#darkgoman

The hottest memes that are totally meaningless unless you’ve read the first ark of my story, Melee in the Markets: https://darkgoman.tumblr.com/post/185643921494/melee-in-the-markets-part-1

IDK why I do this...

Finally decided to open up my multi-viewpoint epic fantasy project to this new platform.  Hi.  I got nothing that’s really all.

This is a story about some guy, and the day that changed his life.  Where does this lead?  Who will he meet?  Will he grow a beard?  Why did I say that last one?

   Rekker shouldered through the crowd, the mixing smells of sizzling meats, scraping iron, and sweat hanging in the warm air.  He pushed his way through clumped together people, ears filled with disparate chattering broken by the yells of shopkeepers to his right.  Even with his white uniform, with the emblem of the guiding hand on his shoulder, shaded the same, almost black purple of his trousers, lips, hair and eyes, he grunted as he still had to force people out of the way.  

   Ninstels.  On Ctaph and Order.  Damn. Ninstels. He could look down in the crowd and not see the white of his boots, even with the sun burning down from the clear, crystal blue sky.  Every other step, his leg brushed up against somebody’s tail, and he had to keep dropping his hand to his sword’s hilt, making sure it hasn’t been pilfered, yet.  This was only the first level. Each layer was a ring of flattened stone, getting tighter the deeper down into the earth. Steps carved into the rocks connected the levels to the plains above.  Shops decked all of them, some stands and stalls furnished with bright colors, others set into the stone wall, with wooden signs plastered over the doors to the small cave stores. He just had to find the right one as the conversations in dozens of languages hammered his ears, his head pulsing a little harder with each passing moment.

   He pressed on, bumping past other humans, Miskers with their long skinny tails wrapped around their waists like belts, weasels, workers hefting crates with sweat filmed muscles bulging, prowlians eyeing shop wares with vertical slitted eyes, and more.  Everyone was of disparate skin tones and dress. No other Aiesthians, or the auburn haired Aiesthia from back north in Aiesborne. Neither the structured, artful sounds of high Aiesthi, nor the free flow of low Aiesthi met his ears. He had to work of what he knew of lower tongues.  By Dayn, if only the rest of Sector Twelve, Squad Four was here, what he could understand out of any speech here was not much.

   After a half hour of shoving, futile apologizing, and ducking under crates and weaving around wagons.  On his right above a cave entrance, he made out the image of a wooden keg surrounded by round, rough studded Djupar melons under symbols that to Rekker looked like haphazard slashes on a training dummy.  Djupar Grove? He thought.  Well, even if it’s not I’ll get a break from this noise.  He turned the frown set on his face to lip smile.

   Walking inside, it bustled with full tables.  Still quieter than back outside. A few heads turned, eyes looked him over, before they fell back into conversation.  He head toward the long bar stretch. Where in Hells is Fayn? He did not catch sight of the merchant yet, but a grey eyed, auburn haired Aiesthia would not take too long to find.

   All the tables were packed with glass ale mugs, the dark orange of Djupar wine bubbling inside, the famed purple fizz threatening to spill over.  People sipped, gulped, chugged, and demanded more rounds from the servers, brown skinned humans like him, with shaggy dark hair where his was short and curly.  Still no other Aiesthians, who, no matter skin or hair, would have the deep dark purple of lips, eyes, and hair from birth, and would have been trained by his creed, set out back home in Aiesborne.

   He took a seat at the bar, back straight, hands folded.  Shooting his eyes down the line of the bar, he saw the people to his right were dressed in padded black clothes, their boots steel toed like his.  Small daggers hung from their belts, the blades half black, half crimson, and they sat hunched over, leaning their heads together. Sighing, he tore his eyes away.  This was not Aiesborne, no authority. The Captain would tell him to hold off too.

   The bartender came up, looked Rekker up and down.  “Drone,” the slang term for Aiesthian soldier, sometimes the only term.  “What’dya want?” The man grumbled.

   “What everyone else seems to be having,” Rekker replied, his voice a soft, low rumble.  

   The bartender nodded, turned to go, then stopped.  The man rolled his eyes, he snapped his fingers in front of the huddled together group to Rekker’s right.  “Hey! You all need to pay up!” Their heads did not even turn to the bartender as their hands dove into pockets, came out with nothing, then dovefaster into their leathers, coats, and boots.  Rekker shook his head. One held out a single finger to the bartender and six voices said: “one moment.”

   A hand whipped across a face with a loud smack and one of them slammed down to the floor behind Rekker.  “By Haph! You didn’t bring any halves!” A weasel, pale with black shading around her eyes, with fluffy ear tops poking out over her hair, the same brown as her mid length tail.

   The man on the ground, a young human around Rekker’s age, snapped back.  “So!? You didn’t either dome ears!” He leapt from the ground and threw his fist into her gut.  She reeled back, then tackled him, sending them both to the floor, kicking and punching. Another woman, a dark skinned weasel with a grey mask shading around her eyes, with dark hair and ears, knelt to drag them apart, but got snatched into the floor scuffle.  Two more weasels still standing started yelling back and forth, pointing the the scene on the floor before grabbing each other by the side of their heads and crushed foreheads together. They sailed down to the ground, unconscious. That left one more.

   They wore a belt, but a black cloak obscured their face view while black gloves covered their hands.  The bartender’s eyes widened as he looked down at the others on the floor. “Listen,” he said to the cloaked one, “someone has to pay for your… nine rounds of milk.”

   Rekker slapped a pile of coins onto the bar stretch.  The righteous path is hard, but just… he thought.

   A hand rest on his shoulder.  “There you are.” It tried to pull him away, not budging him till he got up himself.  His eyes met the darkness under the cloak, the three on the floor still fighting and screaming.

   Finally it was Fayn.  He wore clothes of disparate bright colors, but he wore his auburn hair long and unstyled, tucked behind his ear, like all Aiesthia back north.  His skin was tanned slightly, and he wore a flat cap made of dark red leaves woven together. They came up to a table and sat down.

   “Been good?”  Slight and thin where Rekker’s was toned through the years, the young man must have been a couple than Rekker’s twenty five.  He wrapped both hands around a mug bubbling with wine brought it to his lips. Rekker reached out and yanked the mug from Fayn’s lips.  “Come on!” he sighed, rolling his eyes as Rekker gulped the wine down in one swig, and frowned. Ugh… He shoved the mug away.  Hated the stuff already, and the years of tolerance training made most drink weaker than water.  Still, he and Fayn needed to talk, and he did not feel like dealing with a drunk.

   “We leave tomorrow, mid day, North road connecting to the third northwest path.”  Rekker looked Fayn in the eyes, frowning.

   “Alright, alright.  Tomorrow.”

   “And you will have your wares gathered up by sunset, tonight.”  Escort work, highlight of calm times.  Hells.

   “By Ctaph’s hand why the rush?  Do you drones ever relax?” Rekker did not respond.  “We’ll go on time, Hells, can I just get some wine?”

   “No.”

   “I can’t belie-”

   “No.”

   They sat, not speaking.  The cloaked figure dragged the other five out of the bar, and the chatter in the bar continued.  

   Silence blanketed the bar.  Two women stood in the entryway.  Dressed in red, they had what seemed to be big, fluffy scarves of white fur around their necks, but Rekker knew better.  Their skin showed the color of a overcast sky. One had a cape draping over them from their neck fur down, the other’s top was studded with iron bits, fitted with folds of knives to web like mail, sleeveless to show toned arms like a soldier training with log lifting.  Both had large ears. The pointy ears of bats.

   Vampires.  Rekker’s hand moved to rest on his sword hilt.  The one in the cape led the way inside, smiling without letting any teeth show, eyes forward.  The other trailed behind, hands on twin stabbing blades on her belt, darting her eyes around the bar, locking eyes with Rekker for a second.  Two seconds. Three. She looked away, and a scowl grew of Rekker’s face. Behind the two came a chorus of thumps. Skeletons, bones pure ivory in the light, marched into the bar in two lines of three, hefting large crates, wearing boots and fur shirts.  Their bare skulls gave the illusion of wide grins, and a violet glow burned in their empty eyes sockets.

   The group went straight to the bartender, who shivered in place.  The one with the swords exchanged words with him. The skeletons marched into the back and returned empty handed.  She seemed to mouth some words to herself, but the other nodded, heading out with skeletons in tow. She stayed, grabbed a mug, and sat, next to Rekker.

   “Greetings,” she addressed his in high Aiesthi, his language.  He ground his teeth together. “Tell me, soldier…” she looked back at the exit.  “See anything, just a little, wrong around this place?”

   “Other than two monsters coming into a bar?”  He mumbled in low Aiesthi, knowing she would hear it.  As if I’d let your blood laced tongue speak Ctaph’s words!

   “Listen, I’m being serious.  I could use your help. My name is Metslyana.”  She switched languages too. Did all that blood help with that too?

   “I’m serious too, bloodsucker.  I’ll humor you with my name: Rekker.  I’d usually give your like that much respect before I end your blight on the righteous of this world.”  Fayn had fallen asleep, head resting on the table.

   Her eyes widened, narrowed, then she smiled, baring teeth, rows of fangs on fangs.  “Funny. Really-really funny, bluelips. Funny and fitting.” She took her mug and let all the wine flow down her throat, then slammed the mug back down on the table.  “I’m dying, no I’m on the floor laughing, right now! Hells. You. Are. Like. All. The. Other. Mindless. Drones. I’ve. Had. The. Pleasure.  Of.  Dealing.  With!” She growled out the words, smile growing, teeth glinting in the light.  “Exactly the same! ‘Righteous path’ this! ‘For the Empress’ that! Same old cycle, buzzing like the brainless bee you are.”

   She stood.  “And one more thing…  I CAN ONLY EAT FRUIT!”  She smacked him clean across the face with her mug, and left.    -Darkgoman