The Chosen - [Goss Please]

[Vaine]

Timestamp: 1rst of Fall, 509 AV

ooc: Anything needs changing let me know.

The blood red stones of the sewer walls offset their native hue. Dense gray splattered against the leaning form of Vaine. He was bleeding badly and with each sharp inhalation a husky puncture noise followed. His enemy. Dead.. for now. It was a creature who somehow could not be killed by mere sword thrusts.
Standing over the sleeping form of the figure, the Assassin slid a long knife into the cavity of it chest, as if he was the one who had time to rest and think. He had none.

As the shadows themselves started to stir, Vaine limped down the tunnel, dragging his wounded shoulder against the stained wall, leaving a trail to follow. Filthy water soaked above the ankles, and up ahead he heard only the severe drop of echoes. It was nearly pitch black, but he was Akalak.. that was part of the trade. With his cloak in tatters and bleeding from multiple wounds it was time to find higher ground, or darker. Lacking his full strength he would need to be cunning, extremely cunning in order to live through this night.

[Gossamer]

The streets of Syliras weren't like say the streets of Sunberth. There was no crime per say, no backwater drug deals and flesh being bartered back and forth. But death still did happen, occasionally, the contracted killings of creatures that mimicked humanity or something very close to it. But they weren't real. One couldn't just kill something with a long knife that was reputed to not exactly be able to be killed by sword. Either the rumors weren't true or the knife was more than a knife. And since the blade that Vaine carried was an average ordinary piece of steel, in this case the likelihood was that whatever it was he'd just dispatched was indeed not so infallible.

Vaine didn't know who paid him the 50 gold mizas to do the deed. He only had a message from a messenger at his room at Traveler's Row and instructions on where to find the victim. The fact that it wasn't a man though, was startling, because whomever contracted him had indeed swore that it was. People could be easily fooled though. So too could warriors be slow. He had been slow. Perhaps it was because he was growing older, perhaps too it was because the darker half of his twin souls were in control and not always the most clear headed of the pair. Regardless, he had a badly bleeding shoulder, and it was beginning to rain. Syliras had a tendency to not drain water as well as it should have. Perhaps it was because of the hastily assembled city outside the fortress that had truly never been designed to be a conventional city in any means. The fortress itself, up at Stormhold, never flooded. So with the rain came water, rising a bit, covering the cobbled streets and muffling the sounds of hoofs as the warhorses of the Syliran Knights patrolled the streets above.

Above. Vaine was in a tunnel below... what tunnel? Syilras had no tunnels, at least not ones that were large enough to walk upright in. It had hastily added sewers to accommodate the growing city and bring fresh water in from the river on its outskirts. It had a few underground walkways that connected one secret route to another, one knight outpost to another, but those ways were watched well. Syliran Knights. They were far easier creatures to deal with than the one he'd just dispatched, one that had others like it that could likely follow the blood trail and hunt him down like the killer he was and mesh out their own brand of justice.

He'd better hurry -already he could hear noises of stalkers - of prey coming to turn the hunter into the hunted. But if he kept to the 'tunnel' too long, he'd run into the knights who guarded it... and that in itself would be no picnic.

[Vaine]

Needing somewhere quiet to dispatch the target, a flood gate was even better suited then an alleyway, less chance of noise carrying out amidst the crowd. The opportunity presented itself and didn't stop at that. Grinding against ragged physical discomfort the Assassin could hardly breathe now. One lung had been punctured, there was a stab wound in his lower left calve and something else dug at the shoulder blade. He wasn't familiar with the outpost system beneath the city but a single tunnel running off in one ceaseless direction was no way to loose even your mind. He needed to get vertical, either up or down. Up made practical sense to a degree, for the Akalak required medicine and he doubted very much the rain would wash away his inequities.. at best it would muddy the trail. Searching for a crossroads, hole or ladder Vaine removed his belt, wrapping it tightly above the leg wound, buckling the tourniquet to lessen the flow of blood.

He intended to breathe primarily through his one healthy lung while dipping his body under an outpouring of water to cleanse the scent and splattered chaos of his work. The wheezing alone could draw attention, so the warrior held the constriction of his lungs until exterior noises would block out the grievances. Seeing in the darkness was a skill his hungry mind had known for as long as he could remember. It had helped save his dark skin more times then he had fingers, through escape attempts, blotched rendezvous and from sacrificial altars. Which one was this?

[Gossamer]

As luck would have it, Vaine wandered onward, half staggering and trying hard not to wheeze as his lung gave him issue. He did find an exit, a rather antique looking (for a brand new city) set of rungs leading upwards to a trap door. He had several choices. He could keep going onward, but indeed he was looking for vertical, either going up or down, and he'd found it. The rungs were easy to climb, even as weakened as Vaine was.

The passage lead upwards, and the trap door wasn't locked. In fact, it lead to what appeared to be a closet that contained several cleaning implements. There was a broom, a bucket, various mops and dusters. Everything smelled incredibly clean.

If Vaine opened the door, he'd find a single figure standing there in a long robe belted with a silk cord. It was a priest of sorts, standing in what appeared to be a basement hallway. The man looked... surprised to say the least.. to see Vaine standing there, especially in the condition he was in.

"What in the world.... happened?" The man asked, eyes wide as if he wasn't normally startled.