Into the Den

Basilisk Fang was guild known for their heinous acts of terror but infamous for their serpents’ insatiable appetite for cruelty. The individual, appalling things that happened in the remote fortress atop Mt. Hakobe were perhaps more eye catching to the unfortunate witnesses who lived to tell the tale than the awful things they saw in the Sorcerer’s Magazine. Dozens blown to pieces and other reduced to bloody piles of gore from the messy acts of terror of slithering serpents. Others ripping terrified children from their bawling mother’s tight arms so that their unblemished bodies could be test sites for clumsy weapons. Their wrinkled, wet cheeks rotted away in toxins for they, the failures, had become toxic waste. But no serpent would fidget at the sight or quake at their cries, but instead applaud them for their perseverance. No one labeled their bold endeavors as cruel but progress, and it was progress that made the gaping chasms in their chests whole again.

Inside a orangely-lit tavern sat a well-dressed man in a traditionally colored vest-suit laced with golden buttons laced down the middle, sitting in the cushioned seat closest to the burning hearth. His shiny black loafers tapped against the stone flooring with a slowness and melancholy like a blues song and in his hand a teacup whose edges were chipped and originally bright, warm reds and golds now a faded, seasoned myriad of them. His room-temperature water swirled within, creating a translucent vortex that mesmerized the man so much that he’d stare fixedly at its center. But the dull, unmoving pupils in his eyes gave one the impression that it was not mesmerization, but thought that kept him still.

The raven-haired man raised his head to the bone-snapping sound of the ancient wooden doors staggering from its creaking hinges. He’d utter a droning sigh, his indifferent, straight lips dropping into a weak frown. His eyes, even though shimmering in the firelight, were simple and cheerless as he stiffly laid back into his seat as if the smallest pin could through his off balance. His healthily pale complexion was ghostly blanched, a supremely well-kept shock of tar-black hair laid over his face like a messy blanket so that only one topaz orb could admire that stygian tavern.

The peace waned from his countenance as he’d turn to greet the heavily-dressed stranger with no more than his attention, ”I know that it is cold but have we forgotten how to knock?” he said quietly, so much so that his voice only barely rang an interval or so higher than the cackling firewood or hissing flames. His throat rumbled like an irritable housecat’s growl, yet his cheeks were soft and blush with blood beneath his flesh. He was, after all, Basilisk Fang’s gloomy man.