Ymiden 48 Arc 716
The stench of decay coming from the bag slung over Yana’s shoulder was hardly bearable. Especially under the warm Ymiden sun, the corpse within seemed to release even more of its stinky smell than it had in the cool home of the Denvor family. The man inside the bag had been the father of the current head of the business they ran. Merchants had a knack for accumulating wealth, and these ones had been no exception. Unfortunately for them, some thugs had seen in the now deceased Arthur Denvor the means to get their hands on quite a lot of coin. Whether it had been intended or not, Arthur had been stabbed in the gut a couple times and died, soon after he had called for the guards. Perhaps it was that which was producing that agonizing smell. Intestines weren’t exactly known for bringing forth a pleasant scent.
Yana shifted the weight of the dead man again, slowly making her way to the undertaker the family, her clients, had directed her too. Dirty work was her business, and while she’d rather work with living individuals, it seemed that either she wasn’t deemed good enough to protect a live man, or that she needed to have a certain reputation before she was hired for more … exciting jobs. Either way, working with the dead had the benefit of them being silent. No annoying chitchat from them.
A guard apprehended her, eyeing the bag with a suspecting eye. The Yludith merely fished a piece of parchment out of a pocket of her pants and showed it to the woman. It said the Denvor family had hired her, Rayna Ramsey, to take the body of Arthur Denvor, beloved father of the current head, Phillipe Denvor, to the Undertakers. And that she was to protect the corpse from further harm. It even had a seal stamped in wax on it to prove its authenticity. The guardswoman gestured she could pass, and Yana did so with quick strides. Transporting the corpse was no problem thanks to the foresight the family had had to give her that document, that way she didn’t have to avoid the knights out of fear she might be arrested. The transport was however the most difficult about her assignment. “Protecting the body” basically just meant staying with it at all times, and was only necessary because the family wanted Arthur’s stinking corpse to be buried wearing his favorite (expensive) clothes and jewelry, which were also in the bag, wrapped in a perfumed cloth. Why that sort of thing was necessary was beyond Yana, but she complied nonetheless. She was getting paid for this, after all.
After what felt like an eternity, the Undertakers front door finally stood in front of her, and she knocked the wood a couple times, hard. The body started slipping from her shoulder, and she adjusted it again, impatiently drumming a tune on the pommel of her sword with two fingers. The faster she was out of this damned sun, the better, else the corpse would be shriveled up like a dead leaf, and Yana would have to forget about her money. Sadly, being out of the sun would do nothing about the smell, since she was fairly sure what she was smelling now was not nearly as bad as what would be released upon opening the bag and placing the corpse on the undertaker’s table. At least she didn’t have to be hanging over it, she could just stick to the edge of the room, away from where the stench would be the worst.