T - Bee, Vyn, Yuiven

[Nathalia]

((Oh...the Outer Bazaar is definitely not where Raphael, Mirek, and Trix were trying to end up!
The Outer Bazaar seems to be completely deserted and full of an odd spicy smell mixed with something else...
Something horrible and rotten...
Small clouds of fog roll by their feet as the sky darkens prematurely and sound seems to deaden from areas outside of the outer bazaar.
What is going on here?!

It's unlikely that Vishne was trying to end up all the way out here today either, isn't it? He stepped into one shoppe and found himself inexplicably stepping out of another all the way out here in front of these three terrifying Lowlanders!
The shoppe behind him turned out to be nothing more than a half-boarded up old building, definitely not something to get him back where he was!

Your goal is to get the three through the Outer Bazaar and back out to the Capital city main fountain in one piece. Be careful, things seem a bit...off of late and I wouldn't trust too many people wandering around if I were you.
The fountain's a good two hour walk from where they all are, and some dark, inky substances can be seen lying about in various pools along the ground.
Use caution.))


~Nathalia

[Vyn]

How the hell did they even wind up here? Had one of those bleeding idiots taken directions from Trot?! The Outer Bazaar was not their goal, had never been their goal, and (to be quite honest) could have easily been avoided on their trek to meet up with Zeus. Still, they were here and as little as she liked that she needed to get the hell out.

Trix snorts in frustration, casting a glance around the deserted district. Her every step is accented by a sharp, stiletto click as her bone claws click against the cobblestone streets and echo eerily off the deserted alleys. To accompany the bizarre silence of the city was an odd, almost pleasant, spicy scent on the air that was unfortunately counterbalanced by a rather ferocious stench of rot. It was too intense to possibly belong to herself or her companions and, mixed with the silence, drew her thoughts more prominently to piles of corpses.

Perhaps something terrible had happened and the entire district had been annihilated? Unlikely.

A cloud of fog whisked along the abandoned street, sending a little chill up the husky's spine. "Well isn't this just a veritable ghost town?" Her voice smashes through the supernatural silence like a brick through a store window.

It also appeared to have broken the spell, for at that moment a bright little canine walked casually out of a store directly to her left. Trix's brow arches high and she looks around, making certain she isn't the only one seeing this. So much for the pile of corpses ghost town theory.

[Yuiven]

What are we doing here in the Outer Bazaar?! Raphael swallowed hard, but kept walking, his green eyes focused grimly on the path ahead of him. This district was probably the most dangerous place in the Capital, a hotbed of crime where the inhabitants were utterly indifferent to the doings around them- cursing, assault and battery, public intoxication, illegal drug use, theft, blackmail, extortion, kidnapping, protitution, rape, murder to list a few. It was far from their original rendezvous with the leader of the Hellounds, Zeus, and two fellow members, Obadiah and Trottelchen. I should've been paying more attention to where we were going, he lamented to himself. It's supposed to be my position as medic to ensure that Bellatrix and Mirek are stress-free while on route to our rendezvous, but getting lost is considered stressful!

Overcome with a compelling urge to look up, hoping to find a distraction, Raphael's gaze lifted to the sky. He came to a sudden halt with a soft start in alarm. Watching as the darkening sky overhead became dappled in shades of black, purple and midnight blue, intertwined with tinges of green and reddish-brown which cast a murky shadow across the empty stretch of street. It had been afternoon only minutes ago. Or at least it seemed like it had been afternoon! Just then, as Raphael stared fixedly at the darkness blotting out the light of the sun, another small cloud of fog rolled out along the cobblestones, chilling the emaciated greyhound with a cold that seared through fur and flesh, and bit into bone. He shivered from his nose to the tip of his tail.

Raphael stifled a yelp as he noticed that his teammates were going on ahead without him, and hurried to catch up with the husky and the irish setter. Every now and then, there was a slight stitch in his stride, and he risked falling as he stumbled over his paws, managing to retain his balance before crashing into the ground.

Sidling up alongside Bellatrix, slightly behind and to the left, Raphael cast a nervous sidelong glance at the deserted buildings. All around him now, he could see pale hollow visages staring back at him, as if in a state of mourning for the loss of life. Without its people, a city would be dead. Where was everybody? It seemed like there had been an outbreak of a deadly pathogen which had spread quickly throughout the Outer Bazaar, killing every suspectible male, female and juvenile, regardless of rank, suit, breed or realm.

Certainly that's what the putrid stench suggested to the medic- recently-deceased bodies already in the beginning stages of decomposition, sweet, cloying and rotting, overlaid with just a hint of spice. Raphael raised his head, eyes closed, and sniffed the cold, clammy air, the odd scent entering his delicate nose. Whew! I think I have smelt that particular odour before, he realized, Now what is it?

"Well isn't this just a veritable ghost town?"

was the phrase that interrupted his thoughts (as well as broke the deathly stillness). Raphael nodded in agreement; he didn't trust himself to speak. There was absolutely no one around, no one in sight. Or was there?

The thought was no sooner in his head when a boldly-colored canine strolled out of a store in front of him. Not expecting to see another living Card besides themselves, Raphael stopped, blinked, then his eyes opened wide at the sight. He exchanged nonplussed glances with Bellatrix and Mirek as much as to say do you see this too?

[Bee]

Mirek was just as baffled as everyone else by their sudden arrival in a hotbed of foul smelling terror and darkness, but he liked to think he kept his composure well, analyzing the area without fear. Whatever startled whimpery noises may have bubbled up at points certainly originated from cracks in the pavement or something. Not to say that the Outer Bazaar, under ordinary circumstances a den of grime and weirdness, was not looking considerably worse than usual. It was mildly apocalyptic, actually. The fog rolling in, blanketing low and swirling about. The sky going dark all of a sudden, darkening with the bruised colors of doom and despair.

It was all very chilling. A lesser man may have wet himself. He was sad that Obadiah was not here to see his measured calm.

"I'm moderately confident the world is about to come to an end," he said.

Then he was distracted by what everyone else had seen.



As for Vishne, he was distracted by mind-numbing terror. One moment he was in a little flower shop buying a beautiful arrangement for Senka--a spur of the moment decision; the flowers had looked so lovely out the window--and suddenly he was here.

In a dark, foggy, filthy mire.

In the middle of the Outer Bazaar, which he loathed.

In front of Lowlanders, whom he loathed even more.

Back away slowly, he told himself. Just because they're looking right at you doesn't mean they've seen you. He bumped into the building he was sure he just came out of and the door he thought was there didn't open. He whipped around.

It was a boarded up door. To a ramshackle dump that looked nothing like a flower shop.

"Shit!" he squeaked.

[Vyn]

Or no, it wasn't a store... Just as the brightly colored furball tried to backtrack to wherever he'd arrived from, Trix noted that there was nothing there but boards. Bizarre. All of this was utterly wrong and bizarre. Thankfully, her companions both appeared to be aware of the colorful apparition as well and she was not hallucinating weirdos. Good, good.

Trix's eyes narrowed into suspicious slits, glancing around once more at the abandoned City and her companions before falling soundly on the cowering canine. "You! What the hell is going on here? Where is everybody!?" Might as well blame the new guy, it usually worked. Especially when he had, quite literally, magically appeared out of the woodwork in front of them.

And, if she was wrong about him? Then she got to vent her frustration a little bit anyway and everyone knew there was no one better to vent on than the innocent.

[Bee]

Mirek waited for the bright man to answer--he doubted Squeaky knew what was happening any more than they did, but it was fun to watch him squirm, and doing to kept Mirek off his own deep discomfort with what was going on. It took a moment of stuttering for him to finally come out with something.

"Me?" Vishne spat, scooting a little along the wall, inching toward what he hoped might be a convenient little alleyway, though he had never had much luck before and didn't really expect to come into it now. He kept his wide eyes on the Lowlanders, preparing to really turn and bolt should they become truly bellicose. He wished Senka were here. Senka would take their heads. If he could get back to Senka, everything would be okay, even if he didn't have flowers. "I think those are better questions for the lot of you. You know, a pack of you, just happen to be in the Outer Bazaar, in the middle of...things..."

Mirek snorted.

[Yuiven]

The squeak of profanity startled Raphael, and he nearly gave himself whiplash as his head snapped back in time to see the spooked canine back into the boarded-up entryway of a derelict building with a hard and unexpected slam. He blinked twice, his eyes travelled upwards and his jaw dropped in shock at the abrupt magical transformation. Hadn't that just been a store?

Raphael didn't have time to ponder this eerie phenomenon. He had, however, noticed something that caused him to immediately go into medic-mode. He clamped his mouth shut and levelled his piercing penetrating gaze back on the bright young man, assessing him as if he was a new patient. Taking in every little word he said, how he said it, his body language when he said it— tail tucked between his legs, ears pulled back flat against his head, body curled in to make himself look smaller, while still keeping the wary, nervous expression fixed on Lowlanders.

Frankly, the confirmation of another living Card instead of a phantom or a zombie was more comforting than the medic could easily articulate. And in light of his observations, the reluctant patient's very real passive-aggressive response to Bellatrix's line of questioning suddenly made it occur to him that he could accomplish more by being friendly instead of intimidating.

Exhaling a sigh, long and drawn-out, Raphael shook his head ruefully and gave his colleagues a faintly reproving look, before stepping forward, moving away from them. The former medical student began to recall what he learned from his psych-ward rotation, and, unbidden as the old memories surfaced, the droning voice of the senior psychiatric nurse who had been responsible for teaching what was unofficially termed as 'dealing with crazies 101.' Raphael tried a smile— no teeth, maintain eye contact only briefly to avoid seeming confrontational —and cleared his throat. "I'm really sorry about this, sir," he apologized, subtly infusing diamond charm to magnify his bedside manner. "You seemed to have quite literally walked into weird and inexplicable stuff, just as we have. My name is Raphael, and these are my colleagues, Bellatrix and Mirek." As he was making the introductions, he gestured to the other two Lowland canines who stood by with a respectful inclination of his head. "We were on our way to a meeting when this fog suddenly rolled in and we got turn around, winding up in the Outer Bazaar of all places."

Then Raphael glanced around once more at the abandoned district and his colleagues before returning to the cowering canine, eyes a distressed olive. "We've been wandering around for a little while now, trying to find our way out but haven't had any success. I must admit that it was a bit of a long shot on our part, but we had hoped you might have an inkling about what's going on."

His voice was suddenly much softer and quieter. "You're the first and only Card we've seen since we arrived here.”

Basic Magical Ability: He can act charismatic and persuasive at times, whether or not he actually has the natural charm and grace to pull it off.

[Nathalia]

((A sudden loud thump sounded behind all present and a figure stumbled quickly toward all of the gathered Canines.

A tall, Bird-like mix, pure Lowlander and bound in bandages, he snarls angrily and hefts a long pike on a pole.))


"Hell's all this, huh? Who're all'a you?"

He swings the spear out toward the Josiggy mix, edges of his beak curled in a distinct snarl and eyes narrowed to slits.
"This scut one of the group runnin around killin' everyone? Eh? Eh?"
He yelled, feathers and patchy fur standing up along his spine and making his shirt rise lumpily.
He kept his eyes roving the alleys constantly.

His eyes fell on the group again and he let his spear sink very slightly.
"Not...not too safe out here, c'mon. Quick. Pick a shoppe, I've got your backs, quick, now. Quick."


~Nathalia

[Vyn]

Trix arched a brow in amusement as Raphael went into kindly doctor mode, charm and all. Thank the suits for that. She'd contemplated doing the very same thing but her current state of frustration was a bit greater than her patience to be kind and charming. She'd let the good doctor charm the fluff ball.

Thump.

A chill ran up Trix's spine, her hackles rising with it, and the husky whipped around to find a lowland avian mix standing behind her. Bloody hell! How had that scraggly bastard managed to sneak up on her??? Her stance eased a bit when she recognized he was a fellow Lowlander, but the wariness remained strong in her eyes. His mention of killing instantly brought her mind back to the stench pervading the air and her original thought of piled corpses. She usually enjoyed being right, but this time she could have done without the 'victory'.

"Alright," Trix grumbled reluctantly, "but you've got a hell of a lot of explaining to do." Lowlander or not, she'd tear him to pieces if he was fucking with her. "Raphael, Mirek. You heard 'im, better to be off the streets. Pinky, you're coming too." Turning away from the other Lowlander, Trix made her way to the nearest shop and tried her luck with the door. It swung open. Strange... Very strange. "After you, boys."

[Bee]

The nearly surreal level of awful his day had already hit deserved some kind of poem to commemorate its sheer terrible unlikelihood. There were now not only three but four Lowlanders, and that "Raphael" fellow must have turned on the Diamond charm because he actually seemed, for a moment, to be an amiable sort of fellow talking a decent amount of sense. Vishne had almost let himself relax, vaguely entertaining the idea that these three might not want to tear his throat out quite yet.

The bird sent him right back into a frightened ball of terror. He was surrounded, and now they wanted to get into an enclosed space.

"No thank you," he sputtered. "I'll take my chances--anywhere else."

Mirek, who had already began to see this as priceless entertainment, offered him a syrupy grin. He, too, knew that the canine was dreadfully outnumbered and thus, as far as he was concerned, a slave to their whims. And Mirek liked having slaves. It was nice to not be the minion every one in a while. He was not one to let a rare opportunity go to waste.

"Go on then," he said. "Run along. Get eaten by ghouls and water monsters or whatever the hell. It makes no difference to me. Or," he continued, getting in Pinky's personal space and forcing him a little toward the door Trix was headed to, "you can hang around with the devils you know. Who incidentally mean you no harm, unlike everything else out here, friend."

Who said he needed charm? The combined force of Raphael's good manners, Trix's casual insistence, and Mirek's cheerful menace seemed to produce the desired effect. Trying to keep an eye on them all at once and failing, the canine was led to the door of the shop. He looked at the Lowlanders expectantly, and of course the coward wasn't going to go in first, and neither was Mirek, but that he attributed mostly to wits. If the outside world was a mess, who knew what might have taken refuge inside?

"And by boys she means you, Doc," Mirek said. "Our brave and most estimable leader."