[Nexus] The Black Dragon's Den XIII

[Murkus]

The lizard is abandoned, as he expected... and turns quickly to retrieve his sidearm, reptilian gaze never quite leaving his adversary. For all he knows Tahlia and Rein are regular folks, civilian types, no sort of match for a Knight of the Path - even a bludgeoned one. It's well they listened to him.

The old mobster puts his free hand around his gut again. Oh, gods does it hurt, but he's been hurt worse. Gun battles. Knives. His son's funeral. He swallows his pain and manages to glare back, and for a few seconds the pair glares at each other across the barroom, swaying dazedly like old reeds.

Then the lizard hears the squirrel. He looks at him abashedly, blinking, then snaps his gaze back onto the tall knight. "Strange, aren't you?" He asks, Adam's apple bobbing (or what resembles it for an oversized lizard). There is some derision in his voice, but... also relief. A little thankfulness. "Grasp your cudgel tightly, little friend."

Nothing moves the tall Knight. Not even the arrival of his burning, eagle-helmed counterpart. The lizard thinks for a moment that there's a second man, come for him, and just about fades on his feet before the strange warrior makes his demand. An ally! And a powerful-looking one, at that!

The Knight of the Path puts a hand to his dented head. He looses a slow, awful sound, a howl of utter misery. Sways from left to right, inch by inch.

In an instant he seizes his helm in both hands and rips it from his head. His moan gives way to a sigh of relief. "Ahhh," says the Knight, with a noble and lilting accent, "That is better."

Knight Rhodes is blonde, curly-haired, and very handsome. He has a man's face, which is a good sort of face to be handsome, and he was well liked by the girls back home because of this face. Because it was still human. Those close to the race of ancient Man were prized, sought-after and fought-over.

What would they think now? For while one half is still intact, a crescent of fair and rosy man-flesh, the other sags with rot. Webs of hideous black permeate his skin. His eye is a burst pustule sagging down his face. And Gods, his skull... something evil bursts from the rotten side of his head like a corpse-flower, a black malignancy with writhing arms and little clawed snippers that seems to have carved out a seat for itself in the left half of his brain.

"Purpose?" Rhodes turns his putrid head and stares at the other knight, looking him right in his fancy helm, intact eye burning with fever. Otherwise his expression is slack... dead, almost. "What know you of purpose? Still your tongue a moment, I beg."

"Bag," he starts, before his gaze even realigns with the lizard-person. He brings his head back around, whip-crack. "The bag. Stavrus." He extends his free hand, curling those deadly fingers. "P-please."

The lizard... Stavrus isn't doing so well. His tail lashes. It seems, based on his slack jaw, that not even he knew what lay beneath the Knight's helmet. He claps his teeth together and growls. "No."

"No?" The Knight squeaks back, lips curling back from his teeth as his face contorts... and the skin on the bad half rips open, just slightly. He laughs, giggles, the sound almost turning into a sloppy sob. "N-no, he says. Ha! Ahahaha!" A tear trails down Rhodes' cheek.