The Begining of the End

Rum... The barkeep had sent Tecuani on one last run to fetch some rum. No one was Drunk enough scoffed the drow-barbarian. The shadow of night had long been cast and Tecuani wasn't sure how late it was but the barkeep seemed to think he had worked his few drinks off, and Tecuani was thinking the same: some deal.

By the time he found himself in the stable, the barkeep had arranged for him to share a rather quaintly small stall with the stable owner's pet. Tec did not mind he laid there half tired from physical exhaustion half wired from the recent events since he joined civilization. He often wondered of the butterflies and the.flowers they effect, he too rippled chaos throughout time but this fragile creature managed to do it with grace. He had lost everyone he had ever grown to care for; family and friends alike. He wasn't weary of it anymore, numb perhaps. He sharpened the blade his fellow barbarian comrade gave to him before he mysteriously just wasn't with the group and the priestess too of course but Tec found himself in simple acceptance she was gone, but that sword made him wonder about the former.

The sun was rising and Tec had drifted into a trance. Most often took it as recovery for his binging. However the previous nights drinking seemed to have just been the opposite. It just washed through him. Not phasing him in the slightest. He fell into a deep meditation. He was in front of Kildrakgrim. No underneath, both their blades drawn his sweat dripping into Tecuanis eyes stinging them as if a secondary weapon of his foes was being directed at him percisly.

"Come on! You arrogant filth! Put up a fight!" He spat into Tecuani's face.

Tecuani all of a sudden breaking his haze found himself launching his foe into four of his men. The remaining one stood, drew his bow and nocked it. "Hold! Hold you fool!"

"Did I ever say I wanted you dead?" Kildrakgrim was holding his men back? But why? Tecuani couldn't shake his question he knew the memory, knew he knew why but still had the question burning in his head. The answers covered in the fog of a haze he arrived in.

In a flash Tecuani found himself alone with the man. His men gone in the forest leaving all the noise they wanted behind them as to announce their arrival as soon as they departed. "I wouldn't of killed them... all" he added at the last second with a menacing friendly smile to the man without noticing till the last word came out. Had he meant to speak them? It felt so natural and familiar? Yes, he was remembering he was playing predator and prey with some of Kildrakgrims unloyal. "Those are fresh meat! You would have made that archer shat his insides in his chainmail if I hadn't sent 'em away and then where would our little op be?" He finished with an equally menacing sneer to Tec as he, Tec offered earlier. "I still don't trust you! And I don't have to." He spat back before mumbling an obscenity in a foreign tongue to Kildrakgrim, he could only guess. Tec took to the trees and was off faster and a bit more quiet than the dwarf's men.

Tec found himself endlessly swinging through the trees. A screech echoed through the dark forest. The source nowhere near. Tec knew these woods, he knew it wasn't prey. Well it was, but it wasn't being killed very quickly or merciful at all. He quick found himself making a forty-five degree shift east, the sun was rising.. no thought other than that scream wasn't natural. Then he heard it again before breaking out in full arm over arm swinging strides. One more time. It was close. How close? Again!

Tecuani's eyes burst open with a flare. Screaming and chaos can be heard from right outside but where? Tecuani focused. Southish... Sluggish to accept it, he was to his feet before he had mentally decided where to go. He found himself outside running south towards... Hell.

Tecuani grabbed the first weapon he could from his sheath and lunged at this foreign creature. It's head cleved clean off, a warmth growing as Tecuani gripped the hilt sternly. The teddybear-orclike head rolled at a child's feet. Frozen in fear the child sat in shock eyes locked on Tecuani's savagery. Quickly stowing the child safely hidden nearby under some rather more safe rubble Tec ran to join from what he could only hope was his group.

There they were one fighting rather ungracefully fluid after another. That's who they had become, not criminals, not heroes. Misfits. Misunderstood or mismanaged. Swinging his sword one last time giving the creature a splitting headache just as bad as whatever garbage that was coming out of their mouths as speech.Tecuani could only hope their heads only hurts worse than his. He hadn't noticed it but he had a gash on his left shoulder. Pain was minamal but it shot upwards. He half smiled at his group, standing next to the hudo-man he let out a chuckle and joked: "I wondered if you bastards were having fun without me."