Chapter 3

Chapter 3

A drow, a tiefling, a human

To his considerable surprise, John emerged from the portal without the normal amusing portal-related reactions: i.e. a sudden and exceedingly natural urge to throw up everything inside him, starting from his oesophagus. It was such that he touched his throat, wondering if anything was wrong, or if he was suffering from Delayed portal reaction Syndrome…

"Remarkably well made," Y'vair commented, inspecting the frame. "I didn't feel any effect at all."

"Someone's here," K'yanae warned sharply, dropping the staff and drawing daggers. Her amber eyes scanned the room warily, then stopped at a pile of crates. The panther snarled and edged forward, muscles rippling underneath velvet fur.

"Maybe if I cause the crates to explode he'd come out," Y'vair suggested, winking at John, who found himself wondering if she was joking.

He grinned at her, deciding to play along. "Or maybe a nice, big berserk demon."

"All right, all right…" A small man emerged from behind the crates, holding up his hands in surrender. He had an accent that John would have readily identified as Asian, hence confirming his suspicion that this world was quite possibly some sort of alternate dimension or parallel world, the things that creators like to make when out of inspiration. They might even go something like 'Hey, I can't think of an idea for a unique new galaxy since I used up that one about making every organism subsist on baked beans, so I think I'd create an alternate universe! Or maybe a parallel dimension! What fun.'

He was shorter than John, with a decidedly oriental cast to his features that John would have assumed to be either Chinese or Japanese, as he was not particularly good at telling the races apart. Black hair had been combed tightly back to a thick ponytail. What looked like black hairy caterpillars (John wasn't in a very charitable mood) traced over the man's slanted, keen eyes, under the scarred nose and down to frame the mouth that twitched nervously, and in the form of sideburns behind high cheeks. He wore plain light leather armor complete with a cloak and hood of a subdued deep blue under a knapsack, and held a plain but evidently well maintained katana.

He started off by bowing deeply. "I think I better introduce myself, yes? I am Yoshimo, a thief from Kara-Tur. Are you with Irenicus?"

"Irenicus?" K'yanae narrowed her eyes into burning slits. "You mean the bastard who owns this unimaginative dungeon?"

"Ah, you are not with him! Then we may come to an…understanding. If you would like me to, I can come with you and we can escape."

"What makes you think we need you?" John pretended to look him up and down.

"Nothing," the man said honestly, "But perhaps the bigger your group is, the easier it is to fight our way out, yes? There are shadow thieves and many monsters out there. In the next room," he gestured towards the only door; "there are many little chattering monsters that try to kill me. They seem to be generated by the monsters in four cages in it. Then there are shadow thieves – that one there nearly disemboweled me." He pointed to a bloody heap in a corner. "It was lucky he had healing potion."

"Can we trust you?" Y'vair smiled.

"Can I trust you?" Yoshimo bantered. "I see a drow, a tiefling, a human who wears clothes that I have never seen before, even though I have traveled more than most, and also a big panther. Odd enough, but you are the first few who haven't attacked on sight, so I'm taking that as a good sign."

"Well, we could be stringing you along to fatten you up, then we'd eat you under the moon." The edges of Y'vair's eyes crinkled as she grinned. "Or maybe not."

"I'm willing to take my chances on the 'maybe not'," Yoshimo sheathed his katana. "Well then, what's it to be?"

"I don't see why not," K'yanae put away her daggers, but looked to the rest of the group.

"He has a sense of humor." Y'vair nodded.

"Like that would be much of a comfort if he backstabs you, luv," John pointed out with a glance at K'yanae. "But I don't mind."

"Right." K'yanae shrugged. The panther yawned, and Yoshimo stared at it.

"How did you manage to tame a black panther?" he asked.

"It's not a real panther," John explained, "It's a dream."

"Looks very solid to me." Yoshimo walked up to it and squatted down, such that his face was level with the panther's. It purred appreciatively. Tentatively he patted it, then scratched its neck when the cat showed now indication of wishing to bite off his hand. "Very solid."

"Dreams aren't necessarily non-solid, Yoshimo," John noticed K'yanae and Y'vair staring at him. "What? Did I grow donkey ears again?"

"At this time I normally pull the joke about donkeys and asses, sparrow, but I'm more curious as to what you just said. A dream?" Y'vair nodded to the cat.

"It's going to take some explaining, luv. Though there aren't any giant carnivorous plants, golems, goblins and mephits here, so it could be as good a place as…"

"No." K'yanae said firmly.

"No?" Y'vair pouted.

"No. We introduce ourselves," K'yanae inclined her head to Yoshimo, who had straightened up. "My name is K'yanae Do'Urden."

"The Blackjack of the Baldur's Gate thieves? I am very honored to make your acquaintance, K'yanae-san." Yoshimo bowed again, from the waist. John couldn't find any trace of dissembling in his words – he really was honored. He attributed it to this world – in his, no one would have openly proclaimed himself a thief in all seriousness, except possibly on pain of pain.

"I am Y'vair Cirrhal," Y'vair's tail twitched in amusement at the near-ritualistic introduction. "A bard."

"I have heard of you," Yoshimo bowed. John wondered if the thief ever got dizzy, or maybe severe intestinal distress.

"And I am called John Constantine," John rubbed his nose. "They call me an out-worlder. It's better than most other titles that I've been given."

"We all have many names," Yoshimo said. "Now, the next room…we have to kill the chattering things inside the cages, but some of us have to fight those already in the room. They can cast horrible spells."

"What sort of spells?" Y'vair looked interested.

"I have faced wizards before," Yoshimo pulled at his ponytail thoughtfully. "I recognized two spells – magic missile and the color spray. One more caused small clouds of choking orange smoke to appear, one of them could blur their form, and a last caused lightning."

"Not too bad," Y'vair looked relieved.

"How many cages?" John asked.

"Five." Yoshimo said promptly. "More than us, but they die easily, if you do not get outnumbered." The cat rumbled. "Oh very well – there are five of us, but I doubt the cat can reach one through the grate." He paused. "What is the panther's name?"

"Guenhwyvar, and I don't think I pronounced that correctly," John crossed over and patted the cat affectionately. "Guen for short, but usually I just call it Cat."

"Ah. Very descriptive." Yoshimo grinned.

"Well, 'Guenhwyvar' sounds as though it may be an Irish ponce…but I see no one understands. Never mind."

"Do you have any idea what this Irenicus brought us down to do?" K'yanae remembered herself. "And how did you find out what his name was?"

"I heard some of the Shadow Thieves mention it while I was running away from their voices," Yoshimo didn't appear to be self-conscious about this admission at all. "And no, I do not know why. Perhaps because we are all obviously different."

"That's true," Y'vair looked him up and down. "You're the first person from Kara-Tur that I've met so far."

"It is very far from Faerun," Yoshimo agreed, and his eyes seemed to flicker with some emotion. "Come then. We tarry here while we could be escaping!" He grinned toothily.

**

The fight was predictable and short, though K'yanae and Y'vair both suffered a few bites and John singed his trenchcoat, to his annoyance. When they cleared the mephits they regrouped at the centre of the room.

It was long and cluttered with bookshelves (again, stupidity – the mephits could have damaged the pages), crates with helpful things like shot and bows and arrows for Y'vair and Yoshimo, and more useless scrolls. Baubles were pocketed, even an odd-looking rod that Y'vair couldn't recognize, and some things given to Yoshimo – since he did have a knapsack that he said he took from the Shadow Thief he had killed. Five domed cages lined the right wall, currently containing corpses of mephits. Y'vair proclaimed no knowledge of the exact magic which caused the mephits to spawn, except that it had something to do with cloning. John decided not to crack the joke about sheep. They probably wouldn't understand.

Nothing more in the room, so they proceeded to the next one – another gloomy chamber that stank of blood and death. There were chains on the wall and what looked like polished surgical equipment on a table, next to a metal waist-high table on which there was a corpse of a human male, garbed in some sort of cloak wound around his waist, with a barely visible symbol of a black talon, but nothing else. The cause of death wasn't apparent – there were so many brutal wounds. With a shudder, John noticed whip lashes and marks of what looked like chains, as well as blisters from burns. Knives had featured predominantly in this poor sod's demise – neatly in a row next to his head. They looked like solid silver.

The others looked on with sickened but slightly detached expressions of those who pitied the corpse but due to their not knowing him personally, had some sort of mental barrier. With the exception of K'yanae, who rushed over to the table and turned the face up to the light of the torches, then let out a wolf-like howl of anguish. "No!"

"Shite." John muttered under his breath. More complications already… but K'yanae did not hear him. Sobs racked her deceptively slender frame as she pushed herself away from the metal table.

"No…not Namaen…" she whispered. "Not him."

"K'yanae?" Y'vair spoke tentatively, after a long silence punctuated with K'yanae's broken sobs, more startling in the fact that the odd group had come to see her as a strong one, determined, iron-willed. Seeing her cry was as shocking as watching a fluffy rabbit suddenly turn rabid and start leaping for people's throats.

She looked up, and grief was replaced with fury, ice cold and relentless, points of diamond amber. John wasn't sure which was worse. "Irenicus will pay. He will. If I have to track him for the rest of my life." These words would have sounded stereotypical, even funny, to John if he were reading them or watching them being said in a movie in the comfort of his world, but here, ringing from the dull stone walls from air that smelled of death, with death so obvious in front of them, he shuddered.

It wasn't that he had never heard this sort of words before. Quite a few times they had even been voiced against him, by creatures/people with not inconsiderable power, but the burning, feral gleam in K'yanae's amber eyes, the way her hands curled unconsciously into claws, and especially the way his brain kept suggesting that she was actually a huge wolf standing on two legs, seemed extremely eerie. Or maybe he had hit his head too many times.

**

If K'yanae's skills were good before, they were superb now – she fought like a whirlwind of rage, somehow managing to juggle daggers and the staff without detriment to her skill. The Shadow Thieves that tried to block their way – apparently thinking they were of some rival guild, or just simply out of fear after one look at K'yanae – were cut down as if they had been standing still and unarmed. Apparently 'drow' weren't exactly the most popular of races, but given their normal reaction to people (if Zaknafein was anything to base them by), that was quite predictable. Yoshimo unquestioningly kept up just behind her discreetly to step out occasionally and disarm traps – in her blind fury, K'yanae couldn't seem to care about traps. That raised the thief in John's eyes, at least – for the moment. People with strong ideals of honor often just got in the way, most of the time – and he found it mildly amusing that this honor seemed to coexist quite peacefully with Yoshimo's thieving nature.

Eventually they reached a huge room with a vast carpet. There were odd designs on the carpet – John noticed stylized patterns of fire, lightning, a cloud, a monster…before his eyes decided to go on strike and look away at the ruined pillars at neat intervals on the left wall. There looked like openings to corridors on the right walls.

At this moment one of the mad creatures they had freed rushed up from behind them – somehow it had gotten through the portal and followed – ran past onto the carpet. As it stepped on the pattern of fire, a gout of flame roared out from the pillar, and the person shrieked, a human-shaped torch now as it staggered and fell convulsing on the next pattern of the cloud. Gas spewed from the pillar nearest to the pattern, spreading quickly, but not reaching them, and further down the room came coughing and wheezing and the movement of feat. Then a scream and a bright crackle of lightning which blinded John for a few seconds.

"Wow. Chain reaction." He commented when all the screaming stopped.

"At least you know your plan worked, sparrow," Y'vair leaned against the wall, watching K'yanae, who seemed to be calming down. She was shivering, though it wasn't cold, and running fingers roughly through white hair.

"I wonder if the traps are permanent…" Yoshimo edged carefully onto the carpet, and stared at the ground. "I don't see any traps."

"Let me look," K'yanae spoke up for the first time since the chamber, and walked up to him. After a few moments, she shook her head as well.

"Shouldn't we test it?" Y'vair suggested. As they shrugged and returned to the safety of the corridor, she threw her staff onto the picture. Immediately fire roared into existence and consumed the staff. The panther looked bored, and sat down.

"Eh. How are we going to cross?" K'yanae made a face. She seemed abruptly normal again, though John knew people well enough to understand that this could very well just be a mask.

Yoshimo had moved to the pillar, and he studied it. "There's a slot here," he reported. "Maybe it can fit that rod we found just now. Since it didn't seem to have any other use." He pulled it from his knapsack and fitted it in. There was a click, then red energy pooled around the rod, and it changed shape and fell out of the slot. He caught it easily.

"A wand," he said, turning the thing in his hands. It was in the shape of a Chinese dragon, exquisitely carved, the serpent's body in graceful curves, the elaborate head with its mouth gaping open. "I assume it's for fire?"

"As if the trap isn't obvious enough," Y'vair nodded. "Should be worth something, but at the meantime it might be useful. Now, about the trap…"

"My go, luv." John motioned for Yoshimo to get back, then threw his staff onto the pattern. Nothing happened, so he retrieved it. "Trap disarmed. Again, this dungeon is bloody stupid."

However, the next pattern still produced more clouds of gas, which wore off after a while. Yoshimo noted that there was yet another slot in the pillar.

They sighed. It was obvious that they had to engage in an extremely juvenile treasure hunt for rods.

"I think you should stay here and keep watch," Y'vair told K'yanae, noticing that the werewolf showed the most reluctance for turning back. Of course – the Namaen person, whoever he had been to her, was behind them. She nodded gratefully to them. The cat glanced at them, then rubbed against K'yanae, purring. It seemed to have some sort of therapeutic effect on the werewolf, for she smiled at it, even if her smile was a little strained.

Yoshimo, Y'vair and John retraced their steps and began the tedious task of combing the dungeon for rods. John felt as though he had stepped through a time warp and was a child again, even though his childhood wasn't exactly normal. Eventually they found two more rods, but no more – in extremely odd places – one was inside a big jar that they only discovered when John accidentally knocked it over and shattered. Returning, they found that one fitted the cloud one, but the next rod didn't fit the next pillar. However, it had been enough to reach one corridor, so they philosophically went down it.

"About the nymphs, sparrow?" Y'vair asked curiously, after K'yanae killed another Shadow thief.

"Yeah?" John's shot hit and killed a mephit. As a form of variety, he used a throwing knife against the next one, having remembered that he put some in his trenchcoat. The aftereffects of the killing – a surge of male pride – probably accounted as to why there were so many warriors.

"Going to look for the duergar?" K'yanae asked, more in tune with Y'vair's drift than John was, but they were female after all.

"Duergar?" Yoshimo chimed in, sounding surprised. "There are duergar here?"

"Those on the carpet smelled like them," K'yanae said matter-of-factly. "Or at least like dwarves. Though I wonder how they were pried out of the Underdark."

"I'm certainly not going to try to get to them, if they're the dwarves that took the acorns," John said calmly. "No wish to suicide – all those stupid traps."

"I see," was all that Y'vair said, and John felt as though he had passed some sort of test. Y'vair's expression was unreadable, as was K'yanae's. It certainly wasn't negative – he could normally read negative reactions, an important skill in his line of work – but it may not have been positive either.

He felt no need to explain, and they didn't seem to require explanations, so they continued. Even Yoshimo did not ask any further. John was perfectly at ease with his decision to leave the nymphs to their own fate – as far as he was concerned, he had done worse things with less regret in his life, and a group of nymphs which he didn't know personally stood low on his list of Things to Risk Your Life For. They weren't in direct danger, and even if they were, he wasn't sure he would care. Oh, he wouldn't stand for things like demons trying to eat children, but for some reason his amorality didn't care about adults very much. He just tried to survive, or exist, as it felt like sometimes, and as far as he was concerned, trying to cross a trapped carpet for some acorns for some creatures that had only marginally helped him was a little too much. It was a betrayal, but John had played traitor in more serious situations.

After several more shadow thieves, and avoiding larger groups of them, they eventually ended up in a long tunnel with knee-deep, suspiciously green water which they waded through, cheered on by the waft of fresh air and the hint of light that grew as they approached and began to climb up a slope, into the blessed sunlight…

**

They emerged into a hot afternoon on something that looked as though a giant had enthusiastically attacked a small mountain of stone with sledgehammers, pulverizing everything into boulders, then piled it in a city such that there was a large depression in front of them, and they were on higher ground. The sound of people assaulted their ears – musing, chattering, shouting, murmuring, advertising, whispering, a rich stew of susurrations, sweet music compared with the cold atmosphere of the dungeon.

And then they noticed who was standing in the depression.

Looking very satisfied with himself was the bastard who was responsible for their incarceration, his arms folded arrogantly. "I see you have escaped," he started, in his incongruously pleasant voice, though in this case it sounded suspiciously patronizing. "Well then, I may have to remedy that." His hands began to move, as he chanted. Immediately K'yanae seemed to convulse, but not because of the spell – because a huge wolf abruptly stood in her place, rolling free of dress and weapons and streaking with unholy speed towards him. He released his spell a meter before she-it leaped, and promptly smacked off some invisible barrier. With a furious roar, the wolf tried again, and this time was shoved forcefully away by some invisible energy, to land on a person in a brown robe who had teleported in. There was a confused few seconds as the person screamed and shoved off the wolf, and the wolf, on instinct, bit him. John winced at the crunch of bone as the force of the wolf's jaws broke the person's arm, just snapped the bone like a dry twig.

"Stop this at once! This is an unauthorized use of magical energy!" More men in brown robes appeared, holding staves. The wolf ignored them, trying to get at Irenicus again, but suddenly froze into place.

"You must come with us at once, you and the werewolf," the leader continued to say, in a high-pitched voice.

"I cannot be contained," Irenicus said simply, and unleashed a dazzling array of spells that alternatively burned, froze, shocked, and did other things too horrific to mention to the brown-robed mages, even as they tried to retaliate. Their skill was obviously inferior to his, but more of them kept appearing to replace the fallen (or burned, or frozen, or disintegrated…)

"We may be less skilled than you, but we are legion!" yelled one, before blue smoke poured down on him and he collapsed, shrieking.

"I tire of this," Irenicus stopped suddenly. "Take me then. Take the werewolf with you as well."

The wolf growled its frustration.

"Hey!" John shouted down at them. The mages ignored him, as did the wolf, but Irenicus looked up…and winked. John started forward in fury, but Y'vair held him back.

"They outnumber us," she said with gritted teeth.

"Do not try anything foolish," said someone behind them. They turned to see more brown robes, pointing their staves at them. Yoshimo patted the hilt of his katana and glanced at John, who reluctantly shook his head. The panther relaxed slightly, though it gave every indication that what it wanted to do right now would be to pounce and bite off the heads of the mages.

"Take them away," said the current leader.

The brown robes muttered spells and all of them – including Irenicus and K'yanae – disappeared.

**

They had emerged to a large marketplace, surrounded by tiered shops such that it resembled a massive Coliseum. John half-expected to see Russell Crowe running around fighting a tiger, or maybe many screaming spectators, not people walking around shopping. Or they would have been walking around, if not that most of them in their immediate vicinity were staring at the quarry. Then just as abruptly, as if on some hidden cue, they quickly returned to their business, as if the magical display was mere routine, something which John found disturbing. Another eerie thing about all the citizens was that they all had the same expression on their f aces – the strained, slightly cold mask of those who worship money and material wealth, checked desire, – on the faces of men, women and even children. It rather reminded him of zombies.

The shops were selling crafts, scrolls, books, drinks, food, weapons…it was as though someone had taken an inventory of everything that was remotely sellable, legally, in the world and dumped the samples here. There were doors on some of the tiers, suggesting shops within it. A large tent, along with smaller tents like small children hanging around a teacher on a field trip, dominated the oval space, with cages of wild animals near it further enhancing that metaphor.

The stonework of the marketplace resembled a postcard John had once seen of the Taj Mahal – richly decorated domes, white stone and all, in stark contrast with the occasional rich brocade store or garishly colored fabric outdoor store roofs. The effect was not unlike an accident with a big box of pastels, and John felt his eyes begin to complain.

"Do you know where we are?" he asked his companions, who were picking up K'yanae's things. He didn't comment, as some people would have done, on the callousness of the act, of not showing respect to her last possessions. Like his companions, he knew the things were only just that – possessions.

"I've been here before," Yoshimo tucked the potions into his knapsack, and some of the throwing daggers. "This is the city of Athkatla – also known as the city of coin. Just look at everyone's faces. And their clothes – they all strictly wear things according to class. Athkatla's a nice place to be an adventurer – you stand out like a sore thumb, all the guards watch you, the citizens either avoid you like the plague or try to give you errands. And it's also home to the Shadow Thieves, the Knights of the shining order…"

"Order of the Radiant Heart," Y'vair corrected. "There are some playhouses in here, but I've never visited the city before. I understand that it has a large Government district full of the houses of the noble, as well as a large slums district with the houses of the poor. There's a large gap between the rich and the poor, here."

"This is Waukeen's Promenade," Yoshimo gestured. "We can get some sleep here, at least."

"And a bath." Y'vair looked pointedly at their clothes, still suffering from having to wade through sewage. The panther, at least, looked enthusiastic. Just because cats had to clean themselves with their tongues didn't mean they liked it.

"Women are always preoccupied with that," John confided loudly to Yoshimo and blithely ignoring Y'vair's glare and the angry swipe of her tail. Then he paused. "About K'yanae?"

"We won't be helping her if we run around hysterically, so I suggest we refresh ourselves first, then make inquiries." Y'vair's eyes narrowed. "Wherever she is, Irenicus would be there as well, and I don't like being experimented on." She pulled the hood of her cloak over her horns, now visible as slight bulges, and tugged at the fabric such that her tail was also covered, unless she twitched it violently. "Is there an inn for adventurers here? The sort where they don't ask questions."

"There's the Mithrest Inn," Yoshimo pointed to a door. "Later we can get supplies and sell some of the loot. Only money opens doors and mouths in Amn."

**

The Mithrest Inn was noisy and crowded, with quite a few people wearing armor and swords. There were also guards in full plate, which gripped their spears tightly whenever an 'adventurer' passed within their personal space, which seemed to be a two-metre radius. There were amusing green plumes in their helmet, but John managed to refrain from laughing outright, or even pointing out that they rather resembled toilet brushes.

Most people hardly gave them a glance – after all, some of the patrons didn't even look particularly human, especially one which rather resembled an ogre except with a larger head from whose large mouth protruded yellowing tusks, and such. Though if eyes did linger, they did on John, whose clothes were beginning to make him feel even more out of place. Not that he was particularly bothered. The cat seemed to go unnoticed, as was normal.

Yoshimo, admittedly the most 'normal' one of them, spoke with the innkeeper, and some coin exchanged hands, after which he nodded to them and brought them to some rooms.

John had seen better ones, but it was passable – there weren't any creatures in the beds, and though there were suspicious squeaks underneath it, he chose to ignore them.

"Does this place have baths?" Y'vair asked, after scrutinizing her bed. The cat had not been allowed to enter the room, and it sat in injured, dripping, reproachful silence at the door.

"They're in the back. Do you want to go first?" Yoshimo gingerly got out of his soaked boots. "Though I have no idea what we are going to do about the clothes."

"That's easy," Y'vair grinned.

"Magic," John explained, to Yoshimo's expression.

"Exactly, sparrow." Their clothes wound up smelling faintly of mint, but dry and as clean as they could be. Even the bloodstains on his trousers and trenchcoat were gone.

"Why can't you use that on us, luv?" John asked.

"Because you're alive. Clothes are inanimate. Magic has different rules regarding each – but I could try it on you if you'd like to volunteer, sparrow." Y'vair grinned. "I see I have more to teach you than I'd expected. Come, Guen." She left with the panther in the direction Yoshimo had indicated.

John sat down on his bed and rubbed his eyes. From the sound of it, Yoshimo was divesting himself of his knapsack. "Sorry to have to put all of us in one room, but we had to save money," Yoshimo commented. "And Y'vair did not seem to mind."

"So long as she doesn't start trying to move furniture into better positions, or something." John lay down and closed his eyes, amused at himself for his level of trust in people he hadn't even known for more than a day, but figuring he had little left to lose. "Wake me up when you've finished your turn."

**

Over a lunch of whatever had been roasting in the spit, John had to give an overview of his world, leaving out his life, but adding that he had demon blood, since in the presence of Y'vair, that would be hardly shocking. John was hoping that it was chicken. It looked like chicken. It was probably chicken. Hopefully.

Eventually they established what they wished to do – find Irenicus. Finding K'yanae wasn't a really consuming interest for the group, even if she seemed a decent enough person, but they had only known each other for less than a day. John felt like a bit of revenge, but he would settle for indirectly causing Irenicus' painful death. He wasn't particularly interested in having to face the mage again – it had been amply shown to him that Irenicus was much, much more powerful than he was, though he had faced greater opponents. The others in the group weren't particularly interested in a direct confrontation either.

However, John also had to find a way back to his world – even if yes, this was one of the few times he had actually breathed in air that actually smelled clean – without the industrial aftertaste of car exhaust, sewage, fog, or the brew that was the air of a 'civilized' world.

The most important question at the moment, was voiced next.

"Do you know where to get cigarettes?" he asked Yoshimo. The question of alcohol was solved for the moment – the inn provided very good beer, though it seemed oddly spicy, but not unpleasantly so.

"What are those?" Yoshimo asked. John sighed. Y'vair explained.

"Pipes are easily bought, as is tobacco," Yoshimo said doubtfully. "But I haven't heard of cigarettes."

"I can make some with tobacco," John hoped this was true. If their definition of tobacco was the same as his…but after all the beer, he was feeling optimistic, and the room seemed to be getting blurred. There were two Y'vairs, and two Yoshimos – everything obscured by some sort of grayish haze, like a frozen television monitor, or as though he was looking at the world through dirty ice. Frowning, he tried to stand up…the beer must have been stronger than he'd thought, perhaps?

He didn't even feel it when he hit the table.

--

Little Notes and References:

Yoshimo: Yes, Yoshimo is from the game itself. He has a main plot role, hence he's in the story…and besides, I like him. I like the oddest characters – Saemon Havarian, Solaufein, Korgan, Edwin, and Minsc (though this last isn't surprising. Lots of people like Minsc. And Boo.). Other characters may or may not turn up.

Namaen: For those who don't know who Namaen is, or was, he was a childhood friend of K'yanae's who was um, hopelessly in love with her. She didn't return the feelings…but she liked him as a friend, reason being she liked someone else the other way. Look, I'm being delicate here! ;)

Last encounter with Zaknafein: The first time Constantine met Zaknafein (not this world's Zaknafein), as a weapon master in the Underdark still under Malice (not in that way!), Zaknafein's first reaction was to try and disembowel him.

Playing traitor: Once, to save mankind (he does that every so often, sometimes even unconsciously), John, along with a person called Papa Midnight, tricked his childhood friend Gary Lester into turning to the last host of a hunger demon whose name I can't remember and don't want to check at 12am. Gary Lester died painfully. John was obviously upset about this matter, but Gary had been responsible for releasing the demon. Still, Gary had mentioned to Midnight, on the day before the deed, that he trusted John with his life. Hence, more serious situations. There are other betrayals, too many to list down. Just a small indication into John's character. Go read the sequential tart article on him online. There's a link somewhere in my webpage. If you didn't understand this explanation, just keep this in mind: the alignment that most closely suits John Constantine is chaotic neutral.