, alluding to the obvious topic at hand, but being the little uptight prude he was at times, he couldn’t make himself say the words at all.
He found his reassuring speech abruptly interrupted though, by said speech’s target erupting in a snore so violently penetrating, it had an onion roll off of the table due to the vibration. Rolling his eyes and letting out a slightly aggravated but equally relieved sigh, the mercenary bowed down to pick up the lost vegetable, only to find a shudder running down his spine as he was still crouched to the ground.
“.. and we haven’t seen each other in.. Ah doesn’t matter, hahaha, I am so glad to see you!”, the sudden lack of oxygen in the ink mage’s system had him confusedly return to a surprisingly dark reality, vigorously pushed out of him by the concerningly firm embrace with.. one arm? “Wai.. Wait, Klaus.”, Kin just barely managed to squeeze out some words under his limited breath. “Oh, sorry Inky.”
The Qadir desperately gasped for air, cawing as he curled his body in a futile attempt to ease the pain on his aching chest. Taking deep breaths in between words after returning to a standing position and wheezing one last time, Kin took his usual jab at his friend: “Still rambling as ever, eh?” Which immediately conjured a huffy pout on the kind-hearted ex-rogue’s face and in turn a honest and wide grin on Kin’s.
“Still the same teddy-bear character though.”, which came as honest relief to the rogue, Klaus had seemingly stomached the Children’s falling apart much better than he himself did. Lightly punching the now-bouncer’s intact right shoulder, the mercenary chuckled: “Ah, I’m joking buddy, you know that. But.. Your arm was lost, huh?” The ink mage’s question immediately dampened the mood of their otherwise quite endearing reunion, as Klaus’s facial expression darkened in an apparent reliving of his memories and used his hand to rub the remainder of his left arm. “Hmm, yeah. Nothing could be done. It had to be fully taken off, bud.” The cheerful man-child trapped in a golem’s hunky body promptly returned to grinning though, raised one of his more than bushy eyebrows and leaned in: “I knocked that fire Knight out though, hehe. No chance I lose to a girl.” Scoffing in annoyance and rolling his eyes, Kin simply took a step back. “Still a misogynist, as well psh.”
“HA, of course I trashed her!”, big boy spouted, obviously proud of his pretty respectable achievement, despite belittling her just a couple seconds ago. “Hardly any brain mass gained either, some things just never change.”, Kin intended to quickly change the subject though, dealing with Klaus’s age old values, salamander knows where they even came from, was far, far beyond the Qadir’s capabilities. “Yeah, she kinda reminded me of Mariah, to be honest.”, the mere fragment of a thought of that woman sent shudders down the ink mage’s spine, for Mariah, one of the Usurper’s closest subjects, was among the eeriest, scariest and most frighteningly powerful people Kin had ever been unfortunate enough to meet. Klaus seemingly held her in similarly.. unfavorable regards, seeing as the two of their faces showed almost the exact same expression, utter terror, with both of them merely staring into the distance.
Later that night, this salamander-awful speech of Randolph luckily hadn’t taken up most of the night as it usually did, Kin found himself almost comfortably nestled into a wide enough branch fork for the decently buff mercenary to rest on. The large tree of choice, lightly swaying in the cold winter breeze caressing the forest, was just close enough to the brimming clearing for the fire’s faint light to still flicker on Kin’s face, but far away enough to dampen the merry noises one might expect from a thrown together bunch of rowdy criminals. “This wasn’t half bad.”, the reflection of today’s events started.
And the Qadir was right, for normally, Randolph used whatever authority he gained from being the Usurper’s most trusted follower to make some room for his lanky, slimy noble self-promotion, meticulously detailing the success of his own splinter group, naturally responsible for the most despicable of capers the entire gang did. It usually culminated in a frankly traumatizing tirade on his very own merit and the benefits “All you poor souls reap under the rule of our Father!” Kin chuckling imitated the disgraced noble’s snarky tone of voice, grimacing in malicious joy and pretentiously waving his hand, only to hear a familiar giggle from an apparent peeping tom.
Perplexed and startled, the Ink mage immediately halted his.. genuinely horrendous reenactment of his superior, immediately relaxing when Mariah emerged from the shadows between the trees, still amusedly smiling at him. The fire mage was among the more approachable few of the Usurper’s immediate entourage, in fact, she was the only one to ever really get in personal touch with ‘regular’ members of the organization, rather than acting as a high-and-mighty ruling class supervisor.
And Kin, well.. Let’s just say she had a thing for the Ink mage, his in her words “World-Class cookery!” in particular. “Blurgh, you really did have to come right as I do that, didn’t you?”, Kin reprimanded her with a slightly embarrassed tone of voice, but a wide grin nonetheless. “You can’t tell me you don’t think he’s a self-absorbed, pretentious little fucker!”
Mariah merely giggled and shrugged his question off, swiftly climbing the tree until she hoisted herself right in front of him, perching on the branch as an animal would, crouching down on all fours and staring him down with as sinister an expression as she could muster. “You do know, I’ll actually have to kill you for that statement right?”, despite her rather cheerful tone of voice, an eerie feeling crept up on Kin, a shudder following, every last hair on his body promptly erected. “Tsk.”, she gleefully commented on his fight-or-flight response to the sudden increase to her already quite prominently malicious mana output, retracted said magical energy and took a more relaxed cross-legged posture.
“Did that scare you, little one?” A term of mockery this woman had used ever since they had officially inaugurated Kin into the ranks of the Usurper’s Children, when the two of them had been a mere 15 years of age. Even back then, Mariah had already been a decently prominent figure among the Children, always by the Father’s side. Rumor had it, she was the first member to ever join his ranks, others whispered of her being his daughter, some even went so far as to say she had killed her parents and he saved her from incarceration or worse.
The only thing the Qadir was sure of though, was her craziness. Despite the fact that she was more approachable than the other leading members, she also was the least.. straight-forward and easily understandable. The most mysterious one by a long-shot, “the crazy cat-girl”, as Klaus liked to call her behind her back. And strictly behind her back, for if she knew of that, he’d most likely lose his life to her murderous rage. “Well you are slightly confusing, my lady.”
Kin tried to keep his cool and composed demeanor up, harrumphed in a futile try to clear the adrenaline-infused lump in his throat and pulled his left leg up on the branch, which had been gallantly swinging, before it was halted by his entire body cramping in fear. The latter was both an expression of the glaringly obvious discomfort and a pointless attempt at seeming relaxed. “Besides, you wouldn’t be able to eat the Qadir-Special-Beef-Stew anymore then, would you Miss Failed Noble?”, he cheekily threatened her, using his own belittling title chosen by his 15 year old self and eliciting a slight pout-and-frown from the playful red-haired woman.
A split second and half a blink later, she was nowhere to be seen or sensed, only the aforementioned familiar giggle remained faintly audible. ”Eerie woman..” Kin calmed himself after panickingly realizing her disappearance and frantically checking the surroundings for traces of her flaming red hair. Realizing the intent of her even approaching him, he was almost 100% sure she had merely been ordered to reiterate on them permanently knowing his location, and letting out a huge sigh, his shaking hands fiddled for the cigarette rolling equipment from his pockets, utterly eager to calm his strained nerves. It took him a little longer than usual to procure a wickedly wonky iteration of what usually would’ve made the most seasoned smoker jealous of this young man’s talent, and with the cigarette in his mouth, Kin let himself fall to the mossy forest floor, skillfully landing in a crouched position.
“Ahh, enough of the past, Inky. What in salamander’s name are you doing here?”, this time, it was Klaus attempting to divert the attention from the topic at hand, and rightfully so, Mariah and the Usurper’s entourage weren’t really a topic to dwell on in a random conversation on the bustling street in front of a casino Klaus was apparently a bouncer of. “Well, I take it you work for Gorain?”, the Ink mage initiated, crossing his arms with a wide smile. Slightly confused, Klaus raised an eyebrow and nodded in response. “He took me in after..”, the wood mage dismissively waved his hand as though to avoid returning to the downfall of the Children, and leaned in with a rather serious expression. “You know.. I don’t like him too much, but he’s the best boss to work for in this part of town. Decent pay, and I kinda owe him.”
“Decent sure is a word.”, Kin internally commented on the apparent greed of their common sponsor and was about to explain his presence in Aries Garse, when a sudden: “EY, BIG GUY!”, prompted the two of them to glance behind the Qadir’s back. Funnily enough, both Klaus and Kin almost naturally reacted to someone calling for a big guy, seeing as they sported quite the amount of height between them.
“Wow, I really did make her angry huh.”, the mercenary commented on the aggravated woman from before swayingly approaching him and his best friend, continuously mumbling and rambling to herself. His eyes slightly widened as she got into what could only be described as.. a wild iteration of a combat position, should we call it ‘Drunken Style’ for now? At the mere thought of her physically attacking him in her current state, an almost frantic grin started to morph the Ink mage’s face into a grimace of joyful anticipation.
He turned his head to Klaus, whose visage made it clear he knew the woman and most definitely wasn’t all that happy to see her, which in turn prompted Kin to raise an eyebrow and tilt his head as though to question why. “Ah, she got kicked out for cheating earlier today. And she roughed up my colleague, haha.”, he answered the unspoken inquiry, his body shaking as he laughed about the memory. “YOU!” Welp, the woman obviously came here for Kintsugi, not to get her revenge on the Paradice’s bouncers, given that she pointed her finger at the Ink mage. Or rather, she tried. She could’ve easily meant anyone on the street, given the wobbling and waving of her body. “Com.. hea!”, the red-haired woman managed to spout at him and once again took her wildly confusing attempt at a boxer’s stance. “M.. all dirtea now.”
With a pretentious sigh and roll of his eyes, the Qadir was always down for a quick little bout after all, he excitedly approached her, raising his hands in a gesture promising peace. “I already apologized, and I will do so again.” Deescalating this situation seemed like the better option in this case though, as he needed her in somewhat of her best condition for the job on the next day and this wouldn’t be a fair fight given how obnoxiously drunk she was.
In his approach however, the woman took her swaying to an entirely new level, scrambling to keep her balance as she stumbled a few steps to the side, which immediately prompted the Qadir’s chivalry to kick in and have him speed forward to prevent her from falling. Her previously absent-mindedly confused and angry face instantaneously switched for a cunning smile though, as she made use of her favorable position to swiftly deliver a kick to Kin’s face, halting his advance.
Noone could’ve expected the quite frankly impossible contortion she performed to manage this swirling kick to his face, an actual example of someone expertly using their drunken state of mind in combat. Utterly perplexed, the rogue just stood there, entirely still. While her attack didn’t pack enough of a punch to just straight up knock him out, she hit exactly the right spot on his chin. A deep rumbling growl started in his chest, manic excitement and a hint of anger combined to procure a vicious smile on his face and a spark in his eyes as he turned back to face his still swaying adversary.
WC: 5.819
TWC: 5.819
