The Tents of the Talented (Eryss Waldu)

[Ink]

Timestamp: 29th of Winter, 511 AV ‘Chubs’ Tyrannus does as he pleases. Today he pleased to sit upon his considerable rump in his tent with a scarcely clad woman draped over his lap. On his right a woman in identical, but differently colored because he had to tell them about somehow, garb kneeling on all fours with a food laden platter on her back. This was the life and it gave ‘Chubs’ a sense of twisted glee to knew he lived better than even Robern stuffed up behind all his Daggerhands like some princess in a tower. It was roughly supper time, dusk considering the season. While the slaves Chubs would soon sell were receiving their meager rations from workers the slave-master himself was content to lounge away his evening. The tent was thickly lined in fabrics to insulate the room while a fire burned in the center to heat it further. Very soon Chubs would stir from his opulent seat of silks and slatterns, the night was the real beginning of the business day in Sunberth, supper might as well be renamed breakfast for all it mattered in the midden city. The fat man’s jowls wobbled as he chortled and pronounced to his two closest women; the blanket and the table, “Shal’be callin’ ya Supper n’ Breakfess wenches. Na’thad ya git a meal aff min’dya.” He added sternly. On the other end of the slaver’s market the scene was vastly different, Tiandra was Chub’s biggest competitor and she didn’t waste time. Her very presence in her slave pens caused an aberrant silence, no slaves wept, no slave begged, and no slaves rebelled. Meal time, if a crust of bread and a ladle of water could truly be called a meal, went smoothly in Tiandra’s pens. All of the slaves knew of what it meant to garner the woman’s attention, though not all personally. Slaves being chained as they were hadn’t much else to do but talk and think. The ones she broke spoke of horrors that instilled fear into the untouched. Tiandra watched for these slaves carefully, they may not remain cowed once sold and that would make them defective product. Their breaking would be made ambrosial by their fear. What else could a woman ask for besides an unbroken slave that was already losing its bowels at your attendance? It was too early in the night for the Lasher to be distracted with the willful ones; those were still secreted away behind the good stock. The good stock that she strode in front of now, business would begin in earnest for the night and no one showed the slaves’ potential quite like Tiandra could. OOCPlease pick one of the NPCs to approach and we'll go from there! ^^

[Eryss Waldu]

[Night was a special time in Sunberth. The City was deplorable during the day but in the evening when the sun went down it became twice as bed. Walk down the wrong alley and you might have your throat slit for your coin purse. Unless of course you were the one slitting throats. Nowhere in Sunberth was quite as deplorable as the Slave Market though. All those bodies crammed into cages or on the auction block with people milling around them, prodding and pocking, like they were livestock. There was also the smell to consider which was intolerable. Most of these slavers didn’t take very good care of their property and even quivering women flesh was as dirty and greasy as an animals. Disgusting to be sure and certain.] [Walking towards the Slave Market; Eryss was clothed the robes that he often wore with his hood pulled high concealing his facial features, the robes lent him an amount of anonymity seeing as how he never quite let anyone get a glimpse of what his features really looked like underneath them. At a distance he didn’t appear particularly threatening but the Mage had a certain menace that radiated from him and caused those who had thought he was an easy mark to hesitate before backing away. Maybe it was because he could incinerate almost anyone with a thought; the threat he could pose to those in his way almost radiated off him like a wave of heat that singed the hairs on a person’s arm. Looking ahead he saw his destination in the near distance.] [The Slaver’s tents were easily recognizable. When Eryss moved into the market, off the streets of Sunberth, he could only gaze ahead wondering which of the tents belonged to the slavers and which of them were meant to house the slaves. Despite his rudiment knowledge of the Slaver’s Market he did know it was divided into two camps. One was lead by a man known as Tyrannus, or more affectionately as Chubs, and the other was under the leadership of a woman whose name was Tiandra. Their names were easy enough to come by anyone who had ever been to the market knew them and many of the denizens of Sunberth also recognized who the two top Slavers were. The Mage had only to consider which he would visit this evening.] [Approaching a Guard he asked him quietly...”Which way to the tents of Tyrannus?”...and was informed of the proper route by the man who also told him that it would be hard to miss the tent seeing as how –Chubs- liked to live an extravagant lifestyle. Nodding his head once Eryss didn’t bother to thank the man and moved around him instead before heading in the direction that he had been told he could find Chubs Tyrannus. It didn’t take him long to reach his destination. As large as the Slave Market was in Sunberth there were just some places that stood out like sore thumbs. This tent was one of them.] [Eryss didn’t even try to look amiable. Examining the outside of several tents he deduced the largest likely belonged to Chubs and moved towards it. Likely several guards were outside which is why the Mage would slow his movements when he neared the entrance of the tent and tell them...”Let Tyrannus know I’ve come to speak with him. It would be in his best interest to see me.”...the man who seemed to be the highest in rank would have scoffed at the innuendo most likely but peering from beneath the hood of his robes a fiery flash crosses Eryss eyes would set the man to hell. Nothing magical but the look of Mage may have betrayed some of the malevolence stored within his frame and that may have been enough to cow the man.] [Waiting, politely, to be allowed entrance into the tent Eryss was of the mind that he would yet allow Chubs to believe that he had come seeking an audience within and therefore would only come once he’d been granted an invitation. Merely a trick to let the Mage lull whomever he dealt with into a false sense of security. Anyone who dared try to lay a hand on Eryss while he waited or afterwards would find their hands rebuffed though. An invisible Shield deflecting anyone who reached for Eryss which he had erected before setting out tonight. Amongst the things he had Shielded himself again were the natural piercing, slashing and blunt weapons people used as well as the afore mentioned biologics. He had used his final task to shield against djed, absorbing it as it were, just in case so that if there was another Mage on hand their spells might be used to fuel the Shield as it were. Eryss had come ready to do business.]

[Ink]

“Biznis? Already? Pah!” The man smacked his chest with a meaty hand as he considered who might be so bold. Finally the man huffed and kicked his footrest in the stomach, for it was another woman. “Wench go git ‘im. Lez see wha’they want.” The woman rolled over as the kick hit her she exhaled sharply but dared not stay on the floor long for worry she might be called lazy. There were worse things to be than one of Chubs’s girls and they all knew it, down to the last pair of tits. Except Giselle, she only had one tit, Chubs kept her because he thought she was witty. The footrest, whose name was actually Holly though she knew better than to bother correcting anyone, rolled up on to her feet and flittered out the tent trying to keep her mind off the horrible bruise she was going to develop and the terrible desire she had to limp and hold her side. The buxom woman was the next person to approach Eryss, she kept her eyes down and spoke in hushed tones. “Are you the man here to see Chubs?” It was clearly a rhetorical question because she immediately turned around and head back into Chub’s chamber, “This way.” She said holding the canvas open for Eryss. From inside Chubs readjusted himself to get a look at the mage, after a moment whether Eryss entered or not shouted at him, “Who petch are you?”