[color=gray][center][img]https://i.imgur.com/AS2MEph.png[/img]

[color=gold]Time:[/color] Evening, Ignis 2
[color=gold]Location:[/color] Tough Tavern
[center][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32_v17J8qKM[/youtube][/center]
[sub][@Tae][@CitrusArms][@Potter][@Lava Alckon][@Samreaper][@Tpartywithzombi][@ReusableSword][/sub]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/PsKHmMI.png[/img][/center]


The cool night air clung to Charlotte and Drake as they stepped back in from their walk and the last distant echoes of Drunkard’s Day drifted in behind them.


For a moment, the warmth of the tavern wrapped around them again: the sour reek of ale and sweat, the flicker of lamplight over faces they knew and faces they didn’t. 


Their boots crossed the threshold, just inside—[i]and a huge hand slammed the door the rest of the way shut behind them.[/i]


The impact shuddered through the frame. A thick oak bar scraped down into iron brackets beside Charlotte’s shoulder with a long grind that set teeth on edge. Then it was dropped into place with a heavy thud that felt final in a way the room immediately understood.


The man who’d done it was massive, so close that for a moment he was all Drake and Charlotte saw: bald scalp shining with sweat, a pale scar dragging across one clouded eye, shoulders filling the doorway as if he could have blocked it by standing there alone. Ox dragged a half-emptied ale cask in front of the door for good measure, muscle bunching in his forearms as the barrel scraped across the floor.


He didn’t move aside or apologize. He didn’t even look at who had just entered. His dead-pale eye stared straight ahead.


Laughter in the room suddenly all died at once.


From somewhere deeper in the room, a man’s voice spoke. It wasn’t loud, but it carried as if it had been:[color=#997657]“Hold it, Ox.”[/color] Conversations trailed into ragged whispers and then stopped altogether as heads turned toward the sound.


Bootsteps hammered along the loft above in quick succession.


Two men vaulted the railing. One hit the staircase with a thump that rattled dust from the rafters; the other caught the main ceiling beam in a low crouch, crossbow already leveled. On the stairs, the freckled one jerked his weapon clumsily from face to face, his knuckles white, his eyes blown wide with a fear that bled into aggression.


[color=peachpuff]“Hands on the tables!”[/color] he shouted, voice pitching. [color=peachpuff]“Palms down, fingers spread where we can see ’em—now! Now!”[/color]
He sounded like he was shouting at himself as much as the room.


On the beam above, the older crossbowman’s movements were slower, almost lazy by comparison. The bow tracked, steady, following the lines of escape: door, windows, the narrow space between chairs where someone might dart.


[color=wheat]“You reach for steel,”[/color] he said, the calm almost worse than a snarl, [color=wheat]“I drive a [b][i]bolt[/i][/b] through your hand before you get your fingers around the hilt.”[/color]


The whole tavern hung poised somewhere between disbelief and panic. Then a gunshot ripped that moment apart.


The pistol’s bark was deafening in the room, the sound ricocheting off the rafters. The ball tore into a ceiling beam, chewing out a splintered crater and showering the table beneath in chips and dust. Someone screamed as a tankard fell from her fingers and rolled, spilling beer in a dark stream that ran toward the center of the floor.


The man holding the smoking pistol stood on top of a table in the middle of the room, boots planted among scattered cards and coin. His frame was too thin for his height, all sharp joints and hollow angles under a stained waistcoat. Greasy dark hair was yanked back from his face, throwing the unnatural brightness of his eyes into full view. A straight-razor dangled from a silver chain at his wrist, spinning slowly.


He twirled the pistol once around his finger with careless ease, then let its muzzle drift toward the crowd. A slow, delighted smile formed across his features, showing a mouth full of crooked teeth. [color=#99546F]“Hate shoutin’ over people,”[/color] Marius observed, tone mild, as if discussing the weather. [color=#99546F]“Now you’re all listenin’, huh?”[/color]


He swept the razor up, letting it kiss his own cheek in a fleeting, familiar gesture, leaving a faint red line. He didn’t so much as flinch.


At the bar, a woman who had been leaning with her elbows on the counter, laughing into the rim of her drink all night, straightened with a shift that made several men’s eyes follow her without thinking. Dark hair spilled in loose waves over the low neckline of her bodice. The cinched waist and layered skirts did nothing to hide the way her hips moved when she turned.


Her arm slipped smoothly around the barmaid’s shoulders in a gesture that might have read as conspiratorial in another context. At the same time, her other hand slid down, under the counter, and came back up with a slim dagger. She set the tip in the hollow of the girl’s throat.


The barmaid froze, her eyes wide as saucers.


[color=lightpink]“You heard him, loves,”[/color] The woman said, her voice low and rich. [color=lightpink]“Hands flat on the wood. Palms spread. The faster you behave…”[/color] she tilted her head, lashes lowering as she smiled, [color=lightpink]“…the less creative we have to get.”[/color]


The barmaid swallowed, very carefully, and set both hands on the sticky bar top, fingers trembling.


Around the room, the spell of shock broke into motion. Tankards thunked onto tables. Knuckles whitened as hands were forced flat against scarred wood. Dice skittered, forgotten, across the floor. A man started to stand, then caught sight of the crossbow on him, then pistol, and then the dagger, and sat back down so fast his chair squealed.


By the hearth, the fire suddenly swelled.


Another woman stepped forward into its glow. She had been there all along, sitting quietly on a low stool with a drink between her hands. Now the change was more in the air around her than in her body. The light picked out the ink marks that traced patterns up from her collar. Maelen pulled a pinch of something from a pouch at her belt and tossed it into the flames.


The fire erupted upward. Heat shoved at the nearest faces, hard enough to sting eyes and dry mouths in a heartbeat. For an instant, the whole tavern was washed in stark, colorless brightness that flattened features and turned everyone into pale cutouts.


Then the flames curled in on themselves like a fist closing.


The bonfire collapsed into a tight knot of white light, no taller than before but wrong somehow: too bright, too still. Shadows in the room lurched and stretched, bending toward the hearth as if dragged. Outside the fogged windows, Sorian vanished.


Where there had been the muddied glow of lanterns and torches, the vague movement of people in the street, there was now only flat black. Not darkness as in night, but as if thick cloth had been pressed over the glass. The sounds of Drunkard’s Day beyond were suddenly distant, thin, like someone had stuffed wool into the ears of the whole building.


Maelen watched the heart of the fire with the faintest of nods, as if approving a piece of handiwork.


[color=paleturquoise]“There,”[/color] she murmured, more to the flames than to the people staring at her. [color=paleturquoise]“No eyes in, no voices out. Now it is just us.”[/color]


Near the central pillar, a plain man stepped into the space that had been carved out by fear.


He was the sort of person no one would remember after passing him in a market: average height, steady build, dark hair tied back neatly. His boots were scuffed but repaired. Up close, the crooked line of his nose and the scatter of white scars across his knuckles spoke of fists and years spent resolving problems with them.

Garran Holst did not look dangerous. But his eyes did.


They moved slowly over the room, not in a frantic scan but with the attention of a reptilian, measuring the exact weight of each life in front of him. He paused on hands, on weapons left too close to reach, on the barred door, on the shutter to the kitchen, on the narrow hallway leading to the back rooms. When his gaze brushed over the cut of Lord Drake’s coat, Charlotte’s face, the familiar Edwards profile near the baked goods and spilled ale, he did not start or double–take. A tiny muscle in his jaw tightened and then smoothed.


[color=#997657]“Everyone sits,”[/color] he said. He didn’t raise his voice. [color=#997657]“Hands stay where they are. That includes you two by the door…We’re not here to spoil your fine holiday,”[/color] Garran continued, sounding almost bored. [color=#997657]“You drink. We collect. Everyone breathes. That’s the simple way.”[/color]


Meanwhile, Marius hopped down off his table, landing in the spreading puddle of beer. The pistol went back into its holster, forgotten for now. He let the razor spin on its chain as his gaze wandered over the sea of pinned hands and pale faces. He stopped beside a dockhand. The man’s right hand lay flat on the tabletop, but his fingers had curled just a little at the sight of the gun—a reflex, some deep habit of reaching for the knife at his belt.


Marius’ smile sharpened. In one smooth movement ,he fisted the man’s hair and yanked his head back, bending him awkwardly over the bench. The dockhand’s eyes bulged, a choked sound tearing out of his throat. [color=#99546F]“Let’s give our guests a lesson,”[/color] Marius purred, not looking at him so much as through him. [color=#99546F]“So nobody can say they didn’ understand the rules.”[/color] The razor flicked out, bright and thin. He didn’t go for the throat. He laid the blade across the back of the dockhand’s hand and dragged, straight and deep, from thumb to wrist.


Flesh parted, and blood spilled, flooding down over the man’s fingers and pouring onto the wood with a wet patter. The dockhand screamed and tried to wrench his arm away out of instinct.


Marius slammed his hand flat to the table. The impact drove the bleeding palm into every splinter and groove. The man howled, trying to twist free. Marius’ other hand pressed down on his fingers, pale knuckles tightening.

[color=#99546F]“Hands do not leave the table,”[/color] he murmured. [color=#99546F]“You pull them back, I start takin’ pieces. A thumb’s worth a handful o’ silver. A finger’s a ring. An ear…”[/color]


He added pressure. There was a resistance like bending a branch. Then the man’s hand gave with a loud pop, and his index finger bent sideways. The scream that tore out of his chest was sharper and thinner.


Marius closed his eyes for one heartbeat, as if savoring the sound, then twisted again. Another joint snapped. The dockhand’s knees buckled; if the bench hadn’t been there, he would have gone straight to the floor. Then Marius let go.


The dockhand collapsed forward, curling around the ruined hand, sobs broken into ragged little gasps as blood dripped steadily off the edge of the table, onto the floor, onto his boots.


Marius glanced down at the red on his own fingers, amused, and absently licked it away.


[color=#99546F]“That’s lesson the first,”[/color] he said, raising his voice just enough to carry. [color=#99546F]“Hands stay where they belong. Next one tries it, I carve the message somewhere they can’t hide it.”[/color]


A man at the neighboring table quietly voided his bladder; the horrible smell filling the air.


At the back of the tavern, another man jerked to his feet, face gray with terror. He shoved the bench back so hard it toppled, scrambled over the legs of another patron who cursed in a whisper, and bolted for the rear door, breath wheezing in and out of him as he’d already run a mile.


The crossbowman on the beam swore under his breath, tracking the panicked zigzag of the man through the maze of tables.[color=wheat]“Don’t—”[/color]


Maelen lifted her hand and simply crooked her fingers once, palm toward the fleeing man.

His back bowed violently, as if an invisible hook had sunk into his spine and yanked. For a moment, he hung grotesquely arched, toes barely touching the floor, arms splayed. The tavern watched, transfixed, as his head snapped sideways, eyes rolling white.


Then the unseen force slammed him into the stone wall beside the hearth with a meaty crack.


The sound his skull made against the stone was thick and final. He slid down into a heap, leaving a smeared trail of dark red behind. One leg bent beneath him at an angle the human body wasn’t meant to take. His arm twitched once, then lay still.


No one ran to him. Every face near the hearth was turned toward him, waiting for a groan, a cough, anything. There was nothing.


Maelen let her hand fall back to her side, flexed her fingers once as if she’d been holding something heavy, and smoothed an imaginary wrinkle from her skirt. [color=paleturquoise]“The shadows you think you can slip through? [i]They belong to me.[/i]”[/color]


A sob broke loose from somewhere in the middle of the room. Another answered it, then another, until the whole tavern seemed to breathe in ragged, uneven gasps. Someone retched into their own lap. The only other sounds were the drip of blood from the dockhand’s fingers and the low, unnatural hiss of the blue-white fire.


At a small table near the wall, two older laborers leaned toward each other, lips barely moving.


[color=gray]“That’s Lord Edwards,”[/color] one whispered hoarsely, [color=gray]“Duke Gideon’s boy. And the girl—Lady Ariella. What are they doin’ here…”[/color]


[color=darkgray]“And the Vikena lass,”[/color] the other hissed back, eyes darting toward Charlotte, who looked overcome with shock after taking her place at a nearby table. [color=darkgray]“If this goes wrong, whole city’ll feel it.”[/color]


Marius’ attention sharpened. The mention of titles seemed to slide into his ear like a blade finding a gap. His gaze tracked the muttering men’s line of sight, followed it over the cheap coats and rough shirts to the islands of fine cloth, good tailoring, careful posture. Recognition dawned not in a start, but in the slow stretch of his grin.


[color=#99546F]“Well now,”[/color] he breathed, almost to himself. [color=#99546F]“Thought we were pickin’ bones. Turns out we’ve walked into a banquet.”[/color]


Near the pillar, Garran stepped smoothly up onto a sturdy chair. He didn’t loom, exactly, but the slight height made his steady voice carry. [color=#997657]“Name’s Garran Holst,”[/color] he said, as if offering his hand at a business meeting. [color=#997657]“Some of you know it. Most don’t. That’s fine. What matters is this.”[/color]


He gestured with two fingers toward the barred door, then the blacked-out windows, then the body crumpled under the smeared red streak by the hearth, and finally the dockhand cradling his ruined hand.

[color=#997657]“We control your doors. We control your light. We decide what happens when you run, or reach for a blade, or think too hard about bein’ brave.”[/color] His tone didn’t rise, not even a little. That, more than anything, made a prickle run down spines. [color=#997657]“So you do not run. You do not reach. You do not play the hero.”[/color]

His gaze moved again, slower this time, a predator’s idle scan refined by an accountant’s mind. It slid over Charlotte, over Drake, over Ariella. 

[color=#997657]“We’re takin’ purses, rings, things that shine,”[/color] he went on. [color=#997657]“You keep your hands flat, you keep your eyes on the wood, and some of you walk out lighter and drunk with an ugly story to tell. That’s one way tonight goes.”[/color]

On the beam, Jory swallowed audibly, the sound cutting across the hush.[color=peachpuff]“Garran, we said this was a quick pull,”[/color] he blurted, panic fraying his words. [color=peachpuff]“Slum crowd, in and out. Not—”[/color] His eyes flicked toward the nobles and away again, terrified of even looking too long. [color=peachpuff]“Not them.”[/color]

Garran didn’t look up at him. [color=#997657]“We said we’d be smart,”[/color] he replied, almost gently.[color=#997657]“Smart men don’t turn their backs on gold when it walks into their hands.”[/color]


He let his gaze slide back toward the cluster of local nobility again, calculation sharpening behind his eyes. Vikena. Edwards. Ransoms that could change lives or end them. 

Then his gaze snagged on Roman; he might not have known the Varian’s name, but face was familiar—he had a gut instinct the man did not belong in a place like this.


In a darker corner of the room, two figures who had been nothing more than background until now lifted their heads almost in unison. Felix’s fingers tapped a slow rhythm on the table; Yuka’s thumb stroked the rim of her mug once. Their clothes were rough enough to blend in, but their stillness marked them as different from the slumped, shaking drinkers around them.


Their eyes sought not the nobles, but the red-haired songstress by the bar: a focus that had brought them here long before Garran ever settled in this tavern. They traded the smallest of looks. For now, they played the part of hired blades.


Closer to the bar, the woman with the revealing dress, Moira, let her attention wander from the trembling barmaid to the blond farmhand who had been all restless energy earlier. Her eyes dragged over him with slow, lazy amusement. [color=lightpink]“Asteroth’s silly little rabbit,”[/color] she murmured under her breath, the faintest smile tugging at her lips as she studied Kazumin’s profile. [color=lightpink]“Wrong briar patch tonight.”[/color] The dagger at the barmaid’s throat dipped. The girl sucked in a ragged breath but didn’t dare move.

A new shape broke from the knot of men near the back hall.

He was tall, almost as tall as Ox but built in a different way: less bulk, more power. Where Ox looked like a wall someone had taught to walk, this man moved like a man who knew exactly how far his reach was and how much damage each inch of it could do.

His coat was a dark leather that had seen better years. A pale scar tugged from the corner of his mouth into his stubble, bending his resting expression into something that always looked on the verge of amusement, or cruelty. His hair was dark and fell in a loose tie to his collar; his eyes, when they lifted and began to rake the room, were a hazel that looked almost colorless in the firelight.

Those eyes found the nobles without any help from whispers.

He stepped close enough that she would feel his presence without his needing to touch her. The air seemed to tighten around the table; the men and women nearby stared hard at their own hands.

[color=lightgoldenrodyellow]“Didn’t expect company like yours down ’ere, dove,”[/color] he said, voice low, like they were sharing a private joke instead of a room full of hostages. His gaze traveled slowly from the curve of her bare toes up to the line of her throat, then to her face, and that scarred mouth crooked a little more. [color=lightgoldenrodyellow]“Duke Gideon lets his little girl drink with the rats now?”[/color]

He didn’t reach for her. He didn’t need to. The way he stood, angled just slightly in, weight comfortably balanced, hand resting loose and confident near the knife at his belt: made it very clear that if anyone else tried, they would answer to him first.

From his chair, Garran watched all of it with that same look, measuring risk against reward. He let the murmurs fade again, let the room feel the weight of the broken man by the hearth and the wet hitch of the dockhand’s sobbing breaths. Then he drew a breath of his own and shifted just enough to signal his people.

[color=#997657]“You’re all too sober,”[/color] he said. Garran nodded toward the bar, toward the shelves lined with bottles and kegs that represented a week’s takings for the owner. [color=#997657]“Tap everything still worth drinkin’. Ale, wine, spirits. Every table gets fresh cups. Full.”[/color] His eyes slid back over the room, to the dockhand curled around his mangled hand. [color=#997657]“I want everyone so deep in their cups they couldn’t stand straight if I cut the legs off their chairs.”[/color]

The barmaid froze.

Her gaze flicked from Garran to Maelen, to the blacked-out windows, to Ox looming at the door. Then it went, helplessly, to the faces she knew: regulars who spent every eighth day here, sailors who’d trusted her with their coin, a pair of girls who snuck in when they thought their mothers were asleep.She hesitated, jaw working.

Marius stepped up beside her like a shadow given shape.

The next moment he had a fist twisted in the barkeep’s collar and slammed her forward across the own counter hard enough that bottles jumped and clinked. Marius pressed the barrel of his pistol against the back of the woman’s head, right where skull met spine. 

[color=#99546F]“Pour,”[/color] he said softly. The word slid down the back of the barkeep’s neck like a knife. [color=#99546F]“’Fore I decide we don’t need you for the job.”[/color]

The barkeep swallowed. With shaking hands, she reached for the nearest keg tap and began to pull.

Moira laughed softly, the sound a pleasant little purr that did not match the situation at all.

Ox moved from the door, the bar still in its brackets, and lumbered a step into the room. Even that small shift made people flinch. He lifted his good eye toward the tables and grunted once, the sound low and ugly. [color=khaki]“Nobody says no,”[/color] he rumbled. [color=khaki]“Don’t wanna drink? You can lie down like him.”[/color] His dead, clouded eye turned toward the crumpled corpse by the hearth.

Maelen watched from by the fire, the unnatural white flames reflected in her pupils, making them look almost inhuman. She pinched her fingers together once more, and for an instant, several of the more stubborn patrons felt their throats tighten, a phantom pressure coiling around their windpipes like invisible fingers.

[color=paleturquoise]“Drink,”[/color] she said, her voice still soft. [color=paleturquoise]“Or I close my hand and see which of you sings sweetest when the air runs out.”[/color] [/color]