Luvos, Karsyn.
The name sounds exotic enough for people to inquire where in the world it might be. But actually, it’s not a part of the world. Not the world as the typical person knows, as it were. That being said, I’m here to set the typical person straight:
Luvos is not exotic. Karsyn is not exotic. This horrific little pub called the Nine Thieves was not. EXOTIC.
In fact, it was overall a steady shade of muddy brown with splashes of faded color where the signs were. It had sheep. It had goats. It had half-faced blind men begging on the street corners with their spaced-out teeth, bandaged hands outstretched to reach for coin, food, or drink. It had women with low-cut dresses that they had stuffed themselves into with great difficulty. It had a market-street that had carts full of produce and trinkets and baubles. It had song. It had dance. It had the smell of wood smoke, peat, blacksmith metal and forge, and of course, earthy, squelchy, seemingly constantly-wet earth.
Your typical medieval shithole, to sum it up.
So what was I doing there? I kept asking myself the same question. It all boiled down to a particularly tricky poltergeist. The damned ghost had a habit of jumping worlds and wreaking chaos wherever it went, and I had a personal score to settle with it on my own.  
Normally I would’ve let Cameron or Avion handle something like this, but damn it all, I was sick and tired of lurking on the sidelines while they had all the fun. I wound a hand more firmly around the pendant in my fist, clenching its cross-like shape and feeling the tiger’s eye stone in the middle. Sure, I’d need their abilities to back me up by way of this stupid rock, but at least I was here by myself, on my own, without those two bozos playing babysitter behind my back.
The bar I was in, called the Nine Thieves as aforementioned, surrounded me with its din and hubbub, with rowdy drunken cries and women’s squealing, accompanied, of course, by a slightly out-of-tune band in the corner, down the side of the cedar bar, playing lutes and flutes, and a piano of sorts, all oblivious to what lay above it--a convenience store, or something like it. Seemed these people only had underground bars. As a bartender, I found it kind of amusing, but of course, voiced nothing aloud. They had their reasons, as did I, which were steadily getting more and more pressing as I realized I’d lost track of the body-jumping daemon-spirit.
The clothes I was wearing itched something dreadful. They also smelled horribly of ale and salt, or, what I hoped was salt. Regardless of this, I huddled up, hooded tunic tucked over my head, vest over that supporting the scratchy fabric into place, muted colors of mulberry for the vest and dark beige for the tunic. Swinging a slacked leg of the same color over the barstool I was sitting on, I continued to drum my fingers anxiously as I watched a tall, blue-haired individual (Ekyran, by the looks of it, from what I’d been briefed on) attempt, and fail, to drag someone away from a table. I scanned the crowd, trying to find signs of unusual behavior, but could find nothing--it had slipped away again. So fucking frustrating.
“Bartender,” I said, without looking up as the fat, mustached man bobbed by, toting a cleaning rag that looked almost as dirty as he did, “Has there been any trouble here recently?”
Adjusting his slacking pants by the belt and scratching some godawful, unmentionable part of himself, the red-faced, bulbous-nosed man grunted and hoisted a keg of rum onto the bar, peering down at me with piggy, walnut-like eyes.
“Nun’te speakuv, sir,” he announced, his voice a low rumble of sound. I nodded and rubbed the side of my head, gesturing with a hand.
“Really? Thanks anyway--that is, might I have the house rum? Pint, please.” Pints, tankards, god, I missed shots of tequila already.
He snorted, leaning forwards to try and study me under my hood.
“Aincha little young t’be drinkin’, shorty?”
Cue flare of temper. I shot a look up at him, and, leaning forwards (my hands itching to snag him by the collar and shake him a little, the oblivious wretch), I said very calmly,
“I see your mouth moving. I hear your voice speaking. What I don’t sense is you putting the rum tankard in front of me and getting the fuck back to your job.” I held up a gold Regal, the currency of this miserable place. “I pay to keep your jowls jiggling, Chuckles. Now let’s have some liquor, shall we?”
The man turned a slightly deeper shade of disapproving scarlet, snatched the gold piece from my hand, and strode away. Stifling a grimace, I wiped my hand off on the front of my tunic, flexed it, and set it back down by my side.
“NEW SONG!” A voice roared from the back, startling me near clear out of my skin. “C’mon, fellash, let’s have us a livelier tune!”
“Nale, do be quiet,” the blue-haired fellow I’d seen before (hard to miss him, guy was like a freaking monument) snarled faintly, rubbing the side of his head as he finally located himself at the table.
The fellow at his side blinked and sat up, and, despite my interest to find the ghost, my eyes lingered on their table. The man who had shouted for livelier music (of which the musicians had miraculously begun to supply) looked scruffier than half the men in here--his hair was a dirty-blonde mop of disarray, barely kept under a dark red kerchief, and his face was a mess of stubble and a mustache. I glanced away, convinced he wasn’t trouble, and settled my eyes back on the tankard of rum that had magically appeared in front of me. Magically.
Sourly accepting the fact that I wasn’t going to get out of there anytime soon, I settled for lifting the tankard to my lips and taking a sip. As pessimistically / realistically expected, the concoction was revolting, and I had to stifle a grimace as the burning liquid trickled down my throat.  
Now what was I supposed to do? With the ghost gone, and no general leads--not even a visible trail of ectoplasm, mayhem, or bloodshed--I was stuck here debating what to do over a pint of rotgut liquor, amongst a den of medieval freaks, stifled by the itchy fabric of the tunic I was wearing, and really starting to dislike the bartender as he continued to jiggle--yes, all the many rolls of him--past me.
There came a clatter behind me, and, out of instinct, I turned to eye the tables--and dryly watched the blonde man clamber atop the seat he had previously deposited himself on, raising his tankard--much to the mirth of the black-haired man to his immediate left, who clapped a hand over his face with silent shakes of laughter. The deadpan Ekyran merely sat in place, turning a small short of what had to be brandy or the like, over and over again in his four-fingered hand.
“ ‘d like t’make an ‘nouncement,” he announced, and I thought that was going to be it, but it wasn’t. “The lotuv you…” He pointed around the bar, then began to laugh heartily again. “A-are…’posin’ the council, s’what you’re doin’, an’ I approve…keeep at it. Musiciansh!” He burst out, waving a hand at the musicians in the corner, who all started horribly and scrambled into places. “Let’s--let’s have some’a the old songsh, shall we? Uv’the gloriiious days’uv Karsyn in’er prime!”
I closed my eyes and ticked my head away with a wry shake of it, lifting the tankard in front of me halfheartedly back to my lips. In the surface of the metal, as I reopened my eyes, I saw the rest of the bar--and one, faint black wisp, as it slithered between the seats with odd detachedness, before beginning to creep towards the table of the mismatched trio--the stoic Ekyran, the laughing dark-haired man, and the loudmouth.
Bolting upright in my seat and trying to figure out the best way to go about capturing what had to be the phantasm I was hunting for, I whirled in place--losing sight of it and immediately realizing why. It could only be seen via reflection, so, hastily lifting the tankard back up to the light, I saw it slither towards the blonde man, still swaying on his chair, and begin to creep, undetected, up his leg.
I knew what it was going to do, and, lurching out of my seat, holding the tankard out in front of myself, I bolted for the table, spilling the nasty liquor as I went. The blonde man was still giving a speech, and the Ekyran looked up at him sourly.
“Nale, for Caella’s sake, get off the table before you get us thrown out.”
“ ‘m not done!” The blonde man slurred, waving a hand. I saw the black stuff pause, and waver towards me. “Furthermore--”
Several things happened at once.
First, the blonde man seemed to realize that I was coming at him at breakneck speed. Second, the bartender bellowed something out at me. Third, the blue-haired Ekyran distracted me by flicking up an impressive set of tufted ears. Fourth, the black, wraithlike being decided to be a smartass and move--as I tackled Nale’s chair headfirst and sent the man sprawling against the ground as I knocked air out of my own lungs and rolled onto the floor, snapping out a hand to ensnare the black being by slamming my tankard down over it. The blasted thing tried to slither away, so I scrambled after it and skidded across the floor again, clamping the tankard firmly over the momentarily visible mass of shadows.
The shadows writhed and flopped against the side of the glass, trapped intangibly by its own reflection, and, relieved that I had remembered what I was supposed to about poltergeists in time before anyone was hurt, I flicked my liquor-soaked bangs out of my face and glared down at the glass, trying to figure out what to do now, but left the glass in place.
“There!” I barked angrily. “Damn right you stay in place.”
It didn’t take long for me to realize, as I straightened, that the bar had gone remarkably quiet. Sure, people still chattered, but it had become a low murmur of discord, as the bartender blinked over his station in dumbfounded amusement, as the rest of the bar stared over at me, or, more aptly, the fact that I had just knocked a man to the ground, simultaneously knocked over a chair, all in the effort of, apparently to them, throw a cup on the floor.
I smiled thinly and got to my feet, raising a hand to wave at them, glancing around, eyes ticking from face to inebriated face, trying to determine what to do.
“…hi,” I offered lightly. “Nothin’ to see here, ladies and gentlemen. Just a--the whiskey went straight to my head--can I borrow that?” I added, gesturing to the book clamped in the hand of the blue-haired Ekyran. Before he could protest, I snatched it, and carefully slipped it under the reflective tankard, holding the nasty ghost in place with a faint scowl.
“Sir, are ye lookin’ t’cause trouble?” The bartender bellowed belatedly. I rolled my eyes, and, despite the ghost scrabbling around under the tankard, I turned to smile at the bartender, who squinted at me with that suspicious sort of glare.
“No, sir, no trouble,” I said idly. “In fact, I was just on my way out, so if you don’t mind--”
Whatever clever thing I was going to say was abruptly lost as something wooden and sturdy smashed into the side of my head and shoulder, bore me across a table and flopped me on the floor. Shaking my head dazedly and wondering what the hell just happened, I saw the black monster wriggle free of the tankard and wisp off across the floor, fleeing like a frightened spider.
“Nale!” The Ekyran barked, stooping down close to me. I peered up at him, trying to blink black spots out of my eyes, and watched, nonplussed, as he snagged his book and ignored me instead.
“That was unnecessary,” the man continued. Nale, staggering in place and rubbing his jaw, glowered between me and his companion before shrugging and letting out a snort of laughter.
“Didja see tha’, though? Toppled over liiike…like a bloody…tiny target pin…at a faire…”
I set a hand against the ground as the man let out a bark of self-appreciative laughter, and, slowly beginning to realize that the ghost had eluded me--again--I felt a significant amount of anger beginning to rise to the surface of my brain.
This day was rapidly going downhill, and my will to stay undercover was beginning to snap as the blonde drunk swiveled away from me, waving a gloved hand absently to accentuate his speech.
“But ‘m in too gooduv a mood t’pick on midgetsh, so y’get off easy, kiddo. I think’ll have me another drink.”
“You know,” I snapped irritably, rolling back my shoulder and flexing my hand. “Knocking you off your chair was an accident, you prick.”
He seemed to ignore me, thumping a fist down on the table and clapping a hand to the shoulder of his black-haired associate.
“Sssssuhyrus,” he slurred loudly. “Y’ever fought a midget? I never ‘ave…think it’s worth it?”
“I’m not a midget!”
The black-haired man squinted, lifting his head from the table for the first time. His eyes were fairly bloodshot from drinking, and he sniffed through his crooked nose, studying me as I stood there, fuming--ghost gone, purposeless, and starting to get sick and tired of this place, this Karsyn, more than I could’ve ever expressed.
“I d’no, Nale,” “Suhyrus” said, tilting his head contemplatively. “I hear small people c’n be a real pain in the ass--s’only place they can reach, after all…”
  Boiling inwardly as Nale let out another howl of mirth and plunked himself down on a new seat, and the bar started to go back about its business, people beginning to speak at a normal volume. I cracked my knuckles, looking around helplessly for the missing ghost, trying to locate where the black mass had gone.
“Goddamn it,” I growled, kicking a chair out of my way and picking the tankard off the floor. The interior of it had begun to smolder from where the ghost had tried to slither and claw its way free, leaving greenish-black streaks that resembled mold--ectoplasm in the rawest form, and it reeked of rot and decay.
  Gagging, I started to set the tankard back on the bar top, but, realizing that I hadn’t even been able to finish a fucking drink in peace, I turned around, and proceeded to give in to the temptation that had been building ever since the blonde man started flapping his jaws at me, and lobbed the tankard at his head, throwing it as hard as I could.
Much to my surprise, the black-haired man, who looked as though he was going to catch it, promptly ducked out of the way--and the tankard clanged with a satisfying sound against the face of Nale, before bouncing off into happy oblivion, leaving the man swearing and holding his face. The bar’s noises screeched to a grinding halt abruptly once again.
I turned away, storming towards the door--and flinched as the tankard clattered into the wall in front of me, ringing and leaving a slight dent in the wood. There was a thump and screech of chair legs across the floor behind me, and the sound of a table being nudged out of the way of someone.
“Think y’dropped that, squirt,” Nale bellowed across the bar, unnecessarily loud despite the lack of other sounds. I turned slowly, rubbed my face, and eyed him, waiting for him to make the first move, if he dared. I was fed up, tired of these games, chasing cat-killing (yes, that was the reason behind my grudge) ghosts across worlds for absolutely no purpose other than to find some meager little meaning to my existence as a person, and as a Samaritan. This spirit was my duty, but hell, if this man was going to keep being an asshat, so be it--I wasn’t going to be responsible for what was going to happen to him.
Oh wait.
Maybe I was.
“What’s the matter, tiny, y’stuck over there or somethin’? Lasht chance t’back out now,” Nale said, hitching his thumbs into his belt and squinting at me. I glared across the room at him, then rolled a shoulder, starting forwards. Nale came forwards as well, and people scooted out of the way as the portly bartender went pale and waddled off to the back, hiking up his slipping slacks.
“I hope you know what you are doing,” the Ekyran muttered, as the black-haired man flopped back across the table to watch us, smirking.
“I’m not stuck, old man, I was just waiting to see if someone would hand you a cane before you tried to take me on.”
My words had more effect than anticipated. The reddened, good-natured features of the man hardened, and his brow furrowed slightly, as he stalked towards me, his footsteps purposeful and measured, though he had a drunken sway to his step.
“Wha’d you say t’me?”
“I called you an old man,” I said innocently, blinking at him. “A geezer. An old goat. Decrepit. In the winter years of life. The evening hours of your years. Crinkly. Over the hill--and far away. Shall I keep going, or do you kind of get the concept yet?”
He came at me so fast I barely saw him move--or that’s what I’d like to say, but sadly, he barreled towards me like a drunken bull, fury in his every motion. His fist swung outwards and attempted to clip me across the face, but, thankfully, because I was a midget, I was able to duck his hand with utmost speed and knock a fist into his gut.
It was like punching a rock wall. Staggering back and shaking out my hand, I felt his fist collide with my chest and shove me back at least a foot.
Feeling my shoulders sting as they collided with the wall, I ducked another furious swipe of his arm, then whirled in place and snagged his ankle with my own, hooking it, and with difficulty (but thankfully, he was already off-balance) I knocked him onto his back and watched him slam into the ground with a snarl, before he rolled over, grabbed the side of my head as I tried to rise, and drove my already-aching cranium into the ground.
Ears ringing and skull screaming, I rolled hastily onto my back as his fist slammed into the floor beside my head, grinding bone against the ground. I swung a leg up and kicked Nale away from me, slamming my foot against his gut and shoving him away with a forceful grunt. I was so close to cutting loose and frying this bastard. So very close--but the others had warned me that using my fire powers, or, 'shifting' as they called it here--was a bad idea--and shifting to demon form was just...equally horrible.
Nale regained his drunken balance with surprising speed, and kicked me in the ribs as I went to roll over. Choking in pain, I grabbed his leg and shoved at that as well, losing myself in the fight and hearing the roar of the crowd in my ears. Nale reached down, grabbed me by the collar, and promptly hurled me into a table--I met the woodwork with wholehearted throttle and felt it break--before I was too dazed to move, and realized he was standing above me, preparing to attack again--before a figure stepped between us, arms frantically outstretched.
“Stop! Please!”
The female voice was familiar, and I tried to think (around a fractured skull, no doubt) about who it was, rolling my head around the rubble of the broken table and peering blearily upwards. I caught a blur of red hair and the smell of honeysuckle.
“Nim?” I said, voice sounding muffled. I swatted a hand at the air, trying to find something to grasp in order to sit myself up. “Whatar you doin’ here g’back t’Earth where it’s safe.”
“Not going to happen,” she said, her clear, sweet voice breaking through the mutters that rose in a swell around me. The blonde man, irate at the interruption to the fight, started towards Nimue, fists balled up by his sides.
“Nale,” the Ekyran’s voice said warningly. I didn’t bother trying to look anymore, it hurt too much to keep my eyes open for terribly long. “You wouldn’t dare attack a lady, would you?”
Nale must’ve hesitated, because I heard no more movement of feet, and then a gentle, warm hand settling over my brow.
“You’re concussed!” Nimue burst out, her delightful voice laced with concern. I grinned slightly and kept my eyes closed, too tired all of a sudden to do much else but lie there. “We need to get you home.” She clucked her tongue, sliding my arm around her shoulders so smoothly I barely felt it move. “What did I tell you about lying low?”
“Uh.”
“That it was a good idea? Recite the alphabet for me, won’t you?” She tugged my other arm outwards and tested it, then grimaced. “And you sprained this.” She whipped around--I felt the ripple in the air, and then I opened my eyes again.
Nimue, good ol’ Nimue, was standing, glowering at Nale with a deep scowl, as the man held his ribs and stared back at her somberly, stifling a belch in his other fist. The Ekyran had buried his face against a hand in exasperation, and the black-haired man was bawling with laughter again, beating the table lightly with a fist. The rest of the bar--now occupied with no less than four enormous bouncers--was standing in a circle, tankards raised, either cheering or cackling, or otherwise just sort of staring.
“How can you pick on him?!” Nimue snapped, gesturing to me with her free hand. I felt a sting of hurt pride and tried to tug away from her.
  “Nimue, I c’n take’im,” I growled. “Let me back at’im, I’ll show that old fogy who’s th’boss…”
“Hush up, Kale,” Nimue said gently, putting her hand to my mouth. I piped down in spite of myself as she guided me towards the door. “Did you get the ghost?” she added in a soft voice, close to my ear. I sighed, then shook my head--and regretted it as the room proceeded to spin.
“Hey, f’r the record, ‘e’s th’one who started it!” Nale hollered from behind us. Nimue shot him a burning look of death over her shoulder before turning around--where the dark-haired accomplice of the blonde man was now standing, much to my utterly delayed shock. Nimue gave a horrible start as he peered down at her, cocking his head to one side, blue eyes round and inquisitive.
“…h’v we met?” He asked her idly, and I frowned at him, wanting to tell him to step off Nim, but as it turns out, I didn’t need to. Nimue went pale, and, staring back at him, shook her head rapidly, pulling me towards the door.  
“No--I--I don’t think so.” She hesitated by the door, then glanced over her shoulder as the black-haired man shrugged, and went to turn away. “…Cyrus?”
The man paused in place, flicking a look over his shoulder, then hastened back to his table, stumbling faintly with a snort of mirth at himself. Nimue, pursing her lips, seemed to discern nothing from his disinclination to reply, and simply exhaled through her pointed nose.
“…come on, then--let’s get you home and cleaned up. We’ve got a long talk about controlling your temper ahead of us.”
“Ahaha. Ahead. My head hurts. See? Funny, funny.”
“I think that fight broke your brain.”
“I don’t think you’re wrong.”
And thus ended the first of what was sure to be many (or at least, to my jumbled brain, that was the hope) little excursions to Karsyn, be it for ghost-hunting, the lovely scenery (mud, mud, mud), terrific underground alcohol (straight to the bladder like a streak of fire) or settling newly-formed grudges that came from overbearing, loud, obnoxious old men.
Karsyn.
What a place.

</the end.>