A slight shock goes through Ian's head as he hears his own voice unexpectedly loud - he bellows instead of speaking. Despite the noise he made, Naruk didn't seem to hear him - or he simply ignores Ian.
On the other hand, he might not have heard Ian because he's quite far away. It seems Ian was so focussed on choosing the right place to lie down that he went a full twenty feet away from Naruk through the large, large room.
Naruk watches the two sleeping men for a few moments, before he turns to Azure. "They look a bit like sleeping children, don't you think?"
Ian stands up, dons his cloak, and starts walking toward Naruk.
It's amazing how far twenty feet can appear.
Ian walks, and walks, and sees the room passing, but he doesn't seem to get closer to Naruk... or to anyone else. The closest one is Blackthornes, maybe two arms' length away from him, and asleep on the ground.
Was the room's ceiling really a full fifty yards above him when he entered the room?
Well, I guess I AM being effected after all. Ian thinks to himself, looking around. Ian is looking for any sign of something that might lead him to the 'useful' part of his vision.l
... as he feels a hit on the back of his head, hurting badly.
Behind him, he hears the voice of a boy, a voice he remembers, although no face comes up in his mind yet.
"Look, cutters! The baby is on our streets again."
The hells...? Ian turns around to face the voice.
Right in front of him, Ian sees a well-known face: Chorugh, a thirteen years old tiefling boy with a massive head and just as massive white horns protruding from his forehead. The silvery slits that are his eyes stare at him from only an inch away, and he smells the kid's foul, warm breath.
Thirteen years - that's six years older than Ian is. And Chorugh isn't only older, stronger, tougher, bigger and far more brutal: He's also got his gang of followers, all of them two or three years younger than himself, and willing to do almost anything he says.
And they've done a lot to him already.
A memory pops up in Ian's mind, a very fresh memory. It's two weeks ago, three at most. Ian was simply passing a street, when they suddenly appeared from everywhere around him, twenty kids forming a circle around him. Chorugh carried this large iron box with him...
Suddenly, Ian feels his face being pushed down into stinking blood.
Push him down! Push his face in the blood! Let him swallow it!
The kids' voices are everywhere.
Suddenly, he finds himself in front of Chorugh again. Ian is seven years old, and on the streets of Sigil.
Ian's eyes go wide for a moment. "I remember you. You were quite the terror of my youth." Ian says. "So, is this going to be the time you guys throw me in undersigil, or the time you cut off all my hair?"
OOC: Spot check (6+ 11 = 17) to see if there are any unattended objects that he can use as a weapon, or any good hiding places on the street.
"I am creative," Chorugh says as he grabs Ian's arm.
It's astonishing how thin and fragile his arm feels. Even his body is that of a seven-year-old boy again. And Chorugh's grip is strong enough to almost break his tender bones.
"This time we're gonna chop off your baby fingers."
This is new. Chorugh never said something like that to him before.
As Ian quickly searches for anything possibly useful, his attention falls on two things:
A small wooden club that Chorugh stuck into his pants, a club that Ian already felt in his face more than once.
And the second thing is a building behind him. A building that always meant protection for him.
Home...
Blackthornes falls asleep, a welcome, warm embrace of darkness.
He sleeps long, for hours and hours, before his eyes open up again. He can't remember having felt as refreshed ever before.
He's still in the room, but something has changed. A second later, he realizes what it is: The rest of the group is missing, and the door that leads to the grassy hills outside is open.
Noise comes from outside - Blackthornes hears many voices and even a couple of animal sounds.
Without warning, Ian will throw his head forward to bite down on the wrist of the hand that is holding his arm, at the same time making a grab for the club.
Sinking his teeth into Chorugh's wrist, Ian hears his childhood enemy scream up in pain. He can easily grab the club as Chorugh lets go of Ian's arm.
In the same moment, though, Ian sees a large, large fist closing in on his face...
Ian will kick his legs out, and fall to the ground out of the way of the fist. The moment he hits the ground he will roll away and to a standing position. (Tumble check 13 + 12 = 25). I don't know if that will get me to my feet in time, but it should be more than enough to keep them from kicking me on my way past. (no attacks of oppertunity.)
As Ian lets himself fall on the ground, he feels a change, something he can't explain right away.
As he gets up again, he realizes what it is: He is back in his old body.
Yet, the young boy still stands there, on the streets of Sigil, as Chorugh's fist hits his face.
The scene is frozen, as if captured in invisible ice. Young Ian's head is turned backwards by the strength of the hit, and the boy's eyes meet with Ian's eyes.
What he sees in his younger self is fear. Simple, honest fear, so strong that even the pain from the hit becomes unimportant.
From the house behind him - the place where he once lived with his mother - he hears a faint voice, singing a beautiful song.
Saath sits on his spot silently, focussing on the reshaping of his mind-blade. His entire concentration is centered on this task, and soon his mind falls into a near-trance state.
It takes a while before he notices a pair or dark eyes staring at him.
The moment he looks up, the eyes are gone. Or have they ever been there? It could have been a trick of his mind...
Ian turns toward the singing. "Hmmmm." Ian starts to walk toward the building, before stopping. He walks over to give the frozen image of Chorugh are kick, and then resumes his walk toward his former home.
Saath is startled by the eyes, but quickly shrugs it off after realizing he's losing focus, and continues work on his weapon before he has to start over.
As expected, Chorugh's frozen figure doesn't react to Ian's kick - but the fear in young Ian's eyes seems to be replaced by slight amusement for a split second.
Ian's old home looks exactly the way he remembered it: From the outside, it's just one of the many shabby houses in the area, two other similar buildings at its side and one house built on top of it. All of them give the impression that a good kick could make them crumble.
The voice inside isn't familiar to Ian.
Ian enters the building and looks around.
The room he enters is exactly as he remembers it from childhood days: A wooden bed covered by a couple of old blankets, a small cupboard left of it, and a large cupboard at the opposite wall of the room. A small table stands between the bed and the cupboard.
Ian sees a bowl with a few apples on the table. That's something he and his mother had only once every few months - to them, fruits were a feast.
Behind the bed, a woman raises up - she has obviously been kneeling when Ian entered the room. She doesn't seem to notice him.
"Achuka?" she says. It was her voice Ian heard singing. A step away from her, a shiny yellow light appears in the room. "There you are. Seems like the girl and her kid aren't here."
Ian coughs. "If you're looking for someone, maybe I can assist."
"What are you going to do now?"
The dark voice probably comes from Achuka, the hovering light. The two intruders ignore Ian, following their conversation.
"Not sure about the kid. Arrathil said I could handle him how I want. The mother... I think I'll give her a slow, painful death. I had so many quick kills in the last weeks, I need a bit of fun this time," she says with a smile.
She grabs one of the apples from the bowl, and takes a good bite.
Ian walks over, and experimentally tries to take the apple from her.
...and grabs through it.
"I was asking what you are going to do now", Achuka replies. "Wait here or come back later?"
The woman thinks for a moment, chewing on the apple. "I'll wait here. If the kid comes first, I'll kill him, and the mother later. If the mother comes first, I'll kill her, and let the kid live."
Ian cocks his head to one side, listening to the conversation. He then walks to a point of view where he can get a good look at the womans face, and begins to memorize her features.
"You are still a game-addict," Achuka states.
In that moment, the door opens again, and - the scene freezes.
For a moment, nothing happens, then the wall opposite to that of the door changes. Two squares of light appear, turning into the shape of doors.
The light quickly fades.
One door leads into a room looking exactly like the one where Ian is now.
The other leads to a grassy hill covered in thick mist - the landscape that Ian knows from the Abyss.
*blackthornes gets up and will walk to the door*
"Life? on this layer of the abyss? I guess not everythings ruined. Wonder were those guys got off to? Hopefully they didn't start off with out me. Perhaps they're outside. I figured that Azure wasn't that in the dark, at least not to look over a whole damned town near the tower."
*Blackthornes goes through the door*
After memorizing the womans features, Ian walks across the room toward the doors. Never breaking his stride, he says "Pray that I never meet you, miss. Because if I do, we're going to have a very interesting conversation."
With that, Ian will walk through to door to the mist covered hill.
Blackthornes steps out, and sees a busy market in front of him. The mist and the grassy hills are gone, instead there's a cobblestone street with hundreds or even thousands of salesmen, offering everything from fine clothes and food to weapons and magical scrolls.
Something is strange about the market, though: The people all look very much alike, despite the fact they wear a whole variety of clothes. After a moment, he realizes what it is. The clothes, the body sizes and shapes, even the sex of the people is different. But the faces all resemble that of either Ian or Redigar, the leader of the barbarian tribe where he grew up.
Entering the hill, the first thing Ian notices is the sudden silence. As he takes a look behind him, he realizes the room is gone - he is alone in the hills.
Well, not entirely alone. Two steps ahead, a boy sits on the ground.
Receiving no reply from Azure, Naruk sighs, leans against the wall, and closes his eyes.
Minutes pass where nothing happens. After a while, Azure notices a strange feeling... a feeling of being observed.
Ian walks in front of the child, so he can get a better look at him. "So, why are you here?"
The boy turns towards him, showing him his face - or rather, the lack of it. There are no eyes, no nose and nose mouth visible.
The boy pulls up his left hand, and puts a mask upon his face. The mask resembles Ian's face, as he was maybe ten years old. The mask smiles, but there are no eyes to support the smile, only the holes in the mask. So the smile seems empty, meaningless.
The boy stands up, and only now Ian realizes the boy holds a head in his other hand.
"Me? Earning money."
The head, which the boy grabs at the long black hair, slowly turns around, until Ian can see the face. It's the face of the first person he killed for the guild - a young woman that, so he was told, was dealing with drugs in an area that someone more powerful wanted to control.
The Masked Gnoll feels an itch at his back, at a position where it's almost impossible to scratch.
Minutes pass where nothing happens. After a while, Azure notices a strange feeling... a feeling of being observed.
Azure continues with his gear as if nothing is amiss. He is, however, listening intently. He has long ago learned to trust his intuition. He carefully isolates the sounds in the room, trying to discern any sounds beyond those of his companions and the mariliths outside.
Azure's fine ears scan the room for any unexpected sounds. He hears the breathing of his companions, the light snoring of the two vision-seekers, and a slight scratching from the door through which they came in - probably the mariliths with another attempt at entering.
The only other sound he hears is a strange, squeezing sound coming from the Masked Gnoll - a sound so low even he almost missed it.
Ian gives a fake smile. "Charming. Do you know of anyone else here?"
*blackthornes, shocked*
"the hells? this makes no sense at all."
"Yes, sure," the boy replies. He stares at Ian for a moment, then adds, "My name's Toby, and you are...?"
One of the traders wearing the face of Redigar turns to Blackthornes. "Hah! Another clueless who just doesn't get things."
One of the Ian-persons turns to the trader and nods. "Yeah. I hate those stupid clueless."
"Ian." He says. "Now, where can I find them? Tell me, and I'll pay you like any other tout."
"They are everywhere," Toby says. "But I don't care. Not anymore."
He makes a step towards Ian, then whispers, "I don't work as a tout anymore."
Behind him, Ian hears a male voice. "You? I wouldn't have expected to meet you again."
Ian raises and eyebrow and turns to face the voice.
*Blackthornes is disgusted*
"Clueless eh? Am I on the ring again? Strange, I never remember anywhere were people all wore the same face. Must be an Abyssal trick of some sort. And I thought Tanar'i were too stupid for such tricks."
Before Ian stands a man that most closely resembles a zombie: One eye cut out, the left half of his face torn away, gaping wounds at his neck and chest, and both arms broken multiple times. A large piece of bone stretches out of the man's right elbow.
Ian instantly remembers him. It was one of his first kills, not long after he killed the woman whose head Toby carries in his hand. The man was supposed to sleep when Ian entered, but woke up, and in the battle that followed, the man crashed through a window, sliding down a blade-covered roof until he fell down to the street ten yards below.
Strangely, the man smiles at Ian - as far as he can with what little is left of his mouth.
"The ring?" the Redigar-person echoes Blackthornes. "Well, if you consider the unity of rings, sure you're on the ring."
The Ian-person snickers and gives Blackthornes a disgusted look. "Tanar'ri? Sure not. Opposite to you monster, I have no fiend-blood in my veins."
"I'd be surprised if you expected to meet anyone again. So, how's death been treating you?" Ian asks in a friendly manner.
I hope this doesn't become a continuing theme. Otherwise this could turn into quite the awkward little convention.
The Masked Gnoll tries to scratch his itch by rubbing his back against one of the walls.
As MG rubs against the wall, he feels a stinging pain in his... in his back? No, somewhere beyond. He feels pain in a part of his body that wasn't there ten minutes ago.
Something is growing on his back.
"Ow... Hey!" The masked Gnoll steps away from the wall. "Guys... I think I'm allergic to walls." There is a pause. "Or the abyss."
*Blackthornes is abit taken aback by this.*
" Truely? hm. Must be some trick of the wine Naruk gave me. Oh well, I'll move on."
*Blackthornes starts to advance through the market. Straight forward.*
Naruk opens his eyes, and looks at the Masked Gnoll.
"Allergic? Are you sick?"
Ian looks around and frowns. "Sorry Naruk, but it looks like my built up resistance to toxins makes me resistant to magic alcohol as well." Ian says, standing up.