The Song of Karamurat

[Seperallis]

The midday sun beamed upon the crowds, the uncomfortable burning heat on peoples' necks and shoulders and backs causing a musky miasma to blanket the small seaside market square; not even the incoming sea breezes could part the odoriferous sea of human stench, its salty taste pushing with it the fishy aromas of the nearby weirs, swirling the hazy brew amongst the vat of bodies to be boiled by the fires above into a vile concoction the likes to which the locals had long grown accustomed. Shop owners shouted to passersby to partake of their time, for "harmless" conversation, for stepping out and swindling those who gave more than a passing stare. Peddlers moved amongst the crowds with wares in hand seeking out those of means or those who did not appear local... and preferably both, with whom they could pass along their perfectly legitimately gained goods where the only stealing they partake in are those low prices, lowest!

A man to the left shouting about his being the freshest produce in the streets as it visibly began to turn in the heat; a woman on the right championing the unparalleled craftsmanship of her baskets, woven underwater from the freshest of reeds to preserve their strength and quality. The noise and the miasma and the choking dust in which so many bodies moved created an orderly mess of chaos in which one could quite easily mask oneself from those one wished to avoid.

Perfect for our protagonists.

The nature of the place itself gave rise to the atmosphere which generated within it. Inversheil was one of those seaside hamlets to which one only entered for three reasons: to quickly divest oneself of goods better left divested, to cheaply vest oneself of goods better left divested, or to divest oneself of problems better left in other lands with as few questions asked as possible.

Of course, such problems sometimes had a habit of following oneself, even to places like Inversheil...

[Severyane]

Kalevi wrinkled his nose at the stench of the place. The rotten smell of the sewers and decaying things filled the air and gave him an overwhelming sense of nausea. Had he any other choice, he wouldn't even be here. He ground his teeth together in anger remembering the events which placed him in this position, events that had occurred only so many months ago. He shook himself and with his hood drawn low he maneuvered his way through the crowd spotting his destination in the distance. A small, downtrodden inn stood at the corner of the compact street. "The Barb and Bee" looked as if it were ready to collapse in on itself. Kalevi frowned, if only because he knew he needed rest and this was likely the only place in the city that would offer him a bed. He made his way up to the rotten looking door and pushed it open to reveal an even worse-off looking interior. Several chairs and tables had been broken, presumably in a drunken brawl on some previous night. There was a sullen looking bartender behind the counter, cleaning mugs with a moth-eaten dishrag. Kalevi stood, taking it all in. He was so distracted that he hardly noticed the barmaid approach him. She looked to him as if she didn't belong in a place like this.

"Well sir, what is it you'll have then?" she asked him with a bit of agitation in her smooth voice.

Kalevi cleared his throat. "Do you have any rooms available? I require one for the foreseeable future."

The barmaid scoffed at him. "Well if you can afford for a room, you'll certainly get one."

"Of course I can afford a room. Why else would I ask?" The reply was a bit more forceful than he intended.

The barmaid grunted at him. "Fine, it's four gold a night. Five if you want a hot meal at the end of the day. You pay now, and I'll show you right to your room."

Kalevi reached into a small leather pouch attached to his belt and pulled out five dull yellow coins. He handed them to the woman who turned and began walking towards the opposite side of the inn's main floor. Kalevi followed closely behind her, stopping when she did at a small door. She opened it revealing a quaint little room containing a bed, desk, chair and a candle. He nodded to her and entered the room, setting his pack down near the desk.

"Your meal'll be served in twenty minutes. Best be ready or you'll miss out." He nodded to her as she turned to leave. After she was gone he heaved a great sigh as he sat down on the edge of his bed. Just months prior to this he had been at the head of a great army, leading an assault on his former master's stronghold. He hadn't wagered on his initial success being the prelude to a trap. After he and his men entered the foyer of his master's keep they were ambushed. It had been a miracle that Kalevi had even escaped with his life. Now here he was, reduced to sleeping in inns in the sewer-cities of the world. He looked up as a bell rang just outside his door. He entered the main floor of the inn again to take a seat at a table in a darkly lit corner of the place. Only moments after he sat down, the barmaid brought out a plate of piping hot food and a mug of dark ale. As soon as she left, he hungrily dug in.

[Seperallis]

As Kalevi tucked into his supper, the place slowly filled with people: regular dinner-goers with no means to make their own meal, rabble off the streets come for their nightly drink, all-night patrons come for more than both...while the place was far from crowded, the dark seedy corners soon saw themselves filled with warm bodies, lit by the fires of kitchen and hearth. As the shadows grew long from the windows, the clamoring of crowds outside slowly grew long and distant with them as both merchant and traveler saw to finish their business and seek shelter before the onset of night.

The stench of rot and sin both pervaded everything, regardless.

From his perch in a corner, the sinne wanderer could see most of everything in the not-quite-crowded room. Beyond the wrecked furnishings a little ways away, several small groups, usually of two or three people, sat around the remains of various tables, partaking of both their meads and meals while also trying not to form too closely with others in their grouped isolation. Meanwhile, several at the bar, despite the modest accommodations, made merry with one another over the same swill (the menu seemed fairly limited here), obviously glad for the end of another long day. Here and there, individuals found their places to eat or drink, sit or stand. Talk, or remain in blessed, hard-sought isolation.

"A bit bland, maybe? Zhough, it does fill zhe hole in zhis one's stomach, but, ah, how it makes one miss zhe spices aff home, no?"

So much for hard-sought isolation, anyway. Words from the next patron over, a man in plain tabard and stockings rocked back on his chair and teetering on the verge of imbalance with his feet resting crossed on the table came most unwelcome as he studied the traveler, backwards and upside-down over the back of his seat. If you could call him a man; with fur-covered feline features, even Kalevi could recognize the man as Rashala, the race of cat-people native to the vast Lenssian deserts and jungles distant to even the farthest reaches of the sinne "empire." Truly, to sight one far up the Storslagen coast was rare, indeed, though you wouldn't know it by this one's relaxed native-like demeanor, his arms crossed comfortably over his chest while his tail tapped slowly on the floor.

Ears on a swivel, his words came as a wispy guttural purr as he leaned precariously closer and stretched a hand to his mouth as to protect a closely-guarded secret. "I have on good auzhority, zhe shicken is a littel more...foul than fowl."

The strange foreign man nodded and gave a light, mock "squeak" as he relaxed back into his previous posture.

[Severyane]

Kalevi eyed the plate leerily and pushed his half eaten dinner away from him. He eyed the strange creature suspiciously, something was off about him and Kalevi couldn't put his finger on what that was exactly. He took a deep swig from his cup, nearly choking on the liquid that tasted more like piss than ale. He cleared his throat and brought a finger up to his chin.

Thoughts raced through Kalevi's mind. Was the feline an agent of the Sinne, some enslaved thrall sent here in what would no doubt be a fruitless assassination attempt? Or was he just a local thief looking to scam what he thought was a witless traveler with too much coin for his own good? Whatever the cat was after it couldn't benefit himself. He sneered at the ground before looking up at his unwanted guest.

"Forgive me for being rude, but what exactly do you want?" he said, sounding a bit venomous.

[Seperallis]

"Ah friend, zhis one does not want anyzhing!" Staring straight into Kalevi's eyes, a smile rolled from the man who the sinne could have sworn was sitting further away before he'd looked away and made faces at a floor. Could you call it a smile? Rashala seemed to always have a kind of grin to their faces, but this one excitedly bore rows of fangs for about maybe a second before they faded back behind their cheeky mask once again, and his voice purring onwards. "...Well, he does, but not zhose things. Do not fear, for I am not some low peddler so rudely hawking his wares. No, no, I am Mooshneh zhe Magnificent!"

The cat-man raised his hands with a flourish and tilted his chin up slightly to catch on his grin what light could be caught. He held the pose for longer than was socially comfortable as he waited on the recognition that never came. As he lowered his hands once again and returned to his normal posture over the edge of the table - wait, was he getting closer? - and the few eyes wondering what all the commotion was about turned back to their own activites, he continued. "You do not know Mooshneh; zhat is okay. zhis one moves goods aff value from far to wide, and from here to zhere. A traveler of sorts, of sorts. You..."

Mooshneh, as he called himself, trailed off as he quite overtly looked the sinne up and down in silent appraisal. There was much to take in about the man, and all of it pointed to an easy revelation from his clothing alone that he came from places beyond the Storslagen. The cat-man's appraisal didn't last long at all, his gaze falling back upon the eyes. "You are a traveler as well, no? Of a different stripe, perhaps."