Ghost In the Ruins

Shattered Bazaar

High walls of pale, cracked marble rise on all sides of a great courtyard. Empty windows stand like ruined eyes, silent witnesses to whatever horrors pass under their watchful gaze. Footsteps sound hollow in this ruined plaza, echoing off the distant walls which circle this space. A few empty doorways stand here and there, but the main road alone breaks the cicle: once to the south, leading towards the quay... and once to the northeast, deeper into the ruins.

Bright is the day, and in the sun's light, reflected off the pale marble, all the terrible beauty of this place is lain bare to your gaze. A cool breeze whips through the circle, driven from the south and full of the smell of salt.

Contents:
Barjad
Eron
Obvious exits:
 Northeast leads to Gateway Road.
 Small Doorway leads to Empty Room.
 South leads to Great Harbour Road.

[+TIME] Middle-earth time is:
Early Evening on Trewsday, Day 11 of October.
Execute the +TIMEFRAME command for year information.

Real time is: 14:20:50 MDT on Mon Apr 26 2010.

[Tasnim(#16424)]
The sun is high and hot overhead, and the scent of salt is heavy upon the ocean breeze that snakes it way through the ruinous city. The desserted bazaar is empty and the faintest of noises seems to echo: the pattering of a rat's feet, the call of a seagull, and now there is the soft disturbance of footsteps.

A girl clad in black, her black hair covered in a dark red headscarf walks along the main road of this depressing place. Tasnim slows as she enters this courtyard, and the scribe peers around. "I wonder what befell this place," she ponders aloud, "to destroy it so."

[Barjad(#29188)] A lizard slithers between the tumbled bricks, picking its way between the stones. It raises its head to take one look at Tasnim, and darts out of sight into a crack. In its wake comes the clatter of pebbles - surely an animal so small could not have made so much noise?

[Eron(#24786)] "What has been done is not the issue, focus on your task set to you, and the rest is outside of your control." Comes the voice of Eron, Hammered gold upon the ears. Detatching himself from the shadows, the Corsair Noble eyes the bazaar. "There must be something amongst these ruins that can continue our repairs. I'll not rot in this place no more than I will within the confines of the gallows of Gondor." He says, spitting upon the ground in a manner more of a Corsair than a Noble.

[Tasnim(#16424)]
The lizard and the scattering of pebbles claims the girl's attention, and she frowns watching after the little creature as it darts away. But then a voice speaks suddenly, from the shadows, and Tasnim starts, dark eyes flickering from whence it came. "A few things have been found thus far," replies the scribe, "lumber, and such food as mushrooms...I hear we are more in need of water." Another glance about the bazaar, and then, "I do not wish to stay here for much longer."

[Barjad(#29188)] Again there is that shifting of stone this time further away, and then a lone figure emerges from one of the buildings, clear across the plaza. Dusty and grizzled, but the azure sash at his waist and the battered scimitar at his side proclaim him a Corsair. "There is water." The voice is halting and with an odd nasal accent. "But it is not free to take."

Eron says nothing as Tasnim speaks of the supplies they've found. But to the Corsair who makes himself known, and speaking of water, Eron turns. "To us it is. We are of Umbar, we are of power. We take what we want, for everything placed infront of us is for our use. It all is but tools towards the goals set out for us." Eron walks off without another word.

[Tasnim(#16424)]
Tasnim's gaze leaves the Corsair Noble to find the newer arrival in the distance. "You mean it is held against us?" the girl asks, stepping closer across the open plaza. Unlike the others, she is unarmed. "There was a funny-speaking local who said he had water behind his house..but he would not willingly give it to us. Said we ought to leave. I was able to understand that, amid all of the other rubbish he was spouting." Her eyes catch movement, but she says nothing as Eron moves off.

[Barjad(#29188)] Topaz-hued eyes regard Eron impassively. "There is always a-" The words cut off and the man's twisted features distort still further in what has the look of a scowl. "Cost," he supplies eventually, and then. "Come, I will show?" When the noble walks off, he stiffens and his gaze follows the man, intense but unreadable.

Tasnim he has barely looked at when her flood of words comes he stares across the plaza at her as though noticing her anew. His focus drops to the medallion, and heavy brows lower. "Men live here. Fishers, slave-" Another of those awkward pauses. "Slave-takers. They do not like others." The torn lips part a little wider. He makes no move to approach the girl, simply stands outlined in a crumbling doorway.

[Tasnim(#16424)]
Curiously, now the scribe is quiet, and if she has caught the man's glance at the Eye-engraved medallion she wears, she does not show it -- aside from perhaps a surreptitious motion of her hand to fiddle with the beads of the necklaces. She stays silent even at the mention of slave-takers, and only after a length she responds again. A small hesitation is given, ere Tasnim crosses the remainder of the bazaar and stops opposite the corsair who stands in the doorway. "Is there water inside, then? And do they ask a price for it?"

[Barjad(#29188)] That is answered by an impatient shake of the head. "The- the place of water is not here." The man's Haradaic is awkward, very definitely stilted. He tries again. "There is a path, though the stones. I will show you. This way." He ducks though that crumbling doorway, broad shoulders barely clearing the masonry, then waits patiently. Ahead lies a maze of broken stone and crumbling pillars, fallen walls and rubble-dusted floors. Perhaps there is indeed a path through - certainly someone has been this way. Just the fellow himself?

[Tasnim(#16424)]
"Oh, I am sorry," the girl says awkwardly, peering ahead as the man goes through the ruins, "misunderstood..." But Tasnim follows closely behind, despite giving a wary glance about. There is not one else around, and the path is dangerous looking...surely this stranger is not leading her to her doom? "Your accent.." the young Haradrim comments after a moment, peering forward at the other, "it is strange to me."

[Barjad(#29188)] The man turns his face toward Tasnim at that comment as though for inspection. "I was not always of Umbar. I do not know the words well." He shrugs, seemingly uncaring. Through the maze the man goes, his movements slow and ponderous but careful all the same. The stone barely shifts beneath his feet. Around a jagged section of wall. Under a crumbling arch ... Once Tasnim is through the latter, the man steps back to her side, reaching out a solicitous arm as though to aid. His foot moves away to kick at something on the ground.

The stones beneath Tasnim's feet suddenly give way. The solicitous arm reaches out in attempt to clamp itself over Tasnim's mouth, the other hand hovering near that battered scimitar, and an awkward, nasal voice hisses in the scribe's ear. "Far enough. No sound."

[Tasnim(#16424)]
The proffered arm is regarded blankly, and the girl does not move to take it. She follows still, but she seems to be paying more attention to the stranger than anything else her dark eyes flit after the foot as he kickes it out.

And quite abruptly, the ground is gone, no longer there beneath the scribe's feet. A coincidence, or clever use of that kicking foot? Either case, Tasnim stumbles sideways, into the 'helping' arm that she had silently refused. Only now..that arm does not seem to be helping. The girl gives an cry of surprise and fright, but it is muffled under the man's hand. And she stops moving.

[Barjad(#29188)] That lack of movement is seemingly taken for capitulation - the man's first hand remains where it is, the second releases the scimitar as he attempts to grab the girl round the waist. "Good. Now ..." A brief pause and then the awkward, stilted Haradaic is replaced of a sudden by rapid Common. "Can you understand this? Then do as I say. I have no wish to kill you, girl. You are merely .. coinage." Alas, Tasnim can no longer be in doubt about the man's good intentions. More's the pity.

[Tasnim(#16424)]
If the scribe understands, she yields no indication, and her still cooperation fades she gives a twist to the left, trying to duck her head from under the hand that is over her mouth, while simultaneously attempting to make a hurried grab at the man's sheathed scimitar.

[Barjad(#29188)] Perhaps that first move was expected the man's hand remains in place over Tasnim's mouth despite the twisting. The second move clearly was not - the battered scimitar starts to pull from its sheath, then sticks half-way. The so-far-unnamed Corsair automatically grabs toward the weapon himself - thus releasing the scribe's waist. "Do not move," he hisses, returning to the Haradaic. "Or I will have to .. hurt. You come, yes? I take you to see others. I ... give?"

Stumbling attempts at speech fade rather too distracting during a struggle.

[Tasnim(#16424)]
The effort the girl makes to steal the man's weapon ceases, and she goes motionless once more, listening. Then, there is a veiled question, undiscernable from beneath the corsair's palm. Tasnim gives a shake of her head, and at first it would appear to be only a sign made in answer, in protest -- but just as quickly her hands are about her neck and her shoulders the headscarf she wears is untied and the scribe tries to duck once more from under the man's arms, this time raising her own to toss the scarf in his face. She moves to push herself away now that the arm has left her waist.

[Barjad(#29188)] The man's hand finds the hilt of the scimitar even as Tasnim releases it, and he yanks at it hard, in attempt to clear it of the sheath. It comes free with a jerk - that, in itself, gives Tasnim the chance to pull away from that prisoning hand over her mouth. The fellow certainly does not appear well versed in the arts of abduction.

As for the scarf? It does its work admirably, drifting across the man's face. He shakes his head to clear it, as might a bear oddly, he does not immediately strike at the retreating girl with the scimitar, instead stooping for a rough-edged stone.

[Tasnim(#16424)]
While the man may take the moment to free his vision of the scarf, Tasnim does not pause. Uncovered braid now flopping across her shoulder as she stumbles backward, the girl slips sideways to position herself as best she can behind a pile of rubble. The crude shelter is not very high however, and she scoots herself down so that her head is left to peer above it.

"Take me where, and give me to whom?" she speaks at last, though the Common is heavily accented. The scribe fiddles with her necklace beads again, nervously, and she looks about as if searching for the way back to the plaza.

[Barjad(#29188)] Surely a simple shout from the scribe is all that is needed for her to find the way back to the Plaza? Eron is not long gone, and likely others quarter the ruins for supplies and would answer any call.

The Common is answered with like, still nasal but fluent enough. "The folk of this place. A life for the life that was taken. Though yours is not the one I wished. Perhaps I could exchange you ..." The words are accompanied by a slow, careful approach to the pile of rubble. As the man reaches it he swings his left arm forward, aiming for a glancing blow to head or shoulder. Of course, chances are that any stroke, hit or miss, will send rubble sliding ...

[Tasnim(#16424)]
The young Haradrim merely watches, and she says nothing. But the man starts coming closer, and she inches herself away from the wall so that the swipe at her head misses the rock holding hand flies in front of her nose. But it does indeed dislodge some of the rubble, and stones slide like a mini avalanche. Before the girl realizes what has happened, the rocks are covering her leg, pressing it down to the earth. Her hands flit forward to wrench them off.

[Barjad(#29188)] Of course, avalanches have the habit of claiming multiple victims. The man, leaned forward with the force of the empty swing, stumbles as his feet slip from under him and he finds himself sprawled atop a stony bed, both arms outstretched to brace himself. The right hand still holds the scimitar, which clatters loudly against a rock. The brindled head jerks up, and the man's golden gaze flits in the direction of the Plaza. Will the disturbance bring searchers? He scrambles hastily to his feet, Tasnim ignored for this brief moment.

[Tasnim(#16424)]
Surely, the rest of the ship's crew cannot be too far away there is the faint sound of voices beyond, though exactly how near they are is difficult to discern with the way the echoes travel.

One of the rocks is heaved off of her leg, and a piece of the stone breaks away from the rest. This the scribe picks up, and flings it at the stranger's blade-wielding hand. Perhaps sensing the man's nervousness at being discovered, Tasnim gives a single shout in Haradaic. Then, voice lowered again, a question comes: "You are dressed as a corsair -- who are you?" She frowns at him, studying his face.

[Barjad(#29188)] The man turns his face in the direction of the echoes, twisted features sliding into a grimace. It is in the moment that he turns back that Tasnim's piece of rock hits. Surely its success is better than the scribe could have hoped for - it strikes fair and square and not only does the man drop his weapon but the jagged edge has brought a spurt of red welling from the wrist. He hisses through his teeth as he stoops to pick up the weapon in his other hand, eying the remaining rocks that pin Tasnim down. And then he clearly gives up this prize as lost, for he spins on his heel and ducks into the ruins, weaving this way and that. His answer drifts back on the wind, first in nasal Haradaic: "No one." And then in the Common tongue. "A ghost." His passage into the maze of ancient stone is marked by droplets of red.

That evening, the crew will find themselves one member short. One of the common Corsairs, big ugly fellow, good with lifting things, seldom spoke. Commonly thought to be lacking in wits. Who was he? Few, if any, know.