About the 'Theatre' - by Suulas

Desert

The furious hamaada burned. The shrieking of a thousand lost souls. The wild huntsman was abroad with his pack of hounds and the sane, or mortal, would shut their doors this night.

Suulas smiled. Tales for children. He admired the strange crystaline shapes left in its wake. His people had dedicated poems to these scouring winds. The beauty of its fury. Its eternal song. But there were others songs too. Of love and loss. Of husbands disappeared forever, sunk beneath the sand like those drowned at sea…

He risked his head to look up, cursing Druella for a moment. What a place to choose… Narrowing his eyes through the gloom, he could sense, if not see, the impassive Forsaken stumbling through the fury. The hammering of nails, tent pegs, a stage. He hunkered down again, nipping quickly from his smuggled Darnassian.

Allowing a moment’s reflection, he imagined himself a hero of old. He would soar high above the rocking, boiling clouds, screaming fire and vengeance on the witch-men of the south. His eyes twitched. Days to play pliassa with his uncles, warm autumns under leaf and azure sky to blade-dance with nephews.

Those days were lost.

The alien, beatific features shifted behind the mask, spitting grit. Now he was reduced to … this. A pimp. Whoremaster. Smuggler. Drug dealer. All to make a living. The Ruined City home for his mother and kin, the Pleasure Pits a mere bauble, a tawdry reminder of what House Var’nedris had once been.

A giant orc moved across his path. “Oi! Sin’dorei!” A massive fist dragged him roughly from his shelter. He jerked like a rag doll. Glinting gold tusks thrust into his face. Spices. Death. Bad aftershave. Two-Smile leered and threw him on his back.

“Get the tent up naah, yer scum! Them zombie fellas is as dumb as two shit-stained planks… too much brain damage. Getcher arse in gear and order it up!”

He stood reluctantly. At nearly seven feet, he towered over most of his former human allies. But in the face of the giant orc slaver, he cowered. Something about The Black Oak just… scared. He moved off, silent. Out of sight, as the winds picked up again, he spat.

“A thousand curses of the seven-armed one upon your souls…. My….” he suddenly gasped.

Fire exploded from the Eaters. A massive emerald tent shimmered in answer.

“Druella… nothing if not a brazen strumpet,” he chuckled, despite his mood. “I’ll give her that.”

A hundred or more workers struggled over lines and stalls, the smell of dog samosa reaching his nose. Walking through the chaos, he saw Extras at the shisha, bubbling quietly away. The stench of dreamweed littered the quickening air.

Dark jesters, crazily-dressed Harlequins, wizened seers and rough Fools sharpened into focus. A gaggle of human and elvish lady boys - slaves, by their bangles - screamed and ran, chased by a dwarven gimp. His slave collar and chain brought him up short. The Theatre men laughed. Interspersed among the actors and hirelings, they were men and women from all races: locked, hard faces; scars, patches, tattoos, wicked curving knives and hooks, billy clubs and suspicious glances.

Another huge jet of fire exploded among the jugglers, as a swarthy Sin’dorei approached, accompanied by a grinning, muscled Forsaken, a floozie - one of the Blood Dancers - draped like a moll across his arms.

“All’s ready now, Var’nedris,” the bladesman quipped. “The invitations sent out… the emissaries dispatched… the Called Ones already pulled by our Song.”

“Truly?”

The assassin nodded.

“Aye. The Theatre is ready for its first carnival…”