Ever sidelong, he saw the glintings of so, so pale light on the spider web and he saw the slight and silver threads sway in the minute movement of air. It hung precariously between cornerstones, just in front of his ear. Against his inclination towards stillness, the Norskmann reached out and, without looking directly at it, touched a blunt and grungy finger to the thing that was barely there, those fragile threads. The web collapsed and wrapped sticky and inconsequential sparklings between his fingers. The spider blurred in its fall, landing out of sight and out of mind.

Guthorm leaned his head back against the wall and sighed. He had been sitting there for what seemed like hours, waiting and watching in the long, dark corridor underneath...well, he was not sure if he was still underneath the floors of the lawspeakers' offices. Perhaps his wanderings down under had lead him...eh, he did not know. But he hoped to find out what this long dark way was. And who used it. He had walked long. He had followed several twists and turns in the darkness. Ahead, far ahead, it was a faint glow of torchlight that stopped him. A way of someone's passage" A thoroughfare" And who else was wandering down there with him' It was an excuse to stop. To rest. And to wait.

Hours ago, he had begun his exploration tired and it had taken him longer than he had planned. The waiting was long. And he was tired and in the murky darkness it was difficult not to feel every nagging pain that took this opportunity to settle deep. He could not help but smile in the dark. This waiting turned thoughts awry....

He had been free and welcome in the Inn for so long after his...turning. He had been there when Howe had gone after Viki, the little Seer, in the street. He had steered the lawspeaker away...oh, for Howe's own preservation, sure. The man was insufferably out of control of himself. It was a clear weakness. But the seer had gone free. Open battles with Sid had continued, almost with disasterous results. The plasma blaster had gone off and nearly...melted" her, but for just the grazing it gave her out of sheer luck. Her runes must be fortuned. For that, he was grateful. Tasha had taught him what he needed to know about the weapon, and had given it back to him. She was Grace, that Tasha.

And Kitty's little slap against his face. He deserved that, surely. It was a long time coming. It turned the tide of his freedoms in the Inn. And that she wore the anger and hatred of many in her new opinion of him was not lost on him one bit. She might have been the first to lash out, but she was not the last. The burns of her magick fire even still nagged at his flesh, especially with the stone digging in against his shoulder. He did not move to ease it.

It was not the only inconvenience that had its residence on him. Scuffles down at the merchant docks...in Bloods territory...oh...he grinned wider. The gashes and bruises he gained down there were the occassional prizes of his perversely wild fun. He was not welcome there, if just by virtue of being known as a Norsk pirate, but, of course, he would not stop his visits among the Bloods' booths. He had his orders. And even still he was able to limp where he would there, accompanied by his props...the street cart of wares that bought him entrance as a trader, and Dewey, Cheetham and Howe's cart awk, that "guarded" those "treasures." He wandered without much notice even still, but for when he himself initiated some fun to break the boredom of his slippery, but painfully slow "duties."

Guthorm shifted his weight and looked towards the torch still burning in the smokey darkness. Was there a noise there" He stopped breathing to listen....

No reward for his vigilance. Nothing. He was tired. He let that held breath slip away, accompanied by a small hiss of annoyance that betrayed its growing hold on him. Bone and muscle complained. He shifted his weight again, let the stone behind him dig another place into flesh, and thought of returning the way he came. No sense in falling headlong into the unknown. He had the blaster, ja, but...eh....it was seeing the whites of his enemies' eyes that made a fight fair. Blasters? Death was better bought with sword, with axe...even with fists, and especially with cunning. Blasters could give him none of that challenge in a battle for life. He doubted very much that he would even think to use it if attacked.

And he thought on Sid again...and smiled in the darkness. She felt so Godt...under the weight of circumstances, down deep in his being. She was....Special....for many reasons, most, he would never speak to anyone. She had mentioned someone to help him, when last they met, her in an amazing other skin. Alain. But he did not know the man...or what help the man could be. He breathed deep, savouring memory of his people, memory that distracted him in that dark emptiness. Another he was fond of followed the thought of Sid, though he could not unweave why...Kiema. She was alive somewhere. He hoped she was well. And Sylvia with her baby coming...no longer accessible, he feared she had turned against him, and not without Ewan's help. That loss stung.....Tanny felt Godt to him as well. She had offered him a spark in his hurting. She was so kind and so innocent! And though he had refused...he was dead set against using magicks to battle his fate...he had felt a warm friendship at her offer.

Shylah. Oh, he needed to speak with her, and yet, it had been so long, and opportunities missed, that he was certain she would make him pay dearly for his absence. It was her way. He smiled then. She was a wonderful woman. A Norskwomann! Norskwomen did not have a weak bone in their bodies and were not easily swayed, and least of all, Shylah. In the dark of the corridor, he missed her council. And of course, Lucky. He was lucky to be alive. Guthorm owed him much for past adventurings. By Othinn, the start of this current trouble lay in deadly insult to the Barrister, and Guthorm was far from forgetting that.

Nei, no sense to walk headlong into what lay behind that dim torchlight. A dead man was no good to anyone. Not to his town. Not to his people. He had much to do yet. Who he was after in town still drew breath. Who he must protect was still his concern. And so he would wait a while longer...and then he would come back, and wait again, to return again. As long as it took, he had. He would persevere.

Gods...progress was so slow....

His ribs were healing slowly too. The fall from the rafters that day he sought for an orb at the Inn. Kitty again. And Jewell with her. He wasn't sure what they did directly, or who was responsible. Maybe it was even Icer. The slippery ice on the rafters...his fall onto the table and chairs below him. Another inconvenience to nag him. But he had gotten the orb that Taneth had thrown down from those rafters for him. He had gotten it, and Icer had revealed it was the Oracle's orb. Perfect! The price was dear, but not in broken bone. Icer had an orb, too. One that saw him clearly. She could put it to devestating use by passing it to the right place. He had a feeling that even a blaster would not save him then....

He was tired. Blinking open eyes that had betrayed his intent to watch, eh! he had to Move. Pain was a murmurring motivation, though kept at bay by an instinctive resolve towards ignoring. He was built to withstand fortunes' claimings. He knew it well, that he could withstand much. He had much to do yet, and least of all, he had an orb to plant above.

Guthorm leaned forward and peered with squinty, shifty eyes down the long corridor. If someone had passed in and out of light down there, someone who belonged to that noise he thought he heard, then he had missed it. Damn!!

But it was quiet now. No Dewey. No Howe. No Mortimor. No office workers with cloth nooses around their necks. No guards with whips and chains. No blood suckers. No witchmen. No Tass. No Magicks. No ghosts. No screaming. No torture. No whisperings. Nobody sneaking about on dangerous business. No nothing. Disappointment tasted bitter in his mouth.

The Norskmann pushed himself up, stiff but quiet, and reluctantly limped his way back the way he had come. In his leaving, he promised himself a more successful return visit soon. But...he had been gone so long from the Inn, first, he promised himself a visit there next. Perhaps things had cooled down there since last he made appearance.

He rather doubted it...

Down, down to where the way was dark and the sounds were more than hair-raising. Some poor woman, some girl perhaps...he heard her murmurrings echo, her humming, maybe even her soft crying, and was it her that sometimes screamed" Or was it something else? He could not tell. It was a terrible torturing. Yet, distance was crucial, yet. Howe, Dewey...and others marched, dark-faced and angry, over-wild, thrilled with wide eyes, even slobbering it seemed to the Norskmann as they passed by him in the distance. Oh, he could not be found out! Not here! Not now! And yet he went down...often, to listen to the girl. To plan a way in closer. To make a closer, cautious approach to see. To do something!

The Norskmann pressed himself yet again into the black hole of shadow down below the offices. Deep, deep down below. Wandered far to get close, to lend a silent company perhaps, though he could not be found, or known, by whoever it was in there, or by whoever it was that wandered down there with him, guarding the spaces for Dewey, for Howe. Guthorm was yet undiscovered. But he knew well that Magicks could turn the world upside down.

Magicks...

Alysia. She was Magick.

He heard her words over and over in the most guarded of his thoughts. He could not keep them away. Her offer...her offer.

He could not spend it on his own safety. What with this finding down below and what he imagined was happening to the girl, to others perhaps as well...he could not waste her offer. Give it to Taneth. She might have such need. Guthorm was not at all sure what Dewey or Howe (he had two arms again!) was doing, was going to do to the bouncy blonde, but to the Norskmann, she seemed so...open. She might easily be...tortured...might easily be used.

Spend the offer on her safety.

Guthorm knew this...that if by some powerful multi-dimensional Magick he himself was trapped or ripped from his own fate (or maybe it was his fate?) by these foreign men with their inexplicable ways and weapons, in spite of his own cunning, strength and will, if he was bent by Magick to (and he vowed he would never while in his own mind...) return harm to any he knew well on the long DCH hit list, then he hoped Someone would have the guts, the strength and the power it would take to stop him. Dead.

The Blood Sucker might as well be free to try.