• Mature • "He Just Wants... a Little Conversation." (Graded)

[Kasoria]

100th Trial, Vhalar, 718a
Lowgarden, Southeast of Etzos Prime
20th break

Continued from here





"Fuck fuck fuck they're dead they're fuckin' dead-"

"Shut up, Rory."

"Don't you hear me, they're fuckin'-"

Turner didn't ask a second time. His empty hand lased out, wrist stiff and arc precise. No different that when he'd knocked some sense into or some defiance out of those cunnies on the East Side back when he was coming up. You gave the order once, and after that, you issued punishment. The first one or two, they suffered. But the rest learned.

The mage's head snapped back and his babbling became a muted whimper as he clutched his face. Turner spared the man a slow, withering look of contempt; long enough for the balding man to look up and see the disgust directed at him. That always helped, too. Letting them know just how low down on the pole they were.

"Anythin' from you?"

Maury was smart enough not to make a peep; just shake her head and pull the covers a little higher over her bare chest. She knew the two men down below were dead, the ones that had been outside before and vanished downstairs. They could hear the muffled sounds of mortal brawling under their feet. Cries and screams and yells... then silence. She swallowed and prayed to the Immortals her parents forbid her to speak of around these Etzori. Not to any one in particular, more a general cry out into the ether:

Please, please, let me survive this night.

"Gladee'll take him," Turner said as he returned to staring at the door, as if he was pronouncing beets red or a tree made of wood and leaves. "Ain't met a man that can stand against him. Odds are, won't be tonight."

The whore and the mage and the gangster listened as a baritone voice deep as a trench rumbled into life, in the hallways beyond the door. They couldn't make out the words, but it was him. That giant, that beast, that taciturn colossus that had guarded him for nearly six arcs. He'd been paid a fortune for doing so and been worth every nel. Sellswords and cutthroats and road bandits and even honest-to-dirt monsters had all fallen under that massive blade, or the knobbly fists behind them.

Turner smiled as the voice went on. Deep and low and resonant, like thunder on the horizon or ground quakes trembling up your legs. He had his ways, did Gladee. Liked to talk. Liked to pick his moment. Some sort of... honor thing, he assumed. Whatever worked, and it did. Gladee was worth every penny, and now he'd be worth it-

Then the voice stopped. More accurately, it was cut off.

It shuddered. It trembled. It gasped. And as it did, as it shattered from strength to shock, Turner's face fell like a castle's walls. He gripped the sword in his hand so tight his knuckles whitened and the hilt seemed to crack in his palm. There was bedlam, suddenly. A roar of hatred that made him flinch, and then... more movement. More than a single, vast man. He couldn't place it, and couldn't deny it. There was crashing, smashing, thudding, wet and mushy sounds mixed in there that he knew as sharp metal piercing flesh-

Then a crash that shook the floors so hard a glass fell off the table. it shattered and that broke Turner's spell. Only one thing could make that noise. Only one person was heavy enough to-

"Oh... oh fu-"

Crack

The door was kicked open and a man wearing more gore and viscera than his own clothes and skin stood there. Shorter than everyone in the room, even the cowering whore in the bed. Dripping gladius in one hand... and a short, flat knife in the other. He looked at the people present as if he were deciding something. Turner, Rory, Maury... they all just stared. Mayhap thinking that in silence, in stillness, they might stretch out their lives longer. For only when words came again, and motion, and movement, would the danger return.

Turner swallowed. Even that gesture seemed like a death sentence to him. The little man covered in the blood of others focused on him and blinked. The gangster slowly lowered his sword to the foot of the bed... and let it go.

"Look... I know that we can make a deal. Some sort of arrangement-"

"I just wanna talk."

Hope. It filled Turner from a source he could not name and didn't dare question. It lifted the corners of his mouth and expanded his lungs and chest and belly like a balloon. Talking. He could do that. Talking was not killing, and clearly this man could expire everyone in the room without much trouble. But instead? Talking. The gangster nodded and almost giggled with relief, face shiny and red.

"Well, I'm definitely the man you-"

"Not t'you."

Hope never got the chance to properly turn to confusion. Because in the trill it took for Turner to process those words, the stranger's arm snapped out, letting fly with the throwing knife held by his side. A blur of movement, bringing the blade up from vertical to horizontal in a blink. The speed was the force, the power, and though an underhand throw wouldn't lead to a deep wound, at that range, and from that man, it didn't matter.

Kasoria picked his moment well, too. Confusion bred hesitation. The man just stood there, still smiling, and before anything else could seize his features-

-the knife slammed into his throat with a moist, sucking sound like a fish being impaled.

The whore screamed. The mage seemed to collapse into himself, hands pressed to the side of his head. The screaming was annoying. It was too much, too visceral, too distracting.

Kasoria didn't need to be cunning the second time. He drew another blade with his free hand and spun to the side, letting the knife go when he was facing the woman again, backhanded throw charged with all the swing and whirl of the movement-

Rory vomited onto the scrubbed floor as the throwing knife buried itself into the woman's eye. Her head snapped back and the creaming stopped, like someone had just closed a book and stopped the words from being read. She paused there, for a horrofic moment. Head back, staring up at the ceiling with only one eye, knife handle quivering in the socket of the other... and she coughed just once... then fell forwards, sheet fluttering from her chest and exposing her to all who would care to see.

Which was, in this case, no-one. The mage was too bush vomiting. Kasoria was working. And Turner? Well... Turner had his own problems.

He was gagging. Retching. Coughing. Cursing. Heaving. Trying to breath and vomit and beg and pray all at once. And all the whole, the knife in his neck pulsed as blood escaped all around it. Kasoria walked around the fat, dying mound of flesh. Until he was a shadow cast over Rory, and the mage sobbed in that silent, traumatized way that the truly terrified did as that blood-slick gladius pressed against his cheek... making him turn his face... and watch his master die, on the floor of a bedroom in the Brazen Bull.

"Yer gonna watch this, mage," Kasoria said, neutral tone of his voice enough to make Rory afraid all over again, hearing it from a man who'd just turned the hotel into a slaughterhouse. "Cuz this is gonna be the story you tell."

[Kasoria]

He knew that in this man was what he sought: a worthy adversary. He knew also that sellswords were not meant to think such things. They were not knights or paladins, seeking glory and challenges that tested their abilities purely for the sake of it. He was a professional, a contractor, a man driven by coin... in theory. But before he was such, he was that which earned him his name.

A gladiator. A survivor of fighting pits and arenas, his size and strength doing him credit when it came to defeating enemy after enemy... and he loved that life. Loved it enough to excel at it; excelled enough to earn his freedom, arcs ago. He even took the name of his profession as his own, leaving the one his mother gave him behind. These Westerners shortened it to just "Gladee", but he didn't mind. He knew the reason. He knew the source.

And even as he was paid the highest nel by this man Turner to be his defender and executioner, Gladee chafed. Because there were no men left worth killing. But in this man, the one that came for them this night, he sensed something more than the usual chaff and scum he cleaved through like rotten fruit. Nicky and Xander were dead. Quint and Eril were dead. Four men and none of them fools of amateurs at this life. Cut down by this mysterious stranger, who seemed bent on destruction alone.

Gladee stood in the hallway like some great living colossus at the entrance of a fabled city, huge curved sword in hand, held in flexing, impatient fingers.

Good. Let him come. Let us test ourselves.

"Well met... little man."

His enemy was not what he expected. He was short, and slight, crowned with masses of hair and even from this distance he could smell the decrepitude and offal clinging to the man. But it didn't take Gladee long to see that this last part at least was carefully designed; because one look at this man's eyes, and the word "beggar" fled from the mind. He carried a curved karambit in each hand, both newly-christened in blood. He walked with purpose and no sign of injury.

Quint and Eril weren't fools. He killed them both without a scratch.

Good.

"You're here for my master, yes?"

No reply. Not a word or a nod or even a scowl. Just a steady, unblinking stare. Gladee smiled a touch, flash of white teeth against brown skin.

"I'm afraid I cannot allow that."

He hefted the long, curved sword that had been part of his body for nearly two decades. He knew the exact length, the exact weight, every dimension and detail of the weapon. All it could do in his hands (which was so very much), and the handful of limitations he'd been painfully educated of. He flourished it once, barely having the room, so great was both the blade and the man holding it. The assassin cocked his head, and started to sheath his blade behind his back... drawing Gladee's eye to the sword on his hip.

"Hmm. A far better choice, I think. Those little blades are good for a brawl, but a duel is something diff-"

It happened before he could react, before he could even finish his sentence. The man wasn't just sheathing those blades; he was drawing fresh ones, unseen and unexpected. For a broken trill, Gladee could see the glint of lamplight on metal when the assassin's hands were visible again. His right held two short blades, and before he could understand what they were-

-the man threw up his arm, cocked at his shoulder and exploded forwards-

-arm exploding out at the same time, throwing knives letting fly across the hallway-

Gladee's sword jerked up out of instinct, but the blades were too small and fast for the heavier weapon to block. They flew past and embedded into his chest and shoulder, making him stagger. The bodyguard grunted and felt black, wordless rage fill him, replacing the excitement he'd entertained before. This man was no warrior, no champion, no duellist. Just another sack of shit without honor or understanding of true combat. But as he opened his mouth to tell him this, shortly before killing the man-

-he coughed-

-his nose wrinkled-

-and he realized more than just sharp steel had been stabbed into him.

Kasoria smiled thinly as enlightenment, terrible and inescapable, dawned over the giant's face. Ah, Ghost Mushroom. He had to practically walk around with turds smeared into his cloak to hide the fetid smell, but Fate's Cunt, it was worth it just for that look on their faces. The big man reached up and yanked one blade out without much trouble, staring at it with his jaw hanging... and reaffirming what he already suspected.

Only then did Kasoria draw his gladius. Now the evil-smelling poison was racing its way around the huge man's bloodstream. Gnawing and infecting and burning and murdering, heartbeat by heartbeat. Gladee's face contorted into a mask of sheer rage and he roared like a maddened bull, flying at Kasoria with speed one so large should not possess-

Which was still slower than him, unfortunately.

The floorboards under him seemed to jump and tremble as Gladee charged, swinging his curved sword like an executioner's ax diagonally down, hard enough to bisect the little man like a side of beef-

-only for Kasoria to meet his charge and slide by him, quick on his feet across the polished wood, gladius slashing low as he went-

-drawing another snarl of pain as the shorts sword but deep into Gladee's thigh, making him wobble as his charge came to a stumbling stop. But even as both men turned to face each other again, they knew the fight was not over. All Gladee had to do was get close. Get in killing range. And while he was hoping for a duel, he was a mercenary, and so not above-

-fighting dirty, like grabbing the little side table in the hallway and hurling it like a child's toy-

-forcing Kasoria to sidestep away before it crashed into him and Gladee was roaring at him again, sword swinging-

Had he been free of the poison pumping through his body, it might have been enough. His strength, his speed, his coordination, all married to a clear mind and experience he could draw from... Gladee would have been a match. More than a match. Which was why the assassin decided when first he saw the man trotting next to his master, that such a match would never happen. He saw a mirror of himself in the giant when he got to the top of the stairs; that same desire for contest, brutal and bloody and leaving only Living or Vanquished. But where Gladee let such urging control him, Kasoria was... far more practical.

Dead men don't get paid.

Gladee swung at him again and again he shucked away, swayed and hopping to the side. The huge man pressed on, backhanding a brutal blow that flew over Kasoria's head as he ducked, then he lashed out with a sloppy kick at the crouching man-

-who pivoted hard and slammed the hilt of his gladius into the side of Gladee's knee. Something cracked in that hefty limb, and the mercenary staggered back with a cry. Always weakest at the joints, Kasoria reminded himself. Arms and legs, elbows and knees.

But it was hardly enough to stop Gladee for long. He swung again, murder and fury clouding his eyes, his judgement, bringing that sword swinging round again and this time Kasoria waited, and waited, until he could almost feel the blade whistle at his neck-

-before stepping back again, swaying backwards as he did, sword flying past at full-speed-

THUNK

-burying deep into the wall after smashing a painting in half. Gladee tried to pull it out, but it was stuck fast, and that beat of concentration was what doomed him-

-as Kasoria saw his opening, Gladee's arm extended and motionless, still gripping the useless, immobile weapon-

-and with a short, savage blow that rolled from his back into his shoulder then down-

SHUNK

Always weakest.

Gladee screamed as the gladius crunched and tore and rend through his elbow like it was a pig trotter. He fell back and down to his knees, clutching the stump with his free hand as the spurting limb painted the wall. His hand still gripped the sword hilt, fingers twitching as if the mind were still trying to relay orders, but to no avail. The mercenary stared at his crippled limb with wide eyes and Kasoria hadn't finished-

-vertical strike bringing the blade back down low, tight to his side, perfect for a thrust-

-into Gladee's thick neck.

His eyes bulged wide, stark and white against his burnished skin. No white teeth flashed in his mouth now; just crimson blood that matched the stuff dribbling out from around Kasoria's blade. Dribbled and then gushed, after he twisted the gladius and pulled it out. A hideous, perverse wound sucked and throbbed there for a moment. Gladee tried to gasp. Tried to speak. Failed to do both, and instead just looked up... at a man already walking away from him.

BANG

Fuck me. Amazed I stayed on my feet after that.

The impact of Gladee's seven-foot frame smashing onto the floor almost did more to ruin Kasoria's balance than the fucking fight did. He knew the man was big, but Fates... that was like livestock hitting the ground. He staggered for a half-trill before righting himself again, shaking his head in disbelief. Then he was brusque and business-like, reclaiming his knives and sliding them back into the wrist sheath after wiping them clean.

Two more doses of Ghost'shroom. Need to visit Miss Givings again.

He cracked his neck from side to side, bones crinkling under his flesh, and at the sound such mundane reminders vanished. The job was not over; just the hard killing. Beyond the door were the easier victims, who would rely on words and coin instead of force and steel. Kasoria's hand flexed around his gladius... and then he drew another throwing knife from the sheath on his thigh.

Time to say hello and goodbye.

Then his boot struck out and he was among them.

[Kasoria]

"Don't dare fuckin' faint on me, you little cunt, or you'll wake up wiv' fewer fingers than y'have right now."

Rory believed it. Just like he didn't believe Turner was dying in front of him. Like he believed in his powers, and the insight they could give him. Like he couldn't believe how much blood there was in a human head, though he was watching what looked like a gallon if it soak the mattress of Turner's bed as it poured out of Maury's eye socket. Most of all, he couldn't believe, nor turn away, from the man gasping in front of him.

Looking at him with pleading eyes. Not so powerful or so frightening, not at all. Just another soon-to-die corpse that hadn't quite reached that point yet. Reaching out with a hand already white with blood loss. Begging without words; pleading with his eyes. Yet all Rory could do was stare... and absorb the message.

Kasoria stood at his side, frowning harder than usual. Mages. You never could tell. Scruffy little fucker, this one was, yet he held power in his hands and mind that were worth a half-dozen sellswords. He knew a little about Attunement, how it could be used, how Zipper had molded her understanding into a peerless surveillance and profiling weapon. Whether it be for intelligence gathering or sparring or reconnaissance, the woman just had to study a man or an area, and she... knew things.

Mind your thoughts, he'd told himself when he first arrived in town trials before. Nothing about... him. Nothing that can be repeated to others who might use it. Because one needs to live, to spread the word.

"Wh... Why... Why-"

"Cuz I know youse can be trusted t'carry it, mate," Kasoria said briskly, unwilling to wait for this piss-pants to cobble together a coherent sentence. "Those muscle? Nah, they'd just fuck off back where they came from. The whore? She's a local girl, not headin' to the Big Smoke. But that is where yer headin', right?"

Even terrified and reeking of his own waste, Rory was smart enough to know that there was only one answer that would see him not ending up like his wheezing master. But since he couldn't quite speak right now, he just nodded like a doll being shaken by an angry child. Kasoria nodded and smiled.

"Off t'see the fat man's friends, hmm? All those folk happy to see him return? Aye, well... not all of 'em were. Some of 'em got long memories, too. An' you'd be amazed how many of 'em decided it'd be best if he just... didn't come home."

Kasoria grinned wider as realization dawned on Rory's face. Turner never really had a chance. Upsetting the apple cart now, when the South Side was so nicely sewn up by Vorund and his underlings? That wouldn't do. And since a few of those acolytes were those friends Turner thought he still had, and they had much to lose if he did, well... it was practically self-defense. A preemptive strike, at most.

The assassin had deduced some of this himself, and been told snippets by Vorund. Truth be told, it was more mental masturbation than a need to see the bigger picture. That was Vorund's job: his was to find and kill. So that's what he did. But in his world, killing was not enough. The message needed to be told with it; told and understood, by just the right audience.

"So youse should go there," he said in an airy fashion, as if advising a good friend, while he sauntered over Turner's dying form and rifled the nightstand. "Stay for a trial, or a season, or an arc. Means fuck-all difference to me-ah, here we go." He tossed a purse brimming with coin over to the mage, and sighed when the man nearly jumped through the fucking wall at the heavy, clinking sound of it landing next to him. "Mate... look, what's yer name?"

"R-R-R-R-"

Any time, friend.

"Rory!"

"Rory! Listen, Rory, we agree that if I wanted t'kill you, I would, aye?"

"Y-Yes."

"But I haven't, so... wadaya think that means?"

He knew better than anyone how numb a man could get to horror. Seen and inflicted often enough, it became... rote. Familiar. Just another layer of paint that eventually thickened the surface so much it forgot what color it was before. Rory wouldn't reach that point tonight, but there was only so long he could stare, so much he could piss, so long he could weep... before his mind started working again.

"B... Because... you want me to deliver a... message?"

"More like a warning, Rory. You go where he was going-" he jerked a thumb at the failing figure on the floor, eyes almost closed, jowls blue and cold. "-an' you tell everyone there what happened tonight. Tell them what happens when some cunt things he can barge into Bangun Vorund's territory an' take what he was too fuckin' stupid enough to hold onto in the first place. Tell him what Bangun Vorund does to men like that. Tell them Bangun Vorund's reach is beyond Etzos. From the Citadel to the borders, he can find you..."

The killer reached out and grabbed the mage's jaw, jerking his gaze around to feast on Turner's carcass. Bangun Vorund. Thrice his name was said, like holy writ of daemonic incantation. Carving the name into Rory's mind so the sound of it would roll fresh and frightened off his tongue when it came time to tell it. The name, and the sight... and he could see by the crumbling of Rory's features the point was made. He picked the purse back up, and shoved it into Rory's shaking hands.

"Plenty of coin to get you to town, Rory," he said as he got back up. "Gotta horse waitin' fer me, so I'll be off. An' Rory?"

The mage looked up to see the gladius flash and shimmer in front of him, yet before he could scream for mercy-

-it was back in its sheath. Safe... for the moment.

"Don't run off back where you came from. Not until you've delivered yer message, hmm? Or you'll see me again."

"Y-Y, Yessir!"

Kasoria smiled and took back his knives. Two quick, choked yanks from wet flesh, and his knives were back in their moorings, too. Then he left, for there was nothing else to do. He walked past the corpses he'd made and the chaos he'd been party to. He walked past Gladee and then Quint and Eril. He could hear shouts out in the darkness. Alarm being raised? Maybe. But he could see no lanterns or torches outside, and so he kept striding, out into the chilly air-

-and towards the river, instead of the stables. Not even pausing as he snatched up his shit-smelling cloak and wrapped it back around himself. By the time he'd crossed the street, his forceful match had become the hobbling creep of a derelict near death. He maintained it as he scuttled into the alley crookedly heading for the banks of the Southwood.

There were no horses waiting for him. No escape by road, but by river. Just a little misdirection, taking into account the unlikely chance that Rory was a lot more savvy than he looked. Instead, Slattery was waiting on his barge, probably grousing and grumbling at that very moment. It wouldn't slow when Kasoria walked on the glorified raft, either. Just become more vitriolic.

Like always, Kasoria would ignore him. He'd find a dry spot and sit down, try to sleep as Slattery and his boys heaved the vessel back upriver. Leaving Lowgarden and its canals and taverns and mishmash of peoples and languages and the bodies he'd made and the message he'd written in fear and slaughter to be told by a man too terrified to run anywhere but where he was ordered to.

Kasoria kept walking, hooded and hidden, and passed again the turn-wheel. Those filthy and forgotten souls. Who did not comprehend him after they'd spared but a glance to note his passing. Then he was gone, and thought on no longer. Just another man passing through Lowgarden, like the rest of them.

[Cervantez]

"He Just Wants... a Little Conversation."

☠ ======== ☠ ======== ☠ ======== ☠ ======== ☠

Points awarded: 10

Knowledge:
Blades (Gladius): Killing Thrust Through The Neck
Deception: Drawing an Enemy's Attention to One Weapon... Then Attacking With Another
Discipline: Being Mindful of Your Thoughts Around an Attuner
Medicine: Limbs are Weakest at the Joints
Tactics: "Disarm" an Enemy By Embedding Their Weapon in Some Inconvenient Object (like a wall)
Throwing (Knives): Spinning Throw

Non-Skill Knowledge:
Location: The Brazen Bull, Lowgarden Lodging House
NPC Turner: Upstart Gangster Returning to Etzos, Deceased
NPC Rory: Timid Attuner, Former Associate of Turner


Fame: +10 Taking down a well respected Bodyguard, and sparing no expense in blood

Notes: So I know in the past I've said that I need to read more of Kas, but this right here? THIS THREAD RIGHT HERE!? If Idolas didnt have a bar set for Assassin PCs it does now as you are the poster boy for what an assassin is and I love it. As for the thread it was gripping as I've come to realize with all your threads, and paints an easy and raw picture one can see in there mind. Spelling/grammar was sketchy a little, but not to where the thread couldn't be understood. Well done and I hope to meet Kas IC one day, as a friend I hope

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