"Look, we both know this, but you apparently need a reminder. People like us don't get what we...
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Chapter 1
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- Germany
"Look, we both know this, but you apparently need a reminder. People like us don't get what we wish for. We get what's left over after everyone else had their fill, and then we get punched in the face and are expected to say 'Thank you' for the privilege."
Slowly the dark-skinned man lowered his ornate pipe again with which he had stabbed the words at the other occupant of the table. Made from dark wood and decorated with finely-carved and silvered patterns, it seemed a thing that belonged to a world wholly different from the ratty linen coat in which inner pocket its equally fancy box lived. There was no telling if the things its owner fed the poor smoking tool were actually meant to be smoked. Maybe he put in fancy tobacco bought at the edges of Sun City, or maybe he tormented it with the left-overs pried from dog-ears he found on the street and dried weeds to stretch even that. But the pipe itself was nice, so that meant you could have a nice smoke with it, and that was all that mattered in the end.
"You are just being pessimistic again, Jera. It's easy money," spoke the other man between two gulps from the swill that passed for ale only because the barkeeper said so and nobody really liked to disagree with old Ahreesh on anything. Even now the owner of this fine specimen of sinkhole was sweeping his gaze over the room as if daring anyone to do something he could disapprove of, and while everyone knew he was looking around, no one could tell where his attention actually rested at any given time. It was the eyes, cheap old junk that they were. Featureless orbs of pale and tarnished silver, the traces of the runes that made them work hidden in the crevices of Ahreesh's labyrinthine wrinkles.
What he was worried about no one could really say, and he probably just liked to complain at his customers. His tavern was a run-down hole that probably didn't even know the meaning of better days, let alone ever having seen any. Carved out of what probably was two storefronts some decades ago and a few flats by generous application of sledgehammers to any walls there were in the way, it gave off that homely flair of a ruin. The bar and the tables were likely kept together mostly by the grime on them, the lights were dim and tended to flicker, and it was generally agreed upon that looking at the things that sometimes ran through dark corners meant that it was your own fault that you now knew about them.
Still, though, it was full every night, each of the rickety tables and chairs filled with people and the watered ale flowing by the barrel. It was a place for people like them. For people who had not much money, and occasionally there was a speck of blood on whatever coin they did have. For people who sometimes needed to block the washroom for half-an-hour, because the mirror was decent and sewing up yourself was a lot easier with it. For people who did not wish any questions asked about them and promised to not ask any in turn. It was a colorful bunch, even though most of these colors looked like dried blood and bruises.
Meanwhile, the dark-skinned man gathered something that had a resemblance to tobacco from a thrice-mended leather pouch and was carefully filling his pipe with it. "And you are being an idiot about this, Qey." As he finished his ministrations, he pulled a fire-stick from his pocket and pressed it into his pipe. The red glow of the crystal tip could be seen for a moment before foul smelling smoke rose from the pipe. A short puff later, Jera sighed at the stubborn look his companion gave him. "Look. This whole thing reeks of Eternals and Sorcerers. Do you have any idea what usually happens to people meddling in their affairs? They don't get paid, Qey. They get swept up with a broom, and those are the lucky ones."
"Come on, man. I'm fine so far, and I only need you to play guard for me. Second blade at my back, you know?" In many ways, Qey was Jera's exact opposite, too eager to prove himself and still believing in that one big thing happening that would get him out of the Hive. It was an endearing trait in the young, even though one that often ensured that they rarely had the chance to shed that label. But he had lived long enough and seen enough to know better, yet still clung to these dreams. There was still that gleam in his eyes that told he thought he could take on the world and if not win, then at least wrest a good price out of its grasp. It was the kind of gleam that led you to end face down in a pool of your own blood.
For a long moment, Jera just stared and dragged on his pipe a few times, filling the tavern with clouds of whatever vile thing he was smoking today. "Fine, but you owe me for this." He truly tried to sound forceful there, but only managed a slightly less defeated tone. They were just two common crooks among many, and any story involving the likes of them and something vaguely important ended the same way. Crooks dead, killed by the people wanting the fancy thing after they served their purpose. Hiding some kind of sealed capsule for a few days like Qey was doing right now was fitting far too nicely into this pattern.
And yet Jera couldn't bring it over himself to just abandon his drinking buddy, occasional accomplice, and maybe even friend. He took another absent puff, more to keep the embers glowing then any real desire. "We'll meet at your place, take that thing, go straight to the guy where you're supposed to drop it off and then leave with cash in hand. No detours. No side deals. No repeat of that incident with the dropped chest. Alright?"
The beaming smile reminded him why he put up with Qey's antics. Dangerous or not, his good cheer was almost infectious and far too likable. So the younger man wagged his finger at Jera to emphasize his words. "You won't regret this." Then he raised his cup and the two of them clinked their together to seal the deal. No more words needed to be spoken on the matter, and a few moments later, only two empty cups and a few coins remained at the table.
Qey was setting off to a brothel nearby in the Hive, where he would say some weird nonsense to a seemingly random prostitute and give her a few coins. Then she would repeat the same nonsense at her madame and hand on most of the coin. This game would repeat a few more times until the coins were all left somewhere on the trail and the nonsense had reached a set of ears that knew that it wasn't. All of this, just so that a few people would wait in some shadowy corner for two crooks to deliver them something of which nobody involved had any idea what it was.
Event though that errand wouldn't take long, it left Jera with a few moments of quiet, and so he was in no particular hurry when he left the tavern. When his boots hit the cobblestone, he took a deep breath of the ever present miasma, sampling it like one would a fine wine that had been left open for a year or two and which had caught a nice coating of mold. To others it was revolting, but for someone like him who had been born and raised in the Hive, it was the smell of home. It was something that Qey never quite had understood, even though he had been living in the city for a few years now.
The path he took he was long and winding, but still shorter in time and easier on his legs besides. There was a public elevator a few streets over that belonged to a train station, and from there it was not all that many stairs until he would reach the bookstore in which his companion lived. While he walked, Jera was letting his gaze wander upwards. Past the dirty streets and shacks around him, past the dirty streets and shacks clinging to old and grimy buildings above him and on through the gaps between the paths and rails until a golden sheen caught his eye.
Sun City, shining in all its glory in the setting sun, reflecting a single ray of brightness downward into the twisting gloom of the Hive. Up there the air was always clean and nice, enchantments making sure that the stench of rot was bushed back down into the Hive where it belonged. There was real light up there, light that was warm and not cold like the fading crystals and old enchantments that made the Hive just bright enough to make out where you were going. But all the gold and glory was not as eternal as it always seemed.
While Jera rode the elevator full of foul-mooded strangers, he briefly thought back on the first time he had been at Mrs. Mors' Book and Antiquity shop. The name alone sounded more expensive than anything he had ever owned, and he felt profoundly out of place when getting shown by Qey where he lived turned into a trip to the lower edges of Sun City. Back then there were guards in the clean streets and you got sunlight for a good part of the day. Many other shops were around and so were plenty of clean and neat people that looked at him as if he was something foul they had stepped into.
Now, though, the Hive was taking over. One Eternal or another had decided his home needed to be a bit higher and nicer than that of his neighbors, and suddenly there was a little bit less daylight for the bookstore. Then it happened again, and again. The streets got darker, and the neatest and cleanest of people moved out, together with their stores, instead letting in a few Hivers that looked kind of like honest folk when you squinted. The guards came less, then the sun came a bit less yet again, then a few more shops went and suddenly the rot had taken root.
These days the guards rarely came, and in the long twilight hours of the place it was not so safe in the streets anymore. Instead there was a homely smell of piss wafting up through the failing arcane works that were supposed to keep it at bay. Sun City had moved a tiny bit higher again, a little bit further out of reach and in the place that it vacated, the good old misery of the Hive could spread. That was the truth of this place.
There was a shiny and bright layer of paint on top of a giant pile of human-shaped offal slowly rotting away. Sun City would always be there, and it would always gladly pretend that the Hive did not exist, even though it needed it to live on. But as long as the golden arches and bright illusions of above could be glimpsed from below, the Hive would happily work for that ephemeral promise to one day join the ranks above, even though nobody had ever seen it actually happen.
When Jera reached the top of the elevator and stepped back onto a street, Qey was already waiting for him and wordlessly falling into step with him. For a few more streets that silence lasted, until the crowds dispersed into the maze of winding alleys, stairwells and bridges that tied the Hive together. "So, everything went well," Jera stated more than asked. He would have been lying if he had claimed to not have worried, though.
"Yeah," came the clipped response, and he paused for a bit before quietly speaking on. "You still think that was a bad idea?"
In Jera's answer, there was no hesitation. "It's an awful lot of money for a job like this. Keeping a package for a few days and then dropping it off somewhere doesn't pay well unless someone is looking for it rather urgently." In the quietness of his thoughts he asked himself why he was doing this again, but the answer that came back was dutifully ignored. He liked Qey and he would always have his back in a pinch, even though he was usually the one that looked for trouble in the first place.
"So? Money is good though. Between my cut for this and my savings, it's more than half-way to buying myself a citizenship. And they did promise me another job that also pays well if they get the package on time." It was playing with fire yet again, that long held dream of his. Getting a proper citizenship for Sun City took more money than any person would ever be able to earn with honest work, and Qey wouldn't be the first one who got burned by the guard looking into where he got the necessary pile of cash to get his paperwork accepted.
The younger man shook his head as they rounded a corner, the warm glow of the bookstore already visible in the distant twilight. "You'll see. Once I made it up there, I'll repay you all those favors. And do something nice for Mrs. Mors, too. The old dragon deserves it."
Jera just chuckled in response and lightly punched the other man's arm. "Careful there, she might hear you. Or are you eager to get another lecture from her about your manners?"
"Not a good moment for delays, so I think I'll pass for once." The grimace that Qey put on wasn't entirely fake, but also far from genuine. Why Mrs. Mors had taken pity on him and first rented him a small room above her shop, then even hired him to help her around the shop now and then, neither of them had any idea. She hadn't known Qey when they met, so their working theory was that he reminded her of a forgotten son or grandson that she may or may not have had at some point. Maybe she just took pity on the boy back then and decided to do something nice for a stranger. Miracles were known to occur occasionally.
When they reached the shop, Jera made no move towards the door, instead leaning on railing opposite of it and taking out his pipe. "You won't need me to get it. Just hurry up." Then he took out his tobacco pouch again, rifling through it for a few good pinches and absentmindedly throwing a few suspicious-looking clumps found in the bag over his shoulder. It was a far drop from this street down to bottom of the Hive, and while he was up here, he might as well use it as a garbage dump like everyone else.
Qey gave him a short look of mock hurt, clasping his chest to mime the impact of this betrayal. Yet he turned around and opened the ornate wooden door of the bookshop, bravely marching towards his doom. Mrs. Mors could be a kind woman if she wanted, but that was hidden behind an aura of stern propriety that could make a grown man think back to being scolded by his mother just by being in her vicinity. If she had any given name, neither of the men knew, and while that might have been the result of neither of them ever asking her, it could also have been because it was hard to think of the old woman as anything except Mrs. Mors. There was just this immediate sense of disapproval if any of them thought of her as anything else than Mrs. Mors.
There was a quick chime when the door was pulled open, more of the warm light shed by the petroleum lamps flowing out of the bookstore. Qey was usually the one with the duty to crawl all over the shop to light them in the evening and then again to put them out at night, but the onlooker had to concede that it helped a good deal to make she shop look warm, inviting, and just the right amount of old-fashioned for an antiquary. The moment he stepped into the shop, Mrs. Mors dropped the book she was reading and began to berate him. What for, Jera couldn't make out, but probably a mixture of admonishments for being late, smelling of cheap beer somewhere beneath that Hive stench, and generally looking like one of those shifty folks that only came out at night. The first two were fair, but the last one not so much. Qey could hardly turn off who he was.
Meanwhile Jera was left with the quiet for a good smoke and idly looked over the storefront. The books on display, all old things, tended to change every day a bit, but most of the other things were fixtures of the shops windows. Left of the entrance, the centerpiece was a large and ornate clock, half driven by gears and springs and half by magic. The face was nothing fancy, just stained glass with an illusion of a rural landscape that changed with the hours. Now it was depicting a farm with some dozing cattle on a meadow to the side. Jera had never left the city, so he had no idea if that was what farms looked like, or at least if that was what farms used to look like whenever that clocks was made which, by his reckoning, was even before Mrs. Mors' birth.
The other window held a piece that were it still whole would probably be worth more than the entire rest of the shop put together. Force-lances tended to be worth more than their weight in gold what with being made by mages of quite some skill and being highly sought after by just about everyone who could have an interest in killing people from far away. There were not many things that could counter a white bolt of force coming at you faster then the eye could see. This one though was just a broken curiosity, a highly storied piece of junk. Scorch marks went down the length of the barrel, and while Jera was far from knowledgeable about these things, half of it being a partially molten and blackened mess usually meant it wouldn't work anymore, except maybe as a club or to prop a door open.
Yet it fit so well into Mrs. Mors' shop with all the other things that shared its fate. Once highly sought after, now forgotten and left to gather dust. It was not as if the shop made many sales, and both of the men suspected that the old lady was mostly keeping it open out of stubbornness and because she liked to read her own books in the day while sitting around and waiting for the customers that would never come. One more relic of the past, seeking company among its brethren and waiting out the world.
While Jera was standing there, though, occasionally glancing through the window towards the winding wrought iron stairwell the led to the upper half of the shop and the homes of Mrs. Mors and Qey, there came indeed a few people to her door. Their leader wore a linen traveling cloak over leathers, sensible clothing if you wanted to leave the city and expected rain, or expected to get into a knife fight and needing to hide the blood beneath a turned coat.
The second one, a rather sturdily-built woman, didn't bother with armor like that, instead wearing only brown worker pants and a white shirt that left her entire arms bare. Said arms were made not of flesh though, but of metal, interwoven with angular patterns of crystal and arcane symbols. Nobody had bothered to put some flesh over the things, or at least to weave an illusion over them to hide the augment. Then again, these arms looked a lot nicer than the junk you could get in the Hive gutters, so of course their owner would take some pride in them.
As if to complete a set of bad omens, the last one, a lanky man a head taller than both others, favored a leather coat and shaded glasses, looking offensively conspicuous in the get-up. The tattoos of runes and symbols moving from his brows over his shaved skull and down the neck before disappearing under his collar didn't help matters. Either he was a spell-slinger of some sort or really wished that he was.
In a better world, or at least a slightly less cruel one, these three would have just walked on, giving Jera only one condescending glance and then disappearing into the shadows like specters. But this was not a nice world, and so they stopped in front of Mrs. Mors doors, glanced at each other and reached an unspoken agreement. The two men stepped inside, the chime above the door heralding them with its cold clinking. The woman, though, came straight for Jera, her augmented arms swinging at her sides like an executioners blade.
"Nice pipe," she said. Jera just took a deep draw from the smoking implement in question, overplaying his very real fear with the act. Contrary to what a thousand ale soaked tales claimed, no real mugger announced themselves like that to invite a witty comeback. Most actual muggers announced themselves with a knife to the lung, upon which most people responded by coughing up some blood. This fact and his firm knowledge of it was the only thing keeping Jera rooted in place at this moment, as the woman nonchalantly went for one of the pockets of her pants. Instead of a knife though, she pulled out a cigarette. "Got fire for me?"
"Sure," was the only sensible answer to that question, and thus he pulled out his fire-stick and tossed it over to her. It was near impossible to miss her at this distance, but having his hands shake when giving it to her would have been too obvious a clue. The chance that three people dressed obviously like killers came to Mrs. Mors' shop after sunset to pick up a nice book of bardic poetry were rather slim. And if she noticed that Jera knew the reason they were likely her for, so were his chances of getting out of this in one piece.
While she lit up, he glanced back into the shop. He couldn't see either Mrs. Mors or her two visitors, so he could only hope that the old lady wouldn't do something foolish. Sadly enough, ratting Qey and him out would have likely been the most sensible choice on her part, yet she would never do so, making Jera feel all the more guilty for bringing trouble to her doorstep. Then he saw his companion again, ducking down behind a bookshelf in the upper part of the shop and peering down.
It was a real shame that Mrs. Mors never had believed in a back entrance, claiming it would let rotten folk into her shop. A backdoor would have been mighty convenient in this very moment to let out the one rotten folk that lived there with her. But as it was, both Jera and Qey were stuck, and it seemed a sure bet the three people knew it, having left one of them out there precisely to block the only exit to leave the other two to search for Qey inside.
What now?
[] [Jera] Try to talk with the woman, both to find out more about her and to distract her.
[] [Jera] Leave and try to find one of the local gangs. Stuff like this is why he pays protection money.
[] [Jera] Wait for a good moment and try to attack the woman. She is stronger, but Jera is faster and a knife to the lung always works.
[] [Qey] Try to hide upstairs and sneak out when the chance presents itself. The shop is full of bookshelves, making it easy to hide inside.
[] [Qey] Make a break for it. Qey knows the neighborhood like the back of his hand, and as long as he can make it through the front door, he can shake them off.
[] [Qey] Ambush the two men when they come upstairs. Drop something heavy on them and then get out the knives. Better then to be caught and cut down from behind.
AN: This is a story that I wanted to tell in some form for years and now I've decided to finally do it. After being burned out by paperwork intensive civ-scale quests, it's refreshing to zoom back in and to only care about the lives of a few selected people.
Slowly the dark-skinned man lowered his ornate pipe again with which he had stabbed the words at the other occupant of the table. Made from dark wood and decorated with finely-carved and silvered patterns, it seemed a thing that belonged to a world wholly different from the ratty linen coat in which inner pocket its equally fancy box lived. There was no telling if the things its owner fed the poor smoking tool were actually meant to be smoked. Maybe he put in fancy tobacco bought at the edges of Sun City, or maybe he tormented it with the left-overs pried from dog-ears he found on the street and dried weeds to stretch even that. But the pipe itself was nice, so that meant you could have a nice smoke with it, and that was all that mattered in the end.
"You are just being pessimistic again, Jera. It's easy money," spoke the other man between two gulps from the swill that passed for ale only because the barkeeper said so and nobody really liked to disagree with old Ahreesh on anything. Even now the owner of this fine specimen of sinkhole was sweeping his gaze over the room as if daring anyone to do something he could disapprove of, and while everyone knew he was looking around, no one could tell where his attention actually rested at any given time. It was the eyes, cheap old junk that they were. Featureless orbs of pale and tarnished silver, the traces of the runes that made them work hidden in the crevices of Ahreesh's labyrinthine wrinkles.
What he was worried about no one could really say, and he probably just liked to complain at his customers. His tavern was a run-down hole that probably didn't even know the meaning of better days, let alone ever having seen any. Carved out of what probably was two storefronts some decades ago and a few flats by generous application of sledgehammers to any walls there were in the way, it gave off that homely flair of a ruin. The bar and the tables were likely kept together mostly by the grime on them, the lights were dim and tended to flicker, and it was generally agreed upon that looking at the things that sometimes ran through dark corners meant that it was your own fault that you now knew about them.
Still, though, it was full every night, each of the rickety tables and chairs filled with people and the watered ale flowing by the barrel. It was a place for people like them. For people who had not much money, and occasionally there was a speck of blood on whatever coin they did have. For people who sometimes needed to block the washroom for half-an-hour, because the mirror was decent and sewing up yourself was a lot easier with it. For people who did not wish any questions asked about them and promised to not ask any in turn. It was a colorful bunch, even though most of these colors looked like dried blood and bruises.
Meanwhile, the dark-skinned man gathered something that had a resemblance to tobacco from a thrice-mended leather pouch and was carefully filling his pipe with it. "And you are being an idiot about this, Qey." As he finished his ministrations, he pulled a fire-stick from his pocket and pressed it into his pipe. The red glow of the crystal tip could be seen for a moment before foul smelling smoke rose from the pipe. A short puff later, Jera sighed at the stubborn look his companion gave him. "Look. This whole thing reeks of Eternals and Sorcerers. Do you have any idea what usually happens to people meddling in their affairs? They don't get paid, Qey. They get swept up with a broom, and those are the lucky ones."
"Come on, man. I'm fine so far, and I only need you to play guard for me. Second blade at my back, you know?" In many ways, Qey was Jera's exact opposite, too eager to prove himself and still believing in that one big thing happening that would get him out of the Hive. It was an endearing trait in the young, even though one that often ensured that they rarely had the chance to shed that label. But he had lived long enough and seen enough to know better, yet still clung to these dreams. There was still that gleam in his eyes that told he thought he could take on the world and if not win, then at least wrest a good price out of its grasp. It was the kind of gleam that led you to end face down in a pool of your own blood.
For a long moment, Jera just stared and dragged on his pipe a few times, filling the tavern with clouds of whatever vile thing he was smoking today. "Fine, but you owe me for this." He truly tried to sound forceful there, but only managed a slightly less defeated tone. They were just two common crooks among many, and any story involving the likes of them and something vaguely important ended the same way. Crooks dead, killed by the people wanting the fancy thing after they served their purpose. Hiding some kind of sealed capsule for a few days like Qey was doing right now was fitting far too nicely into this pattern.
And yet Jera couldn't bring it over himself to just abandon his drinking buddy, occasional accomplice, and maybe even friend. He took another absent puff, more to keep the embers glowing then any real desire. "We'll meet at your place, take that thing, go straight to the guy where you're supposed to drop it off and then leave with cash in hand. No detours. No side deals. No repeat of that incident with the dropped chest. Alright?"
The beaming smile reminded him why he put up with Qey's antics. Dangerous or not, his good cheer was almost infectious and far too likable. So the younger man wagged his finger at Jera to emphasize his words. "You won't regret this." Then he raised his cup and the two of them clinked their together to seal the deal. No more words needed to be spoken on the matter, and a few moments later, only two empty cups and a few coins remained at the table.
Qey was setting off to a brothel nearby in the Hive, where he would say some weird nonsense to a seemingly random prostitute and give her a few coins. Then she would repeat the same nonsense at her madame and hand on most of the coin. This game would repeat a few more times until the coins were all left somewhere on the trail and the nonsense had reached a set of ears that knew that it wasn't. All of this, just so that a few people would wait in some shadowy corner for two crooks to deliver them something of which nobody involved had any idea what it was.
Event though that errand wouldn't take long, it left Jera with a few moments of quiet, and so he was in no particular hurry when he left the tavern. When his boots hit the cobblestone, he took a deep breath of the ever present miasma, sampling it like one would a fine wine that had been left open for a year or two and which had caught a nice coating of mold. To others it was revolting, but for someone like him who had been born and raised in the Hive, it was the smell of home. It was something that Qey never quite had understood, even though he had been living in the city for a few years now.
The path he took he was long and winding, but still shorter in time and easier on his legs besides. There was a public elevator a few streets over that belonged to a train station, and from there it was not all that many stairs until he would reach the bookstore in which his companion lived. While he walked, Jera was letting his gaze wander upwards. Past the dirty streets and shacks around him, past the dirty streets and shacks clinging to old and grimy buildings above him and on through the gaps between the paths and rails until a golden sheen caught his eye.
Sun City, shining in all its glory in the setting sun, reflecting a single ray of brightness downward into the twisting gloom of the Hive. Up there the air was always clean and nice, enchantments making sure that the stench of rot was bushed back down into the Hive where it belonged. There was real light up there, light that was warm and not cold like the fading crystals and old enchantments that made the Hive just bright enough to make out where you were going. But all the gold and glory was not as eternal as it always seemed.
While Jera rode the elevator full of foul-mooded strangers, he briefly thought back on the first time he had been at Mrs. Mors' Book and Antiquity shop. The name alone sounded more expensive than anything he had ever owned, and he felt profoundly out of place when getting shown by Qey where he lived turned into a trip to the lower edges of Sun City. Back then there were guards in the clean streets and you got sunlight for a good part of the day. Many other shops were around and so were plenty of clean and neat people that looked at him as if he was something foul they had stepped into.
Now, though, the Hive was taking over. One Eternal or another had decided his home needed to be a bit higher and nicer than that of his neighbors, and suddenly there was a little bit less daylight for the bookstore. Then it happened again, and again. The streets got darker, and the neatest and cleanest of people moved out, together with their stores, instead letting in a few Hivers that looked kind of like honest folk when you squinted. The guards came less, then the sun came a bit less yet again, then a few more shops went and suddenly the rot had taken root.
These days the guards rarely came, and in the long twilight hours of the place it was not so safe in the streets anymore. Instead there was a homely smell of piss wafting up through the failing arcane works that were supposed to keep it at bay. Sun City had moved a tiny bit higher again, a little bit further out of reach and in the place that it vacated, the good old misery of the Hive could spread. That was the truth of this place.
There was a shiny and bright layer of paint on top of a giant pile of human-shaped offal slowly rotting away. Sun City would always be there, and it would always gladly pretend that the Hive did not exist, even though it needed it to live on. But as long as the golden arches and bright illusions of above could be glimpsed from below, the Hive would happily work for that ephemeral promise to one day join the ranks above, even though nobody had ever seen it actually happen.
When Jera reached the top of the elevator and stepped back onto a street, Qey was already waiting for him and wordlessly falling into step with him. For a few more streets that silence lasted, until the crowds dispersed into the maze of winding alleys, stairwells and bridges that tied the Hive together. "So, everything went well," Jera stated more than asked. He would have been lying if he had claimed to not have worried, though.
"Yeah," came the clipped response, and he paused for a bit before quietly speaking on. "You still think that was a bad idea?"
In Jera's answer, there was no hesitation. "It's an awful lot of money for a job like this. Keeping a package for a few days and then dropping it off somewhere doesn't pay well unless someone is looking for it rather urgently." In the quietness of his thoughts he asked himself why he was doing this again, but the answer that came back was dutifully ignored. He liked Qey and he would always have his back in a pinch, even though he was usually the one that looked for trouble in the first place.
"So? Money is good though. Between my cut for this and my savings, it's more than half-way to buying myself a citizenship. And they did promise me another job that also pays well if they get the package on time." It was playing with fire yet again, that long held dream of his. Getting a proper citizenship for Sun City took more money than any person would ever be able to earn with honest work, and Qey wouldn't be the first one who got burned by the guard looking into where he got the necessary pile of cash to get his paperwork accepted.
The younger man shook his head as they rounded a corner, the warm glow of the bookstore already visible in the distant twilight. "You'll see. Once I made it up there, I'll repay you all those favors. And do something nice for Mrs. Mors, too. The old dragon deserves it."
Jera just chuckled in response and lightly punched the other man's arm. "Careful there, she might hear you. Or are you eager to get another lecture from her about your manners?"
"Not a good moment for delays, so I think I'll pass for once." The grimace that Qey put on wasn't entirely fake, but also far from genuine. Why Mrs. Mors had taken pity on him and first rented him a small room above her shop, then even hired him to help her around the shop now and then, neither of them had any idea. She hadn't known Qey when they met, so their working theory was that he reminded her of a forgotten son or grandson that she may or may not have had at some point. Maybe she just took pity on the boy back then and decided to do something nice for a stranger. Miracles were known to occur occasionally.
When they reached the shop, Jera made no move towards the door, instead leaning on railing opposite of it and taking out his pipe. "You won't need me to get it. Just hurry up." Then he took out his tobacco pouch again, rifling through it for a few good pinches and absentmindedly throwing a few suspicious-looking clumps found in the bag over his shoulder. It was a far drop from this street down to bottom of the Hive, and while he was up here, he might as well use it as a garbage dump like everyone else.
Qey gave him a short look of mock hurt, clasping his chest to mime the impact of this betrayal. Yet he turned around and opened the ornate wooden door of the bookshop, bravely marching towards his doom. Mrs. Mors could be a kind woman if she wanted, but that was hidden behind an aura of stern propriety that could make a grown man think back to being scolded by his mother just by being in her vicinity. If she had any given name, neither of the men knew, and while that might have been the result of neither of them ever asking her, it could also have been because it was hard to think of the old woman as anything except Mrs. Mors. There was just this immediate sense of disapproval if any of them thought of her as anything else than Mrs. Mors.
There was a quick chime when the door was pulled open, more of the warm light shed by the petroleum lamps flowing out of the bookstore. Qey was usually the one with the duty to crawl all over the shop to light them in the evening and then again to put them out at night, but the onlooker had to concede that it helped a good deal to make she shop look warm, inviting, and just the right amount of old-fashioned for an antiquary. The moment he stepped into the shop, Mrs. Mors dropped the book she was reading and began to berate him. What for, Jera couldn't make out, but probably a mixture of admonishments for being late, smelling of cheap beer somewhere beneath that Hive stench, and generally looking like one of those shifty folks that only came out at night. The first two were fair, but the last one not so much. Qey could hardly turn off who he was.
Meanwhile Jera was left with the quiet for a good smoke and idly looked over the storefront. The books on display, all old things, tended to change every day a bit, but most of the other things were fixtures of the shops windows. Left of the entrance, the centerpiece was a large and ornate clock, half driven by gears and springs and half by magic. The face was nothing fancy, just stained glass with an illusion of a rural landscape that changed with the hours. Now it was depicting a farm with some dozing cattle on a meadow to the side. Jera had never left the city, so he had no idea if that was what farms looked like, or at least if that was what farms used to look like whenever that clocks was made which, by his reckoning, was even before Mrs. Mors' birth.
The other window held a piece that were it still whole would probably be worth more than the entire rest of the shop put together. Force-lances tended to be worth more than their weight in gold what with being made by mages of quite some skill and being highly sought after by just about everyone who could have an interest in killing people from far away. There were not many things that could counter a white bolt of force coming at you faster then the eye could see. This one though was just a broken curiosity, a highly storied piece of junk. Scorch marks went down the length of the barrel, and while Jera was far from knowledgeable about these things, half of it being a partially molten and blackened mess usually meant it wouldn't work anymore, except maybe as a club or to prop a door open.
Yet it fit so well into Mrs. Mors' shop with all the other things that shared its fate. Once highly sought after, now forgotten and left to gather dust. It was not as if the shop made many sales, and both of the men suspected that the old lady was mostly keeping it open out of stubbornness and because she liked to read her own books in the day while sitting around and waiting for the customers that would never come. One more relic of the past, seeking company among its brethren and waiting out the world.
While Jera was standing there, though, occasionally glancing through the window towards the winding wrought iron stairwell the led to the upper half of the shop and the homes of Mrs. Mors and Qey, there came indeed a few people to her door. Their leader wore a linen traveling cloak over leathers, sensible clothing if you wanted to leave the city and expected rain, or expected to get into a knife fight and needing to hide the blood beneath a turned coat.
The second one, a rather sturdily-built woman, didn't bother with armor like that, instead wearing only brown worker pants and a white shirt that left her entire arms bare. Said arms were made not of flesh though, but of metal, interwoven with angular patterns of crystal and arcane symbols. Nobody had bothered to put some flesh over the things, or at least to weave an illusion over them to hide the augment. Then again, these arms looked a lot nicer than the junk you could get in the Hive gutters, so of course their owner would take some pride in them.
As if to complete a set of bad omens, the last one, a lanky man a head taller than both others, favored a leather coat and shaded glasses, looking offensively conspicuous in the get-up. The tattoos of runes and symbols moving from his brows over his shaved skull and down the neck before disappearing under his collar didn't help matters. Either he was a spell-slinger of some sort or really wished that he was.
In a better world, or at least a slightly less cruel one, these three would have just walked on, giving Jera only one condescending glance and then disappearing into the shadows like specters. But this was not a nice world, and so they stopped in front of Mrs. Mors doors, glanced at each other and reached an unspoken agreement. The two men stepped inside, the chime above the door heralding them with its cold clinking. The woman, though, came straight for Jera, her augmented arms swinging at her sides like an executioners blade.
"Nice pipe," she said. Jera just took a deep draw from the smoking implement in question, overplaying his very real fear with the act. Contrary to what a thousand ale soaked tales claimed, no real mugger announced themselves like that to invite a witty comeback. Most actual muggers announced themselves with a knife to the lung, upon which most people responded by coughing up some blood. This fact and his firm knowledge of it was the only thing keeping Jera rooted in place at this moment, as the woman nonchalantly went for one of the pockets of her pants. Instead of a knife though, she pulled out a cigarette. "Got fire for me?"
"Sure," was the only sensible answer to that question, and thus he pulled out his fire-stick and tossed it over to her. It was near impossible to miss her at this distance, but having his hands shake when giving it to her would have been too obvious a clue. The chance that three people dressed obviously like killers came to Mrs. Mors' shop after sunset to pick up a nice book of bardic poetry were rather slim. And if she noticed that Jera knew the reason they were likely her for, so were his chances of getting out of this in one piece.
While she lit up, he glanced back into the shop. He couldn't see either Mrs. Mors or her two visitors, so he could only hope that the old lady wouldn't do something foolish. Sadly enough, ratting Qey and him out would have likely been the most sensible choice on her part, yet she would never do so, making Jera feel all the more guilty for bringing trouble to her doorstep. Then he saw his companion again, ducking down behind a bookshelf in the upper part of the shop and peering down.
It was a real shame that Mrs. Mors never had believed in a back entrance, claiming it would let rotten folk into her shop. A backdoor would have been mighty convenient in this very moment to let out the one rotten folk that lived there with her. But as it was, both Jera and Qey were stuck, and it seemed a sure bet the three people knew it, having left one of them out there precisely to block the only exit to leave the other two to search for Qey inside.
What now?
[] [Jera] Try to talk with the woman, both to find out more about her and to distract her.
[] [Jera] Leave and try to find one of the local gangs. Stuff like this is why he pays protection money.
[] [Jera] Wait for a good moment and try to attack the woman. She is stronger, but Jera is faster and a knife to the lung always works.
[] [Qey] Try to hide upstairs and sneak out when the chance presents itself. The shop is full of bookshelves, making it easy to hide inside.
[] [Qey] Make a break for it. Qey knows the neighborhood like the back of his hand, and as long as he can make it through the front door, he can shake them off.
[] [Qey] Ambush the two men when they come upstairs. Drop something heavy on them and then get out the knives. Better then to be caught and cut down from behind.
AN: This is a story that I wanted to tell in some form for years and now I've decided to finally do it. After being burned out by paperwork intensive civ-scale quests, it's refreshing to zoom back in and to only care about the lives of a few selected people.
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Because I am a cheating cheater who already read the above in PMs and had a vote analyses ready (and it's also getting near 1 AM) here it is:
[] [Jera] Try to talk with the woman, both to find out more about her and to distract her.
A hard no on this one, we are in a life and death situation and outnumbered, not the time to be looking for information
[] [Jera] Leave and try to find one of the local gangs. Stuff like this is why he pays protection money.
Could work if nothing else it guarantees we have one living PC to play at the end of this
[] [Jera] Wait for a good moment and try to attack the woman. She is stronger, but Jera is faster and a knife to the lung always works.
Aggressive, but honestly my preference, surprise is worth a lot in a fight.
[] [Qey] Try to hide upstairs and sneak out when the chance presents itself. The shop is full of bookshelves, making it easy to hide inside.
The subtle vote, if Jera walks out this is a good complement to it.
[] [Qey] Make a break for it. Qey knows the neighborhood like the back of his hand, and as long as he can make it through the front door, he can shake them off.
This looks like terrible odds, running past armed men means showing your back
[] [Qey] Ambush the two men when they come upstairs. Drop something heavy on them and then get out the knives. Better then to be caught and cut down from behind.
Complement for the aggressive strategy above. The only reason I'm iffy here is that two on one in a knife fight is very poor odds indeed, so that 'drop something heavy' has to work.
Preliminary safe-ish (not really) vote, might change it in the morning:
[X] [Jera] Leave and try to find one of the local gangs. Stuff like this is why he pays protection money.
[X] [Qey] Try to hide upstairs and sneak out when the chance presents itself. The shop is full of bookshelves, making it easy to hide inside.
[] [Jera] Try to talk with the woman, both to find out more about her and to distract her.
A hard no on this one, we are in a life and death situation and outnumbered, not the time to be looking for information
[] [Jera] Leave and try to find one of the local gangs. Stuff like this is why he pays protection money.
Could work if nothing else it guarantees we have one living PC to play at the end of this
[] [Jera] Wait for a good moment and try to attack the woman. She is stronger, but Jera is faster and a knife to the lung always works.
Aggressive, but honestly my preference, surprise is worth a lot in a fight.
[] [Qey] Try to hide upstairs and sneak out when the chance presents itself. The shop is full of bookshelves, making it easy to hide inside.
The subtle vote, if Jera walks out this is a good complement to it.
[] [Qey] Make a break for it. Qey knows the neighborhood like the back of his hand, and as long as he can make it through the front door, he can shake them off.
This looks like terrible odds, running past armed men means showing your back
[] [Qey] Ambush the two men when they come upstairs. Drop something heavy on them and then get out the knives. Better then to be caught and cut down from behind.
Complement for the aggressive strategy above. The only reason I'm iffy here is that two on one in a knife fight is very poor odds indeed, so that 'drop something heavy' has to work.
Preliminary safe-ish (not really) vote, might change it in the morning:
[X] [Jera] Leave and try to find one of the local gangs. Stuff like this is why he pays protection money.
[X] [Qey] Try to hide upstairs and sneak out when the chance presents itself. The shop is full of bookshelves, making it easy to hide inside.
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- Location
- United States
I'm torn apart by indecision. These people clearly outclass us. They're almost certainly from Sun City with the relevant upgrades and weapons. That said, I do trust DP's judgement. Fingers crossed.
[X] [Jera] Leave and try to find one of the local gangs. Stuff like this is why he pays protection money.
[X] [Qey] Try to hide upstairs and sneak out when the chance presents itself. The shop is full of bookshelves, making it easy to hide inside.
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- Location
- Germany
From their getup, they are clearly Hive goons. Though definitely of a much higher quality then Jera and Qey. You don't get augments like the lady is sporting by doing odd jobs for other low-lives in the gutter though.
- Location
- United States
Okay, so they're Hive Goons who answer to someone much more powerful.
I'm guessing either these "Eternals" or "Sorcerers", whatever they are.
What on earth are we even carrying that it prompted them to hunt us down like this? Is it vital intel for a shadow war or something?
- Location
- Germany
1. Either that or they do mercenary work that pays really well.
2. Eh. I would rather get into more detail on that in the story, but for now, you can read both of those as "Sun City Bigwigs".
3. While Qey was dumb enough to take the fishy job, he was not suicidal enough to pry open then fancy magical cylinder he is supposed to keep safe.-
- Location
- St. Petersburg
I loved Shadows of the Past, and I am pretty hyped for this one. It's off to a good start, too.
[x] [Jera] Leave and try to find one of the local gangs. Stuff like this is why he pays protection money.
[x] [Qey] Try to hide upstairs and sneak out when the chance presents itself. The shop is full of bookshelves, making it easy to hide inside.
[x] [Jera] Leave and try to find one of the local gangs. Stuff like this is why he pays protection money.
[x] [Qey] Try to hide upstairs and sneak out when the chance presents itself. The shop is full of bookshelves, making it easy to hide inside.
- Location
- Germany
[X] [Jera] Wait for a good moment and try to attack the woman. She is stronger, but Jera is faster and a knife to the lung always works.
[X] [Qey] Ambush the two men when they come upstairs. Drop something heavy on them and then get out the knives. Better then to be caught and cut down from behind.
They look like they have decent loot.
[X] [Qey] Ambush the two men when they come upstairs. Drop something heavy on them and then get out the knives. Better then to be caught and cut down from behind.
They look like they have decent loot.
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egoo
Totally Not Creating Problems Where None Existed
- Location
- Russia
[X] [Jera] Wait for a good moment and try to attack the woman. She is stronger, but Jera is faster and a knife to the lung always works.
[X] [Qey] Ambush the two men when they come upstairs. Drop something heavy on them and then get out the knives. Better then to be caught and cut down from behind.
It may save us, it may kill us.
Either way, it would be dealing with the immediate problem that may or may not have a way to tracks us, and that is one of the worst shit possible.
At least here we can get a jump on them.
[X] [Qey] Ambush the two men when they come upstairs. Drop something heavy on them and then get out the knives. Better then to be caught and cut down from behind.
It may save us, it may kill us.
Either way, it would be dealing with the immediate problem that may or may not have a way to tracks us, and that is one of the worst shit possible.
At least here we can get a jump on them.
Fair point. I'm personally disinclined to risk a bad end on the first vote, but I will grant I would prefer to kill them and get to looting.
- Location
- Germany
While there are more or less risky options, we are still in pseudo-character-generation, meaning whatever you pick will be something that the character will retroactively become proficient in. Also, voting for combat doesn't mean people will fight to the death. Both Jera and Qey have been graced with a healthy self-preservation drive and will leg it if combat goes poorly.
In that case changing
[X] [Jera] Wait for a good moment and try to attack the woman. She is stronger, but Jera is faster and a knife to the lung always works.
[X] [Qey] Ambush the two men when they come upstairs. Drop something heavy on them and then get out the knives. Better then to be caught and cut down from behind.
- Location
- United States
So basically this is like Call of Cthulhu where we should avoid combat at all costs? How far down the food chain are we???
We really need our own beatstick.
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- Location
- Brazil
*Looks at tags*
Well, alright then.
Well, alright then.
Aramis
An unwilling witness
- Location
- Who cares?
[x] [Jera] Leave and try to find one of the local gangs. Stuff like this is why he pays protection money.
[x] [Qey] Try to hide upstairs and sneak out when the chance presents itself. The shop is full of bookshelves, making it easy to hide inside.
If this trio ends up dead, what's going to happen is that the one(s) who paid them are going to hire even more goons. Our best chance is to escape and force them to keep looking for us.
[x] [Qey] Try to hide upstairs and sneak out when the chance presents itself. The shop is full of bookshelves, making it easy to hide inside.
If this trio ends up dead, what's going to happen is that the one(s) who paid them are going to hire even more goons. Our best chance is to escape and force them to keep looking for us.
- Location
- Germany
What's also going to happen is that we loot some corpses.
@Azel
Are we on full narrative here or will chance be involved?
- Location
- Germany
Combat can be very short and very lethal, and both Jera and Qey are very small fry. Good old thugs for hire.
Yes, chance will be involved. Unlike my other quests so far, I will not divulge exact rolls, since that always ran into a few problems for me and produced a lot of noise in the narrative and busywork when writing it up.
- Location
- United States
Probably because they're forced to by economic reasons or other reasons. People don't like living in the Hood IRL yet they still do.
Yeah but like living in shit hole implies they dont have a choice. So there must be no suburbs or normal cities where they could move to.