The Fire Is Secret Buffs

@cabalofbastards @asherrean

“Mosur.” The name came out deep, the hollow voice flat. It was enough to make the draenei crossing the empty Heart’s floor to pause. After a moment he turned and looked up to the top of the stairs where Hadeon stood. Pulling on an immediate grin he put his hands on his hips and leaned back to get a better look at the unamused Cabal member. “Heya H. Didn’t see you up there.” “I just finished balancing the books for our employees.” Hadeon paused and watched the thinner man. Mosur raised a brow and tilted his head wondering what exactly this could be about. Not another Telerin incident he hoped. “Yeah?” “Yes. I noticed there was a two week vacation slip for our piano man,” Hadeon paused again but didn’t give the younger a chance to speak before getting to the point. He didn’t want to give Mosur to much freedom to talk around the explanation he wanted. “It’s signed by you.” Another beat. “Paid vacation.” Mosur grinned relaxing a little. “Oh, just that.” “Just that.” Hadeon repeated as straight and flat as he’d started the conversation. “Well yeah, normally when you take a vacation it’s paid.” He started turning his hand in circles dismissively. “Not here. Not now. Two weeks Mosur. If we don’t have entertainment, we don’t have customers. If we don’t have customers, we don’t make profits.”  Mosur continued to act dismissively of this. “Oh come on H. He did a good job, he deserves a bit of a break. Besides we have plenty of bands clambering at the door to get a chance to play.” He glanced up, the death knight still stood in half darkness at the top of the stairs to his office.  “He did good what? Fixing up Zaanthe. Or he did a good job playing your game? You still haven’t told us where you were that night.” Hadeon commented. Though he commented he didn’t ask or press the subject. Instead he looked down on the other draenei letting a heavy silence build. Mosur didn’t have an immediate response, the older draenei’s gaze weighing heavily on him. “Hey, hey, hey now. Hadeon, come on. What’s the problem? You want me to go tell him we’re revoking his vacation?” Hadeon blew a snort through his nose. “Yes. Actually.” He paused enjoying for a moment the look of shock that crossed his partners face before it could be hidden. “His last day of vacation is on a Saturday. I need him to work that night. The band I had lined up dropped out, which is fine. Zaanthe won’t be here that weekend anyway. Go see if you can’t convince him to work that Saturday – and from now on I approve vacation time.” He waited for the man on the main floor to nod and turned back to his office. Offhandedly he spoke, “and stop playing games, I don’t need you scaring off my good employees.” This was followed by a half-hidden sigh.  “Yeah okay.” Mosur answered sighing himself. It was probably time they did actually meet, this was at least an excuse. The Broken Heart’s piano man. 

The flames were familiar. They licked at his flesh just shy of burning him. Too warm, too close for just a simple summon. This voice too, sharp and confident, the popping and crackling that flavored his Ignan was also somehow unique to the Elemental. "Shaman, I should say I'm surprised, but I have an idea what this is about." "Welcome." Mosur spoke in common Kalimag and kept his tone paced and even. "I want to understand what your deal with Greyscale is." He watched the form of the fire elemental waver over the filigreed totem. "So you are who she learned my name from," he sounded pleased with himself. Happy to be right. "The young Dark Iron is a friend of yours then?" He choose not to answer unasked questions from the shaman. "I am, and she is at least an acquaintance. What bargain does she have with you?" "She has no bargain." He crackled. "What hold do you have over her?" Mosur continued the paced questions without missing a beat. He knew you had to ask the right questions to get answers you were actually looking for. "Nothing is free. Everything has a price. Power demanded. Commands woven in runes. Blood spilled freely. Words of power spoken in ignorance. She belongs to me." Mosur sat unmoved by the words that sparked from the elemental. He had already feared these things based on what he'd heard her speak, based on the parchment she'd given him, his translations and understandings of the runes she used in the circle she wove. "Is there a bargain or deal that might be reached to end or limit this?" The flames roared and crackled as if the question had disrespected the elemental greatly. "She is the one who should be speaking with me, not some other shaman." The roaring of his flames calmed and his words continued as if another idea suddenly came to his mind. "But she is spirited, obstinate, and overall uncivil." He leveled his gaze with Mosur's and fell silent for several moments. "So you are reconsidering?" "I am considering something. Yes. I would trade her service for that of another. For someone more worthwhile. For someone worth my time. For someone who would week their end of the contract." His gaze didn't waver, and there was no question what his suggestion was. What the deal was. "I know what you're capable of, even outside a shaman's reach. Do we have a deal?" "Yes." Mosur said, the words tumbled out of his mouth in an almost surreal way. Everything seemed to move too quickly and Mosur felt light headed as the flames danced before him stoking atop the totem. Fenix reached out with both hands grasping each Mosur's wrists. A searing pain shoots up his arms as the elemental's hands burn into his skin. The elemental fades away disappearing back to the Firelands leaving Mosur in pain and with two raw burns around each wrist. Mosur gasps. Everything is dark and his breath comes quickly and uneven. His left hand wraps around his other wrist, his good arm. It's cool to the touch. "Mosur, what is it?" A grumpy and tired voice gives him something to focus on and pulls him from his terrified confusion. "I didn't mean to. It just all happened so fast. She told me to never." Words of a woman long gone, long past came back to him. He was precious, he should never trade himself for others. They made their own messes. Dug their own holes. Pressure squeezed against his chest and it was hard to breathe. Saashenka, more awake now that she saw the way his aura swirled heard his confused ramblings touched with regret and terror. "Mosur, it's okay. It was just a dream. It was just a dream." She repeated hopeful that it was. He hadn't told her of anything ill he'd done and she had faith now he would tell her anything. His breathing didn't slow, nor did the beat of his heart at her words. He put his hand to his other wrist ringing it around feeling for the burn, the raw flesh, another mistake. "Mosur, we're home. Mosur, look at me," her tone held an edge of command to it that feathered off in worry at the frantic swirling of his emotions. He looked to her, it was dark, but he could feel the impression she caused in the bed and had heard her voice. A ragged breath was the first slow exhale he managed as she placed her hand on his upper arm. He reached out with both arms quickly and wrapped them around her pulling her close and tight, squeezing her to his chest. Another uneven exhale followed and he tucked his chin over her shoulder. "Saaska. Saaska." He managed only. He felt her arms weave around him and tighten around him. "I'm here," she whispered and tilted her head against his.

P.S. Oh and thank you for saving us

I’ll still be here on and off of course and really want to write more Mafia!AU stuff as I get the desire to do every few months. So yeah, thanks

The game had progressed long enough for Mosur. They say the winner of a chess match will always be the player who makes the next to last mistake. Though dangerously close, neither had made that mistake yet and it was safe to read nearly six more moves in before they would be tested on their individual strategies again, at least as he read the board himself. Still, Mosur knew Asherrean had his job to do, and if he continued to distract him with a lengthy and unexplained game of chess he may be putting undue stress the man. When Asherrean arrived at The Heart it was quieter than normal, enough to make the old veteran suspicious. The barkeep was normally counting bottles at this time, clinking glasses or humming to himself. Maybe it was just a combination of his nerves and the past couple days wearing on his soul, but regardless he had to decide whether he could keep this up. Though he thought he knew his opponent's name, the Cabal's fourth member, he had yet to meet them throughout the chess game. He wondered if the invitation he'd set when he left his bill for the enforcer's healing had been worth it. This feeling of unease started when the very first first move his opponent made came in the form of a letter left at his abode. His employers seemed to know more about him when they hired him, he'd learned. There was still something deeply unsettling about a note being quietly slipped under your door. After setting a few of his personal belongings in the locker he used in the back, he opened the door to the establishment's main room. For a moment he wondered if The Heart was closed today--the lights over the bar were off. The curiosity was immediately based as he saw what sat in the middle of the floor. A chess board. Paranoia sank deep into each of the music man's bones and he stood frozen with the door partially open. There didn't seem to be anyone here, and one of the rafter spotlights had been manipulated to shine down directly above the table. Other than that, only the dim orange lights at the back of the stage cast any illumination in the room. It was curiosity more than anything that drew him into the room when he finally summoned the will to move. He heard no sound, and no figures that he could see stood in the dark, though that alone certainly didn’t guarantee his safety. As he approached the chess table he took little notice of it, beyond the fact it was not the game he was currently in the midst of playing. His eyes still trained on The Heart's corners for movement. Still nothing presented itself, and he allowed himself to focus on the table. Before him sat an empty board save for four pieces, a black rook, two black knights, and a black queen. On the wood outside the table facing him were a pair of pawns. One black. One white. The childish symbolism wasn't wasted on him, though the weight of the question seemingly posed to him left the piano man with questions of his own. There were no notes, no indication of what each piece represented, or what it all meant exactly for him. Time passed; minutes, or perhaps seconds... he wasn't sure. Staring at both pawns, he eventually reached and lifted the white one. A beat passed and he laid it down upon the board, resting on its side. He then reached for the black pawn and did the same. Having made his decision, he moved quickly back to the staff entrance he'd come from. He felt a nagging voice and a chill up the back of his neck within the dark, empty room, wondering what would perhaps happen if he had made the wrong choice. He grabbed his things from his locker, scribbled something on his timesheet about sick time and left quicker than he'd arrived. There weren't many people that knew the bar's mirror was a two way glass. Mosur nodded to himself, impressed at the creativity of the answer. Nothing had even been spoken by either party, and it was entirely up for interpretation. "No one wants to be a pawn anyway." Mosur said to himself as he stood. He tugged his vest, straightening it, and left the small viewing room to enter the basement and come up the stairs into the staff room. It was empty by this time and he saw the notice of sick leave. True or not, he deserved a pass this evening. Mosur opened Koth's locker and placed a grey-stone bishop in the center. "Oh shit, now I have to find a replacement." Mosur said in sudden realization. The Heart still had to open even if he'd convinced Hadeon to push the time back two hours this evening. "Oh I know...whats the name of that band Zaanthe loves...?"

There was a chill on the air as consciousness became apparent, a dull deep throbbing at the front of his crest and a haze of fog that seemed to filter through his mind like waking from a half sleep. He stands, and slowly the realization dawns on him that he has been standing the whole time. Through half-lidded heavy eyes he gazes slowly left and right and finds his surroundings a dark claustrophobic void. Light, cast down on him from some hidden celestial point makes the emptiness all the more oppressive. The dread feeling of the encroaching darkness makes him dimly aware of how much he hopes the light will not extinguish. Each moment he became more conscious of his oddly empty surroundings, and less a part of a waking haze. Time had no meaning and crawled forward leaving him with a distant feeling of trepidation. A faint noise echoed in front of him though he could not place exactly from where, loud enough to catch his attention but low enough for its source to be indistinguishable. His head tilted up in slow motion but there was nothing to see. The sound multiplied, echoing from all sides, louder; a chittering to his right called his attention but he could not turn his head fast enough to catch its source. A second came from behind him, and as he turned slowly in place his vision blurred and doubled. Nothing. Now multiple soft sounds chimed around him, causing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end. Some seemed impossibly close, some a distant echo, and try as he might he could not locate their source. A chilling sensation climbed between his shoulder blades to the base of his skull and heat rose along the outer edges of his ears. A knot rose from his stomach and settled deep in his throat, his mouth ran dry. Slowly he came to the realization that the ground near him, and indeed all around him, began to shimmer and glint faintly in the light, as though he looked out upon a great field of stars. For the briefest of moments his fear abated and he swallowed hard as he attempted to clear the fog in his head. Panic washed over him again as the stars began slowly to shift in place, then drew nearer to him. Thousands and yet more glimmers picked up the light’s reflection, each closing in on him like grains of sand as though he were trapped in an hourglass. He recoiled in horror as the first neared him enough to clamber up his hoof and he realized that they were neither sand nor stars but a great wave of arachnids. Their jet black shiny carapaces perfectly reflected the light above him and at once he now wished that it would indeed extinguish and save him from this horror. Spiders of every size skittered at him, and he knew now that chattering was their legs against each other as they clambered over and around one another in a desperate race, it seemed, to find a home within his robes. As he began to feel the sharp pinpricks of their legs on the flesh of his shins and calves the daze he was in snapped away and he began feverishly swatting at them, slapping away dozens at a time. They too seemed to double their efforts and soon their noise was at a deafening pitch. Despite his best efforts they soon swarmed his legs and moved up his torso, he began clawing at them desperately and found that they clung to his hands and fists as he struck and began making their way up his sleeves. He realized that his battle was hopeless and in a last ditch effort cast himself to the ground, rolling around madly in an attempt to crush them and be done with their attack. Even this proved a useless tactic and he sprang back to his hooves when they began pouring into his collar and up his neck. As he shook his arms free of those he did manage to kill it came upon him that he was a mage and certainly his mastery of the arcane would save him. In response a cacophony of loud hissing rose up from beyond his field of vision and he responded in kind with a burst of missiles from his fingertips which arced through the darkness not unlike fireworks cutting through thick fog. He was rewarded with screeches of pain and found himself empowered by the rain of chitinous limbs that each direct hit sent his way. For the first time since this began a smirk crept across his face; he was certain that he would turn this around. He did not notice in his fervor to eliminate his attackers that his blasts also began to illuminate a much larger set of legs that moved slowly his way from just beyond his peripheral vision. Nor did he think that the slow abatement and withdrawal of the spiders was the result of anything other than the product of his own talent. It was too late for him to escape then, when a thick black spiked leg pierced the veil of darkness and cast its own shadow in his light. The mage faltered as he took notice and his eyes followed up towards a body of unspeakable horror. Before him, half in the darkness was a creature resembling a Fal’dorei, with the thorax and abdomen of a great spider, but to his horror instead of a tortured elf the top half was an all too familiar draenei. He recognized the familiar form of a long lost lover, now pallid and gaunt, it’s hair hung down in oily patches over its eyes and shoulders. It hunched forward, breath coming in erratic rasps that sent spasms along its torso and arms. The mage’s hands dropped weakly to his side and he saw a grave wound in the creature’s top half, a shredded hole on its stomach scorched by arcane magic through which spiders poured out each time it exhaled. He found himself drawn to its eyes, once full of love and life, now lifeless and glazed over, its brow wrinkled as it stared through him. His former husband sneered at him and opened its mouth in a soundless scream. “Why?” The words echoed from the monster’s direction, though it made not a sound and only ceaseless waves of arachnid’s issued forth from its lips, out from behind its tongue and over its teeth. Slowly its gaze broke from the mages and moved down its own body to the wound. Uselessly it covered the shredded flesh with a hand, though each breath continued to send forth its black army which crawled out between its fingers. The pure rage that had once spread across its faith soundlessly turned to a look of shock and pain and yet again as its cold dead eyes rose slowly, twitchingly up to meet the mage’s, its mouth still agape. Unable to move, unable to do anything other than stare into his husband’s unearthly visage, the mage was filled with a swirl of emotions, loss, hurt, a deep sense of guilt all mingling with the dread caught in his throat. As he watched, something beneath his husband's flesh moved, undulating unnaturally. A small spider clawed its way free from the corner of his lover's eye. The creature raised its other hand slowly to the skin on his cheek which trembled and bubbled under his fingers.  After a moment it pulled at its own flesh and a small flood of arachnids swarmed out of its eyelid from behind its eye. Elsewhere its spasms and trembling became more pronounced as its pale blue skin rippled and squirmed. More spiders began to stream from every orifice, and they swarmed the body as they fell to the floor. Through them the mage could see the flesh of the creature begin to rip and tear and great gashes laced its torso. Spindly legs burst force like an obscene pincushion as ever larger spiders tore themselves free. The mage watched in abject terror as creature tore at its own face and head and though arachnids erupted from the wounds at a horrific pace he could see flashes of glinting white bone beneath them. It looked as if the great beast was melting slowly with each spider that exited and soon his lover's body hollowed out and shrunk into a brittle husk as the inhabitants spilled toward the mage and fell upon him burying him alive in scores of their writhing mass. Kri'zaan sat bolt upright in his bed, eyes wide a sense of fear still thick in his chest, sweat poured from his brow. He could still feel them crawling over him, his skin, his flesh, and he swatted at his arms and chest flailing as he sat trying to free himself of the sensation. His breath was quick for a few moments even after he realized there was nothing there. The perpetual feeling started to fade, though pricks and itches across his body made him feel like something might still be there and caused him twitch or jerk. It took longer still for the dread and sadness to begin to abate. Glancing out and noticing the sun-touched sky made him consider it was time to join the waking world and abandon this attempt at sleep.