Nigel notice a rather thin, wiry little man with very thick glasses staring at him from a nearby table. The man with the thick glasses stares at him for a moment more, then picks up his drink and walks over.
"Nigel? Nigel Timmons?"
Nigel has not the faintest idea who this guy is, but a closer examination of his tie shows that he's wearing the paisley of Nigel's old prep school. Nigel suppresses a shudder. He give the gentleman a weak smile. "How are you old fellow, I haven't seen you in ages..." all the while trying to figure out who the hell this man is. "Waiter, another glass of orange juice, quickly if you don't mind..."
The man stands up and walks over to Nigel's table. "My god, man! Who'd have thought! Running into old 'Nige the Nose' right here on Al Amarja! What luck, eh?" The little man nudges Nigel with an elbow.
"Nige the Nose" is a rather unfortunate nickname laid upon Nigel in prep school when a severe cold turned his nose a particularly brilliant shade of red for over a week.
Nigel looks the man over, still trying to place him. "Uh...um ,well. Join me for breakfast won't you?" Nigel motions to an open seat beside him. "You'll have to excuse me, but your name escapes me. As you can see, I've sustained a rather nasty blow to the nose, and I'm afraid my mind is still a little befuddled."
He waits for an answer as he looks for the waiter to bring him more
"deep" orange juice.
"Ha. Ha ha!" chuckles the man, with that annoyingly droll upper-class-british-twit laugh. He walks over and plunks himself in a chair across from Nigel, still chuckling. Something about the way he laughs makes Nigel's stomach do a quick flip-flop (or maybe its just the orange juice).
"'Can't remember my name'. Ha ha," he says, still chuckling to himself. "So, 'Nige'... what brings you to Al Amarja? Ha ha."
Nigel wonders what he may have gotten himself in for by inviting this unknown gentleman to sit with him. He tries to appear nonchalant when he answers the question. "Why, I'm here on holiday. I needed to get away for awhile, and I couldn't find a more 'out of the way' place than this. What brings you here?" Nigel listens closely, hoping the man's answer will give him some insight as to his identity.
"Ha. Ha ha. 'Out of the way place,' how droll. Ha ha. How very droll." The man's voice is distinctly irritating, rather like the distant buzzing of a mosquito in a room where one is trying to sleep.
"Its quite remarkable, seeing you here Nigel," he continues in tones that lead Nigel to believe that he considers it not at all out of the ordinary. "Who would have thought it? I really hope you have an opportunity to enjoy your stay - Al Amarja is QUITE the fascinating place, don't you know. Yes, quite the place. Most enjoyable, except for the weather. Tends give folks a bit of a headache now and again."
For the first time, Nigel notices a faint throbbing behind his eyes.
The man laughs again. This time there is something a bit different about the laughter. Something... menacing?
"Spell it out... ha. Wants me to spell it out. Ha. Ha. Jolly good. Ha ha." Still laughing, the man pierces Nigel with a stare that sends cold shivers down his spine - how could a spindly little creep look suddenly so cold and cruel? His smile, formerly jovial (if a bit daft) turns to a sneer of contempt.
"'Nige', it would be in your best interests to keep a civil tongue in your head when speaking to me. Oh yes... very much in your bloody best interests. Al Amarja is a bloody dangerous place, 'Nige' - assasins around every corner, and poison in every meal. You had best remember that old chum." The man waves a hand idly in Nigel's direction.
With a suddenness of a patient dosed with syrup of ipecac, Nigel's breakfast crawls up his throat and spews across the table in great, heaving spurts.
Nigel cleans himself off while trying to remain calm. He fixes his companion with a stare as equaly cold as the one he received. "Well done, now you listen to me. I'm not some idiot who keeps a lucky rabbit's foot and throws salt over his shoulder, I've taken your 'warning' seriously. Now let me give YOU a piece of advice," Nigel leans in to the man, "don't fuck with me.."
Having said that, Nigel attempts to conjure up enough ants to fill the mysterious gentlemans pants. Attempting to concentrate after having just been violently ill is not the easiest of tasks, but neither is it the most difficult. He concentrates his arcane energy and lets fly, and has the pleasure of seeing the little man opposite him squirm momentarily before settling back down - not exactly the reaction he had hoped for, but at least something.
Somewhat disappointed, Nigel leans back, trying to maintain a facade of calm indifference. "Now that you've shown me what you can do, I'm properly convinced. Perhaps now you can tell me the real reason you're here?"
The little man, still occasionally fidgeting, stares baldly back at Nigel. When he speaks his voice is an unexpected snarl.
"Ants? ANTS?! Thats the best you can bloody do? BLOODY ANTS? All the trouble we took to get you here... all the effort and you think this is some sort of JOKE?" He waves a hand again and an unseen force pins Nigel into his chair with the weight of a freight train. Surprisingly, nobody else in the restaurant pays the slightest heed despite the little man's screaming.
"Now you listen here you bloody little coxcomb! If you think this is some sort of prep school prank you are BLOODY MISTAKEN!" He pauses to wave a bony finger under Nigel's nose. "You walk out of this bloody airport with an attitude like that and they'll be fishing you out of Traboc Harbour in a day, IF you aren't walking the street as a bleeding husk."
"You're obviously too bloody stupid and too damned bloody full of yourself to be inducted just bloody yet. But what the hell are we supposed to do? All the signs and portents, all the bloody auguries... all full of shite if you ask me, but they put so much stock in them. Well, we'll just have to start with the satanists, I suppose. Let you cut your teeth so to speak."
"Now, we haven't much time left, what with all this mucking about in the bloody aether. Get yourself some bloody good bodyguards - the sort that won't be noticed. Do it now, before you leave the Terminal - you won't get a chance otherwise. And DON'T trust any dogs - particularly not daschhunds! We'll contact you once you're bloody ready."
He rises and turns to go, then pauses. "This should get you going for now. Ha. Ha." Again the wave of the hand.
Something squirms inside Nigel's shorts, and what feels like a pair of red-hot needle-nosed pliers grab hold of his scrotum. At the same time the pressure which has held him to his chair releases. Nigel, being a normal sort of person, screams, clutches at his nether regions, and falls out of his chair and under the table.
Distantly, through a haze of hellish agony, he hears a large number of male voices somewhere in the distance screaming "KIIIIIILLLLLL!"
Nigel's crotch comes alive with white hot pain. He attempts to get whatever it is out of his pants to fling it against the wall. He tries to catch his breath and absorb the strange little bastard's words. 'Portents and auguries'? What did it all mean? Nigel is sure he needs to find out, he wonders if these people could help him perfect the art. He has to know... Filled with a new sense of purpose, Nigel turns towards the source of all the commotion...
As Nigel lies on the floor, in excruciating pain and misery, the nearby shouts turn into the sounds of combat, and he can vaguely hear breaking glass, smashing furniture, and all the general sounds of people mixing it up with intent to do great bodily harm.
Whatever is in his pants bites him a second time, and he forgets all about what is going on around him.
Nigel shakes his head and reachesdown into his pants to see if he can dislodge the source of his excruciating pain. He continues to struggle with the interloper in his trousers...
Reaching into his trousers, Nigel grabs ahold of something that is wriggling and squirming (no, not that, although it's wriggling and squirming too). He squeezes with all his might and there is a satisfying "squish". Removing the hand, and the item, from his trousers, he is horrified to see that he has been bitten on the John Thomas by a 3 cm long centipede of some sort!
The crashing sounds continue from a bit of a distance - it sounds as if there is quite a brawl in progress.
Nigel's groin is beginning to feel hot (no, not hot like that! Hot as in warm!) He wonders suddenly if he's been poisoned. Oh well, it would just fit in with this marvelous day he's having. He stands up, wobbly yet on his feet , trying to get his wits about him as he makes his way to the vicinity of the noise.
He thinks about the man that had confronted him. He seemed to belong to some sort of "order" that may have the information Nigel needs to unlock the doorway to the art. He hasto find this man...
Nigel staggers out of the restaraunt, barely able to walk, each step a new and fiery agony. The commotion seems to be coming from the bar nearby - patrons can be seen running out in great haste, and the sounds of breaking chairs, screams, grunts, and meaty *THWACK*s can be heard from within, along with the cry of "KIIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLL!!!" Against his better judgement, Nigel decides to poke his head inside to see what's going on. After all, a) the mysterious stranger might have gone inside, and b) after you've been bitten in the balls by a weird centipede that magically appeared inside your shorts, what else can make your day worse?
Limping painfully up to the doorway, Nigel is confronted by a horrible sight. Many of the individuals previously encountered up at his hotel room appear to be engaged in a life-or-death struggle with some sinister looking individuals wearing turbans and wielding long, ceremonial daggers. Nigel spots Leo lying semi-conscious on the floor, sees Kitty smack a Turbanite a good one, and watches with quesy horror as a trio of turbaned assailants pounce on that Australian guy, Bruce, and begin plunging their knives into his chest and abdomen!
Nigel takes in the sight at the bar and decides to let discretion be the better part of valor when he feels a nagging tug somewhere in the pit of his stomach. He turns again to leave and the tug becomes worse. Finally coming to the conclusion that this tugging is his much ignored concience, he surmises that the only way to get rid of this nagging feeling is to try to do something to save the besieged Aussie.
He puts himself in the disconnected state he went into when he tried to tap the art. He tries to focus a force, hard enough to maim, at the assailants' chests. He hasbeen trifled with enough today, and he tries to let all his anger and frustration transform itself into the power being unleashed.
When Nigel attempts to tap into "the Force" he gets more than he bargained for. He taps into something... something BIG!!!!!
It isn't the force that he is used to tapping into, but it is something similar. It feeds power through Nigel like water into a hydraulic mining hose - the pressure builds in the channeling until it comes out with lethal force!
There is a danger, however, in tapping this weird power. To continue
the analogy, if too much water is pumped through the system the apparatus
may shatter. In this case the apparatus is Nigel himself. And
since this isn't the force he is used to working with, there is no gurantee
that he can control the flow once he taps into it (particularly since he
isn't blasted at the moment). This may be what happened to the Elder
Turbanite.
To Be Continued...