Nobody ever worried about a blind man. Though seeing one enter any establishment was bound to raise a brow or two. Particularly those of the whores who instantly thought he would make an easy mark. After all, it was always standard practice to pity the handicapped.

The sway of the thin cane was always a give away. This particular thin cane in question, however, was not standard white with the red band around the base. The second dead give away was the vacancy in his eyes. Eyes that were clouded and so utterly useless that the iris and pupil both were an ice white blue that nearly bled into the sclera.

Some time ago he had ventured into the Brazen Wench following the piss and vomit stink in through the doors for no rational reason. Given his choice, he would have steered clear away from the rank aroma that wafted off the very streets outside such a place. As it was, however, some phenomonally sadistic cosmic force had nudged him in this direction, and so here he was.

"Oooh, Letty, lookit that one," whispered one of the wenches up on the balcony. He heard them just as clearly as he heard the rustle of a cloak's hood turn to examine him the moment he stepped through the door. Right beside him. Right there. The blind man ignored the tittering whores upstairs. The man at the door was another story.

A whisper of thought trickled over from a dark and spidery mind. The language of this creature's thoughts were not immediately familiar to him, but a little ounce of knowing spilled over from elsewhere. Fool of a human is going to die in under five minutes, Keeshe thought. The rustle of hood fabric sounded again, a clear sign that the male had turned his head to look across the room.

Renley ignored him and moved on, letting the swaying tick and tack of cane tip guide him through the filth and stink of this especially vile bar. His lungs burned to breathe in this place, and his shoes stuck on any manner of grotesquely unidentified pools of slop.

The sounds of the wenches above gave their locations away, which made it no trouble at all to hone in on their minds as well. A little tickle, not even a pinch, and he passed along a suggestion that had the lot of them immediately dismissing him as a potential client. One of the girls took it a little harder than the rest, broke into hysterics, and raced into her room.

Renley heard a body slam against a wall and then thump on the floor after the rebound. Without having first delved too deep into her subconscious, how was he to know that her mother had died of leprosy? Oops.

The tip of his cane clicked against the base of the bar and his hand brushed against a stool. He immediately pulled his hand away from the seat with a disgusted curl of his lip that couldn't be helped. Someone had spent years sticking wads of gum under that seat! He felt it for a second and immediately wanted to vomit, but he choked down the bile when a body behind the bar grunted at him and asked him what he wanted.

Tilting his head, he fixed an ear on that sound. Beneath the heavy breathing of the stinking, grunting tender, there was the sound of squeaky wheels. Some sort of device, a chair perhaps, that let the server move back and forth quickly along the shelves. Interesting. "Whiskey," Renley ordered without an ounce of civility in his tone. He was one of those haughty sorts upon first impression, it was true. "Iced."

Orlak grunted a price at him and wheeled away to fill the order. The blind man dipped a hand into his pocket, brought three small pouches up to his nose and breathed deeply the scents stuck to the leather from each one. Cinnamon. Cloves. He considered leaving them out so that he could drown out the stink of the room, but leaving your money laying around in a place like this for all to see was just asking for a shanking. Even he knew that.

One of the pouches contained the appropriate coin. He fetched it out and set the payment on the bar. Then he slipped his hand back into his pocket, but the pouches showed no bulge when he stowed them away. Maybe he was asking for a shanking, because he made it so obvious. Or maybe, just maybe, it was all a ruse.

The tender came back with his drink and thumped it on the bar. Renley heard no distinct rattle of ice, but he only frowned. In a place like this he should have expected to be forced to drink his whiskey warm. Sighing irritably, he picked up the glass, thanked the barman tersely, and turned to move away from the bar. There was no way he was going to sit on that stool.

Of course, the choices in chairs weren't much better at any of the tables, he figured. Wandering around the room in search of a decently clean spot wasn't going to do. The last thing he needed was to make himself look like a target. There was another way to go about this.

Keeshe's mind was ripe for invasion, and he tapped that resource like a drain spout in a maple tree. The connection was near instantaneous, and he grinned to himself, head bowed over his whiskey glass, at the predictability of finding the man looking right at him. Those eyes tracked his every move as he ticked and tacked his way through the room. With that unaware assistance, he managed to find himself a table in the middle of the room that seemed to have been neglecting use for centuries. Pulling out a chair, he set down his whiskey glass carefully on the table, and had himself a seat.

That was when the waiting began. His patience paid off in the end. Eventually a pair of drow females slinked their way in from the dirty dark of the outer streets. A tingle at the base of his skull had him becoming more attentive when their spidery voices started to speak. Through Keeshe's borrowed eyes he watched them. With his own keenly attentive ears he listened. And oh the things he heard.

He couldn't remember why he really kept this f*cking job. It didn't pay, he wasn't ever interested in the collection of whores they offered, no matter how good some of them were at their jobs...And he certainly wasn't around enough in the summer to even man the god damn door and be useful. And yet? He kept it. He kept the job and Orlak didn't fire his ass. In fact Orlak years ago had given him a room that should have been reserved for some of the far more well known Rhy'din officials that liked to pretend they didn't visit for the tits and a**. It sure wasn't for the food they stayed.

At any rate, so there he was. He had the door tonight in one of the rare moments off because he knew if he went back to the other inn, there would be a drop down, sexy and p*ssed as hell little pale elf. And she would kick his a** from one way Sunday to some where next Monday--then pause long enough to change boots and start again. You know, he really liked her...And that's why he couldn't hang around too much. Because the more he hung around her, the more--Vharan's brow within hood began to gather over his nose. First off, he just picked up the scent of two other drow. In a room full of sweat, sex, ale and dirt, the smell of clean, freshly tilled earth or deep dry caves with running water stood out. Sharply. He gave a cursory glance to the seemingly spaced out Keeshe, not giving a flying monkey f*ck what the other male had smoked to make him look that way. Vharcan was then leaning up from the door and sending dark eyes hawkish through the crowd.

Didn't take long to spot them. Mean, really. What kind of a drow would he be if he couldn't spot his own god damn kind? A retarded drow, that's what.

Gathering cloak about him the height-challenged Vharcan weaved through the tables. He didn't need to get too near to eavesdrop, right? The pointy ears weren't just for show and sending fan girls into spams.

Do you think She would rebuild her temple? Floated past a drunken whore giggling past. He wasn't sure what gave him chills more, the fact the whore had open sores--hey, he's a poet--and someone was taking her for a spin in bed, or the way the other dark elf said SHE. Like it was...You know. That bitch.

Xas. Look around you. No one cares, the other female replied and went in to a pretty damn accurate description of possibly one of Vharcans best nightmares in the whole entire world.

Great. Just f*cking great.

Aw hells naw, there was no way he was going to let that happen, and he knew in a split second he had two things he had to do. Shut up, and man the f*ck up.

There were two things Vharcan feared and hated equally in this life. Lloth and female drow. He chose the lesser of two evils and pushed himself forward from the crowd. Throwing back his hood the diminutive, delicate and rather handsome--if he did say so himself--male marched his way to the two females table and just made himself right at home.

Reaching out to grab a chair he pulled it to himself in the stunned silence of four female drow eyes on him, sat down in it and crossed his arms over his chest.

To Suliss'urn and Skikudis he gave them his best grin. The one that said I'm just as much of a crazy assed drow as you. You don't know when or why I might go off. AND I'm male. I'm repressed, b*tches. I have a reason to be nuts.

"Hellloooo ladies," head tip. "Couldn't help but hear you discussing a certain God we could all do without. You two wouldn't happen to be planning to shove that Spider b*tch back into whatever foul primordial ooze that shat her out from, would you?

"Because let me tell you. There's nothing in this world I'd love to do more. Let's be friends, mm. I'm Vharcan, and you two charming specimens are....? "

Vharcan. He liked to look into deaths face and waggle his nethers about at it.

Figured once in, he might as well go all out.

Once you knew what you were looking for, everything else was pretty easy to ignore. Renley had dodged around filthy stinking bodies galore. Some were doused in too much cologne or perfume. Others hadn't bothered with bathing their entire lives.

When he was seated, hardly anyone bothered with him at all. Though even he had to realize that eventually one man sitting at a table in the middle of a chaotically busy establishment like this one, a man who had yet to be harassed by anyone at all, was bound to arouse suspicion. So after a while he used Keefe's eyes to select one of the prettier unoccupied wenches and singled her out.

There were so many unprotected minds in this wretched place. Keefe looked up for him with a nudge of thought and his eyes landed on a freckle-faced little redhead. She would do. He put a lock on her, had Keefe take another look around the room and then disconnected from him entirely. He no longer needed that one's eyes.

A bit of probing around in the girl's thoughts provided him with a name. Whether it was her actual birth name or not didn't matter. It was the name she went by now, especially for business, so that's the name he latched onto. Ruby. Uninspired, really, but he tickled her mind with the thought of her own name and urged her to look over at him. That one there looks awfully lonely, he suggested to the girl, using the pattern of her own thoughts.

Such a simple thought was more than enough to get the girl to come down from her balcony overlook and sway her way through the room to join him at his table. "Hello there, 'andsome," she crooned at him, putting a hand on the table inches from his own. It was pointless of her to bother, really, but she was so well practiced that she leaned in low to hover her breasts in front of his face.

Can't see them, you moron, he insinuated.

"Oh my!" The girl shuffled closer, her skirts whispering beneath table and chair, and put her rear right on the edge next to his arm. "Y'poor, poor man." Like all good whores, she reached out and touched his face sympathetically. "I couldn't 'elp but notice y'can't see a thing. What's it like?"

Renley smiled slyly, trying his able best not to sneer in disgust instead, and slid his hand back to find her fingers. "Dark and dreary," he told her, with just the slightest ounce of sarcasm lacing his tone. His fingers felt along the back of her hand, to her wrist, immediately found her thigh and then crawled across her lap until he found her lap. "Why don't you come here and brighten up my world for me," he suggested aloud, and hauled her onto his lap.

Like all good whores, this one laughed delightedly, and he used her as a decent enough shield against suspicion. His eyes may have been dead, but all the working parts that made him a man were still in top condition. Of course, his brain was of a higher capacity of operation than his manhood, and he had to reason with himself that it was likely Ruby here was carrying some sort of disease that he didn't want to catch. So he mostly just toyed with her a little and held pointless conversations.

All the while, however, he was listening into other things. He used Ruby's eyes to see around the room. There were the two female drow keeping well to themselves. But the tavern was so crowded that there was certainly someone near enough to be able to hear better than himself. His ears were keener than the average man, but he was still human.

There at a nearby table were a small collection of drunks gambling away their fortunes. A few of them were obviously too far inebriated to bother with, but one or two of them were pretending. He picked the nearest one, disconnected from Ruby's mind, and latched onto him. It took only a little bit of effort to make that one slump back against his chair and appear to have passed out. He was even drooling out of the corner of his mouth, which was actually rather typical for a man whose whole brain has been hijacked. Through him, Renley continued to listen.

Then came the male, with one brazenly spoken little sentence, and the situation couldn't have been any more perfect. A little chilling tingle in the back of his head insisted he seize the opportunity and listen more intently. So while he fondled Ruby's assets, he concentrated on keeping the gambler looking comatose but actually unwillingly attentive.

Vharcan, as pleased as he was currently and like the other drow despite their anger, kept flicking glances to the roaring crowd. Quite getting into themselves enjoying a good old fashioned bar brawl. Bones crunched, blood flew, whores and women squealed and men shouted bets and prods.

It couldn't be a more perfect night or place to discuss this as time went on, someone approaching the table in this mess would be too obvious. Someone trying to eavesrop? The same.

But--"Now," the male drow said dropping his chair to the floor with a thud barely heard over a Your-mother-insult being howled. "As lovely as the two of you have been," skipping a glance over the still growling Suliss'urn, "ushdui elg'caress included, I think we've been in one spot long enough." Two female drown and one male that certainly wasn't welcomed in one spot. At a table, no less. The longer they stayed together the longer they risked being noticed.

"So you two charmers think about it. I'll find you when you have your answers." With that, he rose out of the chair, shook out his cloak and stepped into the fray of bodies before either female could spit some horrendous insult. Neither of them were surprised however, with his skill or disappearance.

In the midst of insanity--blood, gore, yelling, cups flying and screaming laughter the two sisters stared at one another: eye to eye. What passed was silent but, in the language of such soundless things an easy thing to read.

They true why's and reasons didn't really matter when the two sisters thought about it. Such details became faded in the reality of things.

Lloth was trying to settle herself. Here. And that was the last thing Rhydin needed.

Skikudis released Suliss'urns arm and the two followed Vharcans' lead, disappearing into the wild crowd.

Through flying fists and flipped skirts, Orlak, and his adopted daughter watched them go.