• Mature • What Were You Expecting? (Graded)

[Kasoria]

24th Trial, Ymiden, Arc 718
South-East Outer Perimeter
21st break

Continued from here



From the Dust Quarter to the Fool's Run, from the Barracks of the City Guard of Rharne to the Four Gates of Yaralon, men remembered him. They spoke of his skill, and those that had tried to kill him and failed. He'd made his way across kingdoms and seas, fought in a dozen battles, a hundred skirmishes, and had survived the Fates' machinations as many times.

He was Memmio, and he was alive because he was good at what he did. But even a storied and seasoned warrior such as he did not forget debts he owed, and those he owed them to.

"Oh oh oh oh ohohohohohfuckmethereohohyesyesyesYES-!"

No matter how much you'd bloody like to.

The sellsword hung his head for a trill and sighed as the whore's rather enthusiastic climax ended in a long, wordless wail. He had to admit, the girl knew how to lay it on. But in his experience - and verily, he was experienced - when a man brought a woman to such pleasure by his own skin and length alone, there wasn't quite so much... drama. He may as well have been next door to a mummer's performance, but he was not about to point that out to the man down the hall. He'd heard much the same over the last break, from different rooms, even different floors (and by the Fates, did those girls have lungs). If that's what the punters wanted, well, so be it.

Memmio knew they had extra incentive to play the part of the Grateful Sated Female. The man behind the door he guarded had provided the nels to set up this place. All three floors and two-dozen hardworking ladies had their refuge and livelihoods thanks to the generous purse of Denis Styes. Lucille ran the place for him, and six tenths of what she made went straight back to him.

Maybe "generous" is the wrong word.

Memmio snorted and rubbed his shaved-smooth chin. Oh, he wasn't a fool. The man he guarded, had sworn his sword to, was no innocent merchant marked out by the nefarious, or noble lord targeted by sinister assassins. He was no better than the man he'd broke away from a few trials ago. The same breed of racketeer, gambler, extortionist, pimp, pusher, and fence. His purse and reach was just a little less.

But it didn't matter. What his son did for him, what he sacrificed so that a man he'd met only bells before could live... that mattered. Memmio's gaze glazed as he remembered the roar and rush and scorching heat of that time. The ambush from the sands and their company deluged by arrows and screaming riders. They'd been decimated before battle had been joined, but back-to-back and with all the skill desperate soldiers could manage, they prevailed.

Framel Styes took a spear meant for Memmio's heart. Died with blood on lips that tried to speak, but could not. Died in the arms of the man he saved, and Memmio swore to somehow even that score.

Then you found out what kind of bastard his Papa was, he reminded himself, as the old boy apparently got ready for Round Two behind the too-thin door. Still... you've worked for worse.

"Not many."

"Wassat, Sarnt?"

Rubio still hadn't broken that habit. He hadn't been a Sergeant for The Lost Legion in going on four arcs, but that was what the man knew him as. Over time it had gotten corrupted and blunted down into that single-syllable "Sarnt". The smaller man had come from much the same place as Memmio, just a few years after... and Memmio knew the lad followed him around like a squire would a hero.

None of that shite here, lad. Just gangsters and killers and smoke in the air.

"Nothin', Rube. Just wonderin' when he'll be finished."

"Feel more sorry for his boy Trey, in there with 'im," Rubio grumbled with a disgusted shake of his head. "The fuck do you need your second in there for, when yer balls-deep in some cunny? Hold yer fuckin' hair back or summin'?"

Memmio snorted and shrugged. "Buggered if I know, mate. Long as he stays alive during and after, I couldn't much-"

"Um, sir?"

It was a tremulous voice and from a woman, of all things, but both men still had their swords halfway out their scabbards before they'd finished turning to face it. A pale, redheaded whore stood in the hallway, clutching her hand to her chest and flinching as she saw their reaction. Memmio didn't roll his eyes or shake his head or tut. He focused on her. What she was, what she was carrying, what could be behind her, and not just in the physical sense.

They'd declared war, four nights ago. He knew this Bangun Vorund didn't have sellsword companies at his disposal, but his word was indisputable across the entire southern half of Etzos. Platoons of killers and thieves and thugs paid him tribute, followed his orders, committed mayhem in his name. Styes had spat in the eye of a god, as far as the underworld was concerned. There were always consequences for doing such a thing.

One in particular.

"Sir, um... there's, um, someone to see you? Says he has a message for M-Mister Styes?"

Memmio quickly sifted through his options; Rubio just looked to him for command. After a trill the older mercenary jutted his head towards her.

"Go find out what she wants. I'll stay with the old boy. And Rubio? Caution. This is all enemy territory, y'hear?"

Rubio nodded sternly and kept his hand on his sword the whole way down the hallway and down the steps. Memmio listened as the man departed and let his mind drift to that "one particular" he'd thought of earlier. Bartender his fucking hairy arse, that little bastard he'd locked eyes with a few trials ago had radiated murder. Hawk eyes and wolfish features, still as one of those eerie praying predatory insects from the southern jungles. But still in the way of a coiled snake or a catamount ready to pounce; all tense and compacted muscle and energy, set to explode into violence in a moment.

The way he'd looked back, though... that told Memmio he was right. That same cold, measured look. A gaze that had seen men die in a hundred ways, most times at the end of his blade. Calm and eternally patient, weighing him up like a boxer would the guy in the other corner. Memmio had been doing much the same, and with that nod they'd exchanged, a pact had been made.

The foreign warrior smiled softly to himself. That one would be a challenge, he just knew it. Slight but quick, old but seasoned. A true test of his abilities, that a storied soldier such as he was-

"HELP! For the love of FUCK, HELP ME!"

Then all was chaos and shrieking from the stairway, and Memmio turned and drew and saw that redhead come back with blood streaming down her face. She was spitting out words as she came careening down the hallway, sobbing and bleeding with a hand pressed to her mouth. Doors were already starting to open here and there, half-naked men peering out at the interruption.

"What happened? SPEAK!"

"He-He's dead!" The woman barked out, collapsing down to her knees in shock, sobbing and shaking. "Your-Your friend, he-he killed him, please, please, he said he'd-he'd kill me but-but-but, I got away and-"

"Stay there!"

Memmio left her without another word and flew down the hallway, dirk and bastard sword in his hands. This was it. He could feel the War Queen herself moving in the fetid air of this dirt city tonight. Rubio was just another piece she'd moved and sacrificed, and while he would mourn for his friend later, right now he was too focused on-

-sprinting down the hallway and turning at the top of the stairs-

Something was standing at the top of them. Small and slight and pressed against the wall. Before he'd even worked out facial features or even a species, two quick hands had snapped towards him, grabbing him by the sides of his breastplate and heaving him down-

-his feet falling over an expertly-laid out foot, tripping him, sending him from staggering down the stairs to flying headlong and footloose down them-

Memmio didn't even have time to scream. Weapons still held in his hands, unable to grasp on to anything, he hurtled through the air like a rogue comet until-

CRACK

-he smashed down heavy in the middle of the staircase, shoulder first, blinding flash of pain telling him it was either broken or dislocated, and goodbye went his bastard sword-

CRUNCH

-which was immediately forgotten as his head slammed down onto the edge of a stair, at completely the wrong angle, something snapping high up in the side of his head, pain blinding him, rushing through him like lightning through a grounded pole-

CRACK

-a limb, leg or arm, he wasn't sure, broke somewhere. It was only when he rolled to a stop at the bottom of the stairs that he realized it was his leg. Yes. Was it. Yes? Fates, his mind was... scrambled, sparking and trying to work as he lay face down on the sumptuous carpet. Pain was pouring into him from a dozen different places, from rivers of distress to floods of agony bursting forth from shoulder and arm and head and-

Up! Get up, damn you!

Beyond the pounding blood and the broken bones, he could hear fast steps behind him. Coming and coming faster. Memmio ground his teeth and stabbed his dirk into the carpet. Then braced his other hand... or tried to... but his shoulder, he could barely even raise his torso off the ground before-

SHUNK

There was an explosion of pain, focused but unbelievable, right beow the back of his head, and then... it was gone. Not just it, but everything. All feeling, all sensation, all control of his body below his head fell away like it had been lopped off in some manner that left him still alive. Storied and seasoned mercenary Memmio, of the City Guard and the Lost Legion and the Sand Sons, felt panic for the first time in arcs. Wordless and terible, choking him and any pleas or curses he might have to spare.

He couldn't feel anything. He couldn't move. He was just aware of something jabbed through the top of his back, above his armor, and a shadow falling across him like Vri himself, come to collect he that had reaped so many souls for him. But the voice he heard when the unseen shadow leaned down was not that of an Immortal. It was a local boy. Old and gnarled and yet there was no mistaking the icy amusement in Kasoria's voice.

"Welcome to Etzos, wanker."

[Kasoria]

It all came down to timing. Timing and a traitor with red hair.

"What do you want?"

Which was, after all, the salient question. The overall What was already established, if it wasn't spoken, for why else would she even be down here with Ilos and Kasoria? The Why, well, that was complicated. You could get the blunt and brutal truth, or you could get any manner of excuses and justifications. People always felt the need to dress up the Why of their sins. Everyone was the hero, the downtrodden, the righteous and In The Right. No-one was the villain. So the Why didn't matter, nor the What; just the Want.

"A thousand gold nels, and I run the brothel after Lucille and Styes are dead. You make that happen for me, I'll do whatever you want."

Ilos made an appraising little "hmm" and crossed his arms, sitting across the table from the quite delightful-looking lady. Even in the dank and dingy basement below Vorund's warehouse, she still looked delectable. High, sharp cheekbones. Curves in all the right places. A tempting swell of bosom under a simple cloth dress, without any sag or droop or age to mar them. No lines on her face, but a look in her eyes and mayhap the image of maidenly loveliness was spoiled.

"That's asking a lot, girl. Tell me again what you're offering."

Kasoria was there, too. Standing in one corner, swaddled mostly by shadows, and even from there he could see the calluses over her eyes. The layers of rough scars stretched over her soul. Her name was Edri, and she'd been a whore since before she was a proper woman. In Etzos, that meant you got tough and prudent quickly, or you were chewed up by all the depredations men could summon.

But she's still rehearsed those lines, he thought to himself as she took a sip from her drink. But why? Because she wanted to make a good pitch for herself... or Styes wanted her to sound believable?

"I work at Black Lucille's place, have been since I was seventeen arcs. Styes loves the girls there, calls them his sweeties. Guess because he paid for it, way back. Anyway, I heard Lucille talking to her man who delivers food, saying Styes is coming over in a few trials. I can tell you exactly when, once I find out. Then I can tell you who's with him, and you can kill him."

Ilos' eyebrows popped up and he twisted round to share a look of exaggerated approval with Kasoria. Who just blinked back at him, of course. His role was not to emote, or mug, or ask questions, or even be anything remotely human. The nervous looks she'd thrown his way once or twice were what he'd intended. Ilos was the word and purse of the man upstairs; Kasoria was the silent, terrible wrath. He was there to make sure the orders Vorund had given days before we carried out, and since it was going to be him on the cobbles scragging Styes some trial soon, he needed to be down there, too.

"My-My-My. You've got bigger balls than my friend back there, don't you?"

"If you say so. We got a deal?"

"Why do this?"

Kasoria listened, because that was what he did, and because he had little else to do. This part mattered less to him, but only the words. The tone, the manner, the bearing... if he still suspected her of being a bluff, mayhap this could reveal that. He stared at her from the shadows, unblinking and without warmth, a scholar perusing a beetle pinned to his table.

Edri was not so easily cowed. The frustration and fury of long arcs crept into her voice as she spoke, fortified by another slug of gin.

"Twelve arcs. That's how long I've been there. On my fucking back and taking it in every hole. Twelve arcs and every one, Lucille's been telling me she'll teach me a trade, invest my money, show me the ropes of being a madam." The woman spat to one side, face twisted and most assuredly not lovely anymore. "That's what her fucking words are worth. I'm still living season to season, still just another pretty face behind another door, and I'm fucking well tired of waiting. Everyone knows Styes and Vorund are butting heads-"

"Mister Vorund."

"Sorry, Mister Vorund are butting heads, so I figured this was my chance."

"And you think you could do Lucille's job?" Ilos said with a quirked eyebrow, voice doubtful. "Know how to be a madam?"

A smile slid across those full lips, and Kasoria could see the poisoned steel behind the soft skin. This one was dangerous, and not because she had a brain behind her beauty. But because it was a mask for her machinations that few men would think to peel away.

"Twelve arcs of watching and listening and learning? I know I could do the job." She shrugged, careless and cavalier, or at least trying to be. "And if I don't, you can replace me with someone that does better. I'll still have my nels, and Styes'll be dead."

Ilos turned around and looked at Kasoria. A silent exchange passed between the two men, and Kasoria was reminded how the young gangster had got to where he was. Oh, he was proud and impatient and had left the success of his station go to his head, but when it came to the business... he knew when to defer to people that knew better. He knew when to stow his ego and focus on results, which made his tantrums all the more infuriating. If he could just get those under control, Kasoria would have no issue with him.

If only he could be like he was now. Silently communicating with the assassin, until the little man stepped out of the shadows, and Edri could get a good look at him.

He stared back until she dropped her gaze.

"You come and tell us exactly what trial, exactly what bell. Once Styes is dead, Lucille will follow him, and you'll get your nels and your new job." He didn't lean forward or glower or even drop his voice another menacing octave. His voice was the same as before. As if what followed meant as little to him as the details he's just spoken. "If you're lying to us, I'll peel the skin off your face and make sure you live. Until the wails of children and the laughter of women and the disgust of men hounds you so long, you'll cut your own throat to make it stop. Do you understand me?"

It took her a moment to nod. Words were a little beyond her for a moment. Ilos smirked into his drink as he sipped it. Kas sure could lay it on thick when he wanted. The little man nodded and continued.

"Good. Now... Lucille's got a backdoor?"

[Kasoria]

Stupid question, really. It was a three-storied house, after all: of course there'd be a backdoor! There'd probably be a couple, all the better for their "customers" to come and go discreetly. Even in the Outer Perimeter, a man didn't like it shouted about too much that he'd been seen skulking into a brothel. But Kasoria had to start somewhere with the girl. Best to keep it short and simple and grow it from there.

But the thought came back to him, a couple of days later, squatting behind a minor mountain of offal and refuse. There was little else to do but keep his ears open, wait for their tame traitor to show her face, and ponder on... anything. What had happened, and been decided. What could happen, as opposed to what would. Iron and brass bells clanged and roared, marking the passage of time, and still Kasoria kept his smelly vigil.

He used his ears to draw what picture he could from a place he was blind to. The sounds of laughter, grunting, women shrieking phony climaxes. Boots tramping up and down stairs. Low conversations, brief and businesslike. One voice in particular, sharp and caustic, giving orders left and right before swinging into fawning deference.

Must be Lucille, he thought eventually. Giving the girls their men. Taking her cut after. Sending them on their way.

Half a bell before, his ears pricked up as someone... special, seemed to arrive. Several someones, in fact. They tramped in through the front door and the madam's voice was even more deferential than usual. He strained to hear through walls and windows but... was that... it sounded like Styes. The words were muffled but the pitch and tone... it seemed to match. Then when the party had gone upstairs there was a burst of light in the alley-

"Hello? Anyone there?"

She was careful about it, which impressed him. No names, or specifics, or even expectation to find anyone out there in the shadows and gloom. If questioned by anyone inside, she could have said that she'd heard a noise and was wondering if any beggars were lurking. But Edri's sharp, inquisitive eyes were piercing every bit of cover for that which she knew to be there... and once he caught sight of that red hair, and heard that voice, he didn't disappoint her.

The woman straightened up and looked both ways down the alley behind the brothel as a small, lithe man detached himself from the hill of refuse. Even in the middle of all this skulduggery, with her life and future in the balance, she made a mental note: pay some people to get rid of all that shit. Tomorrow. She could smell it from the other side of the house.

"They're here."

"I know. How many?"

"Um, Styes, and his... his boy, Walter-"

"Dark hair? Brown eyes? Thin mustache?"

"Yes, that's him."

The lieutenant. Good. Very good.

"Who else?"

"Memmio and Rubio. They're sellswords, from across the ocean. They come from Yaralon, they say. The mercenary companies-"

Even better.

"I know them. Stand aside."

She did as she was told, and the little man glided past her into the backdoor. But more was going on than perambulation. With every step, he tried to make himself ever the open vessel. Eyes and ears scanning and devouring his surroundings. Taking in doorways, rooms, sounds, voices, dimensions, using them all to lay the bones of plans, options, tactics. He saw the staircase at the end of the hallway, the rooms branching off, and immediately to his left-

"What's this?"

"The basement."

"Anyone down there?"

"Um... no." The little man didn't respond for a while. Just stood there in his smelly, simple clothes. Breathing steadily, audibly, eyes flickering around the furnishings like he was appraising the place for sale. After half a bit, Edri started to fidget. This was hardly a sedate household: people were always coming and going and she couldn't risk them getting caught. "Look, why don't you just-"

"The sellswords are outside his room?"

"Aye... yes, they are."

"Call one of them down here," the little man rattled off orders like he owned her, and part of Edri whispered that, for the moment, he did. He opened the basement door and stood at the top of the stairs. "Tell him there's someone to see his boss. Out back. Follow me?"

A woman smart enough to see the opportunity in a gang war, and ruthless enough to demand murder as part of her payment, wasn't about to fail to see the simple trap Kasoria was laying. She nodded and swallowed, girding herself and her deceits for what was to follow. Kasoria watched her traipse up the stairs, and closed the basement door... almost all the way shut behind him.

Just a crack. A wedge, a glimmer of light for him to press one eye and both ears against. In the darkness around his body, his hand moved and unsheathed something curved and sharp and familiar.

The assassin waited like a child's monster, until he heard the footsteps approaching.

++++++++++

Not like we're still in the bloody companies...

Rubio had been happy to be of service to a warrior like Memmio, and he still was... but Fate's Cunts, the tone was started to annoy him. Still talking to him like they were humping around the deserts, with ranks and formations and latrine duty and all that shite. Didn't the man notice they weren't soldiers anymore? Apparently not. Because he was still snapping off orders like he was back... belonging, Rubio guessed the word was.

He'll break the habit soon enough, he reminded himself, following the redhead to the backdoor of the brothel. Just a matter of...

He didn't even finish the thought as he came to the doorway. The woman opened it and he looked out to see-

Nothing. No visitor, no messenger, no-one at all. Just rubbish and skittering rodents and still, humid Ymiden air. Rubio frowned and took a step outside, craning his head around.

"Well, where's this-"

He heard the door, but not the man. That was what he thought so odd in his last moments. Not that he'd been waylaid, or tricked, revelations that would spark fury in his chest and curses on his lips. He was already pulling his sword but in the last half-trill of life he had, Rubio wondered why he didn't hear any footsteps.

He heard the door. The softest of creaks from behind him, to his right. Even as he turned he knew it wasn't just the wind of a dodgy hinge. He saw the dark shape moving fast towards him-

-grunted as a practiced, professional kick caught him at the back of the knee, driving him down a foot. Before the impact of his knee hitting the ground had truly registered, there was a hand - small and strong - yanking back his head, exposing his neck-

He tried to make the grunt a scream, a cry of alarm, like a sentry in the night calling his fellows to fight. But the stabbing silver in the corner of his eye flitted too fast, and too deadly. It punched into the side of his neck and the sellsword's eyes popped open. He heard the whore gasp, hands flying to her mouth in horror. Blood gurgled from his mouth as the blade twisted, making it's entrance larger, more flowing, more gushing.

From his killer, he heard nothing. Saw much the same. Just a faint shadow standing over him, looking down with clinical, composed concern. The same way a butcher would want to make sure a hog was properly slaughtered, or a carpenter a chair leg was properly carved. Once the karambit blade snapped back out of his neck, torrent of blood soaking his shirt and armor, he could see satisfaction in the man's eyes.

Then the world spun again. Became turgid and blurred and wet and fading, fading away, his pain and his body and his thoughts and all of it-

Kasoria stepped back and guided the dying, toppling corpse onto the staircase he'd been hiding on. He let go of Rubio's hair and the dead weight flopped down onto the stairs, blood pumping and soaking into the wooden stairs. Then he closed the door on those eyes still faintly alive. leaving Rubio to his last trills in darkness, and forgot about the man.

One more.

He could tell from her face that it wasn't the first time she'd seen a man done in, as opposed to just die. But she was marshaling herself well. She kept her chin straight, balancing it on a block of invisible granite that kept it from wavering as she looked past the closing door, and back to the killer. She even found the stones to frown at the fact he was busily lacing up his boots.

"Why... Why did you take them off?"

"Wooden floors," he said lightly, as if he hadn't just done to a man's throat what others would do to a fish. "They make more noise. Better to take them off."

"So why put them back... oh. The carpet."

"Exactly. Now, one more outside the door upstairs, aye?"

"Yes, shall I-"

"Yes, you shall, but if I send you back up there without him, he'll be suspicious. So, I'll give you a slap and a bloody lip, and that'll bring him running. For me and his friend."

That made her eyes pop, for sure. Even the sight of Rubio getting his throat carved open didn't provoke so much of a reaction.

"I... You'll bugger my face up! I have to work-"

"Madams don't make money on their backs, girl," Kasoria reminded her, voice low and urgent and iron. He didn't want to be caught having this stupid conversation by some passing whore or punter with his cock flopping out. "And that's what you'll be by the end of the night, remember? Now close yer eyes..."

She did as she was told, grumbling and cursing quite inventively-

-right up to the point Kasoria's open palm slapped her around the face. Edri staggered a little and gingerly touched a split lip. She winced and nodded, voice almost enthusiastic.

"Right, that'll-"

CRACK

The back of the hand... aye, he remembered from his father how much that hurt. The palm was for women, but the back? All those knobbly, bony contours? That did damage. That raised an ugly bruise on her cheek and drew yet more blood. It slammed her against the wall and there was a perverse, unbelievable betrayal in her eyes as she looked at him over her hands, clutching her bloody face.

This time, Kasoria nodded. An artist appreciating a well-crafted ruse, in human form.

"Now you're convincing," he said, sheathing his blade and jerking his chin towards the stairs. "Lead the way."

Concluded here

[Oberan]

Review Rewards

Killer Kas

Points awarded: 10

Knowledge:

Deception: Producing a Convincing "Beating"
Intelligence: Making Use of a Traitor
Intimidation: Threats of Disfigurement
Stealth: Removing Boots for Quieter Steps
Tactics: Dealing with Targets One By One, Rather Than a Head-One Charge
Unarmed Combat (Ki'Enaq): Proper Use of a Staircase, and Gravity

Non-Skill Knowledge:
NPC Edri: South Side Whore, Aspiring Madam, Traitor in Stye's Firm

Magic: No magic exp

Other: N/A

Notes:

I absolutely adore how you make NPCs feel real. You make it seem as if they had actual lives outside the posts they're in, that they have their own agendas and backstories, and are important in their own way. And then you brutally murder them within an excellent combat scene. Simply delicious.


Your review request is here.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns in regards to this review, feel free to PM.