He woke up with a crippling headache. It was so bad he couldn’t quite see or focus for at least 5 minutes, kind of staring there at the wall. He moved his lips, but he only received a dull feeling of flesh scaping past his canines. Hung over, he tried to stand up, wobbling, feet uneasy. When he placed his first foot on the floor, he was surprised that he didn’t fall, putting more weight into the step. He tried to move his other leg, to actually stand up, but then someone or something pulled on it, resulting in him plummeting into the floor face first.

*Crunch*

“Fuck! Ow!” – he said, nose blocked or rather broken.

He pulled on his entrapped foot, a soft ‘mmm’ came as his only response. He pulled as hard he could and then his foot was finally free.

Covering his bleeding nose, he stood up, staggering. What he saw on his bed, was his latest conquest… which he didn’t remember. Last thing he remembered last night was chugging his second yard glass full of ale. He contemplated how impressive of him that he didn’t spew, but then looked at the wooden floor closer.

Something ached at him, a thought. Something worrying… especially about her. He looked at her red hair, they reminded him of something. Looking at them he almost realised what it was, but then a horrible need for the toilet rearranged his priorities.

Running out of the room, he saw the hall which was a ‘bit’ of a mess. Drunk men and women lying on the floors, covered in… things. Some dude in the corner was still drinking a pint. He stumbled on some gents, stepped on a bunch of hands, got slapped on the knee at some point, but eventually reached the stairs. Everything seemed that it’s going to go right from then on, until he ran into someone. It’s not particularly that he disliked the guy or wanted to avoid… but he needed to go to the toilet.

“Morning there, Nick.”- said the bearded big man with a great ginger beard and a great white apron around his belly, well not so white after yesterday.

“Hey there, Mjar… How are you doing there, mate?”- he replied awkwardly with an awkward wobble, in sync with his awkward need. He always found it strange how all tavern keepers tend to have big great beards, big great tummies and big great white aprons. Was it a dress code or something?

“I been asking around here, if anyone seen my daughter and most of the good people pointed your direction. So, my good friend, do you know where she is?”- he asked quizzically if not a little bit intimidating.

“Errrrrrrrrrrr…No?”- he asked semi-caring. The priority was the toilet and the speed of the conversation.

“Anyway, I have to go to the ‘special place’.”- Nick added. Seeing Mjar’s confused look he said with a tiny hint of annoyance in his words. – “The toilet.”

“Aaaaaah. Well I won’t keep you for long then.”- he scratched his beard, regretting the decision.

As he wiped his stinking hand on the apron, the tavern keeper started walking upstairs, dodging hands, heads and vomit and wondering how could such a small and usually quiet place turn into… this chaos.

_______

Rom didn’t like cities. No aura. No class. Whores here, cut throats there, thieves beside you. Sad depressing stuff. It especially buggered him how cities and villages twist magic, sucking it out of all surroundings, defiling the land, the creatures and spirits. Shitting all over his and other scvoia’s work, adding more firewood to the flame that is burning through Roan.

The boy in the cloak behind Rom, the one that was trailing him now for a while, finally decided to go for it decreasing the distance between them.

The youth bumped into him, apologized and then ran off in the nearest corner. All the usual stuff that he was used to doing. Grinning he decided to count his spoils, trying to open the little pouch in his hand. His grin disappeared as inside was ground mixed in with the spices, thing he was used seeing and landing on, when he started out his job. In that moment he realised that he felt considerably lighter, checking the pouches of his own. Not only was it gone, his coat was also torn, missing a piece of cloth. Looking at the pouch, everything suddenly made sense.

“Well, well. Aren’t we rich here? I may even buy Nick a drink tonight.” – said Rom, counting the gold.

He was already out of the main streets, trailing the back alleys, towards a specific place or rather shop that he planned to visit on the first day.

________

“God. I am never going to be fucking used to walking through this place.”- Rom muttered, as he trailed through the dark shady alley. On the right a slaver with a bunch of greasy kids, probably some rich bastards future entertainment, on the left an old man brewing poisons and other interesting goods, that will either make you feel good then kill you or will make you feel bad and then kill you. Pretty good stuff.

He always wondered why she set up her place in this shithole. He knew she was a smuggler, but fuck she could’ve chosen at least a better smelling place than this.

He increased his pace, feeling an itch to punch that fat bloke near slaver in his golden teeth, maybe a kick in the crotch too. He generally wouldn’t tolerate seeing a bunch of children sold on the streets, but here he is watched and that would be against the law. The back alleys, back streets have laws, structure and the ones whom break them, those don’t live for too long.

‘Well, maybe a little.’- he thought as his fingers started to dance in the air, playing the strings, tying knots.

The end effect was desirable, somewhat.

Rom smiled as the fat man wobbled first, like jelly and then collapsed on the slaver, knocked out cold. The man underneath the debris grumbled, while children beside tried their best not to laugh, but the brew(poison) maker didn’t make that attempt. Rom was quite far away when that happened, but he could still hear the ‘hur-hur’ of a laugh coming down from the alley.

Soon enough, he finally saw the place of his destination. A small door, with a colourful sign and grease smears all over it.

“Greatest Fortune-teller in whole Roan, do not miss this chance, exclamation mark.”- he said, mockingly, as he twisted the handle.

The door cracked revealing a room, filled with aroma, thick with incense, it was rather well lit to his surprise, but it only revealed a bunch of her ‘spooky’ artefacts, all to impress/encourage customers that she is not a phoney. I nodded to the kid that I saw, at which he dashed off, calling for his master.

‘Another one.’- he thought, looking at the place where the child was just a moment ago. He could feel it from the aura around the boy, he is dying.

“Oh god, I really expected this day to follow different path. Hello to you Rom…”- she gave him an unpleasant look, which worsened the moment she saw my smile.

“No. Get out. I am not going to do that for you. Fuck off.”- she said knowing what Rom would ask.

“Oh! Come fucking on! I mean how bad would it be?”- Rom said, stretching his arms in a shrug.

“Fucking. Get. Out.”- she proclaimed, her hands grabbing the threads.

_________

“Jesus fucking Christ.”- Nick barked as he touched his nose, more broken than it was before. He felt a tingle on the edge of his finger, air felling strange around him.

Walking through the street and considerably pissed off, his destination was the main street. There he would be able to find some other inn where he would be able to stay. He thought of buying Rom a meal or a drink, to make up for this.

Fucking Mjar.

In Nick’s head, yesterday after a good dosage of alcohol, his reasoning was blurred and he was as they say ‘non compos mentis’. He is not that dumb as to purposefully covet something he should not. Alcohol is known to beat the last decency out of a man and Nick wasn’t that decent of a man from the start. Regardless, to Nick, Mjar graduated from being a nice guy and achieved the first stage of a state called douchebag.

He turned to the side through the alleyways. He didn’t know the city, but new the general direction, besides walking through back streets isn’t a new to him. Finding a place to drink and a bed to pass out on was the goal.

The back alleys are the same everywhere, even in this world. Shady individuals there, occasional sobbing here, blood on the walls... Well not really. You see a person passing by occasionally, rarely they show any kind of animosity or look at your loot. This is a completely different matter if you look rich, though. Literally everyone hates you… even outside of back alleys.

A dude there eyed, Nick’s luggage, but seeing him covered in mud and face covered in blood, just smirked and moved on.

Everything pointed towards a peaceful and quiet trip through the back streets, until he heard a child’s screaming and crying.

Generally, this wouldn’t particularly force him to do anything. He wouldn’t give a shit if some brat wasn’t getting a candy or some other shit, here, again, it’s a little bit different.

Ever since that happened to him when he was a child, he could never walk out on someone in dire need of help, especially if they were a kid.

His sense of justice, no matter how twisted it was, clawed at him, pushing him towards the screams.

In a small alley two men, were holding a child, trying to subdue her and shove in the big black sack. The girl had white hair and some strange shadowy markings on her hands and feet.

Nick didn’t give it even a second thought, rushing towards the man. His surprised face crunched under Nick’s fist, as the man himself collapsed, seemingly flying a little. The next adversary, a gentleman much taller and bigger in his form, looked at Nick and then to his friend, then back to Nick, trying to unsheathe his sword, releasing the girl.

He suffered fate worse than his companion. Knee in the face is generally a lot more colourful than a good punch in the mutt. The impact forced the baddie back, but he didn’t fall. Nick grabbed the man’s coat lifting him up, or so he wished it to be. The man was too heavy, he also proved to have good strength of mind, as he didn’t pass out but in place grabbed Nick’s hands in an attempt to twist them. Nick resolved it with a kick to his crotch, a quick tap to his throat and a dramatic knee to his face, yet again making a little firework. The man staggered and just for any case Nick knee’d him one last time.

Once the job was done, he turned around to the girl, smiling and wiping some blood off his face. Her eyes filled with strange glitter, like raw diamonds in the shine of the dusk rays of the sun.

“Well hello there. How are you doing little miss?”- he said almost falling.

________

They sat in front of each other, glaring a little in annoyance. The kid between them seemed a little out of place. No animosity just plain confusion.

“Why am I doing this again?”- said Zani, giving Rom a complex look.

“Let’s just get it over with, ok?”- said Rom tired of this bullshit. It always proved painful to persuade a seer.

They always cut you off and when you open your mouth they already understand some things that you yourself hasn’t come up with. Rude, irritating and plain frustrating. But even with them there is a trick. A bit of a mind magic there, a bit of a normal magic here and there we go everyone is happy, mostly. Seers can’t see something ‘that doesn’t happen around them’ or at least if they’re not aware of it. And who cares that she is a friend she was acting a bit shitty.

“Ugh, fine. But you do know that you are full of shit, I hope?” – she said as she stretched her hands towards him.

“Sure.”- he grabbed them.

It didn’t even take a second for her to let go of his hands.

As if burnt she screamed, falling off her chair. Her wrinkled face seeming even older, as it distorted in pain and fear.

“He saw me! He grasped me! Ocean of nightmares…Cracked open like an egg…”- she screamed, rambling something afterwards.

The boy fell to her, trying to soothe her, panicking.

Rom tried to help too, but they boy pressed a hand against him trying to push.

“Get out. NOW!”

________

Streets passed him, faces, lights, colours. He was running. In his mind there was only one thing, the inconspicuous house, the one that he saw as he entered the city, just after they said their goodbyes to Marren. The girl told him, her parents were there, stolen from her, kept there, that place on the edge of the city, near the walls.

He heard someone scream, then saw someone clothed in black jumping at him. He simply dodged, punching that someone in the chin and then continued on running. Air around him felt fuzzy, strange, as if some sort of threads were caressing him, tickling his brain, weaving through his eyes.

As if in a dream, he felt detached from everything around, led only by the conviction he had in his head, pushed by it towards the house.

The colours slowly changed from brimming bright colours to those of darker tone, grey, black, brown. And the faces, from happy to despairing, hollow and hopeless shifting, until they were replaced completely by nothingness. The world woven itself from light slowly darkening to the fabric of shadows, shades passing, dancing in threads in his eyes, flowing through to his ears and enveloping him.

The looming shadow in front of him, somehow different from the other ones around, connected to ashen silhouettes of houses, was the place of his destination.

He stopped, raising his hand.

Something inside of his head, deep deep inside, deeper than his conscious, something akin to an instinct but much more chaotic, something that was not touched by the threads, no matter how distorted they were, that something took over him.

The door, the wall, the person that was standing behind it, the man’s hair, his dagger, the magic around him, the air, his leather shoes, his iron locket on his neck, intestines, his emotions, the time around him, the threads, the space, all moved in tranquil entropy, morphing, mixing, combining, tearing apart and then connecting, infinitely but also finite.

Nick’s hand fell, as his body moved through the opening, ground slimy, solid, watery and gaseous at the same time. Things fell on him as gravity kicked in. The air, a mixture of many different scents both disgusting and nice to smell at the same time.

There were other people in the room, screaming, running, some away from him, some towards. His hands rose, dancing in the air, trailing through the strange air, densely filled with magic and the space itself messed up, weird. People fell. Unconscious or just knocked down, he didn’t care, his hands danced, as he moved through the house.

Sometimes hands trailed distortion, chaos everywhere it touched, sometimes skin on them falling off morphing with the air or whatever it was near, sometimes everything around him was distorting little by little, shapes in his eyes taking different forms, human silhouettes dissipating and morphing with threads or everything that is everywhere, forming either horrible amalgamations or majestic work of art.

It wasn’t long until more threads appeared near him, all different with colour, brighter than the previous, desiring to weave around him, to choke him, kill him, tear him to shreds. But all of them were disappearing, dissipating in the brief endlessness of this chaos.

Until a thread, strong and solid enough appeared, bounding him, reaching through his ears eyes and mouth into the mind, weaving something in his mind, until it was broken by the chaos and dissipated into useless information, overloading the brain and ultimately shutting it off.

___________

Author's Note

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Eeeeey, It's Me! This took unusually longer than i anticipated. Anyway enjoy this fresh chapter. The weird prose i use is to generally describe the weird nature of mysticism that happens to them or the insane nature of supernatural or some other bullshit like that. Nonetheless next chapter soon (i hope in next 5 days). Cheers!