Nnh.

The world shifted, it twisted and contorted, and it wrapped about and within; it shattered and splintered only to become whole once more - and that was the easy part. No one agent could accurately describe how that devil's mechanical abomination actually made its occupants feel. To have your very being broken down, compressed, transported by incomprehensible means, and then to find yourself wholly intact and in another world - the world, to be exact - like nothing had ever happened? It was a hard thing to live through, let alone get used to.

"Wait," the man said and got up from his knees; he was dressed in well-made, though worn by use, clothing: a simple traveler's shirt, a pair of loose brown trousers, a belt around his waist, and what may have once been a cloak but was now a tattered, bunched muffler around his neck.

"Caution?" He asked. "Did you say 'exercise caution'?"

There was no audible answer: The man stood alone in a forested clearing with no living soul nearby enough to answer him.

“Don’t worry,“ he uplifted his hand and, using his index finger, he scratched at a disfiguring scar running down the center of his face, taking a portion of the bridge of his nose with it, and a good, large chunk of his left cheek as it veered off in a curve.
“I’m not so easy to kill now-a-days.”

Actually, he wasn’t entirely sure he could die a normal death anymore, but, well, he supposed one way or another, if things turned out like how they expected, he would find out for sure in the next few days; of course, that was assuming the devil’s projections were right and the rampaging voleur d’ame was, in fact, heading here next. For what it mattered, this was the largest collection of souls in the region and the most logical destination for a psychopathic, destruction-hungry voleur d’ame. All Bojan had to do was wait for all hell to break loose and then subdue the thing.

The town - Duland, was it? - was pretty much exactly how Bojan had pictured it to be: quiet, surrounded by wooden walls that spoke of rougher times, and full of life, of animal and human souls. He could taste it in the air, in fact; he suspected that the doctor really was onto something when he suggested this place as the most likely destination.

Bojan stopped just outside the entrance of the northernmost wall and turned to face the direction he had come from. Stretching his senses out, he surveyed the distance briefly before reigning them back in and leaning against the wall; he folded his arms and smiled inwardly to himself.

“Nothing strange, m’am,” he said out loud, “but it could already be waiting inside town, I guess, and just isn’t causing any trouble yet. Might be a few days, maybe, but I’ll check in every hour or so.”

A moment after speaking, Bojan nodded, unfolded his arms, and resumed heading into town. There was a list of things he needed to do before he could rest comfortably: First and foremost, he needed to rent a room and order a few drinks, tell a few stories, too, and get this town to like him enough before they started to question just how a man could survive the kind of wound that had made the scar on Bojan's face. Some things were better left a mystery.

Calling it a populated town may have been an understatement, the walls surrounding the area seemed to cram the large populace into it like a can of sardines, shoulder to shoulder downtown in the square, squeezing and rushing past each other, paying each other no mind or heed.

"YOU CALL THIS BREAD FRESH IT'S HARD AS A ROCK!"

"AH GOOD DAY CHERYL HOW ARE THE KIDS?"

"DANNY! DANNY WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT RUNNING INTO THE STREET!"

"SUGAR? SUGAR DATES AND BEANS!? SUGAR DATES AND PISTACHIOS!?"

Everything seemed in order, nobody had been devoured, all heads were present and accounted for, but then, with so many heads to count, it would be impossible to count them all wouldn't it? If a measly body or two went missing, it would hardly make a dent in the town, nobody would even notice...

So many people, people running people buying people selling, stealing, talking, screaming, scolding naughty children, arguing couples and laughter and a melody that rose above and beyond the crowd shrieking and bellowing a frantic desperate rapid pace. The notes squealed and strained as if it was struggling to impress the audience, and yet for all his effort, the suitcase ahead of him was penniless.

Ah well. For how congested the area was, he sure was talented at clearing the area. Just in front of the inn, the crowd was giving Vesdel a particularly large berth.

No disappointment was to be had with the inn, fortunately, and Bojan could not wait to get inside and have a few drinks with the pre-evening crowd; it was the kind of old looking, two story building that was especially common in Algeroth. Through a window offering a view of the common room, Bojan could already see a good crowd milling about.

“This is the best part,” he said under his breath; he stopped and took a handful of coins from his pocket, rolled them around in the palm of his hand, and then dropped them into the empty case by what appeared to be instinct. “Can’t do anything anymore,” he sighed. “They want to keep me on a leash, I guess - Eh?”

Well all be damned, he thought as he finally took notice of the . . . Musician? He wasn’t sure if the man was actually playing the instrument or trying to kill a cat that somehow got inside it. Either way, Bojan was glad to see that he was not the ugliest bastard in town; this guy was!

“Life’s hard, isn’t it?” He said before dropping a couple more coins into the formerly empty case.

Ugliest bastard was putting it lightly, a compliment in comparison to what this man looked like. There was a damn good reason people gave him so much leeway, and why mother's covered their daughters eyes. It was for their own good really.

When the money fell into this case, the music stopped (to the relief of the whole crowd) and the man looked up at him wide eyed. Just one, the other one was hard and crusted into a muscley sagging socket deep into his skull, that dragged down into the remaining left half of his face which was mostly torn save for the bits of skin that seemed to reach and melt down onto his chin in an attempt to keep itself together. The rest of him was covered in shiney whitish pink scar tissue that seemed heat pressed onto his body in grotesque shapes. Oddly enough this mans scar patterns weren't too unlike his own, only on a more drastic scale. Being in the condition he was in it was a wonder how he could play that god awful cumbersome instrument in the first place.

But he didn't seem to mind it none. Weakly the better half of his face twitched upwards into a smile, and he nodded his head gratefully.

"Ahaam l-lucky ta be Ahhlahaiive neway sssshir, thh-thank ye." he spoke in gasping quavering wheezes and continued his playing.

Ahem.

"Well it is good to keep an upbeat attitude, I suppose," Bojan said while trying to keep his sarcasm to a minimal. Honestly, though, lucky was not exactly the word that he would have used to describe the musician, but with as messed up as this guy was, he figured a bit of delusion might be necessary. Lost in thought, Bojan began to turn and walk away, but stopped mid-step; he looked back at the musician and removed another coin from his pocket.

With a smile, he tossed the silver piece in with the rest.

"Look, mind if I ask a question or two? Hell, if you'd like, I could buy you a drink inside," he threw up a hand and gestured toward the inn, "unless you'd, uh, prefer to sit out here in the sun."

And that was that, back to business.

Much to everyone's dismay. A large groan came from the masses,and the empty space around the otherwise bustling inn grew larger and larger as the people bled away from the building to escape the racket coming from Vesdel's playing.

"Curses..." a man muttered inside the tavern. "GERROUTOFERE BACONFACE!'FORE I MAKE YA! Scarin away all mi'customers. Hrmph."

SQUAAEERRKK!!

The music suddenly stopped and Vesdel flinched, shying away from the window just above his head the man was yelling from. "SHEESH FAAHAAIINE! You don't haffftaaa be shuch a GRAMPY GILLSSS! I'm the one covered in FARTH DEGREEE BARNS! Dunno whatcher gripin about!"

Lucky to be alive indeed. With much struggling Vesdel manage to wrestle his instrument off of him and carried it to his suitcase, to find another coin, a silver even in it.

"Huh? Uuuuhhh sssssure?" He turned back to the bar hesitantly, obviously he had reasons for not wanting to go but it WAS quite sunny outside. "Thahaaank you ssssir."

Unless given cause for wait, Bojan would lead the musician inside of the inn and direct him to an empty table in the corner of the common room; it was away from floor traffic and out of ear-shot, too. The last thing he wanted was to mistakenly alert his target, if it was, in fact, residing in town already.

“Take a seat over there at the table and I’ll join you after I place an order,” he instructed before making his way over to the owner of the inn; this was a man who was none too happy about his newest guests, Bojan guessed, using the man’s furrowed brow and dead-stare as evidence. Thankfully, Bojan was a master negotiator in every language! Within seconds, the owner’s anger turned into utter joy, bordering on friendship, in fact, and he may have even considered marriage once or twice during the conversation. All of this was thanks to the small cling and clank sounds that followed after nearly every word Bojan so much as uttered, accentuating his points on why the vagrant musician and he, the enigmatic outsider of questionable origin, should be able to remain in the man’s inn as proper customers, and do their part for the town’s local economy. The inn-keeper, being a greedy fellow by nature, could not argue against these points, and admitted his loss in the face of Bojan’s masterful, awe inspiring negotiation skills.


“Remember, once you bring us our drinks, I don’t want to be bothered again; this means no re-fills or anything like that,” he shot the man a cruel look and smile, “but there‘ll be a lot of money coming your way, regardless,” he added as the inn keeper nodded so hard that Bojan was worried his head would come off.

“Yes, sir, Master M-myasvosky . . . -”

“Myaskovsky,” he corrected the middle-aged proprietor as he left and made his way to the table he had pointed out earlier.

"Y-yes."

He did as he was told, it wasn't often that people treated him to drinks or took him out, and he wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He was just going to be careful, since it was just too good to be true, and positive outlook or not, underneath it all he was a little bit suspicious. Better do as he was told.

While the disfigured foreigner made his "arrangements" with the innkeeper he took advantage of the space he had and swung his accordion over the table. When Bojan came back, he would find half the table covered in strange gadgets, pins, bits of leather, a disassembled accordion and a stern look of disapproval on Vesdel's face.

Arriving at the table, the scene that laid itself out in front of Bojan's eyes was not at all what he was expecting. Seriously, who did this? He could now sympathize why the inn keeper was so apprehensive about Vesdel coming into the inn. This mess was embarrassing and inexcusable.

“Made yourself at home, huh?” Bojan said coolly. He was feigning disinterest in the spectacle in front of him, of course; he had to keep his cool and pretend he wasn’t raised with manners. After all, if he didn’t ignore what was happening right in front of him . . . Well, he was pretty damn well sure he would end up snapping the musician’s neck and eating him, ripping chunks off from his body and . . .

Damn. That was never a good thought.

Hh. “Alright,” he said and took his own seat across from the other, more horribly disfigured man.
“To start, what’s your name? Mine is Bojan Myaskovsky. That’s skov and ski. I'm a detective."

"Hai dohon't rhheally h-haaave a hhhhome..."

There seemed to be a sort of detachable rack of sorts inside the instrument. Preoccupied with his inspection, he tutted to himself absentmindedly, unaware of his host's disapproval with his spread on the table. The rack detached from some small silver latches, and when he did manage to shimmy it out, there seemed to be some blank missing spaces. Those were the pieces on the table that were supposed to be in the rack.

"Ssssnno wondhhher it sssuhhhoouunds like thahaaat.So hai don'T r-rrrreeheeally hhhahaave a plahace to do thiissss...oh!"

The news about him being a detective seemed to change things, his reaction would imply that perhaps maybe he had committed some kind of heinous crime. There had been MANY complaints about his playing about town, and he didn't exactly have an addresse, did they get a detective to hunt him down and take his instrument away?

He tried to put the pieces away as quick as he could with only one arm, the other one seemed permanently fixated into a bent position. The idea of the town hiring a detective to confiscate his instrument was unreasonable, but he had been cleansed of reason a long time ago.

"V-vesdel Vhaivhaissssaan sir. I-is everythiihiin ooohookay?"

Bojan leaned back in his chair and folded his arms behind his head whilst staring across the table at Vesdel. He had always enjoyed using that line as the opener and couldn't recall a time when whoever he was interviewing didn't have an amusingly defensive or worried reaction. Like the guilt of a crime they had committed in secret was suddenly bubbling to the surface.

In Vesdel's favor, however, Bojan Myaskovsky was not a real detective, and, for the most part, he really didn’t care if the musician had murdered, raped, enslaved, or otherwise harmed his fellow man.

“Oh, don’t worry,” he said reassuringly, “don’t get so nervous, Mr . . . Vaivaisan? Is that right? Anyways-"

He sat upright and leaned slightly towards Vesdel and began to talk in a low whisper.

"-I have reason to believe a Darokin captive that was in the care of the city state, Sythina, might be holed up here. I just need to ask you a few questions, alright? People like us," he gave the vagrant musician a look over, “are often ignored because of our . . . condition, y’know? We see and hear things sometimes.”

Backing away from Vesdel and sitting properly in his seat once more, Bojan stared down at the man and awaited a reply.

"Oh? Whell..."

Darokin captive running around the city, was that all? Whew! Relaxing visibly he began packing up all the pieces to his accordion, tucking the rack back inside and tossing the lose pieces inside the thing where it would be safe. Funny how the confiscation of his instrument worried him more, if the detective uncovered any conspiracies or crimes, that was what, jail time? A place to sleep and a roof over his head? But confiscation? That meant living without the only object that mattered to him, and his only means of living. Life would be less enjoyable than it already was.

Besides, it was hard to tell over the glossy shiney red sheen of the accordion, but judging by the faint smear of the low velocity impact splatter, he may have been up to some mischief of his own.

The accordion was finally placed under the table. Bojan must have been a real smooth talker, that line was creating a sort of bond, like a hideous deformities buddy, sort of friendship;. and since they had that in common he'd try to help the guy out.

"Ssshhsssythhhihiinnaaa sshhssynthhiihiinhhaaah....hhhrrrm" He leaned back into his seat and rested his head backwards, looking into his mind for answers, but didn't come up with much. "Beaahuutifull pllaahhaacccce Shhhythhihina, hahaaad a conccceeheert thehheerrre onceee..."

"B-beautiful? Sythina? Woo, - uh, yeah, sure, I can see that.”

Although it took some effort, Bojan managed to keep himself from visibly gawking in disbelief at the statement. That was, in complete honesty, the very first time he had ever heard ‘beautiful’ and ‘Sythina’ in the same sentence together; in fact, the only thing uglier than Sythina, Bojan found himself thinking, was probably Vesdel, himself. To be frank, Sythina was a monstrous city of iron and smog, and they almost seemed to accept organized crime as part of their culture. And they exported it. A lot. By Bojan’s measure, he figured Vesdel Vivisan did, in fact, have a concert there, though he was sure it couldn't have been a very good one, and before, during, or after this concert, at some point, Vesdel found himself taking a very potent mental stimulant.

Beautiful. Yeah, right.

“Anyways, Mr. Vivisan, sir, let’s get to business, alright? I don’t want to take up too much of your time - out of curiosity, how long have you lived here in town?”

Bojan's theory wasn't entirely untrue, like a handful of muscicians Vesdel did need a little help with his inspiration, he could have spent the entire trip on another trip while he was trippin on his trip, and it might not have even been for a concert, it could have been for a bachelor party, or something. Somewhere in his mind he played at a concert at a city starting with S, and he was sure it was Sythina, until the other S city came to mind. Unsurprisingly, his mental facilities weren't properly operational anyway.

Vesdel hissed out a laugh.

"Tiihiime? Doohoon't be sshhihhilly, nohhot like I hahhhave anywhere to goohoo. S'foohoor hoow loohoong Ahve behen har, behen har ahal mah lahafe m'pretty shhure."

But Bojan didn't have all day . . .

"All your life, huh? Looks to be a quiet enough town, but, tell me, Mr. Vivisan, has anything strange happened around town lately? Healthy people getting really sick or passing out, strange deaths, or even local rumors of odd things popping up; honestly, anything you can think of might help."

Normally, not wanting to cause any unnecessary panic or rumor spreading, he would never have started off this strong, but he kind of wanted get rid of Vesdel as quickly as possible. For one, people were starting to take interests in the two freaks sitting together and Bojan didn’t want any trust issues springing up if he was in town for more than a few days. Secondly, well, Vesdel kind of creeped him out.

He really hated his job.