Placeholder A Weak Link in the (Brotherhood of) Chains

[Kaie]

"Petching ridiculous...Manny, darling! Come back and keep us warm!" the woman called for a dead man cooling at a murderer's feet. Closer she stepped toward the uninviting darkness of the hall far from the comfort of flames and companion. Timid footsteps followed a short distance behind the leader venturing fearlessly forth until she reached the threshold. So close were they that the Myrian swore she might've heard the shuttering of their anxious breaths. Next came a pause. Silence. Then Lhex, clasping hands with Dira, took care of the rest.

The wraith emerged from her hiding spot with a violent brandish of bloodied sword. The first cut was made to count. The gladius swung down from its resting place upon Kaie's left shoulder, diagonally bisecting the older woman before she could discover what crouched in the blackness. The whore hadn't time to scream before the blade's return opened her at the waist, spilling red ribbons of innards never meant to see the outside world. Meanwhile, the younger prostitute behind her was unfortunately discovering there existed not only fight or flight, but also freeze.

The shriek caught in her throat. A bloodcurdling wail from beneath the floorboards voiced it for her in time with the forward thrust of Kaie's sword. The top of the gladius protruded out the younger whore's back. The voice she finally found lasted but a few ticks before the Myrian continued her butchery until it fell forever silent. Two new corpses had been made.

The worst irony of it all was perhaps that just a couple seasons ago she happily worked for Ruby, protecting each and every one of the woman's beloved prostitutes at all costs. Some she might've dared to admit she liked before her untimely departure from Sunberth. Yet that dedicated guardian was not the one stepping through the carnage, happy to have purpose and monetary gain. The Tigress operating in her stead sought naught but to bring calamity and bloodshed on her way to collect sweetest vengeance. And vengeance she would have.

[Kaie]

With a fire in her eyes, Kaie stormed about the small room in search of a way downstairs with teeth bared. Pleading for reprieve from a feminine voice beneath her feet sent her frustrations soaring. Her gaze caught sight of a oddly placed rug. The jungle-born was never one to care for aesthetic or comprehensive decorating skills. Yet even to her eyes the raggedy rug was a shyke addition to an already torch-worthy establishment.

Whether its color was by design or victimization by stained vomit, she hadn't a guess. Its variety of rips and tears fashioned it to be more of a mongrel's plaything than sinful art. However, the novelty that was the rug was not due to its character. The sore thumb upon warped wooden flooring had a corner carelessly flipped up that revealed a metal ring. Kaie stormed forth, kicked aside the wretched rug, grasped the ring, and slowly lifted the hatch. disembodied voices instantly became far clearer.

"Please! Please! No more!" the feminine voice sputtered, voice rattling and shrill. A wooden ladder reached up from the dark depths toward blood-spattered intruder lurking above. Somewhere a whip cracked. Another chilling scream. A growl threatened to rumble audibly in the Myrian's throat as she set to task. Kaie conceded to descend via ladder, easing both the hatch closed and herself down as inconspicuously as possible until boots sucked down into the moist ground of the rare Sunberth basement. "You can't do this to me!"

"How can you still not understand? You are as significant in this world as a cockroach. You're a slave. You're a whore. You are mine," a throaty voice explained out of Kaie's view. The Myrian moved closer to the sound, heart hardening with each step she took. "Each breath you take is mine. Each beat of your frightened little heart is mine. If you ever leave this chamber, it will be by my will alone. You belong to me and I will do with you whatever I please for as long as I like." The woman gave a whimper. Isn't that what I pay for, dearest Rita?"

Rita? Kaie paused in her tracks, brow furrowing. "Certainly. And you do pay oh so well," the Brotherhood associate purred. The Myrian resumed her advance and felt her way forth with a free hand gracing an inner wall. A dim glow of flickering light illuminated an approaching corner, the obstacle shielding savage from target coming to an end. The male voice chuckled darkly in tune with the sound of shifting chain-links. "So then...Let's really hear you scream."

[Kaie]

A war whoop erupted from the shadows behind those that had dubiously gathered in the dank chamber. The whip had evidently been traded in favor of a chain by the bewildered bald man standing before a blindfolded, tied-up woman suspended upright before him. The swing of the torture device came to an abrupt halt in light of the novelty disturbance the war-painted, barreling savage caused. Rita puckered her deep red lips in surprise before falling back from the fray. All that dared to step between the Myrian and the bald man was a particularly robust shadow, which peeled itself from its post at a far wall in a flash. Myri's gnosis on the back of her neck burned something fierce.

Entering the circle of wall candlelight was a beastly man unsheathing a short steel blade. He was heavily pock-marked and scarred. Muscles bulged in loose clothing that still somehow seemed too tight for his figure. He attacked low with a grunt at the Myrian with a long, arching swing. Put off center by his rapid appearance and the slick mud at their feet, Kaie nearly slipped as she intercepted him with a downward swing of her gladius and checked his wrist with her left hand. Her counter came in the form of a forward thrust for his chest. He managed to avoid certain death with a desperate series of backward steps.

The bald man, who Kaie assumed to be Flavus, had turned to observe the spectacle unfolding before him. A series of deep lines had appeared upon his smooth forehead. His bushy eyebrows were tugged so close they might've touched. Anger. Confusion. Shock. A cocktail of emotions seemed to flicker across his expression all at once while he processed whatever it was that was happening. "Leave her breathing if you can, Fen! She can replace the whore when I'm done with her," he egged on his guard with boisterous indignation. So rabid did the Myrian become now that the bastard was so very close to finding the end of her blade, it was a wonder she followed the movements of Fen the Bodyguard at all.

Fen charged forth like he had something to prove. His sword cut through empty air as he advanced, dicing his way forward like the space itself had offended him. Kaie moved in rather than let his show serve as a deterrent. One of his thrust was met with a low wing parry, and she followed her momentum with a rotation of her wrist bring her sword across his face. Facial flesh split as easier as a knife through butter. Fen's hand moved to his face and his focus was forever broken by the stream of red spilling out. His assailant never gave a thought toward reprieve.

The Tigress was like an crazed artist upon her canvas. Carnage followed in the wake of each wild brush stroke she rained upon the slashed bodyguard. Rita's face turned pale, but Flavus's turned as red as the blood from Kaie's sword that splattered his front with each swing. "By Kihala's grace you lived," the jungle-born hissed in her native tongue. She yanked her sword free of Fen's body beneath her, flinging red upward when she raised it high. "And now by Dira's you die." The sword fell one final time to split open the collapsed man's skull.

Amber eyes lifted from her kill as Kaie locked her gaze upon Flavus. His lips were parted, twitching in a way that suggested only emotion alone permitted him from speaking the words appearing willy-nilly in his thoughts. The blinded whore squirmed nervously in her ignorance. Rita remained frozen. The Myrian's chest heaved. She lifted the sword, extending it out toward Flavus' chest. "For Myri. For Zedra. I'll collect your head next."
"I know you!" Rita scowled where she pressed her back against a far wall perpendicular to the war-painted intruder. "You're Kostaja's slut! She was his ring fighter!" Kaie rotated her gladius in her wrist, head snapping uneasily to eye the accusing woman.

Petch. If she didn't recognize my face under the paint, she must've remembered my clothes.

"Kostaja's a dead man," Flavus snarled and traded the chain for another weapon he must've used to assert his dominance over women in the chamber. This time he fancied the club. "Bitch put all my coins in that rotten shyke's pockets!" The flustered socialite procured a hidden dirk from her person and jerked it foolishly in Kaie's direction. "That's why she's here! She's here now to finish me off. Innit!?" She jutted the dirk in gesture toward the Myrian again. Kaie flashed her bared teeth.

[Kaie]

Flavus began wrapping the chain links about his left hand's fingers before clenching them in a fist. Rita stood shakily with the dirk in hand with an expectant expression. Kaie adjusted her position so that she was square to both enemies should one be so bold as to attack. She flicked red droplets off her blood-slick gladius toward the dirt.

"Kostaja didn't send me," Kaie dispersed the accusations in Common. The blood pooling beneath Fen mixed with the dirt, some spreads like little river veins toward her bladed boots. "But you are going to die. I could make it fast..." Kaie gestured with her sword now to the whore still imprisoned behind Flavus, her welts and purpling bruises offensive to the eye even in the weak candlelight. "Now I think I'll make it slow."

An involuntary squeak escaped Rita's lips. Both her hands gripped the dirk, shaking along with her confidence. "Come on then, you bitch! Do it! Do it!" The Myrian remained nearly statuesque. Oddly enough, the inaction was what broke the Brotherhood's woman. Rita rushed Kaie with a girly shriek of defiance. The dirk soared in a silly, unbalanced fashion toward the Myrian, who easily pivoted twice to avoid the broadcasted attacks as they came. The third swing was Rita's mistake. Dedicated to her futile quest for offense, Rita's two-handed swing left brought her stumbling beyond her target and presenting her back. The sword would be too easy. Too quick. Thus, the Myrian remained true to her word.

Kaie reached her sword-arm around the woman's throat and folded her free hand behind Rita's head. Her fiery gaze locked on Flavus's while she squeezed, turning the captured woman toward the bald man so he could watch. The disruption of air and blood circulation to the brain shut Rita off long before she could use the dirk to barter freedom. It slipped from conscious hands into the mud. The Tigress continued to squeeze. It wasn't long before the body in her arms had begun to convulse.

The blindfolded whore's lifted chin suggested a lingering hope. Flavus was frozen in place. Was that finally so much as a flicker of emotion for the dying woman in his eyes? Kaie released her hold. The body fell to rest only a few feet now from Fen's.

[Kaie]

When Flavus finally tore his gaze from Rita's corpse, his body shook with raw fury. He didn't sound like the typical men in Sunberth when he finally chose to address her murderer. His tone wasn't swallowed by that anger that makes one sputter with every word. His was as cold and showing an inner emptiness mirrored only in his assailant's eyes. "You're a dead bitch walking." A dark twitch of a smile appeared momentarily on Kaie's lips in light of the chilling threat from a man of growing power. She gestured toward him briefly with her gladius.
"You made sure of that when you incited the mob on the Scars. Too bad the wrong Myrian died that day," she returned with ice. Brief enlightenment appeared on the bald man's face.

"So you were the Red Wolf's little Myrian pet..." Flavus chuckled darkly to himself, clenching his chained fist tight. He moseyed back to his rack of devices and carefully chose a cutlass. "And now what? You've come here to avenge your friends? Still not finished pretending to be Sunberth's great hero?" Kaie adjusted her feet and let out a growl. That only seemed to fuel Flavus's mirth. "You should've tucked your tail and run like your master. The Scars? I'll give you some to remember before I drop your body in the street beside this whore's when I'm done with her." The prostitute shuddered and tugged at her restraints to no avail. It was miraculous she still believed in any hope of a happy ending.

"Actually, know what I heard after your ship sailed? My boys told me the mob gutted themselves a little savage bitch. Thought she was you even! You know what else they told me?" Flavus gestured toward her with his chained fist, stepping backward to stand closer to the restrained prostitute. He moved her chin up with the cold steel threat of the cutlass's tip. As he spoke again, he trailed it down her exposed flesh slowly toward forbidden parts. "That when they were all done having their way with her, you couldn't even recognize her face. I heard it was a real mess! There was just so much blood and flesh just ripped apart no one bothered with the Dust Bed. They just rolled her off the dock into the bay." Kaie swallowed, teeth clenching. Something in her eyes must've betrayed what laid within. Flavus feigned sympathy. "Aw. You didn't happen to know the bitch, did you?"

She broke. The Tigress surged forth with a war cry brandishing steel. Flavus's eyes lit up with sinister excitement before he adjusted to the rapid escalation of their confrontation. The Myrian was like the wild animal which she had adopted as her namesake. A downward swipe was thwarted by a cutlass block, immediate horizontal back swing narrowly beaten down in time. Previous fights that night had indeed worn on her. Lungs worked more for air than they had a bell ago. Muscles began to burn with the soreness she would feel in the morning should she survive to see her desire through. The whore awkwardly hanging, meanwhile, had apparently only received the beginnings of her tormentor's punishment. Flavus had only been warming up. Now he was ready. The Myrian was tiring. Yet she wasn't completely alone.

[Kaie]

Myri's blessing on the back of Kaie's neck scorched hot against her skin, sending a rush of new found strength and energy through her veins to feed hungry tissue. Her eyes dilated. Like a switch had been flipped, the savage's movement became more powerful, swift, and fluid than before. If nothing else, the ground was fully evened once more.

Kaie parried one of his more ambitious strikes outward, but Flavus punished her with a chained fist before she had a chance to capitalize on the opportunity created. Petch! Flesh on her cheek split open and she stumbled back with the forceful turn of her face. "What did you think was going to happen, hm?" Flavus flicked his hand to rid some blood from between the chain links on his fist. "You were going to sneak past my guards and put me on my knees to beg? Really?" The savage regained her balance and pivoted quickly back toward her enemy with sword in a guard. With a grunt she moved back in to swing her sword. Once, twice, a third attempt yet again yielding sweat but not blood from her opponent. Flavus exploited her once more by hammered a hook into her side. Then his foot slammed into her torso, rocketing her back to land in the mud. Flavus moved dangerously close toward her with puffed chest.

"Funny. This is exactly how I picture your savage friend looked. What do you think? Did they start the skull petching from here now or did they warm her up first?" Her left foot shot out against the shin of his nearest leg, the right finding the back of the knee half a tick before she scissor kicked him down to the ground beside her. Then she rolled up on him with her legs still locked on his. His knee popped and Flavus let out a yelp. His last words evaporated her. The vessel was void. She quickly untangled from him to mount him from behind. Fingers intertwined in his hair, clenching so that she could smash his head twice into the filth he'd found himself in.

Dazed but undefeated, he lifted his cutlass from the dirt. Kaie rewarded him only with the flat side of her sword roughly down upon his wrist. The weapon was relinquished when the hand recoiled. She seized it with her free hand to whip it far from his reach. His head was forced down against the mud one more time for good measure before she backed off him. Flavus was a proud man. Refusing to go quietly upon the dank floor, he shakily attempted to rise to his knees. When he succeeded, Kaie swung the flat side of her gladius into his head. His lights when out. He crashed facing up upon the earth, unconscious but unfortunately alive. The Myrian spat blood in his general direction.

"He--hello?!" the prostitute's nervous voice called out before her. The Tigress eyes her fallen quarry before conceding to rest her eyes upon the strung up whore. She approached the woman and ripped the blindfold from her eyes. The green eyes blinked open, first appreciating the face of her savior before finding her fallen tormentor with glee. Kaie gripped the whore's face with her bloodied free hand to ensure her focus. "How did you get down here?" she interrogated the woman without introduction or pleasantry. The whore, still rattled by her apparently lucky turn of events, required a gentle slap to the cheek before she comprehended the question being asked of her. "The--the ladder!" Kaie adjusted her jaw, turning back to ensure Flavus was indeed unconscious.

"So there's no other way out then." Kaie growled and turned from the woman, tossing the blindfold while she cursed in her native tongue. "Maybe!" The Myrian turned back with arched brow. The prostitute giddily adjusted herself in place with wide eyes. "He...he threatened me earlier. Tha--that if I didn't please him, he'd send me out that way like he did after with all the bodies when he was finished with his cruel game." The whore gestured with her chin toward the shadowy corner behind her.

At first the Myrian saw nothing of note. Yet when she squinted and leaned forward, she noticed the shape of a door built into the wall. A long wooden board sealed it shut against anyone seeking to enter from the outside. If it was indeed used for the removal of corpses, it was likely something more logical than a ladder exit laid behind it. "Thank you." The gladius penetrated the base of the woman's throat. Kaie kept her gaze fixated elsewhere even as the whore's betrayed, horrified expression fell upon her. She removed the sword and a dark stream of blood rapidly poured down to soak what little clothing Flavus had allowed her to still wear. It wasn't an instantaneous death, but still one far quicker than the one she was fated to endure before. The Tigress turned her attention back to the unconscious bastard nearby.

[Aladari Coolwater]

Your grades have been spotted!
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Kaie

■ Interrogation + 4
■ Intimidation + 5
■ Torture + 4
■ Philosophy + 1
■ Weapon: Cleaver + 3
■ Tactics + 3
■ Cosmetics + 1
■ Weapon: Gladius + 2
■ Stealth + 4
■ Acrobatics + 2
■ Unarmed Combat + 1
■ Endurance + 1

Lores

Lore of Philosophy: Vengeance is Not to Be Confused with Justice
Lore of Torture: The Pain Must be Acute to Get Answers
Lore of Tactics: Security Focuses on the Busy Doors
Lore of Acrobatics: Maintaining Balance in Mud
Lore of Acrobatics: Dodging Throwing Daggers
Lore of

Additional Information

Injuries: Kaie will have sore muscles for two days afterwards, and will sport a laceration on her cheek.

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Comments:

A beautiful thread, as always. I like the distinction between Kaie and The Tigress being ubleashed.

It makes me laugh a little, but your threads remind me of a narrated dungeon crawl. They always follow a rather predictable pattern leading up to the Big Bad. I'd like to be surprised by the outcome sometimes.

Don't forget to delete your post in the grading queue, and if you have any questions or concerns, feel free to PM me about your grade!

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