• Solo • II. Playground (Graded)

[Kasoria]

Continued from here

21st trial, Vhalar, 719
The Underground, Eastern Commercial Circle
17th break

"Gorst, Krell... they're dead."

All activity around the chamber ceased. Shuffling papers, dripping liquids, stones across blades and a dozen other busy little noises that they'd come to associate with the place. Everything stopped. All eyes turned to the middle-aged man in the center of the room. He looked pained. Weathered features pinched and then relaxing, shaken loose along with folds of skin, as if he'd tasted something terrible and couldn't quite get it out of his mouth.

None of them questioned him. Not even their leader, wrinkles and grey hair belying her taut, lean musculature. Velara stepped over to him, placing the toxin she'd been preparing on the table without looking.

"What happened?"

"Gorst was hurt. No... frightened. Terrified. Then Krell was, just for a moment. Then they both just... stopped. Died. At almost the same moment." Felix was not a handsome man, but the fear made him look almost boyish. "Krell was a master with those blades. Gorst knew his daggers. Both of them going at once-"

"Means the one who killed them has no small skill. I understand."

The chief cultist of their little coven turned to the two others in the room. Almost identical, save for the rise of a bosom under the leather vest of one, the twins had trained for arcs to be almost of one, inseparable mind. They used different weapons, preferred different poisons, but when they trained... Velara had to admit, it was almost breathtaking. They moved as one, without the need to speak. The Web spun between them only enhanced the gift already born into them. They rarely spoke, save to query the occasional detail of an order. Now they both stepped forward together, weapons weighing down their hands. Faces set and grim.

"Go," Velara said simply, waving a hand towards the main tunnel. "One man or many, kill them all. Avenge our dead."

They nodded, two jerking chins on a single string, and loped off into the torch-stained darkness. Back in the chamber, Felix turned back to his longtime superior.He shook his head, always the worrier, the doubter, the disbeliever. Velara despaired of the man. With yet more will and grit beyond his ironclad faith, he could scale the hierarchy of their cult in no time. But he was always second-guessing. She didn't want to admit it, but he was something of a coward... at least when it came to an honest fight. Which they tried to avoid, so...

"They might not be enough, mistress. They-"

"That is why," Velara said gently, placing a hand on his shoulder and allowing her Silken Tongue ability to course through him. "You will prepare the chamber, in case they get past the twins."

She could see the courage growing within him, artificial though it was. It seemed to war with his doubts, his cowardice masquerading as pragmatism. He tried to shake his head, thinning hair rustling in the dry air. "We... You should flee, mistress. At least you. Standing and fighting, that's not what we do. If he could kill Gorst, and Krell, and the twins-"

"You and I are not so easily butchered, my friend." She touched his cheek and lamented again. Oh, he would make the brave gesture. He might even mean it, and stay behind to buy what trills his death could purchase. But would he stand to torture? Would he endure what horrors could be wrought against his flesh? She doubted it. She could. She had, in the painful past. But she had no faith in Felix. "Help me to make ready. And in case I am wrong..."

She turned from her deputy and back to the table teeming with spiders. Most of them were "locals", one might say. Etzori insects drawn to them like any of the tiniest children of Sintra would be. Of no great consequence were they, just... a fact of life, for those marked by the Lethroda. She had made use of the creatures, of course. The twin marks on her shoulders declared to the world that she was Adored by Sintra, favored enough to be worth two marks by the Mistress of Manipulations. She could speak to the spiders, understand their halting, infantile responses. Even use them as scouts or, in sufficient swarms, a means of distraction and defense.

But it was one in particular she spoke to now. Not the Familiar that scampered up her arm to squat on her shoulder. Not one of the many wolf and crypt and jumping and house spiders covering the bottle-and-vial-strewn table.

It was the one the others seemed wary of. A clear circle of fear or respect around it as it marched slowly forwards to the edge of the table. She she bent over, it looked up at her.

"Take a message to Our Mistress," Velara whispered, stroking the spider gently on its flat, hairy head. "Should we fall today, tell her this..."

[Kasoria]

They that knew them, called them "the twins". As if the pluralization was a formality, which it largely was. Many cliches and stereotypes have been forged by twin siblings acting, speaking, behaving the same way. An eerie synchronicity that is inherently disturbing to a species that relishes the individuality of each separate life. Many of these cliches are just that; some are oddly accurate, and it is fascinating to meet two such beings and see them in living flesh. But the ones who embody them, who truly act indivisible from each other, well... that takes work. Training. Effort.

And purpose. They were named Skrolk and Sneek, but they only ever called themselves "WE". For they had their loyalty to the Spider Goddess, and needed no more uniqueness than that.

One being on four legs, they moved silently down the sewer tunnel, where their Strands had been placed. Ahead of them, matching Familiars padded across the slick stones, in and out of shadows but beneath notice even if they weren't. The twins had their weapons drawn and held low. Out of sight, not risking any chink of torchlight or shard of fading trial-light from above catching them as they moved. Skrolk's pistol crossbow was nocked and ready, poisoned bolt prepared trials before, of course. His other hand was closed around the kukri at his hip, ready to draw it an instant after firing his weapon. His sister... she preferred more exotic weaponry.

Sneek always had a flamboyant streak. Not quite a showman, but definitely more grandiose than Skrolk's pedestrian yet reliable methods. A barbed whip was in her hand, coiled for the moment but held in such a way it could by unfurled and sent lashing out in the same movement. Every cruel, razor-sized blade upon it was soaked with venom. From here, even above the stench of the sewage flowing past them like an underground river, he could tell it was... Ghost Mushroom. A slice from one of those blades would kill a man in bits; a lashing from the full length would take trills.

She had another, hooked at the small of her back. Thraybone, which they were all familiar with. For when they wanted their prey alive. Not applicable that night. Orders had been specific, and never had the twins failed to carry them out. From Hiladrith to Na'haer and now to Etzos, they had been silent, unyielding executioners. For their leader, yes, the much respected Velara... but she was but the mouthpiece. The avatar of whom they truly served.

Every life they took, was in her name. Every murder, even widow made and child orphaned, was for her greater glory. They shared that same belief, too. The Web spun between them never wavered on that subject; a perfectly balanced and unbreakable skein of devotion. Whomever this was down here with them, haunting their tunnels and slaughtering their comrades, he would not live to see nightfall.

As one, the twins stopped moving. They didn't need to see their Strands; they'd placed them, after all. Both knew that the path on either side of the brown, stinking river had been marked by one of those alerting threads. But as they stood there, peering down the tunnel, they knew neither had been broken. Yet if the killer was coming for them - and why else would anyone be here, this far into the sewers? - he would have come this way.

Skrolk looked over the river, and her sister was already meeting his gaze. A thrum of uncertainty passed between them. Not here? Somewhere else? Only three other tunnels into the main chamber, and those were behind from where Krell and Gorst had died. It would be quicker to come this way. He jerked his head minutely back the way they'd come. Go back?

Sneek paused for a moment, then shook her head. Her hand flexed across the whip. She had liked Gorst, as much as anyone could like the cocky young initiate. She had been trained often by Krell, almost as much as Velara. She wanted vengeance. Skrolk frowned and made a face. She didn't even need to ask, not even think about what it meant.

Disapproval. Don't let emotions get in the way. Don't allow the unseen enemy to play you. She made a face back, fierce and frowning. Skrolk shook his head minutely and started creeping again. Once they were past their Strands, they would turn back. No point in not being thorough.

Once they were within twenty feet, he stopped. He raised his bow, holding it with both hands. Aimed down the tunnel... and Sneek kept moving. One covering, one moving on. No communication necessary. His eyes flickered and danced around even as his hands were unwavering. Their enemy could have seen the Strands. Avoided them. Stepped over them... but they'd have seen him coming, had that been the case. And besides, this... infidel, had been unaware that killing their comrades would alert their leader. He was coming in blind, or thereabouts. Aware of his quarry, but not of their abilities.

Skrolk frowned and exhaled sharply through his nose, the closest he came to a curse of annoyance. No tampering. No sign of passing. He could tell that from the spiky wave of irritation coming from his sister. He started to lower the crossbow. It had to have been from one of the others tunnels. So they'd go back... no... keep going. Circle around and hit their killer from the-

The water moved next to where he stood. Parted as if some great aquatic predator, laying in patient wait, had suddenly taken its moment to strike. Not too far from the truth, in fact. With a single fang made of slashing steel, its arm came up and-

SHICK

Sneek turned her head and staggered in the same instant. A bolt of agony real and visceral as a blade in her own body nearly knocked her into the dirty wall. Her grim expression collapsed into grief only a twin can know, and never wishes to. She saw her brother go down, falling onto his back screeching in pain as the dagger sweep severed his hamstring. The crossbow fired as his fighter tightened, poisoned bolt twanging off a wall.

Skrolk hit the ground awkwardly, still trying to stand with only one leg working. Sneek's whip unfurled in her hand, unthinking calculations of distance already decided in her head. Their enemy, their killer, their quarry, lunged at her twin again-

-all these things happened in the same trill, and a moment later-

-Sneek screamed, so loud and agonized it seemed to deafen her for a moment. Crowding out every other sound in that filthy sewer. The flow of the water. The splash of it around the hellish figure that had emerged from it. His own moans and curses, the echoes magnified and barraging them from the ancient stones.

She saw the dagger in the killer's hand flip around with a single, deft movement. From straight to reversed, then stabbing down in the same fluid motion.

Flash of silver winking at her, in mocking triumph, then vanishing again as Kasoria buried it up to the hilt in her brother's eye.

[Kasoria]

Don't say it. Don't even think it. Not now. On the job, for fuck's sake.

Kasoria took his own advice and concentrated on not inhaling. As much as he was able to, anyway. He'd found the Strand on one side of the sewer. Not too much of leap to assuming there'd be one on the other side, too. He knew what to look for, now. That was the problem with having confidence in the secrecy of your skills: you never knew when they weren't secrets anymore. You'd keep on using the same tricks without knowing your enemy was already clued in, wised up, and using them against you.

The Raggedy Man was learning more about these Morty-loving cunts with every corpse he collected. So when he found the Strand stretched over the tunnel, he factored it in. They would be coming, that much he knew. Whether through their magic or their marks or simply routine being disrupted, they'd be sending people. So he decided to be ready to meet them... but he couldn't disrupt their sneaky little warning system, and the tunnel didn't have the alcoves or crevices for an ambush. Hells, half of it was taken up by a waist-deep river of-

Kasoria looked to his side, and smelled things that would have burned the nostrils clean from most other men. A plan formed. One he hated immediately and knew was perfectly suited to the task at hand. The little man sighed, drew his dagger, and shook his head.

"Fuckin' lovely."

He didn't step over the Strands. He went into the river of filthy sewage, and around them. Submerged himself in foulness barely believable, ignoring his own skin crawling, body recoiling in abject horror at what he was subjecting it to. He gripped his dagger tight and kept it close, as he lowered himself deeper and deeper... until his nose was barely above the surface, and his mane of black hair was floating about his head like scum around a rock in a pond. Moving forwards, awkwardly duck-walking through the muck, did not aid matters.

Fates, the fuck was that just touched my left? Swear to Fuck it was fucking wriggling.

He stuck to the sides of the space carved out into the tunnel, where the shadows were deepest. Torchlight didn't quite reach over the dip, and he was able to squat there, miserable and wishing his nose and taste buds didn't work. He didn't count bits or trills. He kept his teeth champed and his lips locked. Didn't dare open them for but an instant. The brown nightmare kissing at them was enough to make him gag, but when he did, it was with his fucking mouth closed.

It didn't get easier. The smell, the stench, the sheer, fetid disgust... none of it got boring. When he saw shadows start to ease down the tunnel towards him, he almost sighed with joy. Except he couldn't, because he was almost under fucking water.

Easy, now...

When they got closer, Kasoria let his body lower even more. He braced himself and closed his nose as best he could. Submerging himself so only a few strands of hair were floating on the surface, unnoticed among the tide of filth. He counted. In the dark, eyes closed, free hand against the stones, feeling for vibration... barely noticing it tremor through his fingers...

Let's have a look.

Fates, but he moved slowly. Inch by inch and even less than that. He didn't so much rise, as he did allow his skull to float a little closer to the surface... until he was above it... looking up... and seeing the boy start to lower his crossbow. Further down, out of sight but not earshot, he could hear the other one's boots scraping on the stones. Maybe... thirty feet.

Three trills. Maybe four.

Make them count.

He did.

"SKROLK?!"

The girl screamed the word in one long anguished noise. It seemed lost in the hurricane of grief, an avalanche of deafening sorrow. Kasoria knew the sound well; the pitch and the meter, the depth and what followed next. Rage. Fury. Hatred. Blacker and hotter than any she'd ever felt before. Enough to kill pain and shatter any loyalties or loves she'd had in the past. Kasoria yanked the dagger out of Skrolk's dead skull and braced himself on the side of the stone canal, heaving up-

-arms burning, biceps and shoulders aching-

-hearing the whistle in the air and throwing his body forwards into a clumsy roll the moment enough of it was over the lip-

CRACK

The venom'd whip slashed into the sewage river where he'd just been, gouging chunks of solid filth from it. Kasoria stopped his roll on one knee, already summoning his Spark from within as he turned to face the girl. Tears pouring down her face, eyes wide and insane with grief, she brought the whip back again and-

Don't let it nick you. Not even once. Any weapon, any blade, assume it's poisoned.

-when it whipped out for him again, coming for his face with her shriek chasing fast behind it, he threw up his arm-

-and the whip crashed uselessly against the Shield throw up in its way. Kasoria grunted, more in surprise than exertion. Less weight, less mass... less strain on the Shield, it seemed. He stood back up and the woman came at him again, heedless of tactics. She was too far into her agony now. Enraged beyond words, beyond sense, beyond mere strategy. Kasoria felt the merest sliver of kinship with her.

Well he knew that rage. Well he knew, and much he lamented. Not for the lives he'd sent screaming into the void, but because of what it had cost him. To lose himself so utterly, and never see the vast world of consequences beyond his selfish, narrow vengeance.

Justice. It was justice. Because they wouldn't deliver it, so you had to.

Kasoria threw up his arm again as the whip lashed it, ether cracking like lightning striking a tree. The Shield rippled and hissed with white light, but Kasoria stood firm. She was so close now. Thinking him hiding, determined to batter down his defenses no matter what. Her other hand went to her back and she brought out a new whip. Kasoria growled and stood his ground. Whips. How he fucking hated them. In the hands of all but masters, they were an annoyance, more damaging to those holding them. There was no middle ground, really. You were either skilled enough to snuff a candle or pluck an eye or entangle a limb at will... or you were more likely to hurt yourself and look foolish as you died.

But you didn't use two, unless you knew how to.

So end this quickly.

The first whip lashed out low, this time. Seeking to get under his Shield. Kasoria leaped forwards, spinning body going over the length of leather studded with blades. Poisoned metal striking sparks even on these damp stones, gouging white marks as they missed flesh and bone.

But she was ready for him. Second whip already to lash out at him as he landed, barely six feet away. And land he did, with his Shield up, and when the second whip smashed into it-

CRACK

-the Backlash knocked it right out of her hand. A spasm of pain wracked Sneek's limb from fingers to shoulder, as if the weapon itself had struck her. Shock and pain overrode her rage for a blink, and she staggered a step. Just one step. Drew back her whip for another blow at the man-

-in front of her, striking so fast he was almost a blur-

-black eyes and an aura of swirling darkness around him that made her gasp-

SHUCK

-as he dagger slashed deep into her bicep, severing the meaty tendon there just like it had done the one in her brother trills before. Another spasm, another white-hot jolt of pain that made her yelp. Her arm betrayed her in an instant, treasured weapon falling from her hand. Her other curled into a fist, ready to punch and kick and bite and claw if she had to but Kasoria-

-was not going to give her the chance. Dagger held reverse, he sliced open her arm, and the moment the red spray hit the air and the whip fell, his dagger was moving again-

-stabbing sideways, back towards her-

SHUNK

-burying itself in the side of her neck, before the whip had even struck the ground. Then it did. A low, lonely clatter. It echoed once around the tunnel, as killer and killed stood there. Locked for a moment as Kasoria's blade impaled her neck from one side to the other. Sneek's eyes bulged, breath refusing to come out of tubes now either severed or blocked. But the blood came. Oh, yet it did. Dribbling out of her throat, dribbling through the holes-

SHUUK

-before Kasoria ripped the dagger out the front of her throat with a savage grunt of effort, nearly decapitating the girl. She staggered back, almost going down, and Kasoria's free hand lashed out, Shield vanishing, forgotten, unneeded, grabbing the back of her head by the hair and holding her for-

CRUNCH

CRUNCH

The dagger came at her again, three more times. Not the blade, though. The hand guard, fashioned into a crude knuckleduster. The first two punches broke her nose, shattered her cheek, splattered blood and battered through her skin until one could see yellowy fat underneath. The third, the last, came out with a bark of effort from Kasoria, all his strength behind the blow, as if her were trying to drive his knuckles straight through her face-

CRACK

-snapping her neck back with a shattering of vertebrae, like a young branch being broken in two. That was much louder. That echoed for longer. When Kasoria let go of her white hair, she'd already gone to join her brother.

The Raggedy Man stood there, in the faint darkness. Between the pools of light cast by torches. He looked over his shoulder, and listened. Sounds, from deeper and darker. The chamber, where they all scuttled from like good little spiders. They had their own nest, of course. Coming and going, scouting and killing, but always coming back home. He'd been watching them for long enough to know how far it was down that way... but still he frowned.

Four dead, out of six... but some insistent pulse of caution told him these had been but the peons, the blades, not the hand that wielded nor the mind that crafted. They knew he was coming, too. They were readying themselves at that very moment. Preparing the ground. Priming their traps. Just like he would.

Fuck it, he thought, wiping the dagger clean and starting to squelch down the tunnel, leaving a trail of dirty water behind him. Dirty business.

Kasoria groaned and shook his head. "Couldn't fucking help yerself, could yeh?"

Continued here

[Pig Boy]

Kasoria

Experience: 10

Knowledge:

Acrobatics: Hoisting Yourself Up and Rolling in the Same Motion
Blades (Dagger): Severing Tendons in Limbs
Endurance: Holding Your Breath
Resistance: Fighting Back Nausea
Tactics: Striking from Underwater
Tactics - Capstone: Fighting Against a Whip-Wielding Opponent

Renown: 15 for killing prominent cult members. Next time someone smells Kas, they'll wonder if he had something to do with the gallons of blood flowing out the grates.

Skill Usage: Appropriate to level

Loot/Losses: none

Injuries/Conditions: You will bear a terrible stench, likely to last for a season. Strong at first, they may not see you coming but they're sure as hell to smell you, if you don't strangle the air around you to keep the stench from escaping. A few tentrials in the bathhouse should clear that up.

Consequences: none

Comments: This was a very visceral collection of scenes. I'd caution you, as the first two posts your PC didn't even appear, and wasn't the focus of the roleplay, which is a rule. You need to make Kasoria the focus of more than half the words included in the story. He's not the focus for more than half the thread.

At any rate, your pc appeared for the last post, which was solo length, so I'll give it to you.

The enemies you faced were pretty well detailed. I loved the whip scenes. It was hard to read in parts, not because of your excellent writing, but because Kasoria struck me as such a cold heart. I have to admit this made me hate Kasoria so much, but that's to your credit as a writer of a murderous Raggedy Man and his complete lack of regard for the lives of religious minorities

J/k it was a great thread. Enjoy the rewards.

If you have any concerns about this review, please PM me about them.