Warm Kiss and a Cold Warning ~~Echoes of Bone pt.2~~

Discussion in 'The Salty Dog Tavern' started by The Watch, Oct 31, 2017.

  1. The Watch

    The Watch Well-Known Member
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    Dorian entrance pic1.png

    Dorian tied his horse, Gilgamesh, outside the Salty Dog Tavern and stepped inside. He stood in the entrance for a few moments to allow his eyes to adjust to the light in the tavern common room and he was immediately startled by how empty the place was. There were whole tables that had no one at them at all, which was a rare sight in the Salty Dog. This was one of the most well-known and well-populated social spots in all of the realm, but tonight it was a veritable ghost town.


    Dorian spotted one of the bartenders he knew well, a gorgeous olive-skinned vixen named Nicole. The sides of her head were shaved and the long, luxuriant raven hair on top was gathered into a topknot ponytail that fell to her waist. She swayed more than a little when she walked, and it was rumored she was a former pirate from near Nujel'm. With tight fitting green trousers, thigh boots, and a blue blouse unlaced far enough to expose a decent amount of cleavage, she was ravishing enough to have come from the pleasure yachts of the Nujel'm merchant princes as well.


    Of course, Dorian knew who she really was, though that was information he was sworn to carry to his grave, an oath he took with utter seriousness.

    Dorian Nicole pic2.png

    He motioned with his head towards the other side of the common room and headed for the backgammon table. At first it seemed he was going to get the cold shoulder, as Nicole simply ignored him and went about wiping down tables and pouring a couple of mugs of ale here and there. Frustrated, Dorian called one of the serving girls over and ordered a meal and a mug of ale. If Nicole was going to ignore him, the least he could do would be to get a meal of cracked barley and salted cod stew and nice mug of Tide-roller, a local frothy unfiltered wheat ale.


    Finally, after nearly a half hour, as Dorian was finishing up his second bowl of stew, Nicole came and dropped suddenly onto the bench next to him. She leaned over and kissed his neck, nibbling a little with her teeth as she slid her right hand up under his shirt. "Act casual," she whispered in his ear in a husky voice, "and maybe pretend to enjoy this. There are people watching, and I needed an excuse to get close enough to talk."


    Dorian nodded and forced a smile, but something didn't seem right. "Are you okay?" He asked. "Has something happened around here? Everyone seems on edge."


    "I don't know," Nicole answered honestly, "but I feel it too. Everyone is tense, like they're afraid a storm is about the break though the horizons are clear. And then there's the rumors, but there are always rumors."


    Suddenly, Nicole's hand found the hilt of one of Dorian's hidden daggers and she giggled mischievously as she closed her fingers on it and began to pull. Dorian quickly reached up and caught her wrist. "That's enough make believe, Nicole," he said with genuine regret. If she ever got a dagger out she could be very naughty in the demands she issued to secure its return. Instead, she reached up with her other hand and began to stroke the inside of his leg lightly. "I wish I could let you keep doing that, and maybe return the favor," he said with a wink, "but I have to ask you a few questions, and then I've got places to be and things to see."


    Nicole frowned and stuck out her bottom lip, but she sat back just the same. "Fine," she growled, "but if we're not gonna play, then you're gonna pay."


    "Of course, love," Dorian said with a smile and a wink. "Listen, I've been in Britain a few days now, and I'm seeing strange things and hearing odd whispers. People talking about spirits and worse showing up in the streets, the guards nowhere to be found, and nightmares come to life in broad daylight. How much of it is real and how much of it is just nonsense gone wild?"


    Nicole's teeth clicked as she shut her mouth hard, her face draining of color. For the first time since he'd known her, Dorian saw the woman scared. It was enough to chill his blood to the core.


    After a long moment of silence where Nicole looked down at her fingers and picked at the rough hewn table uncertainly, she leaned over and whispered to him. "They're more than stories and rumors. I saw a man just two nights ago. He walked out of the side of an inn. Not a door, not thrown through a window, just strolled out the side of it like it weren't there. Not natural, tha's what I say. Not natural t'all. And there's people I know seen worse. Maggie, my brother's fiance's cousin, she said she saw a man down at the docks who had his throat cut by a thief. Well, he fell down stone cold dead, and after a few moments.....well, she swears he stood up and walked off again."

    Nicole Sits pic3.png


    "Bugger," Dorian growled, unable to contain his contempt, "she was drunk, Nicki! Had to be. Dead men don't get up less they get help, an' you should know it better than most."


    Nicole slapped her hand on the table suddenly, her eyes narrowing, "None of that talk, Dorian," she hissed, suddenly all seriousness. "You don't go speaking things you got no right to say, you hear? An' I know what I saw. An' Maggie's not one for a bottle. Never seen her take so much as a glass of wine with a meal, an' I tried plenty o' time. Dark things are moving in these streets, dark and evil things."


    "Okay, love, okay," Dorian replied, finally relenting. "I believe you. She at the very least thought she saw what she saw, and that's bad enough. But in any case, that ain't what brought me here."


    "Never thought for a moment it was, you sly fox." She snuggled closer to him. "Tell Nicki what you want."


    "I'm looking for information about a potion, but not a normal potion. This one is special. A potion unlike any other, or so I'm told. Crafted by a powerful sorcerer, it's the same dye that was used to make all of those odd trinkets that began popping up a few weeks back. This is some of the source stuff, the concentrated dye in a bottle."


    "You're putting your fingers into pots more powerful than you know, gypsy," Nicole said seriously, "an' you gonna get your fingers burned or chop't off one, mark it as I tell you. You shouldn't be messin' with powers likes of that can make things out of the air unlike anything ever seen before."


    "Maybe not," Dorian mumbled, "but I already cashed the deposit."


    "I may have heard a rumor 'bout a ship captain down in the islands," Nicole said finally, "he hauled up a net had some strange bottle of blue, shimmering liquid. But the man as told me about it was drunker than a healer on a holy day. He coulda just as easy been talkin about a pink fair flew out of his nose and believed every word he himself said. Take that with as much salt as you want, but there 'tis."


    Suddenly Nicole leaned back and made a hexing sign with her fingers. She started to get up and walk away, but Dorian caught her sleeve lightly. "Listen, keep your eyes open, okay?" He said, slipping her a pouch with a ruby the size of a sparrows egg and a handful of smaller emeralds, diamonds, and sapphires. "I'll keep paying you as long as you keep feeding me what you see and hear, okay?"


    Nicole winked and leaned over to kiss Dorian lightly on his cheek. As she did so, certain areas brushed up against him just enough to remind him what he was missing. "Watch your back, gypsy," Nicole whispered in a husky voice. "Cyrano is taking these...rumors... seriously enough to hire mercenaries to watch the tavern," she cast a meaningful glance at an armored fellow with an nose that had been prominently broken several times in his past who was leaning against a wall near the bar. "If you're not careful, one of them might follow you out and leave you dead and naked in an alley somewhere. And I'd hate to never see your twinkling green eyes in here again."


    Nicole planted another passionate kiss on Dorian, then patted his cheek and sauntered away, her hips swaying playfully. Another night Dorian would have gladly let her serve him ale and rum all night while she whispered and caressed him out of every penny he carried, always seeming to promise more than she delivered. It was the kind of game he lived for, and she was one of the best opponents he'd ever come across.

    Nicole Walks Away pic4.png


    Instead he watched her as she walked away and then took a deep drink of his ale. He permitted himself a small smile. If his next destination was Nujel'm, then there was hope. The city was known for two things, rich merchant princes and fishermen. The two cast each other in equal disdain, but if something rare was going to be fished out of the ocean, odds were it would wind up in Nujel'm at some point. He'd once spotted a map from before the splintering in a high-end boutique. The owner had thought it an abstract painting from some talented, but little known artist and had let it go for a fraction of its true value.


    He had good, solid contacts in Nujel'm that could point him towards any new additions to the high-end clientele in the area as well as the fences and auction houses that would be able to move such a product on short notice. He figured within a matter of hours, or a couple of days at most, within landing at the docks he'd know who had fished the bottle out of the sea and where to get it.

    In a way, Dorian felt disappointed. It seemed what had been promised as a true journey of discovery to obtain a bottle of this mystical dye would really only amount to one conversation with a tavern seductress and a short trip by boat to the islands.


    All in all, not a bad way to apply for a job.


    As he made his way down to the docks, Dorian began whistling a bawdy tavern song from Nujel'm about a lonely fishmonger's wife and the handsome ice-seller's son. He dared not sing the words else the guards toss him in the clink for the night and ruin his sudden good humor.


    But as Dorian passed a man dressed as a minor noble, something stood out as odd and he paused. The evening was late, and the torches and streetlamps that lit the capitol city were all flickering as they should be. Still, something tugged at the edge of Dorian's awareness, something that he couldn't quite put his finger on as he watched the man pass by on the street. Then it dawned on him, and his blood ran cold.


    Though he walked directly beneath a blazing street lamp, the man cast no shadow at all. The wend that was tugging at Dorian's braids never even so much as fluttered the man's cloak or lifted a lock of his dirty blond hair as he passed, walking against the breeze.


    Dorian shuddered, but decided it was best not to dwell on it. Maybe some of the stories he'd heard about spirits and ghosts walking the streets and alleyways of the city were true, or maybe he was just beginning to jump at shadows.


    Either way, it was long past time to be gone from Britain.
  2. Aragorn - OCT

    Aragorn - OCT Well-Known Member

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    Oh, Dorian...

    I enjoy your writing.
    The Watch likes this.

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