Episode 2

Thorn moves with Kray, a hand on Ivor's elbow if need be, to help Ra u nak with the boxes.

The old Seetan tea maker leads everyone up a spiral staircase, down a hall, and into a parlor room. There are couches and chairs placed about the room in the fashion of a sitting and lounging area.

"I have been on my feet all day. Very tired," Ra u nak says, in Yuoric, as he sits on one of the reclining slant cushioned chairs. After rummaging through his bag to find a padded silk eye-cover, Ra u nak lies back and places the cover over his eyes.

"Very taxing. It is best to rest in these times. Hoohoo...Ha," he chuckles softly and settle his head back. "Rest the mind." He stills and definitely seems to be falling asleep. "The body is weak. The mind must withdraw. Ha...hoo." He whispers out and then silences.

The two Bishtu workers have not even been told, but they are already laying down on small rugs on the floor. They turn away like nothing is wrong and sleep.

Kray and Thorn feel heavy and sluggish themselves. What is going on here? Ivor is still in a daze, but he sits down on a couch and stares down at the floor between his feet, saying nothing.

No one else is in the room. There is one entrance from the hallway. The door is shut and a bolt is thrown over it from the inside.

"Fates be damned." Kray discarded the words as his eyes swept the room, a singular shake of his head further expressing his discontent with the turn of events. "Some strange shit going on. Have to wonder how much better off we are in here. Cornered if the wrong types come knocking." He looked at Ivor, assessing for a moment, then continued with an almost inaudible chuckle. "And does he need a wet nurse or..." Kray took out a spliff, twisting the end off "... or a smoke. I could use one."

Kray lit his spliff on the nearest available firefight, taking a deep drag. Savoring the Heshaban tobacco deep in his lungs, he exhaled after a few seconds passed. "Well, Aemlar," he paused for effect, allowing the levity of using Thorn's adopted pseudo name used between the two of them to settle. More and more it had become a standing joke between the two of them. "Mind seeing if there's another way out? Or you could join the grandfather and the rest of the babes for nap time." Another amused chuckle, followed by another drag on the spliff with a bloodshot gleam in his eyes.

Suddenly all business, Kray knelt beside Ivor, hitting the spliff hard. "Time to wake up, gladiator." With that, Kray pushed the burning cherry of his smoke into the back of Ivor's neck, just enough so as to leave a scar, twisting it as he continued.

"Wake the fuck up."

Thinking Thorn with his eagle eyes could make that search for a secret door. Worth a shot.

Thorn's eyes narrow briefly at the mention of his name.

Then he nods and walks around the room, looking for Kray's possible second exit, but also for anything that might look useful to them or purposefully hidden from prying eyes like his.

He also keeps an eye on the napping Ra u nak.

Kray's mind starts calculating options, pondering the strangeness of their situation while simultaneously noting what appears to be an oddly unfocused Thorn.

Door's bolted from the inside. Weird shit happening in the party rooms. The tea man and his lackeys went straight from evacuating the poetry party to a slumber party. What the hell is going on?

Kray pulled the spliff off of Ivor's burning flesh to take a drag as his thoughts drifted to his time in the Borgh Riac. The decimated and dying village. The Hive, dead men turned into inhuman pawns. The deaths of Talius and Qiu on Old Island. Amphibious monstrosities in the depths of the Black Ziggurat, raping and impregnating the women of the Borgh. An ancient power struggle among gods older than time itself. The Dark Throne in the final chamber. Rutcranna's apparent ascendance to the status of a living deity. The slowing of time and space in what appeared to be some mystical connection between those he entered that dark, deep, nightmarish hell with. The bloody escape from the throne room and the Black Ziggurat to the light of day.

Surviving, despite the odds and the alien strangeness of it all. Sometimes he felt as if the Fates...

or something else

...had taken a particular interest in their path.

He missed Sorcha, Rutcranna's daughter whom he had adopted after their escape, who had been instrumental in their surviving the Black Ziggurat. He had, of course, concealed her identity under the name Lucretia Mercon in an effort to protect her from Nemes Zaituc. Since the brutal war in the north, the frozen hellscape that it was, he hadn't seen her. Often he dreamt of her, imagery of sunny meadows and better days that had yet to happen. May never happen.

Life had become surreal since he had left Jeresian land for the Borgh Riac. In rare moments of reflection he wondered if it was all a dream, but always knew the truth of it. Especially when he was putting metal to work on flesh and bone.

His mind snapped back to the present. Did Ra u nak have some wisdom he had yet to tap in to?

Should we just follow the old tea man's lead and... sleep?

Sizhen greets both in the repectful Heshbaan fashion, his hands and two daggers in plain view. After, he switches to Zurtaran.And in rudimentary Heshbaan:

Trece observes Sizhen with a weary eye, his hand still hidden in his robes