Firiona Vie Everquest

A foul miasma of smells and putrid sensation hung like an oppressive fog over the darkened cesspool of Dulak's harbor. Crude wooden shanties and weather-torn warehouses loomed like misshaped anthills over cobblestone streets that were slick with a hundred substances and humors that were best left unknown. Laughter rang through the night air with sharp discordance, contraband ale and wine poured from tap to throat like the pulsing blood of life. The unrestrained 'revelry' was but a mask for the true music of the night. A slick tear of a knife across the throat, a quiet groan as a body slumped to the ground, and the rattle of boots on stones as the subject was lovingly deposited in a dark corner. The savage symphony danced in harmonious syncopation with the other nightly ballads. Brutes and watchmen weaved drunkenly through the streets, carefully avoiding, even in their alcoholic haze, alleyways where blood-soaked hands waited to aid another body to their growing collection. Within it all, the tinkling of coins resonated like a omnipresent voice, giving life to the rhythm of the depraved menagerie.

The mage gazed upon the harborside spread out below him with grimace. Organic vapors reached even his lofty vantage point. Yet, the heartbeat called with frantic insistence. Its position was lost within the morass, but the pull was undeniable. That which had been cruelly stolen had indeed come to rest in this despicable warren. The fiends were lucky that the council had only sent one emissary to retrieve it, They could have easily sent an army to raze this town whose summary of timbers and lives would not even be enough to buy even the privilege of touching the divine gift. With a gesture the drakkin released the wind's hold upon him, drifting gently to the ground. He raised a finger and drew an emerald symbol in the air, infusing it with a whisper of mana. The fabric of his robes shifted to unadorned black, melding the line of his frame with the darkness surrounding him. Pulling the hood of his new garments down to obscure his features, the elementalist vanished into night in pursuit of stolen life.

"I sweer to the gods I don't know anythin!"

Alsurin sighed, this was progressively becoming all too apparent.

"Prex's tears ..don't kill me!," sobbed the now thoroughly bruised sailor.

The mage snapped his fingers and the golem took the ragged man on yet another trip to meet the alley wall. Wincing inwardly a the gasp of pain, the drakkin motioned to his elemental to lower the sweaty captive to the cobblestones. "Perhaps...Amuse me...be warned..I grow bored easily." He kept his hooded back to the unfortunate drunk who had stumbled into quite the wrong alley, Alsurin found it easier to feign malice when the subject could not see his pained and sickened expression.
"Now, where did they take this previously mentioned treasure from the dragon people?"

The man groaned and licked his lips, summoning all the prowess of his weary mind. "I..he..., cap'in Nares,,he has it on is ship...the Galequeen...at the north docks."

The young elementalist sighed quietly with relief, battle he could manage but seemingly gratuitous violence never failed to turn his stomach. "Thank you...may you and your god forgive me in time and the lord of dreams grant you rest." A quick blow and the sailor was sent to where he could escape the filth and depravity for a few hours.

Alsurin closed his eyes for a moment, trying to bring whirling thoughts into the state of calm neutrality that was essential to flawless conclusions. As the stormy waters of his mind were finally ebbing, the drakkin heard a foot upon cobblestones and whirled around, hands already immersed in flame.

(Everyone is welcome!! =)

Tortha stopped as Alsurin whirled round with hands blazing, the grin on his face fading as he surveyed the scene before him. Sidheag stopped beside him, a low growl rumbling in her throat at the tension in her keeper. Instinctively, the youth lay a hand on her head to quiet her while he regarded Alsurin with concern.

"What's going on here?"

Alsurin swore under his breath with ill-passioned relief, extinguishing the eldritch flames with a mere thought. The earthkin's footfalls pounded with jarring thuds upon the cobblestones, rushing towards this new arrival with deadly intent. Wrenched out of his moment of pause by the new threat, Archmage a held up a hand and snapped a word in the language of storms and flame, at this command elemental stopped with a suddenness impossible to beings of flesh and thought.

"Tortha, what are you doing here! Get in here for the Rathe's sake, they'll see you!" Beckoning his friend into the alley, the youth snapped his fingers, an emerald sphere of light was born to hover obediently above the drakkin's palm. Glancing at the pathetic figure slumped against the wall, he sighed, facial expressions subtly exaggerated by faint unearthly light now gracing the deep shadows.