Erosen had remained, for all intents and purposes, close to Catrin since they had left. Cities had never been his forte and with so many people he'd once known, all being here at the same time, he'd felt entitled to stay hidden. The gods only knew how they'd react to seeing him again, he'd practically disappeared at the height of one of the biggest fights they'd ever had, and in the news he'd received in the fallout of the incident, most had been scattered. It was these thoughts which held his mind with a vice-like grip as he looked at the ground ahead of him. He knew Catrin's kind were hardly welcome in the cities, but she was far more indignant and proud than people would have given credit to her upon first look. He attempted to bring the scarf about his head further over his face, drawing up the hood on his cloak, over his head to hide from the rising sun. Cursed be the brat of a fire deity that was Pryastar for his needless spite, the Dark Elemental cast a quick spit up the stones beneath his feet before suddenly being roused from his musing by the sound of his own name.
He flinched. He'd asked before for Catrin to avoid using his name, but now she was angry and she almost couldn't care about discretion anymore. No, she'd been slighted and she wanted to get back at the people whom had disturbed her. That at least put her into a mindset more similar to Erosen's own, but his eyes flew up towards the drider, and back at the crowd as he realized with a sudden shock who was before him: Eric, Tristan, and Lisoette. He tried to avert his eyes, to avoid the gaze of any of them and hope they didn't think twice as his cheeks flushed with shame. Had he known he could get away with it, he would have tried to shadow-step away right then. Sense, however, anchored him to the ground and instead forced him to pull his cloak closer about him in the summer heat.
It was then he heard Lisoette's voice first. She spoke out, called his name and forced his gaze to turn away and towards the ground. His frame was thin, but hardly thin enough to find cover behind the frame of the drider as Tristan's voice also rose. Were it not for a fortunate shot of an arrow, ringing against Catrin's chest with a solid clattering noise, he feared what might have happened if they had seen him in his current state. He was positively reeking with demonic essence right now, Dark Element seeping from his very pores as he had only just managed to finish feasting upon the rest of the corpse he'd brought with him into the city this morning. Whirling around, hand dropping to his side and fastening around the hilt of his shortsword which sat in it's scabbard, tucked along the small of his back. Violet hues flashed in his eyes as he attempted to perceive the attempted assassin, only to suddenly move a step closer to the spider-woman's legs for comfort. She was built sturdy and strong, like a mobile castle and he could recall one particular incident with an overgrown Northern Spine-crested Rat that had paid dividends for using her bulk as such.
As out of the shadows stepped a scoundrel of similar appearance as Erosen, so too did a dozen others emerge. Erosen breathed in softly, his heart was pounding again. He'd not wanted to spill Human blood, but if it came to that, he would protect himself and Catrin to the best of his abilities. Their threats turned Erosen's stomach over within his body and he glared daggers at the chest of the man in front. Almost as soon as the attention had been laid upon Catrin though, it had been redirected onto Eric. His eyes flitted between Catrin, the old lecher, and the man whom was quickly identified as 'Dominic', a pirate. His grip loosening on his shortsword, he figured it would be a mistake to try and capitalize on any elemental usage here. As the threats of determining who was who, by means of violence came to pass, Erosen's eyes watched Eric shift his way closer. Closer to Catrin? To Erosen?
"Bell, juice the arm!"
A tomato-paste-like mist-filled moment later and the headless corpse of Dominic, the short-lived would-be Drider-assassin, pirate extraordinaire, fell to the ground with a wet sound of meat and bones upon stone. Erosen's face hinted a twinge of empathy for the brutal way the likely equally brutal man had died. It wasn't as though he hadn't deserved to die, or perhaps that there were cleaner ways to do it, but the mess was just now going to fall upon someone else to pick up all the pieces, nevermind how it would add to the smell of death and decay already prevalent in these alleys and side streets. A few moments later, and Eric was walking at the head of their group, following the remaining bandits to their den somewhere within the back alleys of Carogne.
As they finally managed to show up in the correct location, wrong turns and vengeful whores with nicknames as equally strange as their anatomy not withstanding the relentlessness of Eric Lumen, the scourge of Gaiacas Ten Thousand Brothels Guild. Before them stood a tavern, down by the docks in the harbor district of Carogne with noticeably scant city law enforcement presence, in favor of the sentries of a privately employed kind. As negotiations between Eric "Wielder of the Nine Itches" Lumen, the girl whom was apparently named 'Katya' and was an Air Elemental, a third more irritable yet well-manicured man, and the self-proclaimed Pirate Queen Francesca, Erosen took a step backwards and did his best to avoid making his presence apparent. It was easy enough, people did not oft like looking at things which displeased them, and his rags and cloak made himself a displeasing figure to gaze upon. Even in slums like this place, he noticed gazes bouncing around him, his very presence uncomforting to many.
Watching as the price negotiations began to take a turn for the worst, his eyes began to dart around the room, a hand discreetly moving up along his back until again it found purchase around the blade he kept under his cloak. just as soon as the tension had risen, however, it had dropped off. As the group moved outside, apparently something had arisen in which they had wanted to see the very craft that Eric and the girl would be using to leave Carogne. For where, he hadn't quite paid enough attention yet, but perhaps he would go along. That is, if Catrin agreed to go as well. He needed to make sure she escaped the city safely, and he couldn't do that if he was on the ship and she wasn't. Apparently pleased with the ship before her, the one named Katya quickly declared they would leave in the morning. Erosen raised an eyebrow towards her, the price had sounded rather high, even to him who avoided currency for the most part.
Her intentions quickly became manifest, however, as the group moved away from the port and back into the town. As she walked back through the maze of streets towards the center of town, she gave voice to her thoughts, her plan to steal the ship was one that likely would cost them a bit of trouble. Looking back at himself, Catrin, and the woman he'd abducted the day before, he let himself shield his eyes away from her gaze, deflecting his gaze downwards towards a storm-drain that seemed to have interesting patterning upon it. It held his gaze for a second until bickering between those around him brought his gaze back towards the group.
Eric spoke up, the voices in his head speaking to him again. He felt almost sorry for the old man, there was a hint of strangeness though about him as he recalled that indeed the group was missing someone. Where was the Angelle from the day prior? Had she simply been another of Eric's whores? The thought sent a searing mark across an exposed section of his neck and he grimaced, not understanding why the simple thought had wrought such a furious reaction from the sunlight and the deity which had no doubt concentrated it upon the disgraced elemental for that moment. According to her plan, they needed to sneak across the harbor on the far side, they being the rest of the group. Erosen sighed, apparently sneaking was their number one issue, but unless Tristan and Eric were willing to cover for him, he would likely be killed the second he tried to help.
Deciding he'd kept quiet long enough, he looked towards the girl and spoke. It was strange, his voice didn't take to Gallian as it usually did, the garbled tones coming out of his throat like some hellish speech, but far less nails-on-chalkboard sounding. It felt, almost familiar to the vagrant as he spoke in Garamiccian to the girl.
"If you would allow me, I believe I can solve the problems we face. Eric and Tristan will need to support me for it. Promise you'll take Catrin with you, and the woman beside me if you do. While it wouldn't work as is, it's because you don't know the tools you do have at your disposal, not all of the essential ones that is. Give me until the city bell tolls midnight tonight, then walk to the harbor and board the ship. None will stop you, question you, or attack you. Of that you have my word."
A flash of violet within his eyes, before they fell back into their luminous lavender color, punctuated his speaking as his gift ended itself. While he knew not the language he had spoken, the origin of the girl seemed most certainly to be foreign. The tongue of the Gallians was nothing like the sounds he'd just made, and he prayed that something would show for his offer in return. Reaching up, he removed his hood, to reveal that while the clothes may have made for a grimy and unkempt appearance, his face was not sallow or sunken or sickly in color. His eyes, while a strange and otherworldly shade of indigo, were not sunken within the pits or red from dehydration and his hair fell in clean and seemingly well-groomed locks about his face. He noted as one stray bang fell forward and ahead of his face, he was in dire need of a haircut if anything.
Watching as the warrior woman stalked away, he couldn't help but think they would need to find a way to bring her back into the group, before she got too far out of reach- or fell into the hands of The Watchtower. Calling out, he spoke towards her, his voice now taking on the familiar notes of Gallian speech," If you walk by yourself, The Watchtower likely has agents searching for you as we speak. I don't know who you ran from before, but if they're in this city and looking for you, there'll be no place to hide. They have your photograph as they have mine, and they''ll use it to persecute you, hang you, or worse- they'll dissect you to figure out how the little bits inside of you work to channel the power of the gods... Elemental."
It was a gamble, but she had recovered remarkably quickly from Shadowstepping, and knowing that most without the divine touch often could suffer long-standing pain and paralysis after one such journey, her energy and strength had betrayed something about her nature one otherwise might not have known without witnessing a physical manifestation of it first.
