[color=#DEC5D6][center][img]https://i.imgur.com/33bpHQY.png[/img][/center]
[color=#8D3B72]Time:[/color] Evening
[color=#8D3B72]Location:[/color] Tough Tavern
[color=#8D3B72]Interactions/Mentions:[/color] [@CitrusArms] Stratya, [@Lava Alckon] Drake, [@princess] Charlotte and the gang, [@Tpartywithzombi] Ariella, [@Samreaper] Kazumin, [@Potter] Olivia, [@ReusableSword] Roman [@Apex Sunburn] Sjan-dehk & Cynwaer
[color=#8D3B72]Aesthetic:[/color] [url=https://i.imgur.com/V5HP5na.png]Outfit[/url]


[center][img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1064772112633569330/1100627858638000148/Banner.png[/img][/center]

Garran’s fingers twisted into Ariella’s hair, and Kalliope’s jaw clenched hard enough to ache. She watched the pistol grind into the redhead’s scalp, her mind slipping into that cold, clinical place she’d honed in a hundred midnight alleys. Stratya lunged, moving with a speed that was almost inhuman, and Marius went down. Kalliope didn’t know what the Knight had done to make the man seize up, but she didn’t waste a heartbeat caring. If it worked, it worked.

The air in the tavern soured, thickening until it pressed against her skin.

Kalliope’s gaze jerked to the barmaid. The weeping girl had vanished, replaced by something hollow-eyed and crawling with shadow. Ozone and rot stung her nose in a warning of the kind of power she’d learned to avoid at all costs.

[color=#8D3B72]“Shit! There’s another ma—”[/color] The warning was cut short. The darkness lunged, snapping out like a whip. The tendrils wrapped around her middle and shoulder in a brutal, crushing grip that snatched the breath from her lungs. Kalliope was yanked off her feet as if she weighed nothing at all.

Her skull slammed into the wall with a wet, nauseating crack.

White fire burst behind her eyes. The world fractured into a storm of bells and distant, broken shouts. She hung there, pinned like a butterfly to a board. Through a haze of red, she caught glimpses: Drake tearing loose, a muzzle flash, the ringleader’s head snapping back, dropping like butchered meat. More shapes spilling in from the kitchen—too many. This was bad.

Then, the invisible pressure vanished.

Kalliope crashed to the floorboards, pain lancing through her skull again. For a heartbeat, she just lay there, mouth full of blood, the world spinning in sick, dizzying circles.

She forced herself up, hands sliding in Maelen’s blood, the floor rolling under her like a storm-tossed deck. Her vision split and blurred, but she locked her gaze on the doorway, dragging herself upright. There he was—a tall, familiar silhouette, as known to her now as the heft of her own blades.

[color=#8D3B72]“Sjan… dehk?”[/color] she breathed, her voice a raspy thread. Confusion and a sudden, traitorous warmth surged in her chest. She wasn't sure if the concussion was finally claiming her mind or if he had actually come to help save them all.

She fought to steady herself, the world still spinning out from under her. Behind her, Drake’s voice ripped through the chaos, a blood-hungry roar about making his night. It was the perfect distraction...just not for her.

A sudden, icy sting bit into her neck.

Kalliope sucked in a ragged breath, hand snapping to her throat. Her fingers grazed a syringe in the side of her neck, the burn of something flooding her veins. The room spun faster, colors bleeding together, vision bruising at the edges. Rough hands caught her under the arms, dragging her up.

Through the thickening dark, she saw them: two patrons who’d been watching her all night, waiting for chaos. She fumbled for a blade, but her arms were dead weight, her body betraying her as the drug took hold. They dragged her backward, her boots scraping uselessly across the floor toward the kitchen.

Panic, raw and primal, punched through the drug’s haze. She turned, desperate, searching the doorway for the man she’d just dared to hope would save her.

[color=#8D3B72][b]“SJAN-DEHK!”[/b][/color]

The scream tore from her throat, desperate and shrill, echoing off the rafters just as the kitchen doors swung shut. The last thing she felt was the cold rush of damp, musty air as she was pulled into the darkness of the smuggling tunnels, and then the world went black. She had been kidnapped.[/color]