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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Deuce Traveler" data-source="post: 4642079" data-attributes="member: 34958">As the group discussed their situation one of the doors swung inwards and out stepped a large, shadowy form whose features was partially illuminated by the Plaza lanterns.  The form belonged to a tall, broad man wearing loose red pants and a crimson shirt that folded over his thick torso like a robe.  His hairless face was strange, with slanted, expressionless eyes that looked down at the group before him.  He was muscular without traces of fat, and his head was also shaven except at the top and back of his head, which was tied back as if in a braid.He continued to stare expectantly at the stunned party until a loud voice from inside yelled, "Damn it, Lu Su!  Let whoever it is inside before I catch a chill!"  The voice was followed by a series of rasping coughs.  The group was led in by the odd man, past a foyer, and into a meeting room that acted partially as a laboratory and also as a library.  The ceiling stretched upwards into the shadows, while the actually room was itself lit by several candelebras and torches hanging from four stone pillars.  A small, wrinkled man stood behind a desk cluttered with papers and several pieces of equipment made from thin metal rods and glass containers.  The library shelves were in a similar state of disregard, with each being used to hold papers, books, marked glass jars of strange objects floating in liquids, and artifacts.  The man wrapped himself in a dark shawl, hacked wetly, grimaced, and looked over his visitors.  "Sit!"  He so ordered, and his servant brought forth four chairs from the side of the room so that the party could make themselves comfortable some fifteen feet from the desk.  The servant then stood behind the group with his arms crossed, his watchful stare continuing in its disturbing lack of emotion."Don't mind Lu Su.  He's been my guardian for nigh two years now.  He has sworn to obey my commands for five years, five months, and five days and so his loyalty is assured," he said with a sardonic smile.  Since that gaze was pointed more at his servant than the group, the party fathomed that his message was some sort of verbal dagger meant for Lu Su and not their own behalf.  For a moment they thought they saw a trace of a frown on Lu Su's face.  The small man sat back in his own chair by his desk and waved his hand at the group.  "Well now, why are you here?  What is so pressing that you have come to see me, the Great Tretchner, hmmm?  Some curse you wish to place on a rival?  Some magic charm you need to ward your domicile?  From the looks of you, you can't offer much.  Unless the girl is the payment," Tretchner asked and for a moment his look of boredom twinkled with an edge of perverse interest.</blockquote>

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