[Flashback] The joke's on you (Ulric)

[Bob Barton]

It was perfectly apparent why dear old dad wanted the one with the hooked nose what with his face looking equally sour. The mask would have done wonders for his sunny disposition and Bob was fully prepared to hand it over right until he talked about the money and who was going to get the chubby one. Of all three women that he did not want she was the one which he did not want the most and pulled back the mask right before it left his hand. With all sorts of crazy which followed the midget it was not surprising that the people that came into contact with him would be affected too. The much awaited "argument" begged from Ovek came alright but as all gamblers would know the god was not the most reliable one in Mizahar. The twins which Bob started to look at recently, especially Kel seemed more reliable to him especially since they saved him only last year.

Bob started putting the mask back on his face continuing the role that was suddenly thrust on him while he proposed "why don't you show me an example Dad. I don't think I have always been man enough in your eyes" not realizing that the truth of his age was already known to the stupidly brutish looking man which he did not know what else to call. It fully covered him and Bob sent out the last words of his challenge "I'm even putting the mask back so you won't feel shy with your son looking over" and zipped up the smiling face into a frowning mouth closing up any further discussion. There was no telling what was going to happen next with the man but the women? Bob thought that they might feel a little bit offended that the two of them were fighting over who was not going to take them but it seems like they do not even care, still looking with that glazed look probably at a loss of what was going on. Bob thought to himself that the only thing which would get them to act now will be mizas but he was not going to fork any over and with any luck his challenge would not be taken as well.

He felt the same way. Not praying but just asking someone out there, like Kelwyn whose mark he was rubbing on his arm to make his challenge so horrible that only a madman will take it on. It will be a win-win situation because he would not have to pick up the gauntlet flung to him or he would have a chance to escape from someone who is proven a madman when his...hands were full. Looking at the way that the redhead belched and exposed her not so perfect teeth made Bob beg all the more, muffled whispers coming out from his sealed mouth that "please oh please let me get out of this madhouse."

[Ulric]

Ulric gave a wince, reaching for the sticky contours of a clay jar that lay tenuously on its side, nearly falling off the edge of the table. He lifted it to his lips, desperately gulping at the harsh, vinegary contents. There was a grunt from the funny-nosed harlot, clearly objecting to the liberty. That’s quite enough from you, he snorted, then flung a coin on the table with a dull clunk. That shut her up, and he took another gulp of the dregs. They weren’t doing much for him. They needed more, much more if he was going to go conclude this sordid japery.

“You,” he gestured at the chubby harlot, carefully laying another coin over the first, and then, after a bit more thought, a third. “Find us more, and quickly now.” That forced the glazed look from their eyes, surely enough. They’d be passage enough under night’s veil, clouded by an amorphous, boozy haze, the harsh planes of their faces unsoftened by the orange glow of guttering candles. Every blemish, every defect was starkly manifest, displaying their horrid humanity.

Ugh.

Though he cursed himself for bringing them here at this hour, he wasn’t going to back down. The freak wasn’t going to, either. That nasty shyke, he grumbled.

“You can’t be a man if you’re always hiding behind that mask of yours,” Ulric chided. “Take it off, and have yourself a drink. There’s no need to be hasty.” The words nearly stuck in his throat, but the coals of his eyes were bright.

Problem was, he’d already broken the patina of the harlots’ apathy, and now they were behaving like harlots. Funny Nose roused from her slouch, and though he kept pleading dontdontdont, she settled on his lap, wrapping a slender arm around his back, the other curling around his belt.

Ulric took another gulp of wine. Then another, desperately. The girl just stuck her nose against the ridge of his cheek, laying on a squishy, slurping kiss. “Got any for me, love?” Her sultry voice was in his ear, borne on a tide of moist, sour breath, and his face wrenched in a grimace.

“Here,” he growled, thrusting the jar at her so she wouldn’t plunge her tongue into the depths of his ear, or try something even worse. This is your fault, he glared knives at the freak, who was probably mired by his own troubles.

[Bob Barton]

The mask maker was great, the zipper on the mouth was a great idea. It allowed Bob to avoid talking when he did not want to or even start drinking whatever it was in that clay jar because it would be false courage but that was not the problem because what it would actually do is allow Bob to join in unknowingly. The dwarf was not courageous to begin with anyway which is why the next time he went to the store he would suggest for them to put a zipper on the eyes as well too. The gods know that is what Bob wanted, needed now in order to avoid himself becoming a 'man' like suggested. No, not now. Not like this!

His muffled voice would be barely audible again when he tried to persuade that "I'm not a man" so he has all the right to not take off the mask. Even if no one could understand the words, Bob trying to pull the mask down as he shook his head would hopefully be enough to say it all. He knew he deserved better because, gross... The way those harlots were behaving right now did not seem human at all. If anything they were like one of those slimy creatures personified by their profession. Not a snake these ones, there as nothing magnificent or alluring like those in the ones found in the wildlands with their beautiful colours to attract victims and ward off predators. These ones reminded Bob more of grubs and worms, maybe even leeches. Disgusting things that you never wanted anything to do with as they try to suck you dry.

The feeling was enough to make Bob feel the chills breaking into his whole body as the his troubles came. At least the chubby one was looking for the drink that this nutter was demanding for but on his suggestion from earlier, the sticky one came for him. "Nononono, Idonwanyoutmakememan" he quickly said in response to her voicing her intentions to make Bob a man like his 'father' wanted but she did not seem to care if she could even hear the words beyond the mask. In fact, she tried to take the mask off Bob but Bob did not care for her offer to assist the boy. He was not a boy and he had some of his own hard earned mizas to prove it. Maybe if he tossed it her way and directed her to the man already enjoying funny nose she would leave him alone? If anything, with that display he has already proven that he has far worse tastes than Bob.

Or worse she might do her best to get it from Bob the only way she knew how. She was already starting now that she has already found out that Bob was not giving up the mask. That should have turned her off but for some reason she said thought that it was some sort of fetish and it was some of her favorite customers. Great Kelwyn, what did Bob do to deserve this? "Notthepants!" he quickly exclaimed in surprise as his hands left his mask to grab hold of the harlot's when she tried to worm in a reaction. Bob looked back at the man who was glaring at him, his eyes pleading to get him the hell out of this situation since it was all his fault no matter what he thought.

[Ulric]

The awful wine served to distract. That was good, but what it didn’t do was keep her shift on. There was a bite mark just under one of her rosy buds, as if somebody had been chewing on them. The bruise just made him squirm, uneasy. “That’s not-” he began to say, but a chubby arm was around looping around his clavicle, pressing another jar of wine against his lips. That’s right, more wine, he cringed, sucking at with long, sour gulp. The wine will make me forget. There wasn’t anything else he could do, if he was going to make his point. Those plump, sticky fingers withdrew, tracing over the ridge of his cheek. “That’s not-” he began to say, but in his frenzy of drinking, he hadn’t perceived the hands deftly unclasping his belt. They plunged like vipers into the depths of his trousers, fondling him.

Raw panic. This sordid ballet was coming to an end.

Ulric made to hurl himself away, but her grip was too firm. He just ended up with a hand bundled in her tresses, and his face sweltering in the horrid, salty crevice of the larger harlot’s cleavage. “Mrrgh,” he grunted, writhing around as his trousers were jerked away. This was all going wrong, dreadfully wrong. They’d duped him. These harpies were profaning him like a cheap whore – which was what they shyking were. This injustice couldn’t stand, but even as he tussled with them, savagely pummeling at a swollen, puffy rump, trying to jerk a knee away as it began clasping over his face, he was ghastly mindful of his inadequacy. The swift betrayal of his nethers, forcibly devoured by molten tongue, only gave rise to ignominy.

There was a crash, a squishy slap of flesh, and he found himself splayed on the floor. That cruel, aberrant length of skin, so rotundly rising to a juncture bristling with thatch, forced over his guard, and he found himself suffocated by it, his poor face mashed by crevices it hadn’t wished to delve. The suck of flesh sealed him in, as if caught in an oozing crypt. The barbarity of it astounded him, and he kicked out, trying to force himself from that meaty prison. This defiance was futile, for as he began to prise away those fleshy jaws of womanly miasma, he found himself plunged into an equally repulsive quandary, straddled in the sticky throes of decadence and ridden, most excruciatingly, at a viciously bucking canter.

And most eagerly, with a surfeit of contrary cuffs, did he attempt to untangle himself, to flee this squalid grotesquery. The shudder of his chest was proof enough, covered by the stains of sultry, leftover fluids. They caked him like limpets, neglecting to stifle the duplicity of their groans, their whimpers. They were clearly too used to this rough frenzy to recognize his distress. 

Never had a man suffered worse in the pursuit of revenge.

[Bob Barton]

Just how long has this coven of hags been in control of this side of Ravok entrapping innocent souls with the help of their pet? With Bob now among the number it was now one too many and if Victor had intended to scare him off Ravok he should have talked about them instead of the Stryfe. He was smart enough and with sufficient warning he would not be in this mess but he was here now and he needed to put those smarts into thinking how he was going to escape. At least it does not need to be wasted on big, dumb and ugly since it looks like he is really getting it on with his own company of horrors.

Only if Bob had enough time to think. Right now the situation was so dire to his manhood that it was all he could do to focus his energies into stopping the witch's attempts to get him under her control. Actually, it was more forcing and the harder she went the more Bob did to oppose her until she gave up. Thinking that he was finally safe, he foolishly let his guard down not expecting her to go for the other thing that was his protection. The one on the mask that was just bought. He was definitely not the first victim because the switch in targets came on faster than thought. Women, they were monstrous predators...

If it did not happen to him, Bob would never have thought it possible but the harlot's movements was so fast that in a moment he was exposed with both sides of the mask far apart. Another moment was all that was needed to get her lips on his, taking full advantage of the opening in a heat of passion. Something that Bob would have happily embraced like a comely woman, if that was what she was but she was not. As soon as Bob recovered as abhorred as could be, he pushed her away with his remaining strength thinking only how horrible it might have been if he had not been so adamant in protecting the only important thing to any man earlier.

Her cries of protest went ignored as Bob did his best to wipe the taint off with his sleeve until she was up on her feet again. The eyes that were looking at him was no longer the one of faux admiration but it was recognizable all the same. He was not going to let her take him again and like a cornered animal, Bob lashed out throwing his hands wildly before holding and flipping over the table into the air. While he might have lost the war, he allowed himself to take in the victory of that final battle where it contents splashed all over his tormentor before the loud crash told him its time.

He bolted straight for the door as fast as his little, little legs could take him.

[Ulric]

Ulric jerked his face to a crease of cold, sucking in a desperate, fetid leeching of relief before the limpet stuck over him again. He thumped his fist into a bulge of droopy skin, then again, before taking hold of it with his fingers and giving a savage twist. There was a fuming squawk, a vague recoil that he used to free his other hand. He brought it up in conjunction with the other, clapping them over those profane, flashy ears.

Though he couldn’t glimpse it, the spark of dulled, fuzzy comprehension came over the harlot. Too late, of course. The table, so violently dislodged by his diminutive nemesis, bashed her in the cranium. That nearly put her out for good, but she’d enough padding to absorb the clout. Get off, he gasped, heaving with all his might.

Fortunately, jostling was most efficacious, and she slid off with a horrid squelch, leaving him free to dispatch the other harlot. He blinked, frowning and muddled from the struggle as she, in turn, frowned at him. Her hips kept up their gyration though, as if by instinct. “Harpy,” he grunted, grappling past the flail of her raking fingers to grasp the slender ridges of her shoulders.

Ulric surged up, bashing his skull into her face, maybe skewing that nose a tad further from the center. He glared as her eyes rolled and canted insensate, then reached under the juncture of her thighs and hefted them off his nethers, hurling her roughly on the cushions. He rose with a stagger, leaping back as the chubby harlot whipped out a knife from her skirts and risked a confused slash.

Grunting, he spat out a tuft of her bristly carpet, and then with a string of curses, grabbed a flimsy wicker chair and broke it over her head. The frizzy harlot was gawping at him now, so taking hold of his trousers, he fled after the freak. The man was dashing much faster than before, it seemed. “Quickly, in there,” Ulric growled, brushing a hand at a dank, tapering alley. 

[Bob Barton]

He did not get too far before he had to stop, right at the entrance to the building that he was taken through it seems. "I...can't..." help stopping. Overturning that table was done out of shock more than what he would have liked to be as a preplanned escape plan so there was no preparations but at least something good to would come out of it. Like all parents, 'dad' would have to pay for the damages and then some. Thinking that he would have time to rest when the horrifying coven overwhelmed their victim, Bob took a break leaning on the wall to catch his breath.

Before he could even enjoy that, he heard the heavy footsteps of the larger man after sounds of some other commotion obviously unrelated to him if the Stryfe asked. With a groan Bob straightened himself and pushed himself off whatever strength was left in his arm. If he was lucky his headstart would be enough to escape and he will not collapse before then. A little bit more further away from the entrance, he found that Instead of attacking him the cause was trying to help him?

But was that a demand or a suggestion? Bob took a quick look at the alley never slowing down his feet even if they were only running in place. At any moment he could just zip off at the same pace like the idea that ran through his mind like the man meant to do dark and sinister things in that alley as retribution. He should just speed up and leave it all until, he heard the ear shattering screech from inside the building. Those women were joining in too?!

If the women were after them both then Bob would just have to make sure that they had someone else to sink their manicured nails into. In that narrow alley the big man would block them all leaving him time to escape. All it would take is a shout. A good idea and Bob grabbed hold of the wall to pull himself to the side as he sped up and dashed into the alley blending in with the shadows inside.

Bob can have his much needed rest there and leaned on the wall again. He was breathing too hard now to even be bothered with talking to, him!

[Ulric]

Ulric bit a fold of lip, hurling his denuded limbs over a knoll of dusty burlap. Dirty trousers flailed like an ensign from a cinched palm, so he swiftly looped them around his neck, like an ersatz scarf. Harpies, he snarled bitterly, spitting out a gristly wrinkle of wool that’d sucked in his palate. That just made him angrier. Harpies had to spoil it all, didn’t they? His fruits were clammy, shrieking in recollection of their debasery.

Vaulting over a rail, he blinked, trying to free his eyelids of caked discharge. Hacking and spitting to clear his throat, but it didn’t matter. He was irrevocably dirtied by this, reduced to cheap, sullied bit of sausage. This was a calamity. There hadn’t been any need for it. The less they’d fondled him, the more silver he would’ve shelled out. But where, in scuttlebutt, innuendo, and dirty larks, had anybody heard of men venturing into a brothel just because?

Clearly, the harlots couldn’t take a petching joke.

Ulric jostled a girl aside, his phallus wagging insolently at her juvenile dismay, and propelled himself after Bob with a stiff-arm to her head. The alley closed in around him, a rusty bracket jerking at his scarf. There he glimpsed Bob, having deftly eluded his injudicious mischief and its corollary of involuntary debauchery, apparently surveying the roofs. There were a few gutters and pipes, plunging to a pair of barrels, strewn by scraps of refuse. Black tar swaddled the barrels, but Ulric discerned the jut of rusty hoops, the stink of urine.

From brothel to pisspot, their lurching, stumbling getaway was merely caricature in ignobility.

But it wasn’t over. Behind him, a banshee shrilling pierced the alley, and Ulric whirled, bobbing at an unexpected whang. Abruptly, there was an eruption of sparks as a shrieking projectile skidded off the bricks. “Petch,” he growled, looking at the frizzy harlot, her face twisted and ruddy with anger, a light crossbow clutched in her arms. And he realized she’d begun reaching for another quarrel.

Unwilling to give her another chance to transfix his skin, Ulric reached for one of the forlorn barrels, grasping it by each side of its staves. He jerked his knees, letting the impulse swell to his spine so the heavy object plunged over his head. Then he hurled it at her. The barrel ascended ponderously, wheeling and gaining impetus as it plummeted at Frizz. She saw it coming, though, and cannily sprang behind the alley’s rocky lips, letting the timbers shatter. Ulric refused to let her slide, though. Hefting the other barrel, he swiveled his hips, shoulders rippling as he heaved it slightly askew, wrenching his spine to augment the throw’s alacrity.

Frizz, having darted back into range, quickly lowered the stock of her weapon, allowing the quarrel slide from its moorings and clatter on the ground. She dived for it, but just at the instant, Crooked Nose bustled around the corner, palm clamped around a meat cleaver. They collided in a flurry of limbs, and before either could scurry away from the pile, the barrel thudded dully. Frizz, having taken the worst of this, slumped as if she’d been poleaxed, but Crooked Nose just groaned, stirring faintly, rummaging for her untidy implement of massacre.

Ulric grunted, reeling away in disgust, and promptly found himself grappling with Bob. “That’ll delay them,” he scowled, jostling the other man who apparently hadn’t ceased looking at him with mistrust. “Think what you may of me, but we’re in this together now. These whores clearly squirted from a devil’s bowels, belching and yammering like fiends.”