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Dontee nods with a small smile. "Yeah, yeah... I know I'm not a nobody, but you can't help but feel like one when there's so few to know your name." He says as he looks forward. He looks back to her when she offered that he join her for dinner before shaking his head and looking forward again. "I really can't." He says with a shrug of his shoulders. He then looks to her to say "See, I travel by foot... if I were to eat dinner at your place, I may get full... when I'm full, at dinner time, I tend to be a bit tired and I would be unable to get home safely... and there is no need to thank me, I'm just doing what I feel right... and doing the right thing makes me happy."

The tavern was that kind of dark, dingy hole that people came to get lost in their tankards in peace. There was a bar, where a few bleary eyed men and women glared sullenly into the dark stained wood that forever smelled of cheap ale and salted snacks. There was a single, bare, dusty light bulb on a string that swung back and forth of its own accord, throwing crazy shadows around the room of monstrous chairs and bearded monsters.
Theodore sat in a corner where the light couldn’t touch, nursing a tankard in his gnarled hands. He felt old, though he was only thirty-something. He had found that, after a while, you didn’t care how old you were, even though every year was another battle won against the darkness.
Out of old habit he had placed his back against the wall, and watched the doorway through his unkempt, greasy hair and overflowing beard.
He took a swill of whatever it was he was drinking – he didn’t quite care, but grimaced, as whatever it was tasted more like rat than alcohol.

He didn’t remember how long he had been sitting there. In the cold, artificial light it was neither day nor night, only a poison-filled twilight where those who had had enough of their own sad lives crawled to die.
He was too cowardly to take his own life, and too stubborn to throw his battered body at the nearest creature to come along. His bones ached and creaked with early arthritis from too many nights spent in the cold, in the rough, running from the things he hunted. He had scars across his knuckles, down his torso, down his back. There was a large chunk of flesh missing in his thigh, white against his dark skin and radiating down his leg like a dry stream in a drought.
One eye was closed, puffy and swollen with purple bruises, his hair was matted at the front with dried blood.
He knew he smelled, but he didn’t care. What was the point anymore?
This latest string of injuries weren’t done by monsters. They were done by people-a family, traveling in a beat up old camper van that he had saved from a creature that thought they might be a tasty snack for the road. He had killed the beast, but no sooner had he wiped his blade when the family had pounced, beating him black and blue. They took his money and left him in the dirt to die, but he was tougher than that.
So here he was, sitting in a bar drowning the pain away with this swill. Hoping to die.
Oh, wasn’t life as a Peacekeeper grand.

When she walked in the room, you could feel the whole place stand still. What had once been an almost comfortable silence was now complete tension; she was that kind of dame.
She swept into the room like she owned the place – nay, the whole world, her deep green dress flowing elegantly to the wooden floor, shimmering in the crazily spinning light.
You could have heard a pin drop.
The mystery woman looked like something straight out of a magazine; she was perfect in every way. Her body was slim with curves in all the right places, hugged by the evening gown that showed off just enough bust to be seen as attractive, but modest. Her hair was a startling shade of seaweed green, and it was lush and shiny, framing a face almost too perfect to be real. Her eyes shone with a sea-green colour, as if the sea itself was trapped inside the woman. She frowned, her lip curling slightly in an expression of haughty anger. As if she deigned to step into such a lowly dwelling only because she had a great need.

It took a moment after her dramatic entrance for the bar to get back to normal. The silence returned with the dull thud of a mug returning to a table, and whispers entered the air.
She swept into the room, almost floating to the bar, green shimmering dress sweeping the floor behind her. Theodore watched with interest. What was a dame looking like that doing all the way out here, away from the city? In olden times, this place would be labelled 'hic sunt dracones', or 'here there be dragons'. She looked like something from another world, bracelets adorning her wrists like the jewels of a goddess, rather than of a woman who would brave the dangers to end up in this place.
He had an eye for jewels, and from the looks of things that necklace was no fake.
She passed him by with nary a glance; it seemed that whatever she was doing here, a dark skinned, dark haired man that looked like the cat had him dragged in was not what she was looking for.
As she swept by, her scent reached his nose. It was sweet and salty, like the brine of the sea. It was nice, tantalising, as if her very skin was the sea, and just a lick of her flesh would give one the taste of the deeps. It breathed a life of its own, lingering long after she passed, with an aftertaste of fear, of danger. Rotting sailors brought down by hideous monsters to the deeps.
She was no human.
The Peacekeeper’s hands shook as they picked up the tankard once more. He didn’t have the strength to fight another monster, and he had the feeling that even if he were fully recovered, in the prime of his life, armed to the teeth and with a squadron of veteran Peacekeepers behind him, this monstress would just wipe the floor with him.
The woman had reached the counter, her delicate hands resting on the polished wood as she eyed the rough old bartender. The man was clearly not used to genteel women, as the first thing that came out of his mouth at her question was “Aren’t we all, babe?”
The woman held in her anger well, if she did indeed take offence at the comment. He couldn’t tell. "She's just under five feet," she said stiffly, "blond, has purple eyes, and a scar on her face." The bartender seemed to ignore the question, despite the air of power and danger that seeped from this woman’s very pores. This seemed to get to her, for she almost spat as she hissed at the bartender. ”Have you seen her?" The bartender almost fainted. His voice shook as he answered, eyes bulging in their sockets. The woman’s reply was icy, but she didn’t leave in a huff like he thought she would. Instead, she perched delicately on a bar stool, facing the door. Facing Theodore.

What was she waiting for? Why was she so patient? Was she looking at him? He tried to eyeball her past his tankard as he took a long draught, but it was hard with only one eye. Not so long ago he would have confronted the monster. Why did he hesitate? It was not like he had anything to lose.
Stiffly, slowly, he stood up from his seat and approached the bar, as if he were going for a refill.
As he passed the tankard to the barkeep, who carefully avoided looking at the woman as he went about his work, and glanced at the woman out of the corner of one eye.

“‘Tis dangerous, your kind being here. This is a human bar.” He muttered quietly as he lounged next to her, hiding the shaking of his hands behind his back. “We’re all old hands here.” You could tell by the amount of drinking going on in the place. But even hammered every single one of them was armed to the teeth. But would they stand up to a creature like her? He could hardly stand being this close to her. Her presence was that terrible.

Salem shook her head, "nonsense!" she waved his refusal away. "Now you have to join me! It's really no trouble if you happen to get sleepy! I could call you a taxi! Or if worse were to come to worse you would have to crash at my apartment," and she decided in her mind that he would join her for dinner. Because it had been so long that she had entertained any company and Salem decided that she'd like to now. She liked him so far, he was nice enough, compliant, easy-going. He hadn't said one selfish thing yet. In fact she thought, he has been unreasonably selfless.

"You see, so there really is no reason for you to refuse my offer again! You must join me for dinner, I won't take no as an answer!"

Karinda jumped back as she nearly collided with Lael, her hand moving instinctively to to her sword's hilt as Saiirin hunched her back in surprise.

"Ah, 'tis you," Karinda said with a relieved sigh, taking in the girl's expression.

"Do you know Chaim?" Lael asked, her voice as grave as Karinda had heard it. "Or Agrona?"

"Nay." Karinda shook her head once as Saiirin climbed up her dress and sat on the girl's shoulder, shrinking a couple inches to fit more comfortably on her.

Perhaps she may hold the answer to what yon odd creatures were, Saiirin shook her body as a light, chilled breeze managed to blow by, her scales glinting in the sun.

"We encountered a few creatures along the path," Karinda explained to Lael. "Their ears and head belonged to a bat, whilst their gray bodies were reminiscent of a fox. Pray tell, what were they?"



The familiar presence of a Peacekeeper wafted to Agrona. The corners of her mouth twitched in a frown as she watched a man approach the counter, the feeling of one of Chaim's 'races' intensifying. Yet, there was something off, something dark eating at the edges of this being.

She kept her gaze on the door as the man passed his tankard to the bartender, a smirk passing her face at the barkeep's careful attempt at averting his gaze from her.

"'Tis dangerous, your kind being here," she heard the man mutter, the scent of ale saturating his breath. "This is a human bar. We're all old hands here."

"And yet you're not exactly human, either," Agrona said, her voice soft as she shifted her gaze to the man.



Chaim glanced to Eve as she walked forward.

"Careful," he warned, "he's capable of stealing life."

He listened carefully, glancing to the girl periodically as she and the unseen being spoke.

"Your words still have gaps, though if you mean no harm, then why is it you've sought to relieve me of enough life energy to bring death to a few handfuls of other living beings?" he asked, catching sight of a thin trail of black on the sand leading toward the water.

The waves rippled with greater force as Chaim cast his eyes to the ocean, warning it of the parasite nearing it. Portions of the water rose, its shape morphing into large animals; liquid wolves, lions, and other creatures formed to guard the ocean from whatever dared to cause its master unease, the current of the water vibrating through their murky bodies.