Bad Days: Get Yours Now! (Open)

[Seidaku]

The lack of an answer from the treacherously unscrupulous merchant served only to cause another surge of white-hot anger to surge through Seidaku. Had that rage not been so fierce, he might have noticed how out of place it was, how out of proportion to the stimuli that had caused it.

Instead however, he felt a dangerous, deadly calm descend over his mind. Clearing his thoughts and imprinting a field of blank darkness across his consciousness as he felt the swell of Djed, twisting that darkness and calling across the veil between realities toward a darkness that mirrored and dwarfed it. Reality began to swirl between his clenched fist, a single point of blackness, ready to expand larger and devour the world.

The blankness of his thoughts, and subsequently the darkness between his hands, was dispelled in a spray of hot arterial blood across his face. Licking his lips in confusion, he tasted a metallic saltiness. He could do nothing but blink in disbelieving shock as the murderer turned and bolted away, shouldering him to the ground as he passed.

Shaking and hyperventilating at the sudden violence of the scene, and his own apparent willingness to participate, he could do nothing more than stare wide eyed at the spreading pool of blood beneath the merchant.

The other man, the one who had tried to talk him out of the sale was crouched over the man, trying to encourage him to stay alive. Dimly, Seidaku realized that he should be doing something. Trying to help stop the bleeding, calling for the guard, fleeing into the crowd himself. But no matter what he knew he should be doing, his legs would not obey his mental commands, and he remained sitting on the floor of the Bizarre, unable to comprehend what was happening around him.

OOCNo worries. I think it set the stage for Seidaku's own responses very well.

[Zlakalia]

Zlakalia didn't know what was going on around her at this point. Shadows formed the crowd that had begun to gather around the bloodshed and lay witness to the fat man's murder, looking more like a single immovable object to Zlakalia's damaged eyes. She strained to see further, but the dimness was too much. She lay still in the bottom of the cage a while longer. Now the hole in Zlakalia's plan was apparent.The mage was down, and Zlakalia saw the form of Keido hunched over the body, shaking it violently. Probably finishing the job, she assumed. But now came the problem of actually getting out of here. A daunting problem, but perhaps she could find an elegant solution. Such as playing the puppet rather than puppeteer? Zlakalia did her best to suppress a new grin, for now she was laying lifeless as though the mage's death had been her own. A worthless puppet would surely be abandoned, she assumed, and finally let her slink back home and hopefully get these eyes fixed. The way she had fallen was fortuetous. The corners of her tattered vision picked out the kneeling form of Seidaku, thinking of all the nasty things that might have caused him to fall to his knees. A shot to the stomach? Or maybe a nasty hit to the knee? Zlakalia gleefully let the images of the man bloody and broken fill her mind, desperately wishing she could make out what had happened that caused him to kneel. It would probably be so pretty. The victor, the remaining of the three men, the troublemaker who threatened to unmake her plans, was finally finished with the mage. The dark form of Keido that Zlakalia could barely see rose. Zlakalia hoped him to find her current state in dismay and leave, but... he was actually fiddling with the cage! His shadow loomed over her and his hand reached in. A new image took her now, one of experimentation. She wasn't going to become some project to dissect and reverse engineer. Zlakalia almost jumped to action, but decided to give a moment longer, just let this play out. He wouldn't be able to hold her long, no matter his intentions. She gave his question no answer; Zlakalia lay dead still.

[Keido]

The pycon in his hands looked like she was still unconscious from all the chaos surrounding her. Keido gave a little poke to see if there was any reaction and then turned back to the crowd of onlookers gathered around. He shook his heads at the monsters who just stood there and allowed it to happen. Their inaction was far more worse than the actions of the murderer.

"You, I will take to the Womiyu to see what they want to do with you" he said to the pycon in his hands even if she could not listen.

Then Keido turned to look at Seidaku who was sitting there on the ground. Lost on what to do after adding to the madness of buying the pycon as a slave. But Keido thought he saw something there somewhere between remorse and disgust while Seidaku was staring at the corpse and breathing hard.

"He is gone now but we can still take care of this one" which meant he was going to take her in.

Not waiting for a response from the man Keido continued down the streets to take her to the caverns where he knew the Womiyu had their headquarters unless he ran into any of their members first.

"The rest of you who did not do anything should just get lost! The show is over." Keido said angrily to the gathering. They were even worse than the people who paid to watch in the colosseum.

If this keeps up, the pycon will be at the mercy of someone else. She had better wake up and do some convincing or explaining to make Keido go against his decision and she better do it soon.

[Seidaku]

All he could do was stare leadenly at the corpse sprawled less than a foot from his feet. He could feet beads of blood on his face, sticky now and no longer trickling as they dried. He knew that he should wipe his face, should try to look after the murderer, should do something, anything.

The world around him was a meaningless blur of light and noise. He blinked, glassy eyes uncomprehending, at the man holding the now broken doll. He watched the mouth move, and heard sounds emerge, but they meant nothing to him.

Beneath the dullness of shock, his mind gibbered questions at him, questions he had no answers for. Why had he been so furiously angry? Why had he wanted to doll so badly that he wanted to hurt the shopkeeper? Why had that man emerged from the crowd to stab him, only to run off?

He knew he should be doing something. The way the man was now staring at him was proof of that. But what?

[Zlakalia]

Zlakalia lay still a while longer. Now was no time for rash action. She just had to wait. The interrupter mentioned taking her to the Womiyu. Zlakalia would have laughed right then, had it not been for her own facade. Who knew how far away the Ristage Caverns were away from here, how long the two would spend wandering the city? Plenty of time for a little doll to go missing. Still, a pang of annoyance bled through to her mind. She felt the emotion pounding in her mind, rising and twisting and growing. Becoming more angry, less tranquil and sane. 'This man thinks he can just wrench up all my plans?!' She wanted to hurt Keido, teach him not to get involved in her business, the business of monsters! Zlakalia wished she had her knife back. Not to mention the rest of her stuff! Her bag was still in the pockets of the cooling corpse behind her. Seidaku was still kneeling and Zlakalia still assumed him injured or hopefully dying from the frozen shadow she could make out. It seemed no one was searching the body, fortunately. Zlakalia didn't know what to do. She didn't want to break the facade yet, but she was going to if Keido got any further away. 'Just give it a bit more time!'

[Keido]

Keido took one last look at the man who was just sitting behind him doing nothing. It was a sad sight that he was willing to take a lot of effort to get the doll but none of the same for his fellow man. Keido just gave a dissatisfied grunt and started walking off. Glaring at members of the crowd gathered who would try and stop him on his way. Then suddenly he remembered something.

"Does anyone know where I can find any of the Womiyu or the Ristage Caverns?" Even if they did not want to help at least they can give directions.

A lot of excited voices could be heard but none telling him what he wanted. The Womiyu might have known about this murder by now and might even be sending someone. But Keido could not wait for that long. It would be better to explain why he needed one as well.

"This...thing. This thing is the culprit of all this!" He did not mean the stabbing but what lead up to it.

"It attacked this poor sod now on the ground which was why he was trying to sell it." hoping that the truth in his words would get through to the others.

Unfortunately this being Alvadas no one could give any proper directions even if they wanted to. One person suggested to just keep walking and to allow the city to lead Keido to them. Keido did not understand what the fool meant.

"You played a part in this, so you should help." eyeing Seidaku to give him another chance to follow before walking away on his own.

[Seidaku]

He could follow directions. That much, at least, was easier than normal in the wake of the horror he had just witnessed. He thought that they were supposed to do something with the body. Something more than just leave it there, like refuse. But thinking about the corpse led to other thoughts, like why there was a corpse there, and how willing he had been to help make the shopkeeper a corpse.

No, much better to just follow and not think about it. It was safer that way. There was something wrong with the situation, but Seidaku worried that it was something wrong with him. Some fundamental, previously unrecognized, flaw in his character that would let him consider, even momentarily, murder as an acceptable response to being cheated on a purchase.

Still glassy eyed with shock, Seidaku clambered woodenly to his feet, brushing his hands on the front of his shirt and leaving dark, bloody smudges on his chest and stomach. He swallowed audibly, a greenish tinge to his face, as he was reminded abruptly that he was now wearing the contents of the merchant's veins.

Shaking slightly, and still less than entirely comprehending, Seidaku followed after the other man with his head down, wishing for nothing more than the day to be over.

[Zlakalia]

Zlakalia had to act. NOW. They were getting too far away from the body, and who knows how long it would take to find it again if the streets shifted and she lost sight of it. She wondered how she'd be able to avoid the legs of big people with her eyes damaged, how she'd be able to find a shadow to hide in or darkness to run to. How would she be able to escape? Zlakalia wanted to use magic. She wanted to plant some idea in Keido's head, make him obey her will. But she couldn't. Her djed was strained as it was, felt weak. So she did the only other thing she could: she tried to get an idea in the old fashion way. "The other guy has a knife, look out!" She yelled to Keido, hoping to distract him for just a moment to glance at Seidaku, who clearly didn't have a knife. She hoped that was enough, but frantically tried to come up with another plan. But Zlakalia wasn't able to come up with any other plan. She was out of time, out of options. All she could do was go for it. So she let herself go a little extra lax, shifting the weight of her clay form to escape. The one talent her people had was to get away from situations, and Zlakalia was going to get out of this one. With all the strength she could muster Zlakalia jumped. She wanted to get away from the pair, get to hiding. As long as she was hiding near the body it would be fine, right? Her eyes could make out nothing as she fell, nowhere to go. All she could do was hope she could get away. As she hit the ground she scurried to her feet, using her hands for a moment to travel faster. She dodged between a pair of legs she hadn't even seen until she realized what the two black towers were, heading for what she assumed was a side street. Zlakalia just wanted to get free.

[Keido]

Keido was walking down the street with Seidaku behind him when suddenly the pycon on his hands yelled the warning. A knife? Treachery. That scum was still after the pycon after all this? Wasn't there enough madness today already? Quickly, Keido spun around to face his should be attacker. Forgetting the pycon which already escaped, he raised his free hands into a fist ready to attack.

"You will regret your actions you scum!" he called out to Seidaku while throwing a punch at Seidaku's face.

Just as it was about to reach, Keido could see that brooding man indeed had no knife. The treacherous one now was the pycon who had escaped. He was fooled. How could he have allowed this to happen? Turning back he looked around trying to find the pycon but her size was to her advantage. She was lost in a sea of people. Frantically his eyes looked around the people then realizing his mistake he looked to their feet but it was too late. He would not be able to find her.

"Where is she? Where is the criminal?" Keido roared out loud hoping to get some direction from the others.

No one knew being so focused on other things instead of an insignificant pycon. With a sigh he turned back to Seidaku. The one he nearly attacked in his haste.

"I am sorry, she tricked me. I hope you are not hurt. Do you have any suggestions of what we should do now?"

[Seidaku]

He wondered where they were going. At the moment it was away from all of the unpleasant reminders of the events of the last few chimes, so that was enough. Had someone reported the crime? The crowd had seemed ambivalent to the whole horrible thing. Perhaps the dead man had been one of the illusory shades of the Bizarre? Yes, that had to be it. There had not even been a murder, you had to be alive to have been killed. The whole thing was just an elaborate show of smoke and mirrors... it had to be. If not, he had almost-

His comforting thoughts were interrupted by the high pitched shout that someone had a knife. Seidaku stared around him, eyes wide in panic. Had the fat man come back? The other man still had the doll. Were they going to be attacked in another attempt to gain it.

"Just give him the d-!," his shout cut off with a startled squawk and he threw up his hands to protect his face from a blow that never landed. Instead, the man broke off his attack to bellow at the crowd. Who was 'she'? The killer, who had to be the criminal he was calling for, had been a fat man, that much was unmistakable.

Which was why he blinked and asked, "Who tricked you?"