The Tavern

[EloHim]

[Elorit/ ? ? ?]

He cannot help but laugh at her words. So much truth. What does he even look like right now? He did have a bath recently, but that did not help things much, considering the state of his living arrangements. Or lack thereof.
"Heh...I do, don't I?... You look nice, comparably...Eh, not much of a compliment, that. You were always better in looking after yourself."
He allows his healthy eye to take in the details...how much has changed since those days long past? How did time and life treat her?

[speakeroftruths]

[Borivoi]

"Gold in hand, yes, I think we can do without the supplies. Though, crowning Hlokk seems too poor a goal for jewel. Better that it fill our bellies, eh?"

He has wasted not time in filling his plate, the mound of meat and vegetables threatening to overflow the table, much less the platter they now sit upon.

"Ah... this, this is what it is about. Food, piled high. Drink, without bottom. Boon companions, side by side, sharing spoils. I need little more in this world. Oh!"

Having a thought, he rummages around in his pockets for his ring of charms, flicking through it until he comes to the latest addition. Flicking the locket open, he presses his lips to the glass over the preserved clover, and then carefully tips a single drop of mead in with it.

"A measure of thanks, a drop for good fortune, a sip for celebration, a mark of devotion," he incants in a sing-song tone, closing the locket with the sweet wine inside. He slides it back into his pocket, and grins at his companions.

"Can hardly be Šťastný if I do not keep up luck, eh?"

[rosallora]

[Ezekiel]

"Eyeless fish? Terrible!" The veteran pats the poor man on the back, and looks to the maid. "Far worse than some paltry poultry!" He settles up onto a stool, putting Semyon between the two of them with a beckon. "Tell your tale then! Without fear! What more was there? Eyeless fish, you say? Did they wriggle about? Writhe ghoulishly?" He takes an even drink from his tankard, but in all fairness, he'd rather the fresh taste of cool water to the tavern swill.

[lunardusters]

Sonya herself does look considerably better. She's gotten.. taller? Possibly? Maybe it's just perspective, but she has aged somewhat. Dark circles around her eyes have begun to show, her cheekbones visible from a lack of nutrition. The hands that she fidgets with now seem to be covered in bandages, dirty, grimy things that haven't been replaced in weeks.
She shrugs somewhat, shifting to a neutral expression as she thinks.

"Yes, yes, well we've both been busy, hmm? I joined a travelling circus for a spell, learned all sorts of things. And you.." She makes a vague motion to the gem where she'd known there to be a scar, an odd, red thing, but it certainly doesn't feel like just a decoration. ".. became a Warlock? Got possessed?"

[Bloodtrailkiller]

|HLOKK|

Her smile widen's at the prospect of a crown; shameless at first, there's a childish gleam that dances through her eyes like sunlight through a glacier, before she shuts them, she doesn't shake her head but lets it rest to a side with some wilful chastity.
A heavy sigh escapes her nostrils and she cracks an eye open to squint at Saoirse before it shifts to eye Borovoi's small ritual with a small chuckle.
"A sapphire in a crown would be nice... my Ancestors wrote that it would bestow wisdom, and clarity of mind." Hlokk shrugged bit her tongue from rambling on.

"I do not believe in Luck, Borovoi." She announces with a grave, theatric, glower as she opens her eyes and plants her fists on the table,
"There is strength of arms, and fate." daringly, she raises a finger as if in argument, before she plants it on his shoulder and (rather brusquely) traces it down to his elbow.
"What I saw on the field was strong arms to a shield wall, my comrade." She nods and looks over the meat and finally takes a cut for herself. A careful, but jagged, cut that belies her clumsy hands; better set to hewing than any dexterous cut.

"Forgive me but... I think I might take my leave to put some orders in at the smithy. I am friends with the smith there, Volundr; I'm sure he would like to know of my first great venture!" Again, the mead inspires a kiddish glee in her tone as she giggles and swipes up the mead to chug the rest. A small trail streaking down the side of her mouth as she shuts her eyes and assembles her mind for a sluggish moment.
"Hook... should be out with laxskalpr; it is salmon wrapped in a weave of delicious soft bread glazed in butter and cinnamon, with mint on the side." Her eyes almost drool as she describes it and her mind wanders; she clears her throat quickly,
"I used to make it for my brothers." She explains with some noble dignity as she subtly rubs away a smear of mead.

"If you wish for a swift, dreamless sleep, do not eat the mint. If you think you will be busy later tonight... the mint will make you sharp." She winks and pats Borovoi on the shoulder before she moves to take her Hassemesser's hilt in hand and begins to wiggle it out of the floorboards...

[EloHim]

[Elorit/ ? ? ?]
"Traveling circus?... Well, with your talents, cant see you not fitting in such company. I only hope that whispers of Anna Angel had nothing to do with that."- that woman was always...strange to say the least.  Locals said she used to steal people's voices and faces... And her past was its own can of worms. But she always seemed to cling to Sonya. Like a little leach.
Warlock? Old word. Old English word. Not used in an everyday life of the time they were living in at all. Translated loosely as...deceiver. Betrayer. Something along those lines... Was she again trying her tricks on him? Pulling, tugging on his strings? He deceives no one, and betrays nothing.
"Whatever it is you just accused me of, you missed the mark."

[lunardusters]

"They didn't, they didn't. Trust me."
Anna was an odd woman, always was. Had her own skeletons, same as anyone else. 
At the second statement, she gives him an odd look, nodding.
"What would you call yourself now, then..? Obviously something's happened."

[ricarditoreyes]

[Joseph]

Although he was busy stuffing himself with all the luxurious delicacies piled in front of him, most of which he had never dreamt of having prior to this venture, Joseph could not help but overhear the conversation regarding the food that was on the way. He had planned to visit the sanitarium right after this. After all, surviving such brutal combat only to fall to an infection would not be favorable. In fact, it'd be humorous in a way, he thought to himself. However, the sanitarium could wait. It's not like he'd be having feasts like this one ever so often.

"Hell, that sounds lovely. Guess I'll be stickin' round for a while. And if yer leavin' soon Hlokk," he pauses, to clear his throat with a quick sip of mead. "Well it's been a pleasure. Do let me know if you've got any more odd jobs, eh?"

[nox14]

    Kor Hael enters the tavern, unencumbered by much of his regalia. No coat, no half mask to cover his features, not even his weapons. He looked different, but in a way no less intimidating if one knew the trade he plied. Licking his split and dry lips, the witch hunter looked around for a place to sit and a companion to share a drink with. His eyes settled on, strangely, not a person. Rather, what was sat on the table in front of him. A censer, it appeared, but one that seemed to glow with an unnatural flame.


    Walking over to the table where the censer was placed, Kor Hael placed his hand on the back of an empty chair and looked at the seeming owner of the object. "Do you mind if I sit?"

[porkylabrador]

- Kat

Hawker's face twisted into a semi-bitter scowl and she stuffed her hands into her pockets. "'Ey! They weren't paltry, I'd like to see any poacher worth a penny to a pinch of salt skip merrily through a quagmire without giving herself a raspberry." The anger had a childlike quality to it, clearly born from embarassment and not genuine rage and with a flick of straw colourd hair, the waif's pointed nose turned towards the ceiling in some diaply of false snootiness.

"Anyhow, yes-yes..." Her oculi shifted back to the storyteller. "Tell us of elvers and tadpoles!" Another cackle erupted somewhere in the back of her newly-moistened throat; a sound which alchemically bubbled over as another swig of ale was liberally applied. "Did said terrible beasties sit atop hoards of mariner's treasure?" For all the frivolity, it was clear Kat was actually interested in what the wounded fellow had to say.

[Kidney]

Darrio hadn't had much time to continue watching the game of cards before he could spy a hand on the back of a chair, and the arrival of Kor Hael. Not that he knew this man's name, but judging by his look, and his near identical greeting to Elorit's, he assumed the two to be connected. His mind searched for a memory of a time where this had happened before, recalling a particular interaction with the Sons of Gracie...egregious bastards. 

Darrio's dark features were trained on the man's face with little remorse or stealth, eyes surveying the man's garb. He looked...too normal. Darrio took note of his own pistol, drawn close to him in the folds of his robes, pressed gently and warmed by his sweat-slicked skin and small bit of fear that purveyed it. The verbiage required to describe a situation Darrio may have had to shoot his way out of was certainly always lost, more or less a line of thought that engrossed emotions and pictures over delicate prose. The man drew his hood back with his bronze-chained and gold-ringed hands, and licked his mustache a little, wetting the whistle that would call for help soon enough. 

"Not at all, friend." Said the Antiquarian, honeyed words and unblinking gaze aimed at Kor Hael's face. "Why me, may I ask? My garb, The Device, or...something else?" 

[Kidney]

Semyon had never been bombarded with questions at the beginning of a story before. It was childlike, but like a warlock of old, he sapped the energy from Ezekiel's excitement, and some form of confusion and slowly-snowballing understanding of Kat's way of speaking. He went over what each said carefully, sipping sagely before answering them both in a single word. "Yes."

He broadened his arms, nearly hitting the two of them as he did so, "The eyeless fish wriggled in place, staring...without eyes...at a stone the size of a pear!" His continuation was alike to when the murderer at the end of the story was unveiled, though without much of the grandeur. "The stone was glowing...green. And...my companion said that we should go get it." He took a second to take a drink, and then another to let the story sizzle. "I went in, and the fish tried to hold me at the bottom! They try to DROWN ME!" He rocketed his arms up, smiling like a madman, drink spilling onto the cuff of his heavy coat. 

"My partnerrr...she played music for them! And they got off me, so I swim back to the surface, and BOOM! I have the stone!" Semyon gestured to his drink, the surrogate for the stone in the story. "Then! My partner, tries to take the stone from me! FEH!"

[Kidney]

Through the door, and across the floor...through the door, across the floor. The plan was simple. Get to the Bar. 

How could it have gone so wrong?

Dane's rage was as palpable as the waggling air that appeared on the hottest of days, and it permeated the air around him much the same. His dark gate was enough to separate the gentle crowd of patrons the bar had to offer. His boots were like thunderclaps, and his breath was the last wheeze from bagpipes. He drew a hand forward on the final person between himself and the Bar's sanctuary, and yanked them with some force away from it. A great deal of strength was required, and for someone searching for Dane, the act was a beacon on where the dark-haired bounty hunter lurked in the Tavern itself. 

He shot a look over his shoulder to the man he had seen outside, and the sneer returned on his crooked face. As quickly as he looked, he turned back, and leaned over the bar to hide. 

Yellow Petals. Please. No more.

[rosallora]

[Saoirse]

"You're goin'?" The woman says levelly, mouth half-full of potato and meat as she watches the other start to wiggle her overly-big sword out of the floorboards. "Welf I m'n..." she swallows, "sure, if you're sure on it." She shrugs her shoulders, digging her fork into the hunk of meat and dragging off another very full mouthful. But she pauses, long enough to scowl a bit. "OI oi oi don't ya go botherin' Borivoi there princess. He'll have his an' you'll have yours now, go doin' your thing at the blacksmith." She gestures with her fork full of meat, some juices dripping onto the table. She shoos, as if trying to get rid of the woman. "Strong arms'n all. Makin' the arms stronger. Heavy armor for those heavy arms'a yours." She flexes her not very strong looking arm and takes a bite off of the fork, chewing through the heavy, heady meat.

Another drink from her cup helps to wash it down. "We should fill your flask with this, Joseph! Do you a better bit of good." She laughs, then takes another bite.

Her mouth presses together a bit at the young man's statement, an ambivalence shaping on her face. "Oh aye. Wouldn't be... averse to it, I guess."

[Dane Outlast]

*Dane enters the bar. The once loud atmosphere now dead quiet, all centered around a certain enraged bounty hunter. Dane approaches the man* um sir? S-sorry for what I said earlier. I apologize.