Merhault leaned back, and sat on the ground, his legs out in front of him; he pulled out a few more clear orbs full of different flowing, and glowing, substances. Like the lighting-filled orb, one had flame that danced, an other seemed to have swishing green fluid, and and other seemd to be solid white, frosted, unlike the other three orbs.<br/><br/>He began to juggle the four orbs while watching the others out of the corners of his eyes. The Drowess was a champion, and of a godess... he furrowed his brows, and tried to think of what god..ess was patron to drow, and not the Spider bitch from the abyss....or spider whore. He'd fought some of the more tenacious of Lloth's avatars when trying to, he stopped, and tried to think on the problem he had started thinking about. He had figured it out. The same place where some relatively 'new' upstart Drow had spawned what some scholars considered to be a massive shift in Drow philosophy and culture, compared to the previous few thousand years.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: verdana;"><em>The Oerthian one. Damnation, do I </em>hate<em> that world. If it's not one thing, it's an other.</em></span><br/><br/>He grinned, the drowess wasn't a cleric, she'd be dressed differently, and wouldn't carry a pair of blades either. She was either a Fighter, a Ranger or a Rogue; or something close in there. She didn't have the scars of a barbarian, and she probably took great pains to remove any she had recieved. Something he tended to avoid doing. He kept his scars, even if there was no obvious point. He used them to remember what had happened to him. He could feel his right thigh twitching underneath the solid, black, plate armour as he thought about crossing blades with the drow; she looked fast,<em>very</em>fast. He knew he was doing it again, sizing up everyone around him, even if there was no need. His bald head had stopped trying to re-grow hair from all the stress and scars it was subject to, and even then he still hadn't learned.<br/><br/>On the other hand. He was<em>still alive</em>. He'd seen adventurers rise to power, challenge gods, kill them, become them, and be deposed themselves in his lifespan, and yet<em>he</em>was the one still alive. So perhaps the nearly constant state of living on the edge of a razor, crawling over it, back and forth, sleeping on it, being nurtured and sliced by it; all had its benefits. He'd very respectfully given his dues to the Great Reaper of Carceri, Nerull, to see if there was a problem with him remaining. The Reaper's response had been.... chilling.<br/><br/>"<span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: andale mono;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 2em;">Don't stop on <em>my</em> behalf, or do you want me to collect you?</span></span>"<br/><br/>Merhault certainly hadn't. It was a sould-shuddering prospect. Being asked by a death god if you wanted to be.... "collected". It had also convinced him to stop doing jobs that he had questions about the morality of. He killed enough as it was, and would doubtlessly kill much,<em>much</em>more before he finally let the planes squabble over where he got sent.<em>THAT</em>was his own joke to the gods. He'd fought for enough of them, that even he wasn't sure where he'd go. Just as long as he went<em>somewhere</em>. The only thing he didn't want was to be a Vestige. Pactbinders were alright, but he didn't want them to be his only company for eternity.<br/><br/>Other people seemed to talk, he seemed intent on the juggling of the orbs; every few seconds adding a new one from one of four different pouches; until he had worked his way to about six of each; twenty-four orbs in total. The soft light from them lighting up his face. Even as he stared at the stream of clear, strangely-filled, orbs, he wondered in the back of his head if he should just end it all and drop the orbs all over himself. The others were far enough away, and they wouldn't catch any of the effect; if he tensed himself, and moved quickly enough, he'd be able to dodge every last one of the orbs, or throw them up in the air, and use them to break each other, one at a time. He calculated that it would take at least twenty seconds to break all of the orbs that way. That might be useful for later, he thought.<br/><br/>He looked away from what he was doing, and saw the new girl who showed up. Someone very curvy. Barefooted....her effect on the ground was... interesting. Her apperance more so. She had a body shape he recognized many times in ....<em>Arborea</em>, and the overly-coloured feathers of a half-bred Coatl, not the soft slightly shimmering white, barely hiding a rainbow that the great sage-serpents were covered in. He wondered if anyone else here realized what she was, or even if anyone here knew a thing about the Planes beyond a few suppositions or rumors.<br/><br/>Well, they all seemed to 'get' the fact that this was a deal with the devil. Only this time, they'd be paying the price of the reward ahead of time. That suited him better than trying to avoid having to pay for a 'favour' from a Fiend.<br/><br/>===<br/><br/>OOC:<br/>Knowledge (The Planes) check (http://dicebot.php?r=10441)<br/>Perform (Juggle) check (http://dicebot.php?r=10443)<br/>Know (the Planes) (http://dicebot.php?r=10444)<br/>Know (Nature) (http://dicebot.php?r=10445)