• Mature • III. Crescendo (Graded)

[Kasoria]

12th trial, Vhalar, 720
The Underground, Etzos Prime
Night

Continued from here


"I'm telling you, I heard something."

"Been at the grog again?"

"No!"

"... really?"

Clayton didn't even bother responding that time. He grumbled something indistinct yet still oddly obscene, and pressed on into the darkness. A halo of orange and yellow lit his way, from the torch he held. Not quite a stealthy approach, he had to admit, but in these trials, one didn't just traipse through the Underground without seeing what was ahead of you. It was bad enough arcs ago, with vagrants and fugitives and the occasional warped monstrosity prowling the shadows. He'd seen his share. Spiders. Cats. Dogs. Those were the words he could attach to them... but in truth, some combination of reptile and insect had been jammed into them, too.

That was before Lisirra, too. Now there were reports of... other things, down there. Festering and bubbling bitterly in the wake of their mother's death. Waiting for a chance to avenge her, they said.

They say. They said. They always do, and you never actually meet one of the cunts.

"Sounded like bugger all," the heftier guard said, still leaning against the wall, blowing on his hands against the cold. When even the Underground was starting to get chilly, you knew Zi'da was well on the way. "Probably a moggie."

"The bloody hells would a cat be doing down here, Reg?"

The younger man rolled his eyes. Fates, what a berk his partner looked. Peering at shadows, same as peering at nothing. Just darkness and emptiness and the fantasies a fearful mind weaved from them. He'd heard the stories; he'd even seen trophies, supposedly taken from the "monsters" that were in the deep, dark, ancient tunnels under the Big Rock. That wound down to the bedrock, the very first mines (or would it be the last ones?) when the city was young.

He'd been at Rhakros. He wasn't impressed. Something pretty nasty would need tp spring from that tunnel before-

"There! You hear that, right?"

"I hear, you rabbiting on about nothing. Which you seem to do every night when you're the one holding the grog." Clayton turned with a scowl on his face and found another, even harder one on the chubby cheeks of his partner. "I like yer spirit, mate. Truly I do. There's good reason they've men with sharp ears and keen eyes down here. But not everything is a fucking monster or an assault. See them everywhere, and you'll not keep your mind on where it really needs to be."

Clayton deflated slightly, sword lowering in his hand. Wasn't much older than Reg; only a handful of arcs. But he hadn't been at Rhakros. The reason was burned into his face, where some acid-spewing monstrosity had died to his sword and got one, last, spiteful hawk of burning venom into his face. Cost Clayton an eye, and a cheek. The sharpness of his ears and remaining eye weren't the only reason he was down here, out of sight, so he didn't send children running.

But Reg? He'd been at Rhakros. He barely noticed.

"Aye... yer right."

"Of course I'm right," he said jovially, snatching away the bottle hanging at Clayton's belt and uncorking it. "Trust me. You need to keep sharp down here, but there's such a thing as-"

That. Now that, he heard.

From the far end of the tunnel, the watcher whispered to his wyrd and the ether bled from his hand, light fading away. A loose brick had tumbled, cracking hard and loud. Loud meant "big" in the Underground. Big meant either a thing, a someone, or an echo. And he knew he was too close for them to think he was that. Cursing softly, he felt at the hole he'd already made. Corroded edges of brick came loose in his hands, Transmutation Spark greedily whispering their properties to him as he moved them away. Almost wide enough. Almost big enough.

"Cover me," Reg said, all humor gone from his voice now. Gladius in one hand, knife in another. Tunnel-fighting weapons. "Stay close and keep that torch out my eyes."

"Aye."

The watcher wasn't frantic. More annoyed. He worked swiftly, moving the stones and bricks away until the opening they'd been covering was almost clear. The map had been accurate; just not taken into account recent renovations. When he'd arrived down here, he'd expected a forgotten entrance to an equally-forgotten passageway... and instead found a bricked-up secret doorway, and a guarded entrance to the Citadel a hundred paces or so down the way. Not surprising, but not convenient.

The watcher reached inside the hole, feeling for something to grab onto, and got-

Hair, fur, tail, claws.

That'll do.

"Fuck me!"

The rat seemed to explode out of the darkness and landed at their feet. A skinny, rangy thing, all hissing maw and mad red eyes. Probably diseased, like all the vermin these days. Hardy little monsters that had feasted on plague corpses for an arc, and did it kill them? Did it bollocks. The two guards stopped dead and glared back at it, until it realized it wasn't quite as scary as it thought, and scurried off into the shadows again.

"Fucking hells... how'd it make all that noise?"

"Probably moved a loose brick. This far down, there's more rotting shite than solid."

Clayton grunted, not entirely convinced... but Reg seemed soothed by his own words. He sheathed his blades and turned back to the iron-ribbed, triple-barred door they stood beside for twelve breaks at a time. He knew where it lead; he knew why it was down there. Used infrequently, but only by the highest of ranks. No-one saw them come or go, save guards proved ever-loyal, and discreet.

Clayton was one, who'd suffered hideous wounds for his city and demanded to the right to continue service her. Reg? He'd been at Rhakros. That was enough.

The watcher in the dark smiled as the two men fell for the ploy and went back to their vigil. He went back to his hole, and squeezed his tight, lean frame through it. Carefully, this time. Never grinding, rubbing, or grabbing anything that looked or felt loose. After a bit or so, he was through the hole his Transmutation had started. Rotting away the bricks, a century's worth of Corrosion packed into a few trills. No need for hammers or chisels; just a very useful magic.

Once he was far enough into the passageway, he sent another command to his hand. Brilliance. Illumination. Pale and blue and steady. Enough for him to look at the map, crudely-drawn but detailed... and realize where he was. Where he needed to go.

Kasoria looked up with his black eyes, and started on towards the bowels of the Citadel.

[Kasoria]

His Spark was primed. His magic was willing. His hands glowed with eldritch light and as he held his hand to the bricks, ready to corrode and rot and destroy-

"... huh."

He used the handle.

Never forget the simple solution.

The exit to the forgotten tunnel was in some sort of office. Behind a painting, actually. Kasoria turned the handle and dust fluttered off hinges that hadn't moved in decades. The glow of lamps and candles drew his eyes, hand filling with steel before he'd fully opened the door... but there was no-one there. The room was for storage, or copying. Scrolls and documents were laid out in neat rows at one side, and the picture of utter chaos in the other. Between them both was a desk, clean and orderly, with quill and ink and a pile of parchment. Kasoria could see the chaotic pile was comprised of works burned, ripped, soaked, mauled... and more than a few stained with blood and viscera almost to illegibility.

Tax and census records, I'd guess. Definitely what these cunts would spend so much time trying to save.

Yet there was no-one actually there, for the moment. Kasoria's nose twitched... and he noticed the steaming up on the desk. Jasmine tea? He walked around it and noticed the robe across the back of the chair. Felt the seat of it... then the cup... both still warm. Privy break, he'd guess. He heard the footsteps a moment later, and slid across the stone floor like a wraith. The door opened. Quick, fussy movements from the person on the other side of it. The man closed the door without looking back, but something surprised him-

-as he turned, Kasoria saw a flash of his face. Not flabby or thin. Not scarred or handsome. Just a man. A clerk. A scribe with black fingertips and wide eyes who opened his mouth to-

CRACK

Kasoria's punch to his chest didn't break anything, but it did knock the air out of his lungs. Not as a scream, but a pained whoof that ended with retching. Before he could stagger back, Kasoria lashed out and a left hook took the man in the temple. The scribe went down spinning, eyes glazed over, and Kasoria was there under him to-

"Gotcha."

-catch him before the floor cracked his skull open. This was not the Oh'Pee, or even the Comm'See. This was the Citadel. One could argue that he was a pragmatist who didn't want to leave corpses in the most secure place of Etzos; that was unlikely to be ignored. But if he was honest (rare but not unknown), it was because it was... well, the Citadel. The heart of Etzos. The center of law and justice and governing. Oh, he could rag and grouse all he wanted about rich twats and noble bastards. But these were still hallowed halls and sacred chambers. He would not defile them, unless at the utmost need.

A few bits later, the clerk stepped out of the copying room. It must have been the clerk. He wore the robe with cowl, had parchment under his arm, and glasses perched at the edge of his nose. Kasoria liked that touch, but especially the book in his hands. Gave him a reason to look down as he walked and not let people see his jet black eyes. He looked back just once, confirming that the actual clerk was hog-tied, half-naked, behind his desk, with a ripped-paper gag in his mouth. If he had to figure, he had... maybe half a break.

Kasoria closed the door and started walking. Halls old and unfamiliar but not unknown. The more he walked, the more memories started to stir. The Hall of Rule and Reprimand had been his home once, but arcs ago. Decades ago. Fates... but it came back to him so easily. He kept his head low and his eyes on the book... mostly. Navigating by memory and logic, remembering all he'd heard over the years. The mages of the Black Guard didn't hang around often with their brethren; they were a sequestered lot, generally by choice. They wouldn't be too far from the cells they helped keep full, so Kasoria stuck close to them, until-

"-Yusef wants these warrants delivered to him directly and-"

His eyes flickered over the rim of the reading glasses. A young recruit, almost androgynous thanks to their short hair and Academy-cut frame, was marching swiftly down the corridor, orders from her superior ringing and messages in her hand. Kasoria changed direction. Following her while still reading... and scribbling in the book now and them, just to maintain the façade.

It didn't take long before the woman vanished into an office... then returned a moment later.

A burble of noise from inside. A voice, one he was never going to forget. A comrade turned most hated enemy. Who'd captured and tortured him for trial after trial, all to one end. Find what he loved, and destroy it. Why? Because he'd done the same to him. Taken a good and great man, who'd trained their class and molded them into keepers of law and justice... until Kasoria destroyed that legacy in one burning night of rage.

Yusef, now Commander in the Black Guard, would not let that lie. Kasoria had taken what he loved, and made him suffer. He would do the same... and Martyn would be the means.

Kasoria stopped in front of the door, and read his old classmate's name on the door. The man probably knew he was there. He had magic, Attunement, and Kasoria had felt the touch it it before. Down in the dungeons and elsewhere in the world. He summoned his Sparks and they both came to him, hissing and growling into life, both now far from the budding, naive things Tusef had encountered before.

This is the end, Kasoria had told himself as he grasped the handle. The last one who knows. One more body... then we're leaving.

At least, that had been the plan.

[Kasoria]

There was the sound of a pen on parchment, and nothing else. No hiss of burning tallow; no heavy breathing. Nothing like breeze or even echoes from other chambers. Just that steady scratch of feather-tip across treated, flattened, pulped, stretched tree. As the door opened, it didn't cease. But when it closed again and the scribe looked up, annoyance flashing over his face at the interruption...

Then he saw. Then he understood. And there was silence.

"Don't even have the decency to stay dead, do you?"

Kasoria didn't answer. Not with words. As he walked, with each step more and more ether oozed out of him. Fastened to his skin and then expanded outwards. Reflective layers of Abrogation, wrapping him up in armor against fist and sword and spell and curse. His eyes narrowed as he approached the Black Guard Commander's desk, feeling tendrils of the other mage's ether flailing against him and gaining no purchase.

It wasn't until he saw Yusef's eyes widen in realization that he bothered to speak. Once the understanding had been reached.

"Ain't gonna be like last time, Yus." He stopped in front of the desk. A tall man's height away from the last name on his list. "Try t'slide yer ether into me head again, an'-"

He didn't raise his hand, nor clench it into a fist. He didn't need to. He just thought of what he wanted to happen; where he wanted his ether to go, and what his Spark was to do when it got there. A trill or so after he spoke, Yusef's features flushed and pinched and tightened all at once. His body tensed and all of him seemed to flinch at once, before going still... but not moving. Loops and lengths of iron-hard Shackles were around him, not crushing him, barely even hurting him, but letting him know just how easily that could happen.

"I know 'bout Attuners, Yus. Know what dey feel like. How dere magic feels. Try that shite an'-"

"Why..." Yusef coughed through his discomfort, chest squeezed tight by Kasoria's magice. "Whay ain't I dead, Kas?"

The Raggedy Man smiled thinly, and utterly without humor. Yusef always was a smart one. Even with his blinding hatred of Kasoria, something that might fool him into thinking the murdering little shit just wanted to play with his kill, he knew that wasn't accurate. Kasoria didn't gloat, or draw it out, not when it mattered. Not ever, as far as records could tell. He hated him, as much as Yusef hated him right back. There was no reason not to take off his head or snap his spine with his magic and then leave before the last breath had bubbled out of his dead mouth.

So...?

Kasoria pulled back his Spark. Saving his ether, for he knew he'd need every bit of it. It was hard enough maintaining layers of replicative shielding around his body and keep his Mute going under it. He didn't want Yusef to discover that Abrogation wasn't the only skill he had, unless he had to. With a shuddering sigh, Yusef was released. He rose slowly from his chair, but smoothly. Age hadn't been kind to either, but the uniformed man had less scars under his cloth, Kasoria would wager. He glared with deep brown eyes, disgust of decades undimmed.

"Got bigger shite t'worry about than our little fuckin' feud, mate. Morty's inna city. Gettin' stronger, every trial. I know yeh've felt it, seen it, tasted in inna air. Every trial, more people like her. Accept her. Love her. In Etzos. Y'wondered why that is?"

Commander Yusef was silent for some time. The hatred, the anger, the chained malevolence, it was still there... but Kasoria could see it morph gently into a mask. He was confused. He didn't know why someone he'd turned into such a monstrously selfish bastard would suddenly sound so worried about... someone else. He blinked a few times, and that sealed the deal. Kasoria shrugged gently.

"Wouldn't yeh like t'know why?"

"Why should I trust you?"

"Cuz I'm alla' the things y'think I am, Yus, but I ain't a fuckin' Morty-lover an' I won't stand fer one takin' over my father's city. Now tell me that's a lie."

More silence. Oh, so much black and curdled contempt. Kasoria wondered if this is what he looked like to Llyr, that night, all those seasons ago. All that hatred built up over arcs and arcs exploding out of him like a dam struck by a tsunami. Yusef swallowed. He was thinking now. The confusion was still there, but he was an old and disciplined man. Yes, yes, yes, all very unexpected and baffling, but now there were real things afoot. Information offered. Answers and offers and services and even from this man, this creature, this raggedy abomination... his city needed help.

"... it isn't."

"Coulda' told yer that fer-"

"Did you kill High Marshall Webb?" Kasoria didn't answer right away. That alone was answer enough, but Yusef needed to hear it. He leaned forwards on his desk, resting on his knuckles. "Answer me, Kasoria. I need to hear it from you. Right now."

"Aye. I killed him."

"How did-"

"Broke his fuckin' neck after slicin' him up a little wiv' a blade. That good enough for yeh?"

Silence. For quite a while. Yusef bowed his head and sighed, as if defeated. Kasoria's heart skipped a beat. Was this resignation for the fight that had to come? Making peace with what life he had, what he would be leaving behind? Kasoria's hands started to twitch. He could pull his gladius and think a Shield into existence before the mage could-

"Yes... and not just me, as it turns out."

Now it was Kasoria's turn to be confused. He watched as Yusef rooted through his desk (gently, so not to alarm the deadly little sod) and found the file he wanted. Kasoria dared to sidle up to the side of the desk and peer at it curiously. Yusef rooted around a little more for... oh.

"Fuck off," he said as he slid the reading glasses on. "You'll be wearing them one day, too."

"Didn't say shite."

"Mmhmm..." Then the Commander cleared his throat and started whispering to himself. Familiarizing with the material he'd scanned before, but had held onto because Kasoria's name had been mentioned. Once he was done, he slapped the scroll down and massaged his temple. "You ever heard of Captain Rulen? Gralin Corro?"

Kasoria had not. So Yusef told him about them, and what they'd discovered.

[Kasoria]

"They fuckin' knew?!"

"They suspected. They presented evidence. No witnesses, no confession, but... yes. They know. And now so do I."

Kasoria was sitting down. That alone was bizarre. No posturing, no flexing, no threats or growls. Just two men glaring at each other across a paper-strewn desk. Oh, there was tension. Enough of that to choke an elephant. But no man was reaching for a blade, or summoning his Spark into action. They were just talking... well, mostly Yusef. Catching Kasoria up on what had been going on in Etzos after Webb's neck snapped and both he and the Quacian went crashing through a Crossing portal, across the Emea, then back into the waking world far from the metropolis... and Kasoria simply didn't come back for the better part of an arc.

"That a threat?"

"Statement of fact," Yusef shot straight back, no trace of fear on his face. "The investigators know. Their findings were passed on to... certain people, who could be trusted with them."

"Certain people bein' those that ain't singin' hymans a' Sintra."

Another statement of face. Kasoria knew how this worked, and Yusef was pragmatic enough to give him a curt nod.

"Indeed. The Council has been fractured, openly and in private. Most are trying to remain sensible at worst and loyal to the ideals of the city at best, but some are..."

"... not actin' like themselves?"

Yusef's eyes flashed with suspicion. He was a thief-taker, a blackjack, a believer in justice. As far as he was concerned, those that knew the minds of the corrupt were either men like him, or the corrupt themselves. There was no middle ground. The innocent were too pure for such tangled thoughts. Kasoria knew this, because he'd been drilled in the same way of thinking. Now Kasoria sat across from him and spoke like he knew more than he should. And if he didn't come to that knowledge legitimately, then...

"How do you mean?"

Trust did not come easy among enemies. That was the expression. Kasoria believed it, minus the last two words. Then it was perfectly accurate. Even among friends, it wasn't certain. Between men who had spent almost their whole lives hating and pursuing each other, on and off, it was foolishness or fatality. But Kasoria thought beyond their feud and bad blood. He had to. Yusef had, and now... now he had a reason to.

The breathed in deep, and a brown-eyed face flashed before his eyes. Dark, juddering memories of that image being plucked from his mind by this very interrogator made his face flinch for a trill. Yusef blinked. He'd seen it. Kasoria clenched his jaw, and plowed on.

He's useful until he isn't. And he's thinking the same thing.

"Sintra's been puttin' some shite inna' water t'make folk love her. Look, shut up, I dunno, I'm not a fuckin' scholar or healer, I cannae explain any of it. S'just what I heard-"

"You're with the Resistance?!"

"No, s'what I heard. I do better work on me own."

"So I've observed."

He put arcs of hate into those words. A thousand fancies of long nights poring over case files, witness statements, Blackjack reports. Body after body, massacre after massacre, all with the unspoken hallmarks of "the raggedy man". Maybe one file in ten indicated more than a single butcher at work. Oh, Yusef knew well Kasoria preferred to work alone.

"Dunno where she's doin' it, but I got some ideas. The river, a' course. The wells. The reservoir. Might be good places t'start... unless y'already have."

Yusef was done talking anymore, which was an answer all by itself. Had the Blackjack already found out more than he had? Were they working with the Resistance? Or were they even more compromised? Was he talking with a Sintra-lover right now? No, no... if that were the case, Yusef would have already killed him... or would he? Better not to trick him into divulging information, find out what he knows, even direct him towards enemies without even knowing. Kasoria closed his eyes for a moment and shooed the thoughts away.

Thinking yourself in circles won't do shite. Deal with thus problem in front of you.

"One more thing..."

As Yusef watched stonily, the little man pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. He picked a scrap of parchment at random, ignoring the quite pertinent census data scrawled on the other side, and started to scrawl... no. Then he stopped. He looked at the parchment for a long time, then handed it to Yusef. Frowning, the Blackjack took it. What had once been more than two dozen names were now just four. Easily memorized, he'd wager. The rest had been crossed out... and he didn't need to guess why.

"These are... followers of Sintra."

"How'd you guess?"

"We are the Black Guard, Kasoria. We have our own intelligence sources."

"Oh? They mention those four names?"

Yusef just scowled. Kasoria grinned.

There was just a moment. A fragment. A spark of something that had been so long and so forgotten between them that he couldn't even name it when he glimpsed its ghost. That rough, rude camaraderie they'd all had. Cadets all, from the gutter and the Citadel, united in love and loyalty and purpose. He'd not hated them all; more than one, he'd called friend. Then he'd... given it up. Because justice would not be served to him any other way. But that had cost him. That feeling. That belonging. That purpose not just for ego or gold or comfort, but for the betterment of his home and his people.

Now that was gone. All that was left was the hate in Yusef's eyes and the promise that one trial, when this was over and Sintra was a memory, they would meet again, and one of them would have to die.

Too much blood under the bridge.

"M'gunna leave now," Kasoria said, getting up to emphasize the point. "Dun send anyone after me. Y'know dat won't end well."

"I don't throw away the lives of my men."

Which was the closest he'd get to a compliment, Kasoria mused. Nothing left to say, he turned his back on Yusef. Quite a gesture all by itself. But now magic blast or paralyzing Attunement or knife or missile was flung into it. Not until he got to the door and then-

"Kasoria?"

"Aye?"

"After this is done, you will answer for Sergeant Tantos."

The Raggedy Man looked over his shoulder, through a curtain of black hair, into Yusef's eyes. There was so much that he could have said. He had been punished enough/ He had thrown his life away. He had been a creature of shadow and darkness and blood and horror for his whole life. He had done what was right, if not lawful, and the souls of his mother and sister demanded as much. The atrocity of their murders could be balanced with nothing else... and if that meant he was the enemy of his people and a man had sacrificed himself, without his word or asking, so be it. More puckish words sprang to mind. Challenge and mockery, sneering and scornful.

He said none of them. They were too old for that nonsense. There was but one thing to say to that. One thing between two sons of Etzos, who knew the Fates had marked their next trial across from each other, and decreed it would end with death.

"Until that day."

Yusef nodded. "Until that day."

The door opened, and closed. The footsteps receded. Yusef sat back down and reviewed mentally all he'd been told and all he'd said. Then he looked over the list... and pulled a fresh length of parchment. Soon the silence was broken again, by that same sound as before. As if the visitor had never come, and there'd been no interruption worth speaking of.

[Doran]

Kasoria:

Knowledge:
Skill Knowledge:
Abrogation - Replicative Fields: Allows Abrogant to Detect Magic Cast at Them
Disguise: Stealing a Uniform (of sorts)
Disguise: Made Even Harder with Magical Mutations
Negotiation: Putting Aside Mutual Hatred in the Face of Even Greater Danger
Transmutation - Corrosion: Breaking Down Bricks in a Wall
Transmutation - Quality: Bricks

Non-Skill Knowledge:
Etzos Blackguard: Know that Kasoria was Behind Marshal Webb's Murder (and generally don't care)
Etzos, Vhalar 720: Loyalist Black Guard are Aware of Schism within the Council
NPC Watch Commander Yusef: Still Hates Kasoria, But Hates Sintra More
NPC Watch Commander Yusef: Very, VERY Tentative Truce Until Sintra is Gone

Loot: Not coins or goods - for it to be established that, through an "unnamed informant", the Black Guard of Etzos now knows (or has some idea) about Sintra's plot to dope the city of Etzos through the water supply, and they have a (short) list of living collaborators, along with a longer list of dead ones
Lost: -
Wealth: -
Injuries: -
Renown: -
Magic XP: None. You've already maxed out Abrogation, and you are right at threshold between Expert and Master Transmutation (150 XP). In my opinion, you didn't push yourself sufficiently to level up Transmutation.
Skill Review: Appropriate to level.
Points: 10

- - -

Comments: I’ve already told you so a couple of times before, but I love those posts from the point of view of NPCs. They add a lot to your threads in my opinion. I enjoyed the conversation between Clayton and Reg as they made their way through the Underground. They aren’t one-dimensional, you managed to give them personality and made them seem just as lively as PCs. You are a good writer, but you probably already know that!

Transmutation is a great addition to Kasoria’s other magics. I agree that it’s very useful. You can create holes without hammers or chisels, and Brilliance is another useful technique!

I like how Kasoria’s sparks have personalities of their own, and I appreciate that you included links in your thread. I liked that you provided so much background information while Kasoria made his way through the Citadel. When he met Yuef, I could practically feel the tension.

I have to admit, I was wondering why he didn’t kill Yusef either!

The following conversation about the “Morty” in Etzos and the death of Marshall Webb was quite surprising. When I started reading, I thought that this thread would be about some sort of fight to the death between Kasoria and Yusef, but it was so much more which was great in my opinion.

I’ve been wondering why the people of Etzos love Sintra so much. Was it really something in the water?

The ending was amazing. I especially loved this part here:

One thing between two sons of Etzos, who knew the Fates had marked their next trial across from each other, and decreed it would end with death.

"Until that day."

Yusef nodded. "Until that day."

I noticed that you didn't state which domain the Magic XP are for in your review request or that the thread could lead to a level up in one of your magics.

Please do so in the future.

You should also start to think about Kasoria's Master Transmutation mutations as he's 1 XP away from Mastery.

By the way, when I checked your CS, I also noticed that your skills are x/251. Nowadays, 250 XP are the maximum.

Enjoy your rewards!