Waste Not (Reisen)

[Konrad Venger]

75th Day of Spring, 5015AV

He had to admit, it was much simpler this way, and Konrad was nothing if not a man who enjoyed the simple things.

No Ravok Peacock he had to listen to for endless chimes, rambling on in his cultured tones, breaking a man with words instead of blades and blunt objects. It was interesting, of course. Worth watching for the art of it... but Konrad had done little than night but look menacing and digging up a dirty chest.

Well, he'd done a little more than that, of course. But only after plenty of the aforementioned finger-twiddling, so the ratio was somewhat in his favor as far as the argument went.

But not tonight. Not for the last one.

"Think he's tryna' say somethin'."

Konrad looked up from the glow above his hands and heard the muffled moaning. It was coming from the naked man tied between the trees. An average build but turning to soft shyke with the onset of middle age, it was tanned and hairless, save for a thinning patch on his head. Tears and snot had already rolled down the man's face and soaked into his gag. Fresh bruises like peaches and plums were dotted around his torso, including the massive one at his temple.

Well, had to get him docile somehow.

"Somethin' t'add, do ya?"

He walked over to the man, squelching across the swamp mud to get to him, passing Three Eyes cleaning his blades as he sat on a stump. Harven nodded frantically and let Konrad pull the gag free, spitting out some of his own vomit before blurting out words without finesse or timing-

"-please I have money you don't have to do this I can make it worth-"

Konrad's hand slapped over his mouth and he rolled his eyes. He really had been hoping for better. Surely the apprentice blacksmith should have worked out by now that nothing was going to save him? Too much had been done and too many efforts made to find him, take him, restrain him.

"No, y'don't, Harven," he said, voice equal parts irritated and bored. The older man's eyes popped as he heard his own name mentioned. "Aye, I know who y'are. Know about yer friend Jeron, too. Heard about what happened to him?" He hissed with mock squeamishness and shook his head. "Nasty, ey? Well, that's what happens when y'petch with these Dynast types, like you two did."

"I-I don't know what-"

"We do, Harven. We know everything."

"P... Please-"

Konrad shoved the gag into place just before the pleading rose a fever pitch, scream stymied by the rough cloth. They were an acre of so into the swamp on the West Bank side of the city (or its outskirts, rather), but Konrad didn't want to alert anyone too early with careless screams. This wasn't just an execution, after all.

"Waste not, me Ma used to say," he mumbled to himself, breathing out... and summoning greenish-black djed from his fingertips, oozing and wafting through the air at his will. "Any chance to hone yer blade, y'know? Even when it ain't a blade..."

Jeron had given him ideas. He remembered what he'd done to the man, how his wyrd had swept across that man's face like oil before he'd ignited it... how it had eaten flesh and bubbled flat and fused bone. He thought of the message it sent and, really, this was naught but the same job, just stretched out to a second night.

Lasher wanted a message sent, and everyone involved punished. Two were. One's dead, and here's the other. So...

Three Eyes watched with his usual horrified fascination as his friend, his fellow Sunberthian, acted the petching mage and drew that wet gas out of his hands. Konrad stretched out his hands and halted them half-a-foot or so from the man's forearm, splayed out like his other limbs and tied between the two trees they'd found. Harven started to pray again behind his gag, eyes cast upwards for help from somewhere, anywhere-

Konrad blew gently on the gas, spreading it from above his hands to tickle and kiss the flesh on his victim's arm. When it has spread over enough of it, almost covering one side, Konrad grinned and thought the word.

Burn.

Green and black became orange and yellow. Sweating, shaking flesh became blackened, smoking parchment. Three Eyes winced and looked away. Konrad smirked by the light of what he'd done, ignoring Harven's spastic thrashing as his flesh was burned through the skin and muscle and fat, down to-

Out.

He thought the word. It was all will, after all. He didn't need to blow again, not with his mouth or his breath, but it helped steady himself. Gave some form to his thoughts. The raging fire blew out as his willed it to vanish, and his hands closed... with nary a tremble.

Getting better. So much better with people to train with.

"Gonna be a while?"

"Waste not, Eyes," Konrad said without looking around, flexing his hands and feeling the djed pulse through him. He'd leave it a chime and then start afresh. "Just keep yer eyes out."

Three Eyes spiun around from the sight with a grumble, facing the way they'd come.

"With petching pleasure..."

[Reisen Widerspruch]

There are points in Reisen’s life where he had to question his sanity, to question some of the decisions made in haste, what seemed like a good idea at the time, or were simply poorly planned. Unfortunately, when those points come he didn’t bother to think about them most of the time, preferring merely to shrug and carry on like he always does. Like that time he walked in a room without knocking only to find it was occupied by a woman giving birth and being tended to by a midwife. He should’ve knocked prior to entering but subjected himself to a sight that imprinted itself into his mind and will follow him even in death. You’d think a lesson would be imprinted there, but it seemed to only stick somewhat. Now here he was in the Swamps at some unknown hour of the night, the humid and heat of the weather lingering from the day lingering still and likely to linger further for the next few days. It wasn’t his first soiree into the Ghalwhatchamacall it swamp and perhaps certainly not its last, but he knew that even in the day it was a dangerous place and so was probably more dangerous at night. The swamp was home to deadly critters that could lay him sick in days if he was lucky enough to survive them, plus the Rujapuja or whatever they’re called….. It was his wandering tendancies that damned him the most, if he had the itch to walk then who was he to deny it? And he wasn’t going far though it felt like it as his feet mucked about the muddy earth. At his side was his cutlass, which was a good weapon as well as a practical tool! The chops of the blade could deal well with any rough plant life as well as it did flesh and bone! And to be fair, he was alright so far. No deadly insect, no stepping on poisonous frogs, no touching flora that could potentially cause him to empty his bowels in extreme pain or itch uncontrollably. Really, it was a pleasant evening all the same! Still, he thought he could hear some voices in the distance. Nothing understandable and certainly fate in no small part due to the local, but it was audible enough to peak that curiosity of his that went; ‘Something interesting is going on, could be bad, could be interesting, could be nothing…..go take a look’ And who was he to deny his impluses? And so, like some cat with no sense of self preservation, he did approach the commotion he thought he heard. Gods-petching idiot was in for a surprise….as well as whoever was there he was sure.

[Konrad Venger]

His mentor was dead, but Konrad was finding pain to be a fair teacher. At least when it came to defining where his limits were. As the burning res vanished and the night closed in again, lit only by Leth and her countless smaller children, he felt a familiar ache in his arms. Spreading quickly like ripples, weaker with every inch they traveled... but still there. Telling him not to try too much, or too fast.

The sellsword still smiled. When he'd started down this road, nearly two-score days before, a flame such as that would have had him wincing and cursing with every patch of flesh in his arms a screaming mess of pain. That time... he only had to breath... focus himself, focus on the djed beneath his skin that he willed, that he controlled... and he was ready again.

Getting stronger. Every time I do it, it's easier. Lasts longer. Burns hotter.

Still no call to get petching stupid.

Harven was still screaming behind his gag. The endless, wordless explosion of agony was stifled by the cloth and Konrad could alsready smell the bile soaking into it. The vomit that had retched up from his guts, blocked by the gag, then swallowed back down in all its burning foulness.

He blinked and looked to the prisoner's broad chest. It was the work of a mere moment to tune out that pitiful, desperate sound. Everything gets easier with repetition, and Konrad had found no exceptions to that simple rule. He'd been making screams and pleas into white noise for most of his life, and that night was no different.

The Sunberthian breathed in again... ah, this moment still amazed him... when he closed his eyes and felt it, a whole network of veins and arteries coursing through him. Only it was res in them, not blood, and with one more exhalation-

-and his breath blowing as if he was clearing dust off a table-

Harven watched in helpless horror as a cloud of green mist blew from the man's mouth, spread out like a cloud before turning into water as it hit his chest. He squirmed and nearly bit through his gag as he felt the unnatural squall patter against his chest, cold and stinging at the same time, little flecks of lightning seemed to spark against his pectorals, his breastbone, dripping down his stomach...

Konrad breathed in and willed the rest to stay in place. Not in a ball, like he'd used before, but just as this green-black smear on the man's chest, faintly glowing with sickly light. He raised his hands, fists clenched, palms pointing towards himself... then turned them to face Harven... and his fingers snapped open-

Burn.

Harven's chest was ablaze with that single thought. He wept and swore and struggled against uncaring lengths of rope, wailing as Konrad watched with satisfaction. Frying flesh filled his nostrils and he congratulated himself. His best yet, maybe. Greasy, stinking smoke wafted up from the man being immolated alive and Konrad knew he had to be frugal with his "resources".

"No, no," he muttered half to himself, "Not yet, mate."

Out.

Three Eyes looked around as Konrad snapped his fingers, so he saw only a flash of the minor inferno his partner has visited on the man's body. Just a flash, and then he blinked... and instead there was a vast, blackened expanse of sizzling, smoking flesh where a normal human torso had been. Harven was limp, hanging from his bonds and twitching in fevered sleep.

Konrad was flexing his arms, wincing gently and Eyes' cursed himself again for-

The snap seemed to slap his ears, so loud was the sielnce that followed Konrad's wyrd. A twig. A branch. That meant something had snapped it-

"Kon?"

The man himself looked around at Three Eyes and found the man up on his feet, peering into the twisted shrubbery and sucking mud they'd came from. The faint yellow and gold glow of the West Bank was on the horizon, but lower to the eyes there was just shadows and the ghosts of trees, and-

Rustling.

"D'you-"

"Aye," he said, thoughts of his training forgotten as his hand went to the hilt of his kopis. "I heard it..."

[Reisen Widerspruch]

Reisen, for all purposes and intents, wasn’t a very sneaky sort. Danger was usually something he didn’t need to sneak from, that was replaced by clumsy running or swinging about his cutlass to stave it away. Unfortunately those two options weren’t probably viable if what he just witnessed was right as he foolishly gave into his curiosity and took a peek over the shrubbery. There were three men, one looking fat and portly giving watch a distances away from the other two. He couldn’t quite get a look at his face or for the rest of them for that matter, but that one looked like he swallowed a bad egg or something by what’s going on. The second man was doing something to the third, who was tied up between two trees and looked quite worse for wear. The second man was some tall petcher and he didn’t look to be anything like an Akalak. He was doing something which he couldn’t quite see, but whatever it was it was definitely horrifying as the form of the third man twitched violently in extreme pain. From that direction came a smell that definitely overpowered that of the swamp and by the sake of the gods it smelt like something rotten was cooking. It was all that was needed for even Reisen to figure out the source of it. ‘I stumbled upon something I shouldn’t have, probably’ Whatever this was, it was a torture session and Reisen felt sick to his stomach by what he’d witnessed. There was a fair chance that whatever they did to that gent would be done to him. In short, he was perhaps up shyke creek without a paddle. He could try talking his way out, but he wasn’t really a talker. He could try running, but he wasn’t that either and the swamp was just as much an obstacle to him as it was to them perhaps. He was sure he wouldn’t fare well in a two on one situation especially against the guy who probably liked to burn things. And sneaking… well, he risked failing at that as well. Unfortunately, it feels like it would the best chance he had. His decision made he tried to take a quiet step back away, hiding behind the flora and losing his view of the lot, certain that the distance wouldn’t be so noisy as to raise suspicion. Snap Stepping on a twig however, was definitely a hair raiser and Reisen froze in place. Sweat dripping from his brow from the heat as much as the fear. By the gods he hoped they didn’t smell fear. In fact he hoped he didn’t void his bowels just to make the situation worse. ‘calm down, they probably didn’t hear it! I mean they could assume it some animal’ The noise of muddy footsteps said something different and Reisen knew his hopes were dashed. Too late now though, sneaking away was still perhaps his best chance and running would just make more noise for them to follow. ‘Right, Reisen. Think where you are, your in something like a forest. Granted you’ve never played hide and seek as a child but any kid would tell you that a place like this has plenty of hiding places. Just keep your head, don’t make loud noises, and fine a good place to hide’ His heart rate begged to defer, but his rarely used sense of self preservation agreed with his mind as his right rested on the hilt of his cutlass. If the situation warranted it… this game of hide and seek could give him an ambush point. He moved, looking for the farthest and biggest tree he could hide behind in a moments notice. At the corner of his left he thought he found what he needed and began to move, hoping that whatever noise he made wouldn’t be heard and that it wouldn’t be too obvious. There was always a chance he made a mistake as well and on the grave of his grandparents he hoped that he wouldn’t be sharing one. It would be damn uncomfortable to be ashes in an urn.

[Konrad Venger]

Growing up in Sunberth, one got used to assuming they were being watched. Every alley, every window, every shadow could contain a pair of eyes that would record everything you did, good or bad. Mostly bad.

But this isn't The Berth. This is a petching swamp. So who the petch would be out here?

"Eyes," he growled, eyes scanning the darkness, looking for any dark shift or sflickering shadow. "Start movin'. See anythin', yell."

"Ey? And what're you gonna-"

There was the rough rasp of steel being freed from a leather scabbard and Konrad turned back to the evening's business. Observed or not, he still had a job to do, and he wasn't about to go tearing the swamp apart looking before he handled it.

Harven was still blissfully, mercifully asleep when Konrad jerked his head up from behind and ran his kukri across his throat. Arteries spurted and exploded with red wetness into the humid air. The man's eyes flickered, just once, and he gurgled something not entirely air or blood... and then his head slumped forward, chin resting on charred flesh and pumping fluid coursing down his chest.

One problem solved, at least. Now...

The mercenary cast his eyes back to the swamp, the darkness, the tentative form of Three Eyes craning his blockish head around as he looked for... what, exactly?

Konrad's palms itched to case a ball of res and light their way. Banish the shadows and make plain whatever it was sneaking around out there. Maybe even just start a few fires and smoke the bastard out, run how down when he bolted from cover-

No. Don't become too used to it, he told himself, using the same paranoid caution that had kept him alive in a city where death was behind every smile and handshake. You know how it weakens you, and you've already done enough.

"Old-fashioned way, then," he mumbled to himself, sheathing his kukri and replacing it with his kopis, its longer cousin.

He stood there, behind the dead man strung up between two trees, curved sword in his hand, and he listened. Konrad knew darkness, too. Sewers and tunnels under the cobbles. Rooms and alleys that Syna never saw, nor Leth. Casting his wyrd fire would only rin what little night vision he had, and besides, it wasn't his eyes that would help him most out there.

So he listened. Tuned out Three Eyes' clumsy steps, until-

A crunch. Soft yet heavier than a deer or rabbit. Wouldn't have been so loud otherwise. His head snapped to that direction, and mayhap he saw a glimmer, a flicker, where the trees were largest and the cover was best.

Makes sense, he told himself as he started towards the copse. If they were going to attack, they would have done it. They're hiding. Trying to avoid us. So you hide where you're sure you won't be seen.

"Kon? Kon?!"

He ignored his partner's frantic whisper as he started to stroll through the mud and dead vines at his feet, fingers flexing around the hilt of his sword as he focused on the trees.

"How 'bout youse stop us in' my petching name an' follow me? Shyke's sake..."

[Reisen Widerspruch]

He wasn’t being a lucky petcher, that much was apparent. He reached his goal but in the process accidently stepped on another bit of wood that snapped ‘Probably already got their attention’ He didn’t here any sounds though, but that could mean any number of things and he sure it wasn’t the meanings he liked. Now he could hear them sloshing though, which was a blessing as it meant they were as quiet as he was which was an oxymoron of moronic proportions. He’d alerted them and so right they were going to get the drop on him. If there thought processes were anything like his, meaning thinking very obvious things about what to do, then they’re already clued to where he hid. ‘Alright, you’ve been into sticky situations before, Reis. You walked into so many of them on your travel; this one just stood out more than most.’ His eyes darted frantically around, there were plenty of things to make distractions with….. …and he was in a swamp where it was known that Rujajaja or Rujujoromps considered it to be their haven. Any number of people who had the habit of knowing their private play areas like the back of their hands also knew how to walk about it and cause havoc on unsuspecting foes. ‘ An’ those two definitely fill the unsuspecting foes bit’ Right, right…. His eyes darted to the ground and there he spotted another stick. Whatever he had it was a low chance of success, but getting caught be the brutes was of no interest to him. He picked the stick up and weighed it in his hands, it was bigger than whatever he stepped on and thicker as well. But where to throw it? His eyes looked to the many trees, each a conceivable hiding place. He’d have to be lucky with his throw, and he’d have to hope for a miracle of mythical proportions to have a chance that his hairbrained effort succeeds with the hopes they don’t see the stick and that they believe the sound. So, without further ado he gathered his strength and tossed with the very, intensely slim hope that this would distract them and that he would however quietly be allowed to slip away…..

[Konrad Venger]

Konrad had barely been in Kenash for half a season, but he'd already seen enough swamp life to last him years. Mainly because there was just so much of it. More so even than the Sea of Grass, every square acre of twisted, tangled, tumescent marsh seemed to be crowded with all kinds of furry, scaled, winged and miscellaneous creatures.

Most of whom were not pleasant, and always hungry.

So when his head snapped at the sound of another impact, further away from the copse they were closing on, his first thoughts were of another predator, drawn to the same warm, fresh scent that he would be. But still... nothing moved in the shadows. Their quarry, perhaps? He could have moved that fast, maybe, or maybe...

Konrad's jaw tightened as the word "Rujaro" echoed in his mind like the name of an angry, nameless god. He'd heard it uttered in similar tones here and there throughout Kenash, but he could count those times on one hand. The slaves didn't dare speak of them, not even to each other; the Freeborns were reticent when it came to the discussion, and the Dynasty types heaped scorn on them as criminals, traitors, scum and fools.

In public, anyway. Because the truth was, any group that could not just survive in that petching swamp, but wage war from it, was not foolish, or soft.

Stop seeing monsters in shadows, he growled to himself, reassured by the steel weighing down his hand and the other examples at his back, his boot, his belt. Sound like an old woman.

"Tsst?!"

The sound was wordless but undoubtedly human, and Three Eyes had heard it before. He turned to see Konrad pointing at where the sound had come from, and started to tramp through the moss and mud with him-

-then alone-

-as Konrad stopped, letting Three Eyes keep up the noise as he stood there... watching. Running his eyes over the patch of black bark and still leaves where the sound had come from, the treeline around it, and the trees he'd been traveling towards. Three Eyes had his uses, after all. Mainly as muscle, but when Konrad need a distraction...

Better him than me, he thought, and waited in motionless silence to see if his hunch would pay off.

[Reisen Widerspruch]

He took a deep breath, trying to calm his beating heart. He didn’t get a good look but it seemed his throw did its job and they were probably distracted… at least it sounded like they were moving away from him. Their attentions divided he hoped would allow him to slip away into the darkness and back to Kenash before the gates to the Terraces closed. He didn’t know why these insane louts were torturing the lout but if it is something considered so illicit by Kenashi standards that they’d do it all the way out here?

‘A witness is something they don’t want….’ And he was quite content to look away, thank you. No roasted Reisins here!

His mind deciding that this was the best moment to skedaddle further away into the darkness of the swamp and night, he was just about ready to step away when….

‘what the petch is that sound?’

It was alien and predatory to him, so much so that he would compare it to an animal when it hears the sound of an animal more dangerous than him. It sounded like someone in pain, agonized pain that lasted for a brief if seemingly eternal duration….

That sound had received a response with an unsynched chorus of smiliar sounds coming from various distances, each as terrifying as the first. Reisen wasn’t afraid to admit it, but he’d just about pissed as he heard it. He couldn’t tell how many but he’d wager a guess that it was at least a half dozen before the sounds inevitably stopped once more…

Then the original sound came again, beginning in short bursts then melting into a single prolonged sound that sent chills of terror into Reisin’s spine….. he couldn’t know what it meant, but if his luck this night held true then it would be along the lines of ‘your petched’

Again the sound received a responses that equated to hitting the final nail on the coffin. Something bad was going to happen…. Something really bad and here he was in the midst of it!

Were these the wails of angry ghosts? Perhaps the spirits of slaves sensing the intrusion of people from the hated city of Kenash and thirsting to wreck vengeance upon them! What else could those sounds be?

Reisin’s hands shook, he’d have little experience with ghosts despite their frequent presence in Kenash. Typically he made no efforts to interact with things that could pass through walls and render him a cowardly mess on the floor….

For what little use it would probably be, he unsheathed his cutlass and took a defensive posture as he moved away and tried to find his way out.

But fate mocked him once more as a figure stood before him, clad in the shadows of the swam and night yet still visible to make out that what stood before him was a man taller and more muscular than Reisen and one of undeniable masters of the swamp. He wore very little but only for the practicality of it and in his hands were a couple of sickles.

The name, however he mispronounced it in his mind, clicked with him then. The renegade slaves who raged against Kenash and ultimately the 12 Dynasties and have apparently terrorized it greatly in the previous season. A source of terror that sought to change Kenash's way of life which, while an admirable goal, often goes to bloody extremse and indiscriminate when it comes to Dynasts and Freeborns.

And here stands before him one of these rebels and he didn't look like he was intending to let him walk.

'Petch'

[Konrad Venger]

Gotcha, ya little sod!

Konrad grinned feral and hungry as a wolf as his little strategm for fruit. While Three Eyes was busy (and noisily) stomping in the wrong direction, he squinted and saw a shadow detach itself from behind the little clump of trees they'd first approached.

Cunning little shyke, he thought as he started moving forwards, fingers rippling over the hilt of his kopis. Distracting us. Trying to throw us off the scent. Clever boy.

All the more reason to take his head and do it quick-like.

But when he cleared the trees and saw the man plain - or at least his profile - the scene was not as simple as he imagined. Konrad's grin froze as he saw not just a scrawny, simply-dressed laborer with an old but keen cutlass in his hand... but a hulking figure, naked save for a loincloth of weeds and freshly-tanned leather, glistening with sweat and swamp water and carrying a weapon in each hand that could decapitate a child with a casual swing.

"Petch."

"Petch."

Konrad frowned, blinked, didn't know there was an echo in a swamp-

"Raaaaaaah!"

Whomever the figure was (though Konrad hardly had to guess) he wasn't about to ask questions or screw around. His gaze, startlingly white and pure against the shadows and grime covering his face, seemed to judge Konrad the larger problem, and burst past Reisen with a wild, inhuman yell, scythes whirling-

-Konrad's kopis jerking up to stop one as it slashed down towards him-

"EYES?!"

-then backpedaling as fast as the muddy water would allow as the second came swinging in from the side, trying to rip open his stomach-

-leaving the Rujaro's right side briefly open-

"Wanker!"

-Konrad took advantage, twisting his hips, jerking up his left knee and slamming it into his enemy's side, just under the ribs-

-drawing out a grunt of pain-

-all too brief, for the Rujaro was suddenly spinning, seeking to take Konrad's head off with a backhand from his left scythe-

-and Konrad ducked, lost his footing-

-splashed back into the water as the Rujaro finished his spin and faced him again-

Oh, bugger this-!

He kicked out desperately and caught the nearly-naked guerrilla with his heel at the knee, grunt now a yelp of agony as he mashed the joint in totally the wrong direction. The Rujaro toppled down to one knee and lashed out with his scythe-

-slashing Konrad's shin as the Sunberthian was a little too slow crab-walking back through the mud-

"Petching bastard...!"

He managed to stagger upright, blood seeping through the tear in his breeches, kopis still in his hand... and watched the Rujaro rise again, scythes still gripped, eyes alight with a very human fury. Oddly enough, it reassured Konrad. Just a man. Who could be hurt, fooled, surprised, made to feel agony, made to feel fear and, eventually, killed.

He spat to his side and tossed his hat away with his free hand, the interloping little shyke who'd started all this forgotten. Under Syna's rays, twisted and sparse under the swampy canopy, he smirked at the Rujaro-

"Come 'ead, then-"

-and charged, just as Three Eyes came at the bastard from the side.

Should've kept yer eyes open, wanker.

[Reisen Widerspruch]

Reisen had mixed feelings about this. It was unreasonable yes but Reisen sometimes saw no reason and thus his weird emotions began debating against one another for a brief moment.

For one, the Rujaro with the dual sickles dismissed him as a lesser threat, which was good in that it would allow him to run away and leave this mess behind. On the other hand he felt rather insulted that he was dismissed as a lesser threat even if the judgement was valid, it was quite likely they had noticed what occurred prior or that the two gents were known somehow and thus persons of executable interest.

Now that his brief moment of emotional relief and indignance at being dismissed past, reason finally caught up to Reisen and he began another internal debate.

While he was being dismissed for now, he could simply run off home. But that was assuming the Rujaro had no interest in him and he didn’t know anything much about the Rujaro other than what he was told, and what he’d been told was second-hand about them being brutal murderers. Running would just elicit a couple of them to hunt and he had no illusions how he’d fair in that particular instance.


One man with a cutlass running through the swamp against others who practically called it home and are known for frequent assaults against Dynasts? Yes, he surely had a chance against them.

On the other there was the man with the, admittedly nice, hat and his companion who’d tortured somebody. He’d witnessed their transgression, their misdeed, their crime against humanity! They’d kill him and he’d hoped that Rujaro took care of that for him…

But if those two survived, either one of them, then they’d be on some sort of search and he’d rather not live in cautious fear of being found out. Granted, it was a slim chance they’d survive but he shared less odds with them.

Reason, however mad, dictated that he side with them and hope that they’d spare him out of a sense of comradry. He hated reason at the moment, but Reisen wasn’t an idiot and knew the odds.

The duo, he observerd, were busy with the one that dismissed him. However this left their backs turned and out of the shrubbery at the corner emerged another Rujaro and presumably a few more were on the way.

This one was just as big as his comrade, but rather than sinister sickles that his friend swirled about with, this one held a half-spear and he wasn’t half-way hesitant on making a charging attempt on the scary man with the nice hat.

It was at that moment he decided firmly to bed with the monster he slightly and hardly knew than the one he rather knew much less and ran however clumsily to intercept the half-spear wielding one. It seemed he was fortunate that his own quarry was as inexperienced as he in moving in the darkness of the swamp, as their bodies collided with Reisen pushing the Rujaro away and him tripping face first into the mud.

Lifting himself quickly whilst silently bemoaning the fact that these were his only good clothes before straightening himself and pointed his cutlass at his designated foe.

“I petching hate this night…”