<div class="floatleft">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/e/e0/ONB_-_Thyrnir_Bjornstruck.jpg)</div><strong>Name:  Thyrnir Bjornstruck (https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=266077.msg13127938#msg13127938)</strong><br/><br/><strong>CLIENT</strong><br/><br/><strong>Situation:</strong>Thyrnir the adventurer returns from walking the planes, his purse heavy with his share of the spoils from the hoard of the Chaos Dragon Xardion!<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><strong>Tagging:</strong>Open<br/><br/><strong>Content Warning:</strong><em>None</em><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><hr/><hr/>After a successful adventure, there was nothing Thyrnir loved better than to spend an evening and ample lucre at the One-Night Bride, but there were things he needed to see done before he could enjoy himself. In order to maintain his good standing with the Adventurer's Guild, Thyrnir visited a crotchety old accountant and pay his guild dues and several months advance. They always seemed to increase every time he returned. Then there was the matter of depositing twelve percent of his earnings in the Bazaar's foremost bank. After that the matter of hiring someone to travel to his home with another twelve percent for his family. Sometimes his family sent letters, but this time there were no missives waiting Thyrnir. It was for the best, anyway.<br/><br/>So by the time all of this was done, Thyrnir missed Mr. Jeffrey opening the One-Night Bride. In the past, Thyrnir had been one of the fleeced newcomers, but he bore no ill-will for it. He had taken it in stride and with good cheer, and the experienced clients who had fleeced him returned it by paying for the novice adventurer's drinks those nights.<br/><br/>Thyrnir Bjornstruck smiled as two guards drew aside velvet ropes as he approached the One-Night Bride, brimming confidence and good cheer brought on by a deep draught from the chalice of victory. So many said it could not be done! So many said that the Chaos Dragon Xardion was an invincible foe! But Thyrnir knew better. He knew that there was no such thing as an invincible foe. For had he not seen with his own eyes the Legend struck down by Araghast the Grey upon Geddon, the Wall of Death? Aye, Thyrnir had beheld with his boy's eyes the end of an era as Araghast dealt that mortal blow. But so too had he seen Araghast, having spent the last of his might, fall to his knees, his life's blood staining the stones of Geddon. Thyrnir shook his head. Those days seemed so long ago now - a trick of the planes. Thyrnir thought, in bouts of nostalgia or melancholy, that the planes had stripped him of his time. How else to account for spending an age fighting in the Blood War, and returning to find that only days had passed in the Bazaar? Or to spend a handful of hours at foot of the path to the Gates of Paradise, and find months had passed by?<br/><br/>Thyrnir plucked a pair of golden coins bearing the visage of some monarch he did not know, and tossed one to each guard. The blond adventurer gave each a courteous nod and carried on into the Bazaar, trying to shake away the past.<br/><br/>The sound of the light music and the exotic scent of the interior gave the adventurer pause. It always did whenever he returned from a journey out into the planes. Always Thyrnir believed that he would not react like a callow youth, stunned by the splendor of the One-Night Bride. Always Thyrnir was wrong. He was, perhaps, not so overwhelmed as upon his first half-dozen visits, but this place evoked a wonder in Thyrnir that demanded pause and appreciation for what those who worked in this place wrought.<br/><br/>Thyrnir smiled and tried to place the different spices and oils as he made his way to the living green wall. He was able to place a few, but there were always several scents that stymied him. It was a good mystery.<br/><br/>The youthful adventurer glanced down at the fish that swam in the low pool at the base of the wall. He knelt down and his hand went to a bulging leather pouch at his belt. Thyrnir carefully opened the drawstring, and he withdrew four rubies. Each had more polished facets than Thyrnir could easily count, and each was the size of a large hen's egg. Thyrnir carefully placed each stone into the pool so as not to disturb the fish who swam beneath the water's surface. Then with the same great care he drew shut the drawstring on his pouch and returned it to its place on his belt.<br/><br/>The wait staff were out, and Thyrnir's eyes glanced over them. He sought out, in particular, one waitress. Then his eyes lit up as he found her, and Thyrnir's long legs carried him to her.<br/><br/>"Tzacsha," Thyrnir said with an easy smile and breathless tone. His blue eyes fell upon the waitress and he took in her form with undisguised appreciation. Tzascha was his favourite waitress, though she was untouchable - both by the rules of the Bazaar and for other reasons. The Aes were only children of ice, but whatever race Tzascha belonged to . . . she was the ice. The air around her misted, her frozen body exuding cold. She was so cold that touch her would burn! Even for one of the Aes, who laughed at ice and danced naked in the snow. If it were not for the rules of the Bazaar, Thyrnir would have accepted the harshness of that cold and caressed a crystalline cheek. At least, were it welcome.<br/><br/>But it was not. Tzascha turned her head, and snowflakes and bits of ice made a tinkling sound as they fell from her hair. Recognition bloomed in her eyes, and Tzascha glanced for a moment to the floor.<br/><br/>"Greetings, and welcome to the One-Night Bride." Tzascha said, feigning a lack of recognition. Thyrnir did not mind. From her heart of ice, this sparing of his feelings was as much as he could expect. Thyrnir's mouth quirked up into a boyish grin.<br/><br/>"It is a fine place." Thyrnir said, and glanced about. He hooked his thumbs into the broad leather belt at his waist, and his gaze returned to Tzascha. "Perhaps I might trouble you for a bottle of Lentrian Red? And a wooden mug, please." The adventurer asked softly. The waitress nodded, and Thyrnir made his way to a table with padded chairs near the middle of the Great Room. He sat down, and glanced about the room. One of the things that Thyrnir enjoyed was the variety of people here. There were so many different races! Of course, Thyrnir's gaze did not linger long upon anyone - he had learned this lesson the hard way: once he had stared too hard at someone of a race that blended dragon and demon and later in an alley Thyrnir had found his ribs a sheathe to a wave-bladed knife of polished obsidian. But Thyrnir proved that he was made of sterner stuff and was the victor that night.<br/><br/>His gaze settled upon the table in front of him and he let himself become swept away by the music. Soon enough Tzascha returned with his wine and the wooden mug he requested. Of course the One-Night Bride had fine crystal - and finer wines! But Thyrnir drank Lentrian Red from a wooden mug. He had tried, once, a wine served in crystal from one of the Seven Heavens made from grapes grown in the Fields of Elysia, but it had not pleased him. Thyrnir could not explain why. The fault lay with him.<br/><br/>Thyrnir glanced at the bottle, and then at Tzascha. He smiled to her, and placed a heavy platinum coin on her serving tray. It was much more than the wine was worth, some dozen or more times over. Tzascha dipped her head at Thyrnir's generosity, and she was already off to serve another patron when Thyrnir grasped the neck of the bottle and brought it to his mouth. Thyrnir seized the cork in his mouth and pulled it free, then spat it onto the table. The adventurer poured his mug full of wine and then paused, picking a piece of cork out from between his teeth.