• PM To Join • the dirty handed

[Kasoria]

11th trial, Saun, 722
The Underground

"New t'the dark, young fella?"

The old man in the cloak chuckled and the sound slithered over the dank walls. He always appreciated a doorman with a sense of humor. Being a slab of meat with a battering ram for a head and steam hammers for hands was hardly an impressive accolade; having a certain dry wit was a little more memorable.

"Nah, lad. Been down 'ere a time or two." He looked up and jet-black met deep brown. "Erik knows me. Ask me 'ow 'is shoulder's feelin'."

He expected fear. That was the usual reaction when men realized who was talking to them. The smug, amused derision melted away and all that was left was stiff, stuttering, horrified hesitation. His name used to be enough, when married to his bloody abilities. Now, just the sight of him was enough. His black eyes, especially. His other mutations could be hidden, but those? They marked him to all who cared to see.

That and the fact half the fucking city saw you trying to kill an Immortal in the Crescent Circle. That made your face pretty sodding memorable.

Fear. Pure and undistilled. All the horrible stories and grisly anecdotes, coming at their minds at once and made flesh before them. Kasoria had even become unsurprised when he smelled a rush of piss from those who sought to deride him then realized who he was. He was prepared for that... but not what he got instead.

"You... It's you... Ser."

Ser?

Awe. Disbelief. Even something dangerously close to wonder. The fear lasted but a moment, and then a look of wide-eyed amazement split and crinkled the meathead's bald head. Kasoria blinked a few times. Maybe he'd mistaken him for someone-

"R-Right this way, Mister Kasoria," the younger man finally said, opening the sturdy double doors and ushering - fucking ushering - Kasoria through them with an arm like a bull's leg. "Mister Erik is in the back office. I'm, ah... sure he'll remember yeh."

Despite his consternation, Kasoria couldn't help but snort a smile. He spoke as his eyes swept around the well-lit room, once a catacomb of age and dust and forgotten bones, now strewn with tables, chairs, lounges, benches, anywhere drinks could be placed and arses planted, one entire side given over to a bar stacked to the ceiling with bottles.

"Little shit survived the siege, the plagues, an' Sintra? I'm almost fuckin' impressed."

Meathead gave a little snort back himself, shrugging. "Aye, well, yeh know what they say about the Undergrounders: be them an' roaches inheritin' the world. Oh, well... ah, of course yeh know... b-bein' who y'are an' all, Mister-"

"Chrien's Cunt, boy, you stammer over me anymore and I'll-"

"Ah, the hero returns!"

That came from Erik. The man he'd near-crippled. The man he'd beaten. The man who'd once screamed to a rabid pack of drunks to butcher and behead. Now sauntering towards him, skinnier and paler, and with his arm in a sling. That arm.

Fuck. I do that?

"Ah, I know what yer thinkin'," the rodent-faced middle leaguer said with a wink, patting his arm with his good hand. "S'not from youse. Barely pricked me, remember? Nah, this was durin' that palaver at the Crescent Circle."

"Youse were there? Fightin'?"

"Indeed I was."

"... youse sure?"

A flash of annoyance flared under those blue eyes but a rolling, chittering laugh cut it off before anyone else could notice. But Kasoria did. Not nearly as pally as he wanted to make out, was Erik. But that's how he wanted it to be seen. That's why he made a loud show of coming over, an even louder show of laughing him off, and loudest of all when he said-

"Course I am! Sure as I was when I saw Kasoria, the Raggedy Man of Etzos, battling Sintra herself!"

They cheered. They actually fucking cheered. When his voice rose to a crescendo and the crowd of wastrels round them finally noticed, and put the name to his face. They raised ales and shots and smoking tapers of burning narcotics. They cheered his name and Kasoria was actually, truly bewildered for a moment. Was he mayhap asleep? Had he tumbled into the Emea while walking here from the Citadel?

Half the city, old man. Easily. What did you expect?

"I'm here t'meet someone, Erik. Not lookin' t'be a fuckin' attraction."

"Oh, of course, of course! Come sit at the bar, or would yeh like a booth? I'm sure we can-"

"Bar. Have a girl bring a bottle. One glass. An' silence."

Opportunistic vermin, was Erik, but the first opportunity he'd learned to take, was the one to not push too hard. Menace washed off Kasoria now, sure as it did all those arcs ago when he and that monster girl had torn apart his bar and the platoon of wankers he had working protection for him. His arm still ached when he thought of it. But the smile stayed plastered and the tone friendly. Kasoria was a big name, now. Hero of the city. The dark avenger, all that, all these new names that he... guessed the crotchety old fuck didn't want to hear.

So instead he cleared a space with a waved hand and gestured to Kasoria with it. The Raggedy Man nodded curtly and sat down.

He didn't ask if he needed anything, just ask. That was just a given. And besides, he'd already got what he wanted. The Raggedy Man himself, drinking in his bar. Oh, when word got around...

"Fuck me," Kasoria groused, as he took the bottle with a nod from the wench and poured a glass. "Like a hero of soddin' old."

The arm next to him came down with an empty glass, and he heard the chuckle a moment after.

"Ah, the pressures of fame and glory," a cultured, smooth, and educated voice said. "Some men would be grateful for them, Highmark."

Kasoria half-turned and locked cool, amused eyes with a familiar face. One that waggled his glass suggestively, and he duly refilled.

"Braxton Hughes. Been a while. An' it's jus' Mark, now."

[Kasoria]

"How fitting. You went down a rank, and I up one."

Kasoria quirked an eyebrow, silently awaiting an explanation. To his surprise, he found his curiosity was not feigned. The noble had been one of the few officers he'd taken a liking to on the march to Rhakros and during the chaos that was the siege. He'd not asked for command over the rabble of "Irregulars" he'd been given. Dozens of hard-eyed, black-souled bastards from the gutters or the jails or stockades. Not the clean-limbed young men he was hoping for, Kasoria was sure. Instead he'd got the dregs, the scum, the dirty handed street daemons that weren't pretty or respectful but were experts at killing.

And what had he done with his posting? Rose to it, and led them.

Never whined about it, neither.

"Flightmaster, then? My congratulations, ser."

Hughes shrugged minutely, and stared into his glass. He was two decades Kasoria's junior, but Fates did he look older. All of them did. Those few that survived the insanity that occurred under the ground of Rhakros. They emerged victorious and alive and little else. Most never spoke of those breaks again; some scarcely believed they'd happened. Hughes had got out with all his limbs and a sense of humor intact. Impressive all by itself.

"Came at a cost, I assure you," he said, raising his other hand and showing Kasoria the wood and metal that replaced flesh. "Not my sword hand, though. Or my drinking one, for that matter..."

Kasoria suppressed a wince. Pity was neither asked nor wanted among men like them. If the Fates willed such an injury, well, you had a good run, son. Be happy it was something you had a spare for. "Where'd yeh pick that up? So t'speak."

Hughes actually managed a smile at that. "Purging Crosston, after your heroics in the Crescent Arena. We were ambushed on the last trial, some band of damned fanatics who'd rather die than surrender. Last thing one of them did in this world was chop my hand off." Another chuckle, blackly amused. "Last trial. Last act. After Sintra was expulsed. After Rhakros. Fates, Kas... what idiot survives all that and then loses a hand in the epilogue?"

Kasoria found himself smiling back. He'd asked himself much the same, so many times. When he'd come through an ocean of blood and horror without anything hacked off his worthless frame. When he'd been pierced with arrows and just not died, but should have. Hundreds, thousands of frays, from gutter scraps to battlefields, and it had never been him with a sawbones grinding away at useless flesh and shattered bone.

He raised his glass.

"A lucky one. After all... coulda' been yer drinkin' hand."

The glasses clinked and the veterans laughed. Kasoria would wager more than one table down there in the shadows was occupied by similar folk. Men who were joined, bonded by horror if nothing else. Who would never have even spared words for each other in the normal run of life, but had become brothers for brief, brutal, terrible trials. Even he, misanthropic and jaded to his core, couldn't shake the feeling. That... strange belonging, born from something awful, that couldn't be denied or ignored.

It was why he was there, after all.

"I hear you're an instructor, now. Terrifying green boys and imparting raggedy ways, what?"

"Maybe less a' the latter, but broadly right, ser."

"Kas, please..."

"Yer pardon. Habit, ye ken?"

"Aye," Hughes said, in a brief but passable imitation of an Oh'Pee accent. Another trait that endeared him to the Irregulars. "Can't imagine Flightmaster Nader thinks much of you."

"Ah... yeh heard about that?"

"Not really, I just know Nader. Quite the proper gentleman, that one. No give, no bend. I was surprised he even allowed you on."

"Recognized an asset, I'd say."

"Only explanation for it, I'd say. But you're still there, after an arc, and your talents have been... quite lauded."

Kasoria wasn't so quick to answer that time. There was enough of a pause to tell him more was being said than the surface. Hughes wasn't just a career soldier; he was a noble of the Citadel, the Inner Circle. He'd been born into a fine family and was connected through gossip, blood, and friendship to that world. Usually, he'd never stoop to coming here, talking to him, what there and he represented. But then had come Rhakros, and such... divisions, were forgotten.

"Yeh got me message. I'm guessin' yeh know the answer t'that."

"Oh, I do. Not all the details, of course. Just the rumors, but ah, what rumors..."

Kasoria frowned for a moment, cocking his head: "Would yeh wanna come?"

"To Rharne? Wiping some ambassador's arse? Fates, no! That's for men of stronger stomach than me."

"Remember yer guts bein' plenty strong, ser."

Hughes didn't correct him that time. Instead just gave an indulgent smile and finished his drink. His remaining hand left the glass and disappeared into his pocket. Returning with a folded piece of parchment that he slid quickly over to Kasoria. The little man unfolded it and scanned the near, educated print across it. Fates, the fancy bugger had even included bullet points.

"Those men would have stronger, I would say."

"One way t'put it."

"Apart from the last, Kas."

There was iron in his voice, that time. No more bonhomie. No more easy camaraderie. When Kasoria glanced to the side, he saw a face crunched into a frown and silent judgement in those deep blue eyes.

"I've heard nothing but horror stories about him. They found him in the black cells, Kas. Awaiting execution. If we hadn't been so desperate for manpower they would have hung him a few trials later. Those four that we fought with? They're bastards, to be sure, but even they pale compared to him. So why sully yourself, and more than that, why sully the whole damn expedition to Rharne with that thing among those representing Etzos?

Kasoria kept his face neutral. He knew damn well what Merry was, had likely done, and how Hughes would think of him. But he needed that man in the room when he spoke to the others. He'd asked Hughes to find ten men, all Irregulars, save Merry. Three were dead. Two had simply vanished. Only three were left... and Merry. Of course, that fucking cockroach, that stain, that smiling, giggling atrocity with legs had survived. Because the gods were dead and the Fates were twisted. But Kasoria had a use for him, and that use would serve more than just recruiting the other four to his cause.

If you say yes, Kas. If you agreed. But you didn't. So why are you still here?

The little man sighed and folded the parchment back up. Pocketed it. Pondered the questions, both Hughes' and his own. For the latter, at least, he had an answer.

Habit.

He finished his own glass. The former remained, and it came from a man he respected. So he gave his answer.

[Kasoria]

"You're a right ruthless bastard, aren't you, Kas?"

Kasoria shrugged vaguely next to him. "Least yeh didn't tack 'little' onto that. Mos' people do."

"Little on the nose, isn't it? Stating the obvious?"

"Aye, well, tell that t'these scrotes..."

No responding chuckle this time. Not after he Hughes was privy to what Kasoria had planned. He hadn't left anything out. Just talked in his low, almost whisper, pausing whenever some reveler or wench wandered too close to them. The younger man of higher rank took it all in, and well, Kasoria would say. He hadn't let his jaw drop nor choked on his drink. Hadn't shaken his head and exploded in rage. He'd seen and done and survived too much to be easily shocked. But now he was... uneasy.

"I wish I hadn't asked you."

"Yer the sort that woulda' got eaten up inside if yeh didn't." Kasoria shrugged again and finished their bottle, pouring what was left into both glasses. "An' I was honest wiv' yeh, f'youse can believe it."

"I do... and truly? For a man such as this... Merry, as you call him, I can't find it in myself to feel indignant. Although... I do wonder what has come to make you hate him so."

Now it was Kaosria's time to pause. He didn't want to go back too far in his own mind, to those arcs before Martyn and after his father. He wasn't much better than Merry, in most ways. Only he drew the line at children, and never even considered... what Merry did with them. He prided himself on a code, as many of his kind did. A common and popular delusion, he'd come to understand it. That they could sneer and spit on those true bottom feeders, those mad and soulless monsters like Merry, because they had standards. They had rules. So that made them better.

Kasoria had stood in the wreckage of where that code ended. Walked through the blood of a mother who died weeping for her children, and a daughter who died terrified, defiled, alone.

He hadn't stopped it. Part of him knew, always knew, what Merry was going to do. But it was a job, and he needed the purse.

"Somethin' from long ago," he said finally, and Hughes turned his head to regard the man. He'd never heard that tone from him before. "Somethin'... I owe him for. Not fer me, though. Fer someone else."

"A friend?"

"A man I killed. But his kin din't deserve the same."

Hughes sighed and shook his head. He wasn't going to find any light in this tunnel, no hidden lode of nobility under the horror. He was learning, fast and ugly, how it was better not to peer too far into the past. Especially of someone like Kasoria. Looking at him now, stone-faced and staring into his drink, he saw not the comrade of the past... but a man with many secrets, all jealously guarded.

"I said I'd help you, so I shall, and I did." The Army officer got to his feet, maybe a little unsteady, but able to find his way home. "Next time, there'll have to be a damn good reason why I lend my aid." The little man smiled and Hughes frowned. "What's funny?"

"Next time. Yeh said 'next time'. As in, if I needed it, yeh'd help. Wiv' good reason." The little man finished his drink and dropped a couple of coins onto the bar. They didn't last long before the 'tender swiped them up. "Yer a good man, Flightmaster."

"And you are not, Mark Kasoria." He left the words hanging just long enough to sting, then followed them with, "But I know you're trying." He set a hand on the little man's shoulder, and squeezed gently. "For those we left in the jungle."

Kasoria finished the expression that far too few men had learned over the last couple of arcs: "We remember, an' we live in their stead."

He looked up into Hughes' eyes, a specter of the Raggedy Man in them when he did. Vengeful and merciless and now with a fresh target ahead of him.

"Save fer one."

For his part, Hughes nodded back, and did not look away.

"Aye. Save for one."

[Pig Boy]

RPG Rewards:

Kasoria

• XP: 10
• Knowledges:
  • Intelligence: Making Use of Army Contacts
  • Intelligence: Putting Together a List of Potential Recruits
  • Non-skill: Still Owner of The Blind Rat
  • Non-skill: Flightmaster in the Etzori Army, Down One Hand
  • Non-skill: Willing to Help Comrades from the Rhakros Siege

Link to Review Request on the Forum: n/a

Skill Review: All Skills used appropriately to PC's level

Notes: As well written as this is, I have to admit I'm not totally aware of all the references Kasoria is making. I know it's part of how he speaks, sorta sneaky and cryptic, but in a way that the person he's talking to is surely in on the references. I'm just not

Still, it's a different sorta thread, again, than I'm used to seeing Kasoria in. Or maybe I just get to review more murder sprees than other reviewers. The conversation anyway is well done, good dialogue. I can clearly hear the difference in voice and tone between these two characters. One stuffy and clean-tongued, and then there's Kasoria.

I did find myself wondering who the guy they left behind in the Jungle, that they didn't mind doing so? Was that the enemy they killed Lisirra? Or...?

Anyway, it was still very well written. Good job! I liked the flow of the writing despite my being a little clueless.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns regarding this review, feel free to PM. Enjoy your rewards!