Kurayo, a city built upon fragile balance with chaos forever bubbling beneath. This was a place ruled by the night; nearly permanent darkness blotted out the sky and protected the creatures of the night. Vampires ruled the city as diplomats with drow alongside, both were easy enough to manage. The true threat of the city was the werewolves and other lycans as it had been decided long ago to allow them to do mostly as they wished. At times, this might lead to bloodshed against those not of the city, but such was the way of things here. Why this place had become a major trading city, Kale would never know.
In spite of all this, the pirate found himself in this dangerous place without protection due to a job. The job had been an honest one, but the protection offered had run out that afternoon. Normally, he’d have left, but Kale had managed to secure another contract, though this offered no renewal of his protections as it was somewhat less than legitimate. He’d have to wait for tomorrow when his cargo would be loaded and he could depart. For now, he found himself in one of the taverns strewn about.
Kale sat at a table in an out-of-the-way corner, taking his time with the mead before him. As was his new custom, he was taking his time to try and avoid certain repercussions that tended followed him around when he’d drink too much. He’d slipped up the night before, but nothing too out of hand had happened as a result. The pirate was currently working on letters he’d need for his next job; some of them forgeries and others legitimate. Mixed among those were letters written to no one living in Revaliir and a few to what few friends Kale had in this world. He’d spent most of the evening at the table writing one thing or another.
He was in the middle of forging a particularly important document when the table was upended and thrown out of the way by a short but burly man with a snarl set upon his face. Behind the burly man stood another man and a woman, both well built and also with snarls set upon their faces. “Who the Hell do you think you are,” the shorter one demanded of Kale, “Where do you get off!?”
Kale looked from the group to the document he’d been working on now on the open floor. “That was a very important piece of paper you’ve just ruined,” he said, ignoring the man’s demands. “I don’t give a damn,” the man snarled in response, “You’ve got a lot of nerve!”
The words set his mind in motion; he’d had similar exchanges far too many times to count and each one usually involved someone’s sister, daughter, and so on. It seemed Kale did get into more trouble the previous night than he’d remembered. The intelligent thing to do would be find some way out of this situation, but that just wasn’t his way. “I’m sorry,” the pirate said with a smirk, “I’ve done so much in this city, was she the redhead?” In truth, Kale’s only memory was of talking with an attractive red-haired woman the night before, but that was as far as his memory went.
The three before him snarled and the lead man grabbed him by the collar, lifting him out of his chair and off the ground; quite an impressive feat feat given the height difference. The forms of the three had begun shifting, becoming more angular and wolfish, but Kale didn’t have time to appreciate the changing; with one motion he was sent through a window and out into the street. He rolled out into the road as the three figures burst through the door of the tavern, still mid-change. As Kale pushed himself up from the ground, he rose to look at the three. A malevolent grin spread across his face, accented by the minor cuts that now marred his face from the broken glass. Not one to keep quiet in a fight he said with a laugh, “ Ah I see. So it was the redhead, after all. Would it help if I said ‘sorry?’”
