Dashiel Tansen was rarely a contented man, but over the course of the past week, he had gone beyond discontent into the realms of positively dissatisfied. Since the farce that had unfolded in the wake of the disastrous trip to Yomenïampa, Dash had struggled to find any work that could even start to compensate for the financial pounding he had taken as a result of killing the man who was, in fact, supposed to have been paying him.

So against his better judgement, he had agreed to accompany a travelling merchant. It was the kind of work that he hated more than anything – but the pay was guaranteed, and the risks were low. It also meant that he could get the hell out of Alulanta Falls and away from the dangers of being stuck in the same place for the rest of his life.

The merchant was a dull sort of fellow: a cloth salesman who was rather full of his own self importance and seemed to be under the impression that he might be waylaid by bandits who fancied themselves swathed in bolts of purple taffeta. He was shipping his fabrics to the Dwarf-haven, far to the west and they had been travelling now for some time.

But the thing that had really driven Dashiel to his wit’s end had been the employment of a second escort.

As a general rule, Dashiel didn’t play nicely with others and from the moment this man, an individual going by the unlikely name of Baugrin had turned up, he had felt an instant dislike, an immediate distrust and a sort of industrial rivalry. They had collected him in one of the many villages they had passed through, when for once, the merchant had been right about being waylaid by bandits.

At the time of visiting, the village had been in the midst of some celebration of some unbelievably boring saint or other, and Dash, bored with watching the festivities, had taken himself off on a patrol of the woods. Initially he’d patrolled in the company of a rather attractive young woman who had attached herself to his arm like a limpet. In his usual stand-offish way, Dashiel had allowed himself the rare luxury of enjoying a woman’s comforts before he’d sent her on her way and continued his patrol alone.

He’d picked up the bandits when they’d begun approaching the village and had hastened back to find all able-bodied men (which in this village apparently consisted of several old men with pitchforks and a twelve-year old boy) engaged in what was obviously an arms competition. Frustrated, Dashiel had sought the aid of the only likely-looking assistance, a burly man who practically radiated a sense of the creepy to Dashiel’s mind. Much to his annoyance, this individual had proven to be capable – no, more than capable – of aiding in the defence of not just the merchant and his stupid bolts of stupid cloth, and even worse, the bloody merchant had hired him to come along as well.

Dashiel had lowered the defences of hostility for all of an hour. Baugrin had not made any attempt to be forthcoming about anything and so the defences were erected once more and the young man had withdrawn back into his usual funk.

He didn’t like Baugrin, it was as simple as that. He found the other man faintly unnerving for reasons he could not put his finger on, and he didn’t like that. He didn’t like the way the man walked, the way he spoke (which was rarely, all things considered), didn’t like the arrogance in his tone...

And yet this particular evening had found them camped by a babbling brook, which held the last light of the dying sun and the mellow light that lit the glade in which they found themselves camped had dampened the fires of Dashiel’s dislike and he had suggested – not expecting a response in the affirmative – that the three of the might perhaps engage in a little dicing.

The mood had been surprisingly congenial, although fairly silent. They had played for copper pieces, with no real seriousness involved.

Until, that was, the merchant had retired for the night and Dashiel had upped the ante by tossing a silver piece into the pot.

That had meant war.

For a long season Baugrin resided in the dark gulley. Beside his damp campsite roared a dim waterfall whose mists and vapours dripped from everything, and, especially Baugrin himself, who was in the act of willing himself to death.
At the wraiths core he nursed the deep-seated rage and resentment toward the God of Nature, whose foolishness had caused Baugrin his terrible form of life. Thusly, in every way he could imagine, Baugrin tortured his body, knowing that through their shared link, Curin too suffered.
This grim meditation, in the act of starving and rotting his body to death, Baugrin was interrupted by brigands and thieves smuggling the stolen booty of a raid through his sodden gulley. Of all the places in Ondolond. the wraith fumed, for something slipped.
As his death-trance was broken, and his fierce resistance to the Spirit of Curin was distracted, Baugrin felt the sudden rush and onslaught of his makers grace. In a moment, the candle-wax pallor was gone, the shrivelling of gangrenous fingers and toes suffused with life and healing, and living energy. The God of Nature reached out his mighty hand to his miserable shadow, filling him to overflowing with life and love and welcome; and Baugrin howled with frustration. His sunken shoulders bulged with weighty muscle, his limp chin suddenly square, and glittering with a bright coppery beard. The eye-sockets, which had been deliberately gouged out were lidded and lit with warm brown eyes, that gleamed with intelligence and health. The puss-ridden whip-scars across his back and shoulders were restored to a rich sun-tanned bronze, rippling with the honest musculature of a ranger in the blossom of his strength. This was Baugrins' curse, that one who longed only for oblivion, was constantly remade in the image of one whom he hated more bitterly than any extent of suffering.

Baugrin traced the raiders to a village, where he at last indulged in the great satisfaction of killing them, and not less than a few of the villagers at the same time, drinking in the fear and pain as they died, their terrified eyes staring up into his own.
Thusly Baugrin took advantage of his newly restored appearance to seek employment, his evil soul restored with the vigour and ambition to start a fresh campaign to unseat Curin, and take his place. He would need coin with which he could eventually purchase the necessary witchcraft to begin anew.
Falling in with a dour-tempered bravo by the name of Dashiel Tansen. The wraith revelled in the wicked pleasure of baiting the man. For it seemed to Baugrin that Dashiel longed only to be in a foul mood; to be given any excuse to descend into the darkest storms of rage and brooding: and Baugrin, who breathed in such chaos like food and water, was more than willing to provide Dash with every opportunity imaginable.
In the wild he now had them, the trader, not that Baugrin had ever really noticed the man, who was so calm and content he was almost invisible to Baugrin; and Dashiel, the dark pillar of malcontent, and loathing, who had even tried to extend a hand of companionship to Baugrin, the rough and ready union of mercenaries. Baugrin, laughing internally, remained silent. Dashiel hated that silence. Baugrin could sense it drove him wild, a pent up bitterness as sweet to the wraith as sunlight to a blossom.
If it was not for the vast resource of chaotic energy this Dashiel supplied, Baugrin would likely had strangled him in his sleep, drinking in the man's horror as he flailed and kicked. But alive, Dashiel was as plentiful as a garden to Baugrin. As fruitful as an orchard of chaos.
So as it was, when the opportunity presented itself to drive Dashiel over the edge, Baugrin could not resist. Dice. Baugrin remarked to himself, suddenly realising the vast resource that gambling and corruption offfered him. Why did I not think of it sooner? Was there ever a riper resource of suffering and corruption than gambling?
Baugrin picked up the silver piece, testing it against the steel of his knife to check that it was not a fake -hoping to goad the man into a rage- "That is a week of your wage young Dash." Baugrin smoothly prodded Dashiels comparative youth. "Are you certain you can afford to take such a loss?" The wraith laced his voice with all the creepy confidence, and supposed concern he could conjure. He tossed the dice in his hands, looking at Dashiel, and down at the dice knowingly, as if his brown eyes could already see the outcome of their little game. He dropped two silver pieces down. Baugrin laughed internally; even if he lost every coin to the younger man, he was still winning the bigger game. To Baugrin it seemed that Dashiels moods and tempers were daily growing more unpredictable, suffusing Baugrin with more and more power. Before too long, the younger man would begin to grow pale, as his soul beagn to sicken, and his life force to wither. In time Dashiel would become a wraith in his own right, though under Baugrins' control -of course.

Many people misjudged Dashiel on first meeting him, considering his tendency to the taciturn as some sort of indication of intelligence, or rather, lack of it. Nothing could be further from the truth. Dashiel was sharp as a tack and possessed of a lightning-fast mind that had gotten him out of scrape after scrape.

But right now, in the presence of this man, he could feel his temper starting to boil, like a pan that had been left hanging over a fire for too long. He could feel it starting, gentle at first, popping bubbles of irritation around the edges - but knew himself well enough to recognise the early signs of a full-on roiling boil.

"Just play your money and roll the dice," he growled, watching Baugrin's hands intently.

When the other rolled a double four, Dashiel's eyes narrowed in suspicion. The dice had not favoured him tonight and he was starting to regret having agreed to use those belonging to his erstwhile travelling companion. When he snatched them up for his roll, he hefted them, trying to discern whether or not they were actually weighted.

They felt normal enough...

...but then perhaps Baugrin had magical tendencies...

...or any other number of things that could account for the man's irritatingly annoying fortune that evening. Dash would not and could not accept that when playing dice, you were playing with nearly 100% luck rather than skill.

"I can afford it," he said, tossing down two silver pieces of his own and hefting the dice once more in his hand. He shook them and threw them onto the makeshift table they'd made from a treestump. The two cubes clattered briefly and then settled on a six and a three.

"You win", said Dash, unable to keep the hint of self-mockery from his voice. "Guess I won't be retiring just yet."

There was a pause, then he dug into his pocket and threw down three more silver pieces.

"Once more," he said.

The damp wind-fall branches that fuelled the fitful fire crackled and breathed, a damp air sifted through the wood with a pattering of leaves, and a queer groaning and yawning of tangled boughs. In the firelight, reflecting the colour of burned copper, three silver coins dropped onto the stump. "Once more," Dashiel said with a dangerous smile. Baugrin shifted, so that his back was to the fire, and shadow fell over his hands and face. He knew his companion would find the move unusual, Baugrin was banking on it. From out of the obscurity reached a hand, again testing the silvers against a steel blade “No offence, of course, young Dashiel. With so much grammarye and illusion being recklessly employed, one needs must make sure they are indeed looking at what they think they see…” he made a drawn out display of stacking all the coins on the stump, but in the shadow of his knee. He thought he saw Dashiels eyes slit suspiciously at the move. perfect the wraith mused. Within Dashiels eyes a flame was smouldering, and the wraith, the wretched Shadow of Curin revelled in it. He reached the suntanned and muscular hand, shielding the dice from sight for a moment, winning another slitting of the eyes, and lifted them to his mouth, blowing and whispering over them so that Dashiel would only just hear.
I don’t know how I ever lived without this delicious upstart! Baugrin exclaimed to himself, looking out of the complete shadow into the face of his companion. Such rage! Such complete mistrust! I haven’t eaten as well in an Age. The wraith made sure his voluminous sleeves were seen to pass in front of the hand holding the dice, but only for an instant, so that Dashiel would suspect the toss. No one but an expert could swap the dice in that time, but if, if the roll came out in Baugrins’ favour, he would be twice the winner.
Baugrins’ eyes passed over Dashiels features with all the attention of a lover. The features were very fine, and in spite of what he guessed to be a relatively hard life, and almost certainly that of a mariner, Dashiel had not aged as gracelessly as a mere man. The wraith surprised himself at his own notion.I wonder, he feels part… part nymph I would guess… Baugrin made a false toss, his hand again being concealed by the sleeves. Again he thought he saw the delicious flash of barely retained outrage; and Baugrin was certain of his guess. Tansen his name might be, I wonder if he realises his heritage… the wraith stored this barbed piece of knowledge for a future opportunity to near-mortally offend his companion.
Already snoring, the trader snuffled and rolled in his blankets, and Baugrin snapped his head over to look at the man, as if startled by something. The moment Dashiels eyes turned from the stump, Baugrin threw the dice.

Many sailors with whom Dashiel had spent the past four years of his life were illiterate, with an inability to read or write anything other than their own names. He was not. His mother - his adoptive mother, anyway - had spent time teaching both he and his brother to read and write having been able to do so herself. Through reading, she had introduced Dash and Daniel to a world of imagination that had given them acres of creativity during their young childhoods.

His intelligence came to the fore now as he watched Baugrin through narrowed eyes.

Suspicion.

He remembered the book his mother had kept in the house. The one she'd said was called a 'dictionary', the book that told you what words meant.

A term for a feeling that appearances are not reliable. Suspicion is the positive tendency to doubt the trustworthiness of appearances and therefore to believe that one has detected possibilities of something unreliable, unfavourable, menacing, or the like.

Dashiel shifted slightly so that his angle towards Baugrin changed. He watched the man wordlessly as he went through a silent ballet of suspicious behaviour. He was being cheated, he suspected, and if there was one thing that Dashiel really really didn't take favourably to, it was being cheated.

"What are you doing?" he said, keeping his tone level and neutral. "Just roll the dice and be done with this foolishness."

Fury.

Unrestrained or violent anger, rage or passion.

The temper that Dashiel had felt starting to come to the boil metaphorically went 'ping' as it reached optimum temperature. Nothing showed outwardly of the sheer rage he was presently feeling other than a slight reddening at the tips of his ears as his adrenaline started flowing. He heard Baugrin's words as little more than a muffled sound that was faintly heard over the deafening pounding of his own heartbeat.

Slender fingers absently closed on the dagger hilt in his boot as Baugrin continued to fidget with the dice. Then he glanced over at the merchant and out of habit, Dashiel automatically turned to see what had caught his attention.

He heard the sound of clattering dice.

Inevitable.

Unable to be avoided, evaded, or escaped; certain; necessary.

Before he had even turned round, he knew what he would see. Thus, it didn't surprise him at all to see that Baugrin had rolled a double five.

"You are cheating me," said Dashiel in a low, pleasant voice. It was a voice that could be likened to razor blades dripped in honey. "You're consistently throwing doubles. Nobody is that lucky, friend Baugrin." He made a sweeping movement with his hand and the dice fell to the ground. Dashiel got to his feet and leaned down.

"You are cheating me," he said again, accusingly. "And I don't like being cheated."

Baugrin felt the mounting tension of his ruse with Dashiel, as wave after wave of suppressed fury washed over him, suffusing him with something akin to ecstasy, more over when he was immersed in suffering, or chaos, or outright evil, it increased the distance between himself and the God of Nature. For an instant Baugrin felt as if he was his own being, with his own destiny. Ahhh, my delicious Dashiel, how happy you make me, the wraith mused hatefully to himself. In your suffering I find my freedom. What strange chance is it that one so filled with life has become so wretched and hateful? Ah, but where then would I be now, if you were not here to squander your life-force for my benefit?
"What are you doing?" his pawn asked, seething with a gorgeously cold and calculating anger. "Just roll the dice and be done with this foolishness"
Baugrin made an indulgent face, a condescending pout, as if to say more powerfully than any length of words don't spoil my fun. "You are cheating me" the warrior said, his wrath well and truly unveiled, his voice perilously sweet. "You're consistently throwing doubles. Nobody is that lucky, friend Baugrin. You are cheating me. And I don't like being cheated."
Before the dice had even reached the ground an unseen hand caught them, where they hung, and moved to Baugrins expectant hand. He smiled with the utter extent of loathing and scorn he could conjure.
"Indeed I have been Dashiel, my sweet, sweet Dashiel." He licked his lips, almost able to taste the anger on the air, it's perfume suffusing his dark accursed soul. "Here, take it back. I will give you your gold, but you can never take back your pride, now, can you?" He slowly stood to meet Dashiel eye to eye, his hand resting upon the pommel of his londsword, and with the spare hand, he pointed his finger, and prodded it into Dashiels chest. "Or can you? Come let us test our skills in a more honest endeavour, you blade against mine." even as he spoke Baugrin wove the shadows about himself, so that one had to concentrate to look at him. His form became less than a shadow, a rumour of a shadow amongst the darkness. His laughter, though, was cruel, and altogether scornful, brimming with doubt that Dashiel could find it in himself to make good of his threat.

In all of this, the thing that least surprised Dashiel was the fact that his travelling companion was more than he had until now purported to be. He scowled viciously and unsheathed the sword that he carried. He was no great swordsman, this he knew: his skill was more with the bow and with the joy of the bar-room brawl - but he was angered enough to resort to the sword if he had to.

Not for Dashiel the grace and finesse of the master swordsman, no. For Dashiel, it was all about the hacking and slashing and the fighting below the belt: the kicking in the shins and, if necessary, the biting. 'A good clean fight' was pure anathema to a man like Dashiel Tansen. He fought to win, not to prove how skilled he was - or wasn't.

So when Baugrin challenged him, he was more than ready to stand his ground and fight. He looked down at the offered gold and his scowl grew still uglier. "I have no desire for the return of my gold," he said, making no effort whatsoever to hide his anger. That was not what Dash did. His anger roiled around inside him, becoming increasingly desperate for escape. And the more Baugrin taunted him, the closer to eruption his temper came. "I desire an apology. I don't take well to being cheated, as I believe I have told you on several occasions now. Keep the gold, for all the good you feel it will do you."

He took a step or two back, perplexed as Baugrin became gradually more and more ethereal-looking and spat on the ground. "Damn magic-users. Incapable of standing their ground and fighting. All hollow gestures and empty threats. None of you have got any real balls, have you?"

Plainly disgusted by what he considered an unnecessary show of Baugrin's abilities, Dash slid his sword back into his scabbard, then unbuckled his sword belt.

"Any fool can wave a sword around," he said. "Which, by inference would suggest that you would be exceptionally good at waving it. But where I grew up, you weren't considered a real man until you could hold your own in a fist fight. A real man fights with the flesh. What do you say, Baugrin?"

A sly smile slid onto his face, a rare expression indeed. "Or would you rather hide in the shadows instead?"

Baugrin watched with relish, the shifting lights of Dashiels mind in his eyes; the loathing mingled with equal measures of superstition and a hint of misgiving. He was simply too delicious! Baugrin could no longer feel any trace of Curins' presence, so powerful -now- the brawlers mood had become.
Blazing like a stoked fire piled with straw the brawlers temper blazed with a palpable heat -Baugrin licked his lips as if he could taste it. The man was clearly sizing Baugrin up for a fight, the sudden shift of body-weight to the balls of his feet, his hands held loose and ready. "I have no desire for the return of my gold," the brawlers voice dripped with menace "I desire an apology. I don't take well to being cheated, as I believe I have told you on several occasions now. Keep the gold, for all the good you feel it will do you" He spat on the ground. "Damn magic-users. Incapable of standing their ground and fighting. All hollow gestures and empty threats. None of you have got any real balls, have you? Any fool can wave a sword around, which, by inference would suggest that you would be exceptionally good at waving it. But where I grew up, you weren't considered a real man until you could hold your own in a fist fight. A real man fights with the flesh. What do you say, Baugrin? Or would you rather hide in the shadows instead?"
The Wraith laughed, long and heartily, his spittle crossing the small distance between them, to land on Dashiels face.
"Please, Master Dashiel, feel free to try. If you can knock me down, I will give you your gold, and the equal on top." and he laughed again, letting his sword-belt fall to the ground beside that of the Brawler.

Dashiel's handsome face was one big scowl as Baugrin continued to mock him with his words. He was angry, oh yes, he was angry - but he was also more than capable of channelling that anger to the right place at the right time.

The right place on this occasion was all the way into his fists.

Dash had grown up fighting. As a teenager, he'd fought his peers and he had proved to be very good at it. As a young man, that fierceness had become more delicately honed. He could have made very good money as a professional fighter if he'd wanted to.

He just didn't want to.

As he moved, lightly from foot to foot, ready for the fight, he unconsciously adopted a fluid grace that was part of his elemental heritage. His movements were like the gentle flowing of water, with an ever-present undercurrent that threatened to turn the calm stillness of the surface into a churning, white water nightmare.

He knew that he shouldn't really get into this fight, that it was merely another perfect example of why he preferred to work alone - but he'd gotten too far in now. No backing out for Dashiel Tansen at this point.

The young man moved with deceptive speed, with easy lightness and the first blow, when it came, was surprisingly hard. He seemed too slender and elegant to be capable of packing a punch that hard, but all the tendons in his arms were tight and his arms, visible when he shoved up the sleeves of the linen shirt, were strong and powerful.

For him, fighting was more than a release of temper. It was almost holy. It gave him such an adrenaline rush, such a feeling of near-ecastasy that once the fury had him in its grip, he could not leave it until the fight was ended. And when he was in that grip, there were only two possible outcomes.

He would either win the fight and then proceed to get screamingly drunk, the only way that he could 'come down' from the adrenaline high - or he would lose the fight and probably consciousness.

Right now, as he moved and weaved around Baugrin, he had the upper hand most definitely. Somewhere through the raging blood mist behind his eyes, he sensed that the other was not necessarily fighting back as hard as he could be.

"What's the matter?" he taunted. "You scared?"

Another swing of his right fight landed on target. This was easy.

This was too easy.

Baugrin felt the waves of rage wash over him, and as they did, he felt the distance between his soul, and that of the God of Nature increase, as if the senseless rage were the antithesis of Curins power, forcing the Nature Deities powers back. Held in the frightful embrace of Dashiels battle-fury, Baugrin was alone. His self. No looming presence of the one that had spawned him, no insistent pressure. For that brief time he felt like himself, with a mind, and a fate, and freedom.
The fists rained upon him, and Baugrin stood beneath them as a parched man beneath the falling rain, as if he might lift up his arms and laugh. The crack of ribs, and the splitting of his lip and brow was but a small price to feel freedom for a moment.
"Am I scared?" Baugrin answered at length, slowly standing from a blow which had doubled him over. He wiped the blood from his face with the back of his arm, and chuckled painfully, with a wheezing cough. His opponenet stood over him, stopping the blithe onslaught since Baugrin hadn't fought back."Far from it my darling, my precious. I've never felt better!" That said Baugrin countered Dashiels oncoming onslaught, whirling alongside the brawler, but always just outside of his opponents range. In the mean time Baugrin endeavoured to hammer Dashiels small-ribs, enjoying the perilous flexibility of them, as he drove them into the innards.

The more Baugrin stayed out of Dashiel's reach, the more furious the half-elemental grew. It was a mercy, perhaps, that his birthright was not that of fire, for he might well have spontaneously combusted with the sheer volume of the anger that was bursting out of him.

When finally his opponent began fighting back, Dashiel was not fool enough to think that he had the upper hand and he did not alter his offensive style of fighting at all. He had long successfully worked on the fact that the harder he attacked, the defence came easily. It was much easier to defend yourself against a weakened opponent, after all.

The first blow to his ribs, however, was solid and extremely painful, winding him temporarily.

It was the point at which the fight turned.

Up until that moment, Dashiel had most certainly been the likely winner. Up until that moment, Dashiel had rained down blow after blow on his opponent. And up until that moment, Dashiel had sincerely believed that he was in with a good chance of winning this fight. So much so that he could almost taste the brandy of victory in his mouth.

A heavy blow from Baugrin made a connection with his jaw and he spun backwards and down - and for the first time, his opponent's decidedly disturbing words started to filter through his haze of fury.

"My darling?" he said, spitting out a mouthful of blood and scrambling back up to his feet. "My bloody precious? Friend Baugrin, you are beyond extraordinarily strange. You've crossed that fine line into lunacy."

For several more minutes Dashiel put up an excellent fight, until once again he was taken out and down by a strong right uppercut. He hit the floor hard and lay there, sprawled out, out cold for a brief period before with a groan, he began to come back to awareness.

He wished immediately that he hadn't. Almost immediately all the pains and aches began to stick their curious little heads up.