How long had he been here? Had it been hours, days...weeks?!

Traxel Yidara was so high on cocktails of drugs, alcohol and pent-up sexual energy that he could have been in the 'VIP section' of the Gentleman's Antiques for years for all he knew! For months before he had spent his father's hard, cold, currency as if he could not give it away, and then the haggard old Grox had come down on him with his usual complaints - "why don't you get a job like I did?" Or "when are you going to start taking responsibility for your actions, boy?" It wasn't like he did nothing, after all, he was a hedonist and a purveyor of fine women (and sometimes men) who at least believed that he knew more of the world than his father ever would.

Yidara, five feet and ten inches tall with sandy-blonde hair, boyish good looks and eyes of a sky blue, was the eldest son of a Axam Yidara - a man who had been born at the bottom of the Hive, but became a successful merchant through hard work and business knowhow alone. Axam had given his son everything, everything presented to him on a silver platter, but his ungrateful offspring had never appreciated just what he had been given; such things disgruntled the older man, who by now knew that Traxel could never inherit his fortune and his mercantile empire, but could still never refuse the boy anything.

Often Traxel would disappear for weeks as a time, going God-Emperor knew where, but would always turn up sooner or later...yet perhaps not this time; the Old Man had made enemies throughout the years, and whether it was to be he, his son, or his entire family, vengeance would come on swift wings to them.

As for the moment, Traxel could have been floating for all he knew; for hours he had been doing nothing but standing with the more bloodthirsty Khornate worshipers - in spite of being more indebted to the Dark Prince himself - around the central fighting pit of the VIP chamber (and what a chamber), watching multitudes die or come out victorious. 

Further coin had disappeared from his funds as he placed bets upon losers time and time again, that was until a quiet-yet-bass voice muttered something nearby...

"Looks fun."

Lo and behold, the young fop turned on his heel and nearly straight into the lower half of a towering Abhuman, craning his neck upward and allowing his jaw to go slightly slack as he spoke, even a little bit of dribble coming out, "then perhaps you should join in, friend!" He had to shout to be heard over the roars of the crowd, but noticed enough to realise that the latest bout between a half-bull man and a midget was coming to an abrupt end even as he spoke, "all you need to do is climb down into the pit and wait for an opponent, it's as simple as that." Indeed it was, the walls of the pit not being [b]too[/b] high - after all, what true devotee of the Blood God would attempt to clamber out rather than die honourably in the pit?

If that stupid brute took the bait then he would immediately bet all his remaining coin on the dim, but certainly fearsome, Ogryn in their midst. Maybe even regain enough to repay his father and those that he had become sadly indebted to.

With a swift look around to make sure the Ogryn was not with anyone, and seeing no-one in sight, he gestured toward the pit again with wild thrusts of his arms, "go on big guy, you can take 'em."


[@Hank][@Keepvogel][@Noxious][@Bright_Ops]


[hr]


"Atella...how...lovely to see....you in fair health. It has been far too...long since our...last talk."  

Mutants, Gods how the Slaaneshi devotee hated them - although she did a rather good job of keeping it from her voice or expressions, not that those could be seen beneath her veil - these twisted and [i]ugly[/i] things that seemed to have placed their very lives into her hands; she had no idea why this might be, but she had taken every opportunity to twist these already twisted and warped scum of the hive to her will and word. 

"The...Faithful wait for their time here. You have names of...those who.....must die, I trust?"

"Your time is soon," she answered, doing her best to make it sound like a proclamation from on high, her husky breathes tinging the very air with promises of pleasure and fulfilled desires, "I have been given names, many names, but for the task I need but one and one alone of your flock; you have been a fine shepherd, and now I must ask for a singular lamb, a chosen one from within your ranks.

Twisting her lips into a cruel smile, a shimmer appeared briefly in her eyes, she placed one slender arm on a hip and waited.

"Who shall it be?"


[@The Whacko]


[hr]


Arnaud Trant, as he had been known in a former life, surveyed the patrons of his establishment through blinded eyes of pure white - a gift from the Ruinous Powers that allowed him to see things that others did not... - certain figures leaping out at him from the crowd, their shadowy forms surrounded by flame and smoke to his vision, from the bestial Ogryn to the slender scholar, the seductress to...the Astartes?!

"Raoul!" He screeched, his voice many octaves higher than it should be for one of his sturdy form, his thinning grey hair quivering as the hunchback informant entered his prescence, "so, they are here?"

"It seems so, my master," hissed the crippled creature from beneath his filth-encrusted hood, "they have come seeking-"

"I know what they seek, thing."

From his vantage point above the crowd, a staircase and gangway leading to his private quarters and offices (yes, even a traitor and heretic needs somewhere to store their paperwork), he allowed one tentacle that had replaced an arm to slither up and scratch his chin; an action that would have looked comical, if it had not been for the fact he had a damned tentacle for an arm.

"Those two at the bar," he mused, half in thought with himself, "go and bring them to me, the giant and the addict," by which he meant Sanath and Lucius of course, "there is something about both of them that I wish to explore further."

Raoul was gone before the last syllable left the lips of his true master, Atella but a pawn in a much larger game, and soon the Fallen and the one-who-hears would find out that they were part of it too.


[@Lord Coake][@BCTheEntity]