Just a Job (solo)

[Wrenmae]

Winter 79, 511 AV Midnight. The last bell fell silent on the backs of wary predators. Darkness had a way of bringing out the worst in Sunberth, or perhaps the true face. The moon was shrouded tonight, Leth heavily hemmed in by cloying clouds. Outside the warehouse, two men breathed into their hands and rubbed them together, their bodies a shivering testament to the weather. One, a larger man with a shock of white hair, glanced to his partner, scarce more than a boy, and grunted, leaning back against the wall heavily. His companion, Shroud, watched the motion with vapid interest, staring out at the darkness around him and scowling. "First Sunberth winter, boy?" His companion asked him with a low chuckle, rubbing his hands and clapping them together. A long sword was strapped to his waist and it dragged along the cobblestone with a grating moan. Shroud looked over and shrugged, bringing his hands together and rubbing his arms. "What does it matter if it is or isn't?" He snapped, shivering. "It don't," the other guard said with a wide grin, "But you're shaking like a leaf, boy, and anyone skulking 'round looking for a score tonight'll target you first." "Let them try," the storyteller muttered, "I won't be dulled by petching wind." The other whistled, low and long, looking up to the sky and sighing, "Boy, boy, best not anger Zulrav now, cold aint the worst he can throw on us tonight. Besides, aint no sense in getting defensive, A man was a whelp like you once." He paused, looking Shroud over. "Not near as skinny though. Must've impressed someone a helluvalot to get this job." Shroud spit to the side, avoiding a chattering applause of teeth by only a muscle. The night was just beginning to thicken. Winter hushed the city, but it was the night that thickened the danger, filling in the sight with shadows and bringing the darker denizens out. Shroud rubbed his arms again, watching the clouds move over the face of Leth. The night felt bloody. He couldn't explain why, but it felt...dangerous.

[Wrenmae]

Bells chimed by, filling up the silence between the two. The other was uncomfortable, that much was certain. He shifted and moved almost as if compelled by some higher power. Shroud, however, kept his movement to the constrained shivering as frost settled down on the stones before them, spiderwebbing lines of lattice crystal to their feet. "Fafnur," The companion said after a few moments, "Fafnur Fletchson, father was a fletcher hisself and his father a fletcher as well." "And you?" The question was prying, almost sardonic. Fafnur held up his left hand, a twisted burned thing with only three fingers still wriggling on the charred stump. He shrugged his shoulders, drumming his right hand fingers along the pommel of his blade. "A man was too ambitious, youngling, played with fire and paid the price. A man has been swinging a sword with his right ever since." Shroud looked away, disgusted with the mottled thing, but Fafnur wasn't looking at him, just gazing out at the street...maybe beyond. "A Man who can't do, doesn't. In Sunberth, no excuse for a man at rest. A man took up the blade to keep bread on the table, before his old man passed. Now a man swings it cause he hasn't anything else." "Why not go somewhere else?" Shroud suggested, momentarily distracted from the cold by the conversation, "Seek our healers in Riverfall or Syliras?" Fafnur was shaking his head before Shroud had even finished. "No boy, no...a man has angered the gods with his arrogance. A man will pay for it with this mark. Let no man say Fafnur Fletchson didn't accept his punishment." He spit to the side as well, losing the filmy phlegm the moment it hit the ground, "A man will cry to no god to ease his suffering. He can manage well enough." Shroud sighed, throwing up his arms. Fafnur...he was a strange fellow. All talk and gab but with the hint of iron beneath his ruddy skin. The man respected the gods but by the same hand rejected their help. It was strange. Respect and yet remain distant. Truly Sunberthian, beholden to none. Shaking his head, Shroud turned his attention back on the street. A stray dog scuttled away from him, tail between its legs. Old hair matted down, brown eyes a doleful defensive. It passed through his field of vision for a moment before vanishing into an alley. An alley with too many shadows. Shroud put a hand on his dagger, shuffling sideways toward the gloom on the side of the warehouse. Fafnur noticed him, followed his eyes, nodded and did the same. They were about to be entertaining visitors.

[Wrenmae]

Three men sidled from the alley, weapons glinting in their hands. One carried a spear, a normally rare sight in the more concealed society of Sunberth murderers, but an unwelcome sight all the same. Daggers and an axe graced the other two and they watched the two guards with dark eyes, obscured by the heavy cloth they wore to ward the cold. Fafnur sighed, pulling his sword out and stepping forward, his blade poised and ready. "Cold night," he said to them, "Too cold to fight...nothin worth carrying here." "Our intel suggests differently," The man with the spear answered, leveling it at Fafnur, "I don't suppose you'd just be willing to step aside?" "A man is bought with coin," Fafnur said, "Coin I need for bread. Are you paying me to step aside?" "Paying with your life." "Ah," Fafnur answered, smiling, "That is something you do not own." "What are you after?" Shroud asked, ignoring the pointed glare from Fafnur, "What's worth bleeding over?" The other men looked to each other for a moment, the one with the spear pulling his scarf tighter around his face, "Dead men don't speak, might as well tell you." He held the spear out at the door. "Word has it there're minted mizas inside, heading to port tomorrow. We want them." Fafnur shook his head, holding the sword out over the door, "A man lives his life for a code. That code is paid in gold. What does a man care for what lies beyond this door? A man is told to guard it. A man obeys." "Cryptic petcher," the spearman snarled, "Gut em all." Fafnur hissed through his nose, taking three steps forward before the word 'Gut' ever left his opponent's mouth. The leader had turned his gaze to the other men, urging them on with a crook of his neck. Fafnur took that as a weakness, swinging his blade up to carve a red grin in the thick meat of his connective tissue. Gurgling, the spearman went down, grasping at his neck and gurgling his life blood. But the guard had not paused to watch his opponent, had only continued to move toward the one with the axe, a fellow already bringing up up to accept the gift of steel biting at his body. Shroud hissed to himself, dashing in Fafnur's wake, his blade out in his hand. He drew the second blade as well, complimenting his first as he drove into the thick of it, facing off with the other ruffian. This man had daggers, much the same as him, and attacked swiftly, pitching forward on one foot and extending his body out almost perpendicularly, thrusting the blade at Shroud. Twisting back from the stab, Shroud spun his blade out and caught the other, deftly moving it along a different trajectory before tilting in himself, slashing with both. His style was unwieldy, too much to think about hand to hand. The slices only cut cloth and his opponent moved sideways to intercept, piercing outward with his blade in a wide arc. Shroud hissed and threw himself out of reach, rolling across the cold stone in a tangle of cloth and skin. He came up on his knees, his opponent charging him. Catching the man in the eyes, Shroud channeled Djed through his gaze and into his opponent's skull. Pure and unrelenting terror, fueled this particular hypnotic push, freezing his opponent in mid stride as he whirled back on the defensive. Fafnur clashed his blade against the axe again, driving his opponent back. Wrenmae followed with his own attack, forcing his opponent back amid whirling blades. Daggers were not made to be beaten against each other, theirs was a dance more akin to driving and slashing rather than parrying. Back against the wall, Wrenmae's opponent hurled a blade at him, the dagger missing its mark by inches and whirling off into the night. His opponent pressed the advantage, striking with both of his own blades while his opponent was denied escape. Up, slash, parry, thrust. And in between a wide horizontal slash and Shroud's daggered answer, metal kissed flesh and slid through bone. His opponent dropped to the ground, leaving a bloody swath behind him. Fafnur brought his sword up and across, catching the axe and knocking it from his opponent's grasp, tickling his throat with the blade tip. "A man can show mercy if another accepts," He said quietly, "Clean up your friends and begone." Nodding, moving slowly, the man retrieved his axe and put it to his belt, spending the next several minutes dragging his dead companions into the alley...likely to pilfer their belongings. Fafnur returned to the door, sheathing his blade after wiping it down. Shroud did the same, nodding at his companion with grudging respect. The petcher was mad, confusing almost certainly. But he had honor and that was worth respecting. In the morning they'd find payment for their services and Fafnur spoke no more when the gold had been paid. Their alliance had been the product of gold and convenience, nothing more. Shroud could live with that.

[Ink]

And in the Aftermath . . . The Rewards are Revealed. Wrenmae : Skills: Rhetoric 1 Daggers 1 Acrobatics 1 Hypnosis 1 Lores: First Winter in Sunberth 'Guard' Duty in Sunberth Written in the ink : If there are any concerns or problems with my grading please feel free to toss me a PM. I am more than happy to explain my reasons or reevaluate them if you feel I've been unfair.