The tavern stank of sweat, poorly made mead, and pathetic patrons that didn’t know the meaning of real violence. What they knew was a pale imitation of what Reos left in his wake on the streets, in temples, throughout the city. A true kill still fresh and clinging to his armor, damp and tacky beneath leather gloves. No amount of alcohol and smoke filled air could scrub away the perfume of blood and gore that permeated from Bhaal’s son.
His gaze is sharp beneath smudged eyeliner, scanning the crowd as he flipped between another kill for his Father or a filthy rut in one of the upstairs rooms. Hells, sometimes an alleyway if he doesn’t catch a room for a decent price. His presence alone seems to sour the air, however. A subtle unease in the gazes he manages to catch. Laughter falters, heartbeats skip. Maybe he should’ve bathed first.
The chair opposite of him scrapes the floor and Reos doesn’t even flinch. He barely manages to bother looking at the other straight away. Only when a drink lands in front of him with a hefty thud does Reos finally meet the other man’s stare. Red eyes— something a touch predatory, a kind of recognition only killers share.
So, who was it?
Reos lets the question hang there as he savors the drink first. Licking his lips after the initial sip, a slow and humorless smile curls the corners of his mouth. “Not a soul worth mentioning,” he finally speaks. Calm, deliberate and a touch commanding. He leans forward, elbows on the table, eyes locked on the other with a quiet and almost oppressive intensity. There’s a hint of something unstable in elven greens. “Awful curious, aren’t you?”
He tilts his head, a predator appraising prey. Although he has yet to decide whether the stranger belongs on the altar or beside it. There’s an eerie calm in the way Reos speaks, no shame, no regret, just undying purpose. “Can you tell the difference between the kill for coin… and the kill for a God?”
He leans back; gaze still locked in red. red. red. Eyes that match the drying stains spattered and caked in the crevices of his armor. “They were born to die by my hand. Just like everyone else will, eventually.” The words hang heavy, a promise and a threat all at once. And yet, his tone seems euphoric. Bhaal’s son riding out the high of his most recent kill— a high he wonders if his new friend will ruin or help fuel. He takes another slow drink, maintaining eye contact over the rim of his tankard.
"You here alone?"
Ah, so the age-old instincts had not yet failed him. An offering to some devilish, accursed entity; something defiled and sacrilegious, had turned the essence of life into a putrid venom.
The tiefling's head cocked in such a way that spoke of a morbid curiosity, his broad back weighing into the chair as he allowed this moment to re-assess the man before him.
A fanatic sprung many images to mind. The clerics in the city were often well kept and cared for by their temples; silken robes, brilliant (but modest) display of gems and gilded necklaces framing the deities of whom they'd devoted to. The shrines of Selûne stood like pale, marble diamonds amidst the sea of smoke and gray, with her followers appearing equally as magnificent under their drapes of moon-touched silver. Blood was hardly the choice of ornamentation, lest they had the heart to desecrate their Gods.
But, as he'd known it, the religions in Faerûn were far more expansive than the few coddled sermons that were celebrated in the public eye. The stranger, whoever he was, was certainly no follower of Gond or Tymora.
"A Bhaalist," Marcellus concluded, an affirmation more for his own sake as he took up his own tankard. He could see himself entertaining him. Besides, the night was long. It was always long. The desolate barracks buried beneath the sands of the colosseum held no fortunes for the wanton mind, nor the company of his handlers offered much to envy.
"I'd have thought Bane, at first. But even those guys have a bit more tact when it comes to dressing." He chuckled, taking generous swig from his bitter drink. "But you..." his prying, molten eyes flickered lazily back to survey the span of gore that coated the man's breastplate. "Well, frankly you look like you just crawled out of bucket of entrails."
His tail swished about the dust that peppered the tavern floor; a comfortable buzz loosening him and kept him amused, even as the subject pressed on to the hint of, perhaps, his own gruesome demise. "Is that an invitation?" The edge of his lips quirked in return as he lowered his tankard; something lascivious had snaked its way into the way his dark flesh coiled around his teeth.
"I'm alone," he sighed as he feigned a self-pitying shrug. It was not one of those days where he'd be servicing the upper city. His only bridge to that part of the world had been through a few pretty contacts, all of whom had been, unfortunately, preoccupied. "Why? Are bored tieflings on your menu tonight?"
