• Solo • IV. Black and Red (Graded)

[Kasoria]

21st trial, Vhalar, 719
The Underground, Eastern Commercial Circle
19th break

Continued from here


It would have been easier if the poison had sent him to sleep. Made him numb and dumb to what the little man was doing to him. Though it was no real choice at all, he'd have preferred waking up to the shock, the imprisonment, the chains, the brief moments of wild hope that ignorance came with. But Felix was not that lucky.

He saw everything the little man did, and everything he had planned. And he didn't believe for a moment that wasn't by design.

"Pluh... Please..."

Kasoria hummed in response. Not to the word, but the fact his prisoner was even capable of them. Thraybone took time to wear off, as he knew, but he didn't have a rough time. So he'd been quietly counting as he busied himself. By the time Felix croaked out the desperate word, he saw the man's fingers twitching, his legs writhing softly, limbs like boneless appendages. Something like forty bits, he thought idly. Very useful.

"Like I tol' the last one a' youse who tried," he said lowly, voice calm and yet tinged with impatience. The fucking nerve of these people. "Waste a' breath, usin' that word wi' me. Youse came t'my city, workin' fer a Morty. Killin' anyone she pointed yeh at. Now, I ain't one t'slight a man fer bein' in the mortality business, but-"

A rough hand Felix by the front of his shirt and yanked him up... but not very far. He could feel the cold weight of the chains, now. Around his ankles and wrists. Spreading his arms and legs to the four corners of the table the little man had hauled him up to. Fates, but the bastard was strong. All cords of muscle hidden under his rags. He'd lay there as the assassin had looped chains around him. Heard them, felt the... pressure, but not the cold, nor the weight, nor any sort of discomfort at all.

Not outside. Only inside. Only screaming and wailing in his head with no way to thrash or plead. Now it was worse. Now he could feel, and speak... and was still helpless in either endeavor-

-and now the man was above him. Face fixed like a baleful sun, glaring down at him.

"-not when yeh bring the stink a' monsters here, wiv' yeh. Shoulda' fucked off once that redhead got loose a' yeh. Shoulda' known she'd peach t'someone like me."

"I... I can... help..."

"Oh, you already have!" Kasoria let go of his shirt and Felix felt pain yet again, as the back of his head smacked into the table. Rustling parchment greeted his ears, and the Raggedy Man waved a handful of papers over him. Fake smile of gratitude so brittle a light breeze could shatter it. "Already gave me lots t'think about, mate. Glad yeh didn't scarper 'fore I got hold a' these. Lots a' names an' dates, services rendered... an' promised."

The smile shrank, yet did not die. But any humor in those black eyes vanished. Made extinct by a simmering, growling fury that seemed to power the man like a furnace. Felix closed his eyes for a moment and remembered the faces from that parchment. Written down as insurance, should the cell ever be turned upon by them. Now nothing more than a list of targets, and it was not the words or the tone of the Raggedy Man that promised that.

Just a look in his eyes. No hole in these tunnels was so dark or hopeless.

"I'll get t'them later... but there's one name I couldn't find on there. Which, I gotta say, surprised me." Felix tried to speak again but Kasoria shushed him as he tossed the parchment to one side .There was the clink of a bottle. One of... his? "Ah-ah-ah! Now, dun' say anythin' yet. Not 'til yeh take yer medicine."

He was enjoying this. There was no mistaking the sadism in his voice. Felix had been surrounded by these heathen animals for seasons, all of them crowing their hate for the gods and reveling in their perceived murder of one. The sheer... pleasure they took, in such attitudes. It worried and disgusted him in equal measure. Now he was being menaced by one such infidel, and a part of him he refused to look at knew how-

-as he saw the bottle, rubber stopper vanished, and the neat writing on the label.

His writing. His concoction.

"Trapper Spider," Kasoria said, free hand shooting out to hold Felix's mouth open as he started to squirm. "Fanks fer the label, mate. Made things much fuckin' easier."

Felix had barely begun to beg before the Raggedy Man emptied the bottle into his mouth, then dropped it and clamped his hand over the opening before Felix could spit it out. Mouth and nose, in fact. He tried to hold his breath; tried to force air through his nose, let the liquid spew from the corners of his lips. But Kasoria was inexorable. Immovable. Patient and uncaring as the man turned red then blue then purple and-

-he chuckled into the bloodstained room as Felix swallowed the poison down, the doomed man howling like a mad dog a moment later as the full breadth of the toxin smashed into his nervous system like a flaming sledgehammer.

[Kasoria]

He'd never seen what it could do up close. The redhead had told him about it, but she'd been in a hurry and was hardly a teacher. A handful of words and he had but a concept in his skull, hazy and ill-defined. Gave you a dose of energy, like a shot of pure life to a flagging heart, but the cost was every scrap of skin becoming... Kasoria wasn't even sure what the word was. Over-sensitive? Super-nervous?

Whatever it is, he thought as the man writhed and frothed in front of him, I wasn't expecting this...

Felix looked like a man fit to burst out of his skin and explode through he fucking ceiling just to get to the sky and fly away forever. The throbbing wound in his shoulder now felt like someone was trying to flay his whole arm into shreds. His back was bent like a bow underneath him, spine almost cracking in two as he strained against the chains holding him back. Kasoria had thought them a prudent choice, if a little excessive at the time. Now he just shook his head at his own ignorance, even as he thanked himself for his caution.

He would have snapped two of the four by now, he thought, looking up and down the man's quivering body. Fucking Fates, he'd have ripped the table in two.

"My-my-my," he murmured, the moment Felix calmed down enough for the words to be heard. "Ev'ry'thin' I was hopin' fer. Now... les' get started."

He grabbed Felix's hair in one hand and yanked his head back sharply. Even that was enough to draw a whine of agony from the man, as if his mind was unable to process how painful a simple pull of the hair could hurt him so much. But that was nothing compared to the terror in his eyes, when he felt the icy metal of Kasoria's dagger settle against his forehead... and he looked up, past it, into the Raggedy Man's eyes.

"Marshal. Webb."

Kasoria spoke the words as if they were both a curse, and a memory to be recollected. He eyes never wavered from Felix's face now; he didn't want to miss a single reaction, a moment's betrayal of thoughts.

"I know hes workin' wiv' that cunt yeh pray to," Kasoria hissed, bringing his mouth so close to Felix the foreigner could feel the spittle spatter against his cheek. "I know, mate. I know he's been workin' his will onna' Council for yer the Spider Cunt, an' I want proof."

Hardly your best bluff, old man.

"So yer gonna gimme it, or..."

Truth be told, Kasoria didn't know. He suspected. He'd been told. He believed it. But knowing implied facts, data read or witnessed and trusted as such by senses and logic. He'd had plenty of time to review the satchel that Felix had so admirably failed to flee with, and their were names there that... disturbed him. But the Marshal, the Council... well, that had been hoping a little too much, he realized. Men like that, and men working for men like that, were too clever to ever leave a trail in black and white. Whatever lackeys and minions they'd sent, that Webb had sent, they'd left no trace... except in the mind of this last, surviving cultist.

Which was why Kasoria had kept him alive. Because the bluff did not need to work, if this did-

Felix screamed and screamed until his throat was raw and blood gurgled at the back of it. The dagger cut a straight, shallow line from one temple to the other, crossing his forehead as it did. Kasoria couldn't help the grin that yanked at his lips, lit flames in his black eyes. This was nothing scum like this didn't deserve. He'd leave these corpses here, to be found, some trial. He'd leave them flayed and mutilated and dismembered and violated. Every hideous wound telling all the story of what Morty-loving bastards could hope to find in the Free City of Etzos. This was barely even a man under his knife. Just a slave, an animal, a vessel, a puppet for a monster playing at godliness.

He savored the screams. He drank the tears. He shivered at every ragged breath.

This is what you fucking get, wanker.

"Tell me what I wanna know, boy," Kasoria growled, yanking back on the handful of hair. Letting Felix whimper and mutter strange prayers as he felt the skin start to pull back from the fresh wound. Kasoria paused, letting the full horror of what would follow sink in. "Or I sweaar t'fuck, I'll yank back yer mop her an' scalp youse on this filthy fuckin' floor!"

Felix was crying now. Weeping. So deep and desperate there weren't even tears, or noise. Just the wide-mouthed, breathless croaking of a man truly broken. Kasoria cursed and tossed down the blade. Grabbed the man by the chin and jerked his face upright.

"Dun' youse fuckin' go cracked now 'fore youse talk t'me! Tell me about the fuckin' Marshal! Who's his fuckin' man?! Who's he send t'deal wiv' yeh?!"

Something changed in Felix's expression. Some sight, some decision made that woke a nameless, paranoid part of Kasoria even older than his Spark. It started to hop and jump and scream for attention, but the Raggedy Man ignored it. He squinted instead at the warring emotions in those brown eyes. The strange peace he saw there, behind the pain and shame... and then he saw the light.

"I... I'll tell you," Felix whispered, as the Runes carved into his arms blossomed into life, and madness came with it. "B-But it won't matter when you're dead!"

Kasoria was already leaping back when he shouted out the last word. With an unholy bellow the last cultist threw up both his arms and muscles that should not have been capable of such strength exploded into resolution at once. All four of them. Kasoria almost winced as he heard at least one bone crack. Human anatomy was not meant to wrangle and ruin chains... but with magic, and practice, and suicidal lack of fear, maybe it could be done.

And if not with those things, a double dose of fucking Trapper Spider to hurl his body into fucking orbit might do it.

"You fuckin' stupid old man," Kasoria muttered to himself as chains snapped and Felix exploded off the table. "Too fuckin' clever fer yer own good."

[Kasoria]

"I WILL DIE HERE! BUT I WILL NOT DIE A TRAITOR! I WILL DIE AS I LIVED! A TRUE SERVANT OF MISTRESS SINTRA!"

"Ah, well, good fer you."

If Felix has a moment to think, to reflect, to listen to anything but the lightning boiling his blood, he would likely had admitted half of all that was a lie. He didn't want to die. He was terrified of dying. But he feared worse the idea of going into the next world with Sintra's disapproval awaiting him; that all his arcs of life had been for nothing. Now rage blotted out all those concerns. They were petty, mortal worries. Felix had never been a warrior, just a killer, and pain was not something he had grown numb to,

One arm hung slack at his side. One leg dragged as he swung himself off the table and onto the cobbles. But his heart thundering in his ears was enough to drown the screaming from his nerves. The Runes of Strength in his arms were pulsing, begging him to use them. The wave of agony threatened to overwhelm him again, poison in his blood warring with the magic empowering them and he-

-clapped his fists against his chest. Grinning as the little man opposite gawped as the runes on his pectorals burst into quick, crimson life. Not so fucking confident are you now, dwarf?

"Webb... is our pawn," he breathed, Runes of Endurance sending ripples of numbness across his body, steadying him for a little while longer. "He... He sees the truth!"

Kasoria barely had time to blurt out a curse before the mad cunt reached around, picked up the heavy pine table and hurled it at him like it was a fucking breadbasket-

-leaping to the side, showered with shards and splinters as it crashed against the wall. He barely - Fates, he was already tired of always being late for what this bastard planned next - managed to write himself before Felix was on him again, whipping around his chains like weapons, aiming to smash Kasoria's skull into fragments with them-

CRACK

"Not-Not again, you l-little bastard!"

Felix wasn't about to let this Abrogator deny him victory with his petty magic. His mistress, his comrades, all had been stymied by this power. Ended by it, he'd wager. But they'd never delved so deep into the arcane as he. They trusted to their bodies and their faith and their poisons, not to mention the gifts the Mark of Sintra gave them. But Felix? He'd been carving and tinkering with Runes since before the twins had been born. He wasn't about to let these abilities go unused when facing this... heretic.

Barely. Just in time. That was how fast Kasoria got his Shield up before twin bands of iron smashed into it. But barely couldn't last forever, not against a man enraged beyond sanity and wielding both iron and magic and Felix charged forwards as Kasoria was getting back up to his feet-

-throwing out his hands again, Shield flashing into life before him-

CRACK

-Felix's swinging foot smashing into it, hard enough to destroy an etheric barrier that could have stopped a warhammer. He probably broke every bone below his knees, but if he noticed, Kasoria didn't see it. Before he had time to cast another or draw a weapon, the cultist lunged forwards-

-and Kasoria grunted as the chain-wrapped fist hammered him in the side of the head. His world became black stars and red waves. The chamber, the tunnels, the headless body and the tables and dust and spiders and especially the raging thing in front of him... all of it was just a blur now. He shook his head. His vision came back, but again-

"Fucking DIE!"

Kasoria had been lynched before. Unsuccessfully, of course, but it was never a feeling one forgot. The sheer helplessness of being yanked up off your feet and then choked an instant later. The primal terror that came from such constriction. You stopped thinking, planning, scheming. All that went out the window and he had to force every fiber of himself to open his eyes and think, think!

All he could see was Felix's mad eyes, sclera filling with blood as an organ not meant to deal with this kind of strain pumped red liquid everywhere it could go. He felt the heavy metal chain around his neck, skinny arms made muscular gripping it and holding him up against the wall. His hands instinctively went to his neck, but his fingers couldn't get under the loop. Felix was chuckling now, relishing the pain, the reversal, knowing that he surely had Mistress Sintra's favor.

"He is not the only one, either," the madman said, grin widening so much it seemed to split the skin of his face. "Die with this in your skull, heretic. Die knowing your people will lose, and-"

That's when it happened. Felix's expression shattered mere inches from Kasoria's face, mere moments from his victory. A leering grin became a grimace of pain, and the shudder that went through him could be felt by his victim. The ungodly strength he'd been using suddenly started to drain, and Kasoria felt himself being lowered back to the stones. The moment he got the chance, his lungs filled with air, retching and gasping but-

-but he didn't look away. He saw Felix go down to one knee, then the other. Clutching his chest and the Runes... flickering upon it. But deeper than that. The very fabric of his body itself, born to him long before he even knew what magic was. Kasoria saw the blood dripping from his nose, his eyes, his ears.. and when he heard the shuddering breath that failed to come out of his mouth, he knew.

"Weak... heart."

Felix looked up into the grim face above him. He couldn't hear his heart anymore. Could barely feel his limbs. His skin was starting to turn blue and purple, and every breath and gasp brought more flecks of crimson spewing forth onto the stones. The pain was starting to overwhelm his Runes now, and he couldn't find the energy to reinforce them. Not they were meant to be reinforced after taking this kind of damage, anyway, but... but he needed more time. He needed it for a righteous cause. To serve She that had given his life meaning for decades. For such a worthy goal, for a cause of love and devotion, would not magic and She bent reality to his end? For just a handful of moments more?

"I... I-"

Kasoria's arm moved behind him and then back in a motion so fast Felix barely saw it. It vanished empty, but came back full. Bearing a silver flash like the one he'd used before, only much smaller, and curved. Reality, it seemed, have given him an answer. He tried to suck down one more blood-soaked mouthful of air but before he could-

SHUKKK

-the karambit sliced across his throat. Severing the arteries on either side of it, his jugular, and his voice box all in the same, masterful stroke. Trapper Spider still pulsing through him, Felix felt every one of those injuries. He screamed, impossibly enough, though it became a gargle by the end. He fell back, still very much alive. Still panting, the little man stood over him, massaging his bruised neck with one hand, sheathing his blade with the other.

"I... I..."

The Raggedy Man didn't add anything smug or witty. He didn't need to. It would have been... damnit, he knew this word... redundant. The man had failed, and he knew it. The wretch had given him what he wanted, and he would die with that sin on his soul. He had betrayed the trust of his Mistress, and would answer to her for it... or so he thought.

Fucking idiot, Kasoria thought, shaking his head as the last dregs of life eked out of Felix. You could have just shut the fuck up and killed me. But you just had to boast.

"Well, then," the old man croaked, clearing his throat a half dozen time as he looked around the chamber. "Time t'get a move on."

[Kasoria]

"Fuck me, this really did... kff... help."

If Kasoria was more prone to self-reflection about his motives, he would probably have come to the conclusion that he truly was a "fanatic". Unable and unwilling to compromise. Inflexible and narrow-minded when it came to his principles. But even that sort of insight wouldn't have budged him when it came to the assets on offer, once a foe was dead and cold before him. He was standing in a chamber filled with the weapons and works of assassins, after all. He was hardly one to turn away from such a trove.

"Thray... bone..." He read the label out loud, and slowly. Not because of his own literacy, but because Fates, for an educated man, Felix had some piss-poor penmanship. "Aye, this'd be it."

He pocketed four of those vials, from the collection sitting at one of the far tables. Half of it was covered in bottles and vials and ampules, delicate little glass objects that he always marveled at. How did you even get liquid in them, anyway?! The other half was tubes and cups and pestles and things he could not name even if he tried. The redhead who'd set him on this trail probably could have, but she was long gone. That said, much like with her, he didn't need to know the How of production to Use the damn things.

"Take a few a' youse, too..."

Trapper Spider. Fine, yes, it had backfired, but it had also worked for... the first half of its use, anyway. Next time he just needed to check for fucking Runes and use thicker chains. Three of those went into the satchel, too. Ghost Mushroom? Fates, he didn't even need to read the label. He knew that stench of old, one of the first poisons he'd ever used. Miss Givings had a sale on, and the young sellsword had been curious.

Worked a fucking treat, too.

So, there were vials of poisons and toxins, nestled safely on a stack of parchments. Kasoria knew the names on those papers were worth as much as all the poison in the chamber. The cultists had been thorough in their records, but grateful as he was, he couldn't help but scorn them for their arrogance. Did they really think no-one in Etzos was skilled or patient enough to beat them, and thus take such evidence from them? That out of a city of millions... well, at least a million, after the invasion... there would be no-one who would find out and come to exterminate them?

Fucking Morty-lovers, he thought, stepping over Velara's headless torso with a grimace. Always think they're the cleverest cunts in the room.

He patted the fat little purse he'd found in that satchel, too. Shiny coins clinked and tinkled inside. Felix had apparently set aside some funds for his escape, or maybe that was the woman who'd arranged that. The satchel was well-provisioned for a bolting escapee, he'd decided. A dagger was in the bottom, the parchment, and coin enough to last a shrewd man most of a season. There would likely be more gold hidden around here, but Kasoria had no desire to risk traps or injury hunting for it. He had that purse, and that was enough.

Man's got to eat, after all. So... what now?

He knew what he'd decided to do before. Leave everything as it was. All the wreckage and bodies, undisturbed save by the legions of scavengers who would feast on them over the coming seasons and arcs. It would be more than a grave or a scene of murder. It would be a testament, a monument, a warning to all of their ilk who came across it and thought their kind could dig their claws into Etzos without consequence. But now... now the Raggedy Man looked over the vials of toxins and poisons. The parchments with formulas and recipes. He thought of these bodies taken away and buried, with honor and respect. Revered as... heroes.

The thought alone was enough to make his bile froth. So instead he followed his nose, and found the lamp oil carefully stored under blankets in one corner. It was the work of a bit to drench the chamber, a bottle in each hand, sloshing, stinking liquid splashing across the stones and wood and dead flesh. One they were empty, Kasoria grabbed a torch with one hand... and pressed his other to the nearest wall.

Like trials before, the stone rippled, as if it were fabric. A curtain, and this was a close enough wording. More like a doorway. The curtain pulled aside and a Crossing portal was there instead. Hazy as if viewed through a desert at the height of the trial, Kasoria could see the Untold beyond it. He smiled softly. Fucked if this wasn't a better way to move around. He looked around the chamber and ran through his list one more time.

Everything you need, taken. Everything you took, on you. Everyone else...

Kasoria snorted softly, then coughed again. Fucking chain. He tossed the torch and stepped through the portal. As he passed over into the Untold, he heard the deep, bass "whoof!" of exploding gas muffled by the magical membrane... but not the heat. No, that wasn't muffled at all. He paused and looked back. Seeing nothing but a vast sheet of flame, devouring everything it touched. Bottles and vials started to shatter and burst, poison gas filling the air then exploding as it was heated. The stench of roasting flesh tickled his nose, and with a wave of his arm-

-the curtain was pulled closed, in that flaming, buried chamber. Left to burn to bones and charcoal, with nothing surviving of the man that had obliterated it and all those who called it home.

[Doran]

Kasoria:

Knowledge:
Skill Knowledges:
Blades (Karambit): Draw and Slash in the Same Movement
Logistics: Utilizing Captured Supplies
Poison: Trapper Spider - Boosts Strength, But Makes Entire Body Over-Sensitive
Tactics - Capstone: Fighting a Hone-Enhanced Opponent
Torture: Scalping
Torture: Enhanced by Using Poisons

Non-Skill Knowledges:
Etzos, Vhalar 719: Marshal Webb is Not the Only Sintra-Worshiper on the Council...
NPC Marshal Webb: Confirmed to be a Sintra-Worshiper and Actively Aiding the Immortal in Etzos

Loot: Four vials of Thraybone, three vials of Trapper Spider, three vials of Ghost Mushroom, incriminating sheaf of parchment, containing written (but unsubstantiated) records of numerous influential Etzori aiding or conspiring with the cultists
Wealth: 3 WP
Injuries: Heavy bruising around the neck, will lead to breathing/talking difficulties for a while (depending on exertion); some rather unpleasant damage to Kasoria's head, no fractures though
Renown: 15, for what Kasoria did to Felix and finding those records.
Magic XP: -
Skill Review: Appropriate to level.
Points: 10

- - -

Comments: This was a really exciting thread!

I find it interesting that you often add a different point of view to your threads and make your readers experience things from a NPC’s experience. I think that really adds something to the narrative!

You are quite good at writing about violence, but you probably already know that. I was quite impressed by how you described things. I also like that you allowed your PC to get injured though.

Enjoy all that loot!