• Graded • III. "And Like That... He's Gone."

[Kasoria]

22nd Trial, Cylus, Arc 718
Foster's Landing
21st break

Continued from here



He wasn't his father, or his brother, or his cousin. But he was his friend, and that seemed to grieve him worse. A man chose his friends, and they chose him. Two souls, not bound by blood, and yet they found each other in the vast swirl of life. It was almost romantic, though that word would never fit men like Daniel and Stefan. They were killers and raiders and robbers and scum, but despite all the opportunities to betray and abandon, they never had.

Stefan had been tempted. He was sure Daniel had, like when the Blackguard had rousted Merry Mary's three arcs ago. Could have slipped away and left him to those armored wankers. But he came back for him.

Now he was staring into infinity on the deck of the Charon, face already pale and stiff, and Stefan's tears dripped into the blood around him.

"Fuck, Danny..."

"Help! Fucking Fates, help me down here!"

The pall of grief and muted anger surrounding the young thug was pierced and destroyed by by the cry from below deck. He rose and drew his sword at the same time. Started towards the stairs and with each step, he felt the sorrow etched on his face bleed away... and a mask of fury took its place. He could still be down there. Whoever it was that had done this. He swore to himself, to the Fates, even to the blasted fucking Immortals if that's what helped, that he'd end him. For Danny.

"... shit, Cookie?!"

He knew the grizzled old wanker hated that name, but he had not time to remember his real one. All he saw was the man slumped halfway out of his galley, torso and arm and head resting on the floor, like he was sleeping. But even sleeping men weren't that still, and he could see a familiar blackening pool under him. Stefan moved into a run, closing fast on the doorway and-

-an arm swung out at chest height, fist at the end of it filled with a gladius, pointed at him as he-

-was in full run and couldn't-

THUNK

Kasoria had to be patient, even in this fast-moving moment. He listened, hidden just inside the galley. One heartbroken voice. One set of feet. One litany of curses and pleas, as if such things could raise the dead. He ignored it all apart from the number: there was only one man up there. So he'd drawn his gladius, reversed the grip, and called up. Injected enough horror and fear into his voice to at least get him to come down.

Kept listening. Pounding footsteps above. Then quicker, urgent clattering feet on the staircase. Getting closer, and closer, until he could see the rushing shadow nearly at the doorway and-

-he swung his arm out, blade horizontal, gladius not really designed for a backhanded stab but with surprise and timing-

He felt the two-foot blade crunch through bone, then slide through the fleshy feast beyond them. Stefan seemed to seize up all at once, staring down with frozen eyes at the blade impaling him. He barely looked up when the figure holding it stepped from the doorway, gripping the hilt with both hands and then ripping it free-

That seemed to hurt more than when it went in. He could feel that sharp, hard length dragged out of his body, alien and awful and when it was out... then that blinding pain dulled. His legs weren't there anymore. He toppled back, hands weakly clawing at the air, and that bastard, that fucker, that demon that had slaughtered his friend like he was but an animal... he just wiped his blade clean on his breeches and stepped over him. Like he wasn't even there.

"Fuck... Curse... Curse yuh..."

Kasoria didn't even slow down. It was nothing he hadn't heard before. He trotted up the stairs and back out into the biting air, sweeping the deck with his gaze. The Charon was deserted, and the wharf beyond it. He moved swiftly, not making the same mistake twice and tarrying longer than he had to. In trills he was down the plank and walking away from the dark, silent shape of the Charon, now crewed only by the dead and dying.

Thanks for Jade for the template

[Kasoria]

"Yer late."

Kasoria wasn't about to match wits or words with the lemon-sour bargeman as he marched aboard his vessel. Calling it a "ship" seemed a little excessive for what was essentially a large, thick plank of wood, with the edges turned up so the water didn't swamp the deck. Crates and boxes were already piled high and lashed together, and the front third had been roughly cordoned off my beams so that cattle and sheep could mill around.

"Every trial I wait, I lose money, y'know that?"

The little man continued to ignore him, enjoying the fact that he could do so without fear of being booted off the "ship". Slattery had been running contraband up and down the Southwood River for nearly twenty arcs, and most of that had been for Bangun Vorund. They made each other money, and Slattery knew enough of the old man's reputation to know that when he was "politely" asked if he could sneak a man in and out of Foster's Landing, it would have been rather stupid to say "no".

Wasn't the first time, either. Kasoria was known to him, if not personally then he deeds. He'd heard all the lurid and grisly tales of the mess he'd made the last time he'd been in the Landing, but the point still stood.

And Old Vorund needs me, too.

"Oi, are you even fucking..."

The coat came off and Slattery saw the blood by the torchlight. Soaking through a rough bandage wrapped around the man's forearm, it looked fresh and painful... but Kasoria's face was just a set, tight mask behind his beard. He took off his coat and rifled around in his bag with his good hand, pulling out a smaller bag and opening it up. A bottle of something foul-smelling was produced and one of Slattery's crew cursed softly as the makeshift dressing was ripped off.

"What're yeh, paid by the word? Get t'yer fuckin' work!"

Kasoria kept ignoring. The whole world was just a fuggy haze compared to the work he still needed to do. He poured the distilled alcohol over the rough gash in his arm and hissed, could swear he heard his open flesh sizzle and blood boil under the liquid. He wiped it as clean as he could with the bandage, then tossed it over the side. He'd got a needle and thread to hand when he realized Slattery was still standing over him.

At least he's shut up.

"Do I need t'know what happened?"

Kasoria flicked him a glance. "All you need to know is to get me back upriver. Like you were told."

With that, negotiations were concluded. Slattery didn't much fancy watching a man sew himself up, so he took his leave. Kasoria bit down so hard his teeth almost chipped, but he kept going. He couldn't go three days with an open wound, bitterly cold though it still was. He'd treated it, now he was sewing it, and soon it would be covered. That would be as much as he could do. His talents were on the other extreme of mortality, after all.

"A'right, lads!" Salttery boomed from the helmsman's wheel at the rear of the barge. "We're castin' off early! Waited long enough with all these shittin' fuckin' beasts stinkin' up our boat! To yer stations!"

The world was suddenly alive with lumbering, focused men on various little missions. Lines were undone from the wharf, tossed back onto the barge. Long, thick poles were lifted and used to push the barge off from the wooden quay. Kasoria soon realized there was a low, rhythmic chanting rising from the gang of beefy men. It kept them in time, kept them moving together, so when the end of line arrived-

-they all pushed as one, heaving the barge away and into the river with sheer, brute force. He paused as the gently swaying wood under him was suddenly jerking and sliding into the river proper. Didn't want to stitch flesh that was undamaged, after all.

Ten bits later, the barge was underway and Kasoria was wrapped a fresh, clean bandage around his sole wound. Not bad, overall. His stitching was improving, at least. Practice, he supposed. You didn't survive long in this game if you didn't know how to patch yourself up. He was glad he'd stashed his traveling bag around the corner from the Happy Trout. He knew he'd have to move quickly after the deed was done. He swung by the fetid, rat-haunted alley and snatched up his bag, then made a beeline for Slattery.

Wonder if Captain Renks is back on his ship yet, he wondered idly as Foster's Landing began to grow smaller in his wake. Wonder if I only just got away...

He pondered what could have been as the city faded into a smear of lights and shapes on the shore. As it grew smaller, so did his worries. By the time the eternal night had swallowed it, and Slattery's rather extravagantly-named Esmerelda had found a solid current to wind back up to Etzos, the thought had faded with it.

The job was done, the man was dead, he was away... and there was just one verse left in the tale.

[Kasoria]

It felt good to have the cobbles under his feet again. The smell was... well, it was difference, and more familiar, if not exactly an improvement. He was more used to burning forges and brick dust and oxen shit and all the sounds that a city as prosperous as Etzos could provide. Foster's Landing was just rotting fish, sea salt, and wet wood. That got old after a while.

He parted ways from Slattery without any fanfare; they were working together, not blood brothers, after all. Slattery's barge eased itself onto one of the lower wharves where the river found itself dwarfed by the massiveness of the city on the plateau beyond it. Towers and walls rising hundreds of feet from the ground, surrounded by a labyrinthine patchwork of houses and businesses in the Outer Perimeter. One sprouted from the other like a tower from a bramble patch, and once the barge had docked, Kasoria was the first one onto the wharf.

Slattery muttered something as he walked away, and he studiously ignored him. The smuggler grumbled and groused for three days, but always under his breath. Never with ill-intent, for he knew that Kasoria was not a man alone, but a representative of another. Slattery was wary of a man capable of Kasoria's breed of violence, as any sane man would be... but he actively feared a man like Vorund, for whom ordering a death was as simple and passionless as whistling up a fresh cup of ale.

He walked through the Western Gate, just another traveler among throngs of hundreds, observed but unnoticed by the city guards. Word of what he'd done may have reached the city by now, but how would his name be attached to it? There were no witnesses left, and only Roy and those two boys were in the know. All three knew better than to go running to the law, and even then-

No law in Foster's Landing, he reminded himself with a grim smile as he walked to the Spotted Sow. Turned out the little shit was right.

It was barely even twelve breaks into the day, and the Sow was fairly slumbering. But it was still open, of course. Harry the Horse (one look at his face told you how that name came about) was wasting but a few coppers in candles and lamp oil to keep his doors open, and there was always a trickle of tradesmen, guilds men, travelers, and even Blackjacks sneaking in for a quick half-pint. Kasoria walked to the bar and minded his business, waiting patiently until the man himself arrived.

A long-faced fellow with a beard that only added to the effect. He jutted his chin at Kasoria. "What'll you be havin', mate?"

"Whatever's in your kitchen and an ale. Got any Periwinkle Stoat?"

There was a pause between the two men. Long enough for anyone watching carefully to deduce that more was being said than a simple order for food and drink. But Harry the Horse, he'd been at the game a while. He had Vorund's shadow hanging over him, too, just not so terminally as poor Roy back in Foster's Landing. He worked for Vorund, he didn't owe him his livelihood, and the work was comparatively light, and innocuous.

"Nah... can't say I do. Ol' Perculiar do instead?"

"Aye, should be fine."

"Take you a booth over yonder, and I'll sort yeh out."

Kasoria played his part. Just a humble customer seeking a meal. He slid into the booth with the high-backed benches and the single, sputtering candle in the middle. It was set far back enough from the front of the business that there were more shadows than light where he sat. Waiting. Watching. Trying to ignore the dull ache in his arm. He lifted his arm to check-

Stop it. Go to a healer, have them look at it. Stop poking and prodding like a child.

He gritted his teeth and obeyed the irritatingly rational voice in his head. A few bits later, Harry came wandering out with a tray of food that smelled good even from halfway across the nearly-deserted bar. A lonely musician tuned some instrument or another in the corner as Harry placed the tray in front of Kasoria-

-revealing the hand underneath it holding something more than wood-

-dropping a hefty purse in Kasoria's lap as he stood back up.

"Enjoy your meal, sir."

"Thank you."

The assassin knew better than to count his fee in public, shadows or not, and knew his master far better, also. Vorund didn't mess around when it came to properly paying him. He paid him less than he knew he could, because of the vow he'd made eleven years before, but Kasoria hefted the purse... and knew his promised five hundred coins were inside. Reasonable pay, for a job that took him far from the city, searching for his quarry, then sneaking about a pirate ship and butchering everyone on board... and then getting back to Etzos before any alarm could be raised.

The little man smiled and shoved the purse deep in his travel bag. First food, then the healer. Some sort of casserole, by the looks of it. He took a taste and... hmm... not bad.

The song began as Kasoria ate, alone and unnoticed, one of far places and daring deeds.

Contract Fee

+500gn

Thanks to Rumor for the template

[Genuvah]

Name: Kasoria

Knowledge:
Knowledge:
Deception: Luring a Target Closer with a Cry for Help
Discipline: Staying Patient Even in Tense Circumstances
Discipline: Leave Proper Healing to Healers
Intelligence: Coded Exchange of Words
Medicine: Treating a Wound with Alcohol
Tactics: Planning Your Escape in Advance

Non-Skill Knowledge:
NPC Vorund: Doesn't Cheat His Underlings
NPC Harry The Horse: One of Vorund's Many Contacts

Loot: Contract Fee of 500gn ( I would remind you to pay a fee to a healer at some point, and account for that in your ledger. It's up to you how to handle that.)
Injuries: Shallow cut on right forearm, stitched up but still aches (It should heal as long as you see a healer. Although you have a proper medical kit, and managed to stitch up your wound, Kasoria is unskilled in medicine/surgery.)
Fame: 10 (Killing a small boatload of pirates is a mighty deed. I would say on the scale of throwing a small party. Although it's not going to be widely known that Kasoria is involved, at least one person knows who did the deed. A bread crumb trail will inevitably follow.

This could well lead to more, better paying, and more dangerous assignments, given the canniness with which Kasoria handled himself. I belive it's less likely to draw the attention of potential do-gooders or people seeking revenge, given the discretion of everyone involved.)
Magic XP: No

Points: 10 for a solo.

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Comments:

I was really caught up in this thread immediately by the flow of your prose. The first post was very well crafted in particular. You have a really clean writing style that's simultaneously interesting and easy to read. It makes me wanna go back and read the rest of the threads to see how Kasoria found his way into this job.

Kasoria seems to have great potential as an assassin, a certain determination to see a job through, patience and deliberation in carrying out the act, and discretion when confronting his client. Well done!