Chapter CDVI: City Livin’/Real-Bad Estate ~Multehx

With a loud groan, the assassin, Scilas, stretched long and hard. With an exaggerated sigh, he grinned. "But damn if you don't forget the bliss of the big city when you're away from the planet."

Jaded nodded, closing his eyes in rest. "Mmmhmm."

The waiter walked up to the table and asked on the condition of the two. Scilas nodded to his empty plate and took hold of that which was his friend's, and handed both to the young man. The fellow nodded, smiled a polite but fake smile, and left with them both.

Scilas glanced casually out the window to the harbor. The two had decided, on their time off, to hit a restaurant that Scilas had seen on his rounds with the agent long ago but never gotten a chance to try. It had been very enjoyable indeed. Good food, great location, grand atmosphere, good times.

The assassin turned to the mercenary. "Say, what time are we supposed to be back to meet the guy with the no-faceness?"

Jaded smirked, opening an eye. "He's probably snickering, hearing you call him that. But, when it's time, we'll meet there, he said. So, as usual, just relax."

Scilas nodded, turning back to the window, and idly questioned aloud, "Wonder where the others are really."

////////

Far above the world of Fa'Diel, where the people busied themselves, existed the noble, the majestic, Lofty Mountains. There were a few who dwelled here, the majority of the action existing in the small village of Mandala. But, further above, among the peaks of the mountains, upon a rather rock-covered, gravely patch of ground, the crisp wintry air began to grow thicker. More dense it became until it was an almost soup of a fog, a sickeningly purple mist that wafted about the nearby peaks, curled through the crevasses, and loomed above the rocky ground.

At the centre of it, the mist seemed to grow even thicker, and began to harbor a darkened mass in its concealing veil. As the vapors drifted away, the first bit exposed was a slightly rusty, overgrown with creeper vines, iron fence. The immense kind, with little barbed arrows at the top of each pole. They ran in a large circle, connected by a pair of massive, iron gates at the front. Inside of the fence stood what appeared to be the silhouette of a rather immense structure. The purple shroud slid away to reveal an immense, wood and brick built manor house. The roof was covered by black, almost sinister, evil looking shingles. The paint job appeared to be some demented mortician's impression of what one would get for a graveyard-grey mixed with the color of the pure essence of death itself. Almost horrifyingly scary, in its morbid glory the estate loomed, purple wisps drifting about it still.

Though, through it all, the only sound heard was the howling of the chilly winds about the mountains. Not a single creak or groan came from the structure itself, nor did a single energy spike flare up in wake of its presence. Though there, only a hollow image of its true self; almost just an illusion. It was as if it was simply the waking spectre from which nightmares flow.