[hider=Post 01: SETTING THE TABLE ] [center] The rain played the drums of stone and steel that marked the city, orchestrating a marching song together for the lone men whom now were left without home nor future. The lantern glowed the mahogany of grey up with the haze of yellow in a short distance around them but what is to come and what is passed was just as much as in the darkness as ever. The only thing the adventurers had were their feet as they moved into the shadow of the storm, grumbling up above with the dismissal of an irate giant sleeping on a patch work of clouds. [i]"So...you scared?"[/i] [i]"What of. You think we can't handle a blob with a winning smile?"[/i] [i]"Glad, you're confident. You're holding the lantern. He'll go for you first"[/i] The silence that followed signified the end of the conversation, there wasn't any facial expression to indicate otherwise. Shades made them up more so than the colors. The time spent walking had started to drift, it was a sudden lift that turned from the night to day. The blanket of blackness had dissolved into a mist of blue that tainted the trees in the far off and the sudden dirt road they were on. No birds sung and the trees stood at attention while the smoke crept like snakes in their direction, getting closer and twirling around. More following it. [i]"There"[/i] the one with the lantern said, raising it towards a single hut that had slowly uncloaked from the smoke, waving the mist away that disbursed as if an invisible hand had started swatting. It was of poor condition, the windows looked grim and dusty like the aged eyes of an elder that had seen to much, yet it stood welcoming with the look of an old lady happy to see visitors again. An unnatural glow to its chocolate colored door. The entrance creaked open in a high pitch drift. sending a note with the air of the swing that assuredly made half the dust jump up from the echo alone in the empty cavern. Darkness was dispelled as the door let in the blue paint, one hurriedly passing with a static to his posture that made his spine unnaturally straight. He used his tissue to clean the windows of the cake of grim, letting in even more light. A table, unremarkable. A pair of chairs. Cards had been left piled out about on the frame along with a few cigars that had been smoked to the very tip and left in a metallic ash tray. A few book shelves hugged the walls awkwardly and stared at them with old figurines of teddy bears and fairies on their top shelves. A small fridge and kitchen area sat on the right side. A fire place in the middle, a moose head with big, teeth drawn guarding over it. Looking at them with its empty sockets. Stairs to the left corner. [i]"So...he must be here..."[/i] the one with the lantern said. [i]"keep your eyes open"[/i] he remarked as he moved on, dismissing the other one still washing the window with his own jacket after his hanker chief had been turned charcoal black. The lantern lit up the fireplace first, revealing smoldering wood that had long since be used up and digested into ash by the flames, smoke still sizzled from their corpses. The outside and inside was comprise of a bland black material that gave off almost mind numbing neutrality. The lantern holder turned to the other man at the window, letting off a smirk as he did before motioning towards the fireplace with his head. As his companion pulled up behind him, he had started to poke his head inside with the light. [i]"Hello, Gurbanox. We know you're in here. We have a very interesting deal for you"[/i] Echos only returned from the void, prompting the man to go in deeper for a moment with his light. Pointing up into the darkness that awaited him like a long gullet with no end, not even the promise of a logical hole for the smoke to exit the building. The other one looked around gingerly, peeking at every corner of the room before taking a another step closer. Watching over him and cowering at the same time [i][i]"Do you think he will listen?"[/i][/i] [i]"Of course he will..he's a demon of greed...he'll listen to anything that promises fortune or power. You really need to calm down. We got this"[/i] [i]"Yeah. Suppose you're right"[/i] The moose stared down at him with its empty eyes, peering without irises with the inspection of an awaiting grave. It's long and extended snout still bearing its teeth at him while the other rummage in the darkness. Trying to crawl up the chimney without actually climbing [i]"I never got the point of these trophies..."[/i] he said, turning his face and lifting his cheeks at it in a confused scowl that could turn puppies away. [i][i]"Yeah. Me neither"[/i][/i] the teeth chattered back at him before suddenly opening wide and lunging forth at his head, shooting out like a tongue and encasing his head before he can even scream. The inky blot leaked more and more out of the now toothless moose head, extending like a worm from a corpse more and more over its victim, each new bit of string pulled increasing it thickness and length like paint being funneled over a fence messily. Just as quickly as the teeth had sunk into the flesh with a stony stomp of eating tools did the body get fast tracked by a powerful swing and sudden open maw. A single scream escaped without its owner as the ink spilled more in an endless stream, his legs disappearing up and into the intestine of darkness that lead into the moose empty skull. Its soulless eyes still looking forward as large, thrashing bulges bellowed out of its cheeks as the man traveled up the tube into the the gaping mouth of the moose where the blobs form lied. Slowly dripping out as the seconds passed onto the floor and the recruiter now gone as Smiley teeth started to rise from the now black puddle on the floor. [i]"Well" [/i]it said in a manner that was cool, his great grin matching the confidence and step in his tone. As he bared his large pillow of calcium at the now, trembling, cornered man holding a lantern up to it on his back. Trapped half way in the fire place and between the demon that just devoured his comrade. [i]"I'm listening"[/i] [/center] [/hider]