[Doctor Gabriel]

A wet thud and a hissing click signalled Our Beloved King's landing and the return of his Chainswords to their sheaths on his back.

"What the hell..."

The Vagrant King had traveled far in his strange life and seen some of the most unimaginable sights a man can at his age. But nothing matched the surreal, disturbing nature of what he saw before him now.

The girl he'd followed there was covered in the Bumbleraffe's blood and clutching the fragile, still form of another girl, that was in some unholy manner connected to the beast.

His squelching footsteps through the gore echoed in the now eerily silent street as he carefully approached the Kafkaesque tragedy before him. There almost something almost ceremonial about the way the girl bathed in blood clutched the other's hand that he felt uncomfortable disturbing them.

"Do you..." King Gabriel asked hesitantly, "know what that thing was?"

He tried to avoid looking directly at her by instead scanning the skyline for the source of the shots that had helped him bring the creature down while awaiting a reply.

[Salone]

Shaw stumbled haphazardly along, attempting to run toward the sound of the fray. It had died down as he rounded the corner, coming to a stop as the shock of what he saw metaphorically punched him across the face.

"How the hell did that clear the wall?"

He'd seen creatures like that before. His plight of being caught in the forest of Atticus had brought him too close to many of its denizens, and his intimate knowledge of how one could take a person apart came rushing back in to his muddled mind. He ran a hand through his ruffled hair as he noticed the bombastically dressed male and the ooze covered spindly girl.

"What the hell do you think you're doing? You damn kids, get away from it, it's dangerous! And you! Take your hand out of it!"

[Doctor Gabriel]

A male voice snapped The Vagrant King's wandering mind back to his body. But not just any voice, a voice that brought with it coherent sentences and didn't even call him a cloud!

His Majesty would have been overjoyed... Had the coherent sentences not been insulting me.

"Kid?!" Our Beloved King cried in outrage before spinning round (insuring his coattails fluttered dramatically as he did so) and strode toward the man who had referred to him with such disrespect.

The Vagrant King marched confidently forward and glared at the man, doing his best to make himself seem as large and intimidating as he could. Unfortunately, that feat was made rather difficult considering his majestically quaffed hair only barely crested the stranger's eyebrows.

"Have you any idea to whom you are speaking?" Lord Gabriel interrogated with a demanding finger aimed at the man's face, "Why, while you were still learning how to SPELL YOUR NAME, I was being trained to conquer kingdoms!"

His Majesty cackled with pride, throwing back his head and gripping his smirking face with one hand, insuring to leave one, piercing golden eye visible between his fingers. He leaned backward just enough to ensure the little moonlight illuminated his upper body purposefully, before pointing his finger at the man, for emphasis this time, and introduced himself properly.

"You stand before The Vagrant King, Lord Gabriel! Defender of the oppressed masses and scourge of their corrupt, despicable lords! I have lived a thousands lives, crossed every border on this world at least thrice over, and loved more women, more passionately than you have seen in your entire life! I'm no more a kid than you are, my weary eyed friend!"

[Salone]

Emmanuel Shaw seemed to consider the large spanner in his hand.

I could do it. I could clock him right now.

"Son I don't know what poison you've been drinking, but that's the talk of crazy there. That there's a...well I don't know what it's called, but we've met. You should really get away from here. Even if it is dead, the rest of the city will descend upon it soon."

He gripped the spanner, leaning slightly to look behind the crazy man and to eye the girl perched upon the carcass of the creature.

"And I said stop that! They're just as deadly on the inside as they are out! You won't forget what you see on the inside there, I can promise you that!"

[CupcakeDolly]

With the layer of blackish ooze smeared on her face, it was easy for the girl named Ophe- Amary to hide the tears that had begun to recklessly escape. Her quiet moment with the dearly departed was being interrupted by the buzzing of the loud ragdoll man and a newcomer who smelled strongly of the lighter fluid that often passed for spirits in this city.

"So much buzzing," she muttered irritably. "Buzzing and humming and meddling." At the spirit man's last comment she glanced sidelong at him and said, "You may be quite right about that." Sighing, Amary gave the thin, limp hand one last squeeze and stood to dismount from the monster's corpse, but her foot slipped against the slick carapace and brought her thin form tumbling down into the puddle of blood and innards below with a graceless sploop! Ophelia lay still on her back for a moment, then began to cackle loudly.

[Doctor Gabriel]

His majesty pinched the bridge of his perfect nose in exasperation.

Wonderful! He's a simpleton! Doesn't even know how to show respect to those risking their shapely asses to protect him!

Lord Gabriel was just about to respond to the oblivious ignoramus when the man looked past him and began yelling at the poor little creatures covered in Bumbleraffe sauce.

"Fine, fine," The Vagrant King agreed with annoyance, waving a hand dismissively and trying to draw attention back to himself, "I'll skedaddle on out of here, if you insist. But before I do, could you, for the love of the Lost Kingdom of Voyhager, please tell me where here is? And, more importantly where a man can get a drink to help him forget that he's been smashed through a brick wall?"

A squelching thud caused Our Beloved King to spin round before the taller gentleman could respond. He was about to sprint toward the blood covered young woman lying on her back, but then she started laughing like some sort of witch. As such, our brave and valiant Lord Gabriel, opted to slowly back away from the girl and hide behind the taller man, sticking his gorgeous face just around him to keep an eye on the madwoman.

[CupcakeDolly]

Unable to cease her laughter, Ophelia was having trouble sitting upright. Her arms were wrapped around her stomach, both from the pain of her spasms and from the sudden overwhelming nausea. The blood she wallowed in gave off a powerful odor that she had somehow not noticed right away - which was odd, considering how very astute she knew herself to be - and the fumes brought tears to her eyes.

She felt herself beginning to retch, and probably would have emptied the scarce contents of her stomach right then, if she hadn't been suddenly distracted from her sickness by the sight of a rather gaunt dog standing right above her.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

"Aw, what do we have we here? A bloody mess, if I'm any judge. Sic is going to be proper wroth, mark my words. He hates messes. Now how are we to sort this out?" Mansfield takes the leisure to sniff at more or less everything in smell.

A moment later, the click of hard heels on the cobbles announces Laurent, his cloak wrapped tight in front of him, concealing his weapons. He ignores the others and pauses to stare at the carcass.

"And what do they say? Speak of the Devil, and he doth appear. That was a proper rubbish shot, now wasn't it! What, did you blink? My money's on the blinking."

Laurent pays no mind to the dog, bending to examine the abominable creature more closely.

[Doctor Gabriel]

King Gabriel stared in awe past his human shield. It seemed that whatever time of night it was had been previously designated the time all the freaks made their way out of the woodwork. But there was something far more important that needed his attention.

"Did that dog... Just talk?" Lord Gabriel stepped out from behind the weary eyed gentleman, "Holy shit..."

Then in the blink of an eye he bending down and nuzzling the greyhound, enthusiastically patting and scratching him all over.

"Well awen't you da most pwecious hypa intelligent cweature on the planet?! Yes you awe, yes you awe!"

The Vagrant King reached inside his golden coat and retrieved a piece of jerky which he proceeded to dangle above the mutt.

"Do you want tweat boy? Does the good wittle abomination want a tasty tweat?!"

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Chomping down the jerky, more ravenous than grateful, Mansfield proceeds to lick the condescending stranger's hand in spite of himself.

"You see what you do to me, Sic? I've become a whore for morsels!" Looking up at the man, he lets his tongue loll out the side of his mouth. "There wouldn't happen to be more where that came from, would there? Oh say it's so, resplendent one." He lifts and waves his paw in excitement.

Rising from the carcass, growing less interested at the obvious synthetic nature of the beast, Laurent dabs out a touch of fugue oil to administer about his nose, inhaling the narcotic scent to still his nerves. The effort of human interaction is cause for agitation.

"You will have to pardon Herbert. The encepheloplasty has left him a slave to baser intuitions. A fact which torments him, do not doubt." Laurent does not meet the bombastic man's gaze as he speaks to him, electing instead to look upon the disfigured body retrieved from the monster's innards. "What do you make of this creature?" he asks. "I am surprised it died so easily."

[Doctor Gabriel]

The Vagrant King had an idiotic, almost innocent look of euphoria stretched across his face as he savored the feeling of the greyhound's slobbery tongue and flopping jowls sliding across his hand, gobbling up deer strip, after deer strip. Lord Gabriel just kept reaching into his seemingly bottomless supply whenever the surprisingly polite affront to the gods asked for more.

"What? The Bumbleraffe?" he finally answered, while ensuring the jerky train had no brakes, "Yeah, I may have gone a little overboard there... But, in my defense, you'd probably lose your head too if something punched you through a brick wall. As to what it is..."

His Majesty's jerky stores emptied, he gave Herbert a scratch behind the ears and rose to his feet, looking down at the carnage once more.

"Beats me what that monster is or was. I don't even know where I am. I woke up in a dumpster all of half an hour ago and followed this one," King Gabriel pointed to the yet unnamed lunatic who lay in the pool of blood and her own bile, "when I heard the thing's roar."

Our Beloved King wiped his hands together then stuck them in his pockets as he finally began surveying his surroundings.

"That reminds me, you wouldn't happen to know where a respectable slayer of monsters could get himself utterly shittfaced around here, would ya?" King Gabriel looked up at the large hole he'd left in the wall above them and remembered his promise to the elderly couple he'd scared the piss out of, "...A masonry shop would be good too..."

[CupcakeDolly]

Ophelia had ceased her laughter and edged around behind the cloud smoke while he was busy buzzing with words. She deftly reached out and plucked a strip of jerky from his hand, taking over the feeding of the dog which spoke more human words than a dog generally did.

"You got lucky, cloud. The poor thing should have been quite safe all wrapped up in its armor, but it was sick and dying already. Under normal circumstances it very well would have stuck you like a meatstick the instant you approached it."
She paused to pat the wordy greyhound's head, then continued, "I daresay they'll be here soon. Word about their dead pet must have reached them by now. It would be wise for all of you to leave."

[Suzerain of Sheol]

"I brew a strain of hypocras mixed with lavender and opium that would put you in a coma. Yet, I would not in good conscience invite you to my abode, as I could not vouchsafe your well-being." Laurent meets the loud man's eyes for the first time.

"What he means is he likes to get proper frothing mad when he drinks, and would just as soon chop you into giblets as engage in any sort of usual inebriations." Mansfield licks his lips inadvertently. A moment later, he shakes loose of the young woman's attention to round on her. "Now, wait just a bloody minute! Who're they? I don't know about you lot, but I'm just as keen not to find out."

Laurent shrugs. "This creature is clearly mundane in origin, of little interest. Perhaps the same group who experimented on you was behind its creation. I care little. We're leaving."

[Doctor Gabriel]

"Um... Hello?" The Vagrant King waved his hand like a student desperate to grab his instructor's attention, "Before we worry about all that, could we return to the simple, yet strangely dismissed matter of just WHERE THE FUCK I AM?!"

His Majesty clenched his face and fists in exasperation, before calming himself with a few very, very deep breaths.

"But yeah," he panted, running fingers through the luxurious crown of hair atop his handsome head, "Who exactly are these they people? And why should we be worried about them? Are you saying the Bumbleraffe was their doing?"

[Salone]

"For the last time, it's not a...a Bumbleraffe!"

Shaw lost his temper, throwing his middle aged arms in the air, wrench in his hands coming dangerously close to various elbows.

"It's a, a thing. I'm telling you I've seen these creatures. Up close, the big ones. They're, well...they're not exactly born sometimes."

Words from seconds ago echoed back to the forefront of his head. Ignoring the impossibility of canine speech, Emmanuel stuck a shaky finger out towards the old man who had joined their little mad party.

"You. Did I hear someone say you have alcohol?"

[Doctor Gabriel]

"See!" King Gabriel declared, throwing his arms toward his former human shield in exasperation, "See that? That's what a man who has his priorities in order looks like!"

The Vagrant King gave a warm smile of kinship to the man with the wrench for a split second before blinking and holding his head as if it was threatening to split in half.

"Wait, no... GAAAAH!" he bellowed into the night sky, realizing that his plea for answers remained unheard "You know what? Fine! If no one feels like answering me, I'll figure out where I am on my own!"

His Majesty leapt to a nearby wall and scurried up it like a majestic, golden squirrel. From his new vantage point he surveyed his surroundings for the first time since he'd awoken.

Okay... Big ass wall surrounding the city...

Houses and stores packed together like a ring of giant building blocks...

And one big ass clock tower looming over it all...

His Majesty's shoulders slumped and he let out a defeated sigh.

"Oh for fuck's sake... No wonder everything smells like feces and despair..."

I'm in Atticus... For some reason...