81st Trial, Ashan, Arc 718
South Etzos, Underground
2nd break
Sometimes it really was just a job. No different to many others, in the manner by which it was approached. It was a task to be completed, and while like most men he would have preferred to have just got paid for being his usual charming self, it needed to be accomplished. More than that, there had to be an element unspoken but clearly understood in the execution.South Etzos, Underground
2nd break
Execution. Not a word to get familiar with tonight.
Kasoria sighed and kept strolling through the demented warren of tunnels, passages, sewers, crypts, sunken buildings and abandoned mines that made up the Etzos Underground. All of these locations, hundreds of them, had congealed together over the centuries and under the surface of the city, making one singular network that was so chaotic that it laughed at such a precise word. Kasoria had been exploring, playing, and utilizing them for nearly thirty-five arcs, and he knew that he'd seen barely half them. Probably less, since he kept to the South Side, of course.
Something bigger than a rat skittered in the darkness down a passage to his side. The little man kept walking, sparing it only a swift, instinctive glance. Darkness there, and fuck-all more. It could have been a beggar. A fugitive. A dog. A cat. A monster from the pits of hell. All Kasoria knew, was that it wasn't giving him any trouble... and he'd have enough of that coming tonight.
Well. Relatively.
He frowned as he walked, not trusting the light mood he seemed to be in. He had reason for it, that was true. His journey to Westguard and back had been... well, more than fruitful. He left with a secret he could not speak and when he returned, it was with the memory of an embrace around his shoulder. Young, skinny but strong arms around his neck, and a voice calling him "Dad".
He didn't just frown, then. He bit down until his jaw twitched and jerked under his beard and he banished the damned memory. That was something for a safe place, or as safe a place as he had in his world. Tonight, he was working, and he didn't need fond, sunny memories fucking with his Fatesdamned professional disposition. Swift hands glided across his body, vanished under folds of cloth. The gladius at his hip... the karambit at his back... the rows of throwing knives strapped to each leg... all there, all secure.
Yet when he was done, he tightened his hands in to fists, and thought he would not need all that metal.
"Those wankers at the Bat have ducked me for the last fucking season," Bangun Vorund had told him a couple of breaks before, barely looking up from his parchment-clogged desk. "That's two in a row now, and all they do is fuck up Devin's collectors. So you're gonna straighten out the cunts, y'hear me?"
He'd looked up briefly, however. Pointed at his pet assassin with the stylus that dripped ink constanty but he never bloody replaced. Just to make his point clear, and Kasoria grimaced for a trill. He knew what was coming. Even after two bloody arcs-
"No bloody corpses, y'understand? Not a sodding charnel house, like that last place."
"It was hardly the last place-"
"Oh, you know what I mean. Dead men don't pay, and without the money, fuck are we doing this for?" Vorund sighed and tapped his stylus against the desk, regarding Kasoria carefully, irritably. So much to do, for a captain of industry such as him. But even shit like this couldn't be ignored. Word could get out, spread, take root, then Kasoria and others like him would be swamped with "clients" getting fucking cocky. "I know this is a little... beneath your rank, if y'follow. But they say there's some bad boys watching over that place. Figured I'd send over a worse one."
Kasoria hadn't made a comment about the job being beneath him, or being better or worse than anyone. He just raised an amused eyebrow and took his leave. Ilos looked up from his desk and Kasoria could feel the stink wafting off the look. Still stewing about Foster's Landing. Kid needed to learn when to let things go, and see they weren't any kind of problem in the first place.
Some people don't learn. Speaking of which...
A low, indistinct roar whispered against his ears, as he stepped into a tunnel like a tavern. Who know what great works were dragged and paraded through it? Although... but the stench, he'd say it used to be a sewer. It was also a perfect amplifier, and he could hear the wordless buzz of voices carries along it. The Buried Bat. That took him back. An unofficial South Side institution for quite a while, passing through several hands, mainly because it was quite the lucrative location. Set in a cavern that was part enormous cellar and ruin, part carved into the rocks under Etzos itself, the roof seemed to always be playing host to at least some sleeping or twitching nocturnal flying squirrels.
But under them... that's where the money was made. Not just booze and food, but whores and Euphoria, stolen goods and sellsword work, deals struck and drugs traded. The owners got a cut of course, and with such a profitable business in hand, he hired a whole squad of rough men with the scars and calluses to prove their pedigree.
Bangun Vorund wanted them broken, but not eliminated. He wanted them alive, but scarred and mutilated. Both warned and a warning, to anyone else thinking of spurning his generous offer of protection.
Kasoria sped up. His light mood returned, but it was tinged with something... hungry. Eager. He'd relied on metal for the last few jobs. Needed it, of course, but he knew all the while that he was just better with his fists. His knees. Elbows. Forehead. Hell, everything he could turn into a weapon, and now he got the chance to stretch those muscles. He turned the corner where he knew the gate would be and-
Blinked. It was unguarded. More than that, it was ajar, thin blade of lamplight spilling out into the dry, sunless stones, letting out a storm of cursing and shouting along with it.
The bloody hells...?
As he got closer, he started to guess why. Not from anything he could see, but his ears pricked up as he heard-
Well, Fate's Fuckery. Looked like someone had beat him to it.
Thanks for Jade for the template