• Mature • II. The Pig in Muck (Graded)

[Kasoria]

6th trial, Vhalar, 720
Commercial Circle, Etzos Prime
Night

Continued from here


He knew it didn't have to be loud and nasty. He could have gone the other way with it. He had the skills, the knowledge... the tools, both in steel and poison and the magic he could conjure. Given where he knew he'd be, he'd have plenty of vantage points and cozy little alcoves to work from. He thought that a fair few of them would be dead before the others even knew.

If he went quiet. Careful. Working from the shadows. Which would have certainly been his way, of course.

But that wasn't what this night called for. Not for Nick the Pig and the hired scum he surrounded himself with, nor the rodents he met with. If he was honest, he wanted a chance to... cut loose, as it were. Stretch muscles that were only truly taxed in the wild frenzy or bloody precision (pick your preference) of open combat. He would admit, it had been a while, and some small, dark part of him enjoyed the butchery of his enemies.

But it was more than that. More than bloodlust or boredom.

The message must be sent. The warning must be delivered. The price must be made clear to all.

Too long have they acted without consequence. No longer.

Kasoria smiled thinly at his own melodrama. Oh, but what a sentimental fool he was becoming, since throwing his lot in with a "cause". A clutch, a brace, even a score of bodies would mean little, in the long run. Sintra had wielded a nation as her weapon an arc before, and likely many times in the past. What would she care for the death of any number of her scum, save for those useful few? Kasoria knew some of those names... but that was not who the message was for. An Immortal had little to fear from a man. But the mortals that followed her? Who were so sure of their righteousness and her protection?

They won't be quite so sure after tonight.

The Raggedy Man retrieved his last arrow. From the throat of the last sentry. There'd ben two of them, on the roof of the warehouse. There were men in the street, too. and the alley behind. But Kasoria was not worried about them. Once he set things in motion how he'd planned, they'd not matter. But the two men on the roof... they had to go.

Kasoria slid the arrows back into the quiver on his back, then set it down next to the shortbow. It had traveled a long way with him: from the dead dirt and monstrous infestations of Rharne, to the metropolis of Etzos. He still practiced with it, just like Mathias and that redhead had so often advised. It had paid off when he'd come up there, opposite Nick's warehouse, and waited in the long shadows for the sentries to reveal themselves. Once he knew they were there, he kept watching so he knew how many.

Two. Good.

The first was the easiest. Utterly unsuspecting. An arrow through the throat, barely fifty feet. Kasoria waited until he was as far away from the other man as possible, then shot him when the man paused to look over the city. A blackened carpet or a riot of gold and orange, depending on where you stood and lived and strove and governed. He was sure the man smiled, right before he killed him. Appreciating the view, perhaps? The sight of so beautiful a home.

Then why betray it?

The second heard the first slump. That was not so easy. He turned quickly, eyes sharp and sword half out its sheath. He peered in the gloom, searching for his friend... saw him... twitching and choking and bleeding out and in that shock of a moment, that beat of horror that saw him freeze-

Mistake.

-Kasoria put an arrow into him, too. A little too high, though. It rocketed into his cheek, breaking teeth as it lodged in his mouth. He tried to scream but only flapping groans and blood came out, and as he half-turned Kasoria was already nocking a fresh arrow, motions so smooth and efficient they were one ccle of his arm-

-that ended with an arrow in the sentry's head. Through the eye, in fact. Close enough to hear the arrowhead punch out the back of the man's skull, Kasoria lowered his bow and surveyed his work. Then he started moving across the roofs, carefully sticking to the shadows and roofs and eaves and chimneys. Until he dropped down onto the warehouse roof, casting black eyes over the massive expanse of tiles. There was a ladder going down a trapdoor off to one side, and a vast glass window built into the middle. He wondered how much that had cost. It helped for lighting, he assumed, but that's what candles were for. He didn't even know if it could open. So it was mostly... decorative, he guessed?

Wasteful. Pointless. But...

Kasoria peered over the lip of it, and down into the open space at the middle of the warehouse. Surrounded by ranks and walls of boxes and shelves and crates and jugs and jars and all other artifices and receptacles of commerce and transaction, a score or so of men stood around in loose, loyal groups. Most were silent, watchful, and armed. The talking minority were also probably armed, but better dressed, and far more at ease.

One of them was far larger than normal, too.

Hello again, Nick.

[Kasoria]

He'd been a fool for so long. Denying the truth. Ignoring the reality of the world. Clinging on to ancient hates and pointless fears. His voice would have been counted among the rabble, arcs ago. Decrying and denouncing, using practically the same words as his father and his father. Because what else was there for an Etzori to say? How else was one meant to act?

Like someone with more than half a fucking brain, maybe?

Nick the Pig smiled, multiple chins stretching and wobbling. The beard didn't do much to hide them. So gross were his layers of fat and flab that smiling just pushed them around, squeezed them out from the collar of his shirt of even the back of his neck. Teeth that were yellow with gold and grime with equal measure glinted in the warehouse. He spread his arms, looking as much like a preacher at an altar as a merchant before his wares... and damned, but didn't that comparison make his eyes twinkle.

These days, what's the difference?

"Glad to see you saw sense, brothers. No point languishing on the losing side of history, is there?"

The men opposite him would never be his friends. Barely even comrades in commerce. No matter: he had no great love for them either, least of all the rangy mutt who was his physical opposite. One-eyed and lean-faced, Ratosk was an old-schooler who had long outlived his petty reign. He ruled through fear and force alone, none of the subtlety or manipulation or common gain of men like Noth and Vorund. But he held to old ways, and took care of his men, if no-one else. An obvious criminal, a blunt instrument... but ask anyone crushed by a hammer, how harmless a blunt instrument is.

"I can see which way the wind's blowin', that's fer true," the older man growled at him, determined to remain somewhat defiant even as he came to pledge himself. What was left of his crew was ranged behind him, armed with everything from swords and crossbows to short spears and warhammers. Quite the show of force... if it wasn't for the fact everyone knw why they were all here. "F'dat means we have t'side wiv' the spider an' the pig, dat's the cost."

Ah... wouldn't that have raised a stink, a few arcs ago? Bringing up the name he hated so much. Reminding him that for all his success, all his acumen, he was still nothing but a joke to the gnarled over veterans of the underworld like Ratosk. No matter he'd survived the siege. No matter he'd filled the gap in power that Vorund's death and the plagues and the siege had left, and kept things running where so many others had fallen to infighting or been picked off by the Blackjack. No... still just The Pig to them.

But he did not snarl or scowl. He smiled wider. Because those words could never hurt him again. Not with Her backing him up. Not with her legions of monsters both on two legs and eight, working pudgy hand in disgusting claw. Nicolas Brodir, that was the name above the main entrance. A man of wealth and quality. Fossils like Ratosk? They were the past. Men like him made the future, working with the only side that could win.

"Aye," he said, dropping back into his original accent for a moment as he savored his victory... and pointed at the table between them. "It is. Now... make yer oath, old son. Fronta' me an' yer boys an' mine.

There was a stillness. No grumbling. No cursing. Just a shifting of stances. Weapons seemed to clink and leather and wood creaked as grips tightened on them. He'd brought more men that Ratosk, of course, and that wasn't counting the muscle he had outside on the street and on the roof. But he'd enough salty old dogs like him to make a mess... but he wouldn't. That's why Nick was still smiling. Because he could see the future, and so he knew Ratosk would-

-walk over to the table and the brazier burning next to it-

-roll up his sleeves, and feel free to take forever, you old fuck, it won't make any difference-

-then grab the poker and pull out the white-hot tip, fashioned into a crude spider with eight little legs-

-then raise it, angle it just right, and bring it closer to-

SHUNK

Hmm. So. He had not seen about half a foot of steel flying through the air and embedding into Ratosk's eye. That had not been expected.

At once the room kicked up a gear. Before Ratosk's corpse had even slumped down to the wooden floor, every man was not standing with weapons raised and bodies tense. Nick allowed his men to surge around him, in front of him, protecting him with their very bodies as he glanced around, frowning, angry more than scared... until he saw a a small figure detach itself from the shadows of a crate, and step into the light.

"You... stupid little cunt."

Kasoria stopped walking. Sweat was on his brow. He was breathing heavier than usual. Nick snorted just like his namesake. Old man was getting worn out too easily. Must have come up through the roof, if he had to guess. He had men on the ground, and he'd have heard them die if that was the case. Clever... but look at him. A couple of killings and a flight of stairs and he was ready to keel over.

"Why can't you just stay dead, little man?"

Kasoria did not speak. Words would come, but not now. He drew his gladius and then ran his gaze across a score of faces. Some knew him, and were afraid, unable to hide their fear behind their fierce expressions. Most were younger, or just braver, and glared back at him in challenge. He recognized a few of them. Just like he recognized the man he'd just killed.

Picked the wrong side, Rat.

"Ain't gonna be like last time, cunt," Nick was still plowing on, directing his men with his flabby arms, moving them around his sides. Ratosk's men were coming on the same way, eager to avenge their boss even if they didn't give a fuck about listening to Nick. Mutual enemies and all that. "And when I bring your fucking head to Her, she'll bury me in gold."

Kasoria still did not speak. He looked around, and raised one hand. As the small army of gangers, scratchers, muscle, killers and thieves looked on, it started to glow... and then it spread from his hand... and still he waited. Finally, Nick the Pig made a gesture and Kasoria glimpsed a crossbow start to rise-

-he dropped like a stone down to one knee, slamming his palm hard enough onto the floor that he felt the wood crack, drowned out by a cry of rage and hate that came with a command-

Spikes.

The ether-filled floor of the warehouse obeyed his command at once, and a moment after the bolt flew over his head, everyone in the warehouse but him started screaming.

[Kasoria]

Part of him wanted to just get right to the slaughter. Not bother with the mass hobbling of his enemies. Allow them to come at him fresh and whole and unhurt, only to be butchered as if they were anyway. It would be a wonderful lesson to teach, to those about to die and the one soul fated to survive that night. He knew he was capable. He had confidence in his abilities, his skills, the decades of experience.

But before he was most other things, Kasoria was a pragmatist. A practical and rational man. One who knew that purposefully hamstringing yourself by not deploying every advantage before a battle was the way of knights and warriors and heroes. He was none of those things. First, second, and last, he was a killer.

Spikes.

Through the sweat and the exertion of spilling his ether through the entire floor of the warehouse, Kasoria grinned. It was worth it. The floor seemed to ripple for a moment, like it was reasserting itself in the real world. Like a wave passing over a pool of water, never quite breaking the surface. It spread out from the kneeling figure in half a heartbeat, and when the last ripple hit the far wall-

-a multitude, a thicket, a forest, a dead desert of spikes as long as a man's firearm jutted up from it. Skewering feet and ankles and shins. Impaling some men well enough to keep them standing, feet immobile thanks to the finger-thick spikes through them. Some were cut or slashed or stabbed and fell over, which of course didn't help them. One, two, three men died in those first few moments, falling and screaming down to the ground, then dying quickly, painfully, as spikes crunched through throats and eyes and skulls to end their pain for good. And handful were lucky enough to escape, diving out of instinct onto crates or boxes, but Nick the Pig?

"AARGRHHHHH YOU FUCKING LITTLE CUNT!"

He was never what one would call "athletic".

Fat boy went down hard onto the table, both feet pierced and speared through. He knew even then he would never walk again; he'd be on crutches or... fuck, who was he kidding, he'd been wheeled around the rest of his life. The very thought was enough to override any fear he felt, molten rage focusing on the little bastard still kneeling on his floor. The black-eyed cunt looked around, satisfied smile flickering over his face... then snapped his hand closed on the floor.

Another ripple. Another beat of weirdness as reality adjusted... and returned. The spikes vanished back into the floor, making it smooth again, and Kasoria stood up. Wouldn't do to risk his own feet while he was cleaning up, would it? Nick the Pig growled and spat and roared his commands, voice shrill and high like a stuck hog.

"KILL HIM! KILL HIM YOU WORTHLESS BASTARDS! FIVE THOUSAND TO THE MAN WHO TAKES HIS HEAD AND GIVES IT TO ME SO I CAN TURN IT INTO A FUCKING PISS-BUCKET!"

Kasoria smiled. Probably the most original thing he'd ever heard from Nick the Pig. Then, as the hobbling, shambling, bleeding figures closed in on him, it began-

-with the first man skewered through the breast, taking a precious, foolish extra half-trill to pull back his club for a swipe, giving Kasoria an opening. The gladius impaled his heart, then ripped it in half as Kasoria twisted it back out-

-pivoting hard to his left and blocking a sword from another man-

-Shadow Slayer blinding his opponent for an instant as the blades met, more than enough time for Kasoria to-

-take his hand off just above the wrist, drawing a shrill scream that ended with his backhand swipe across his throat.

Scarlet arced through the air. Spewing over men dying and crippled and surging desperately forwards all at once. Nick swore again as a gobbet near-blinded him as he half-lay, half-leaned on the table. He watched as Kasoria's sword rose and fell, workmanlike and precise, on two men on their knees, feet naught but bloody, mangled messes. One cut each was enough; when he walked on, they were dead in his wake. But there were more. More shields of flesh, more minions, more chances for him to-

-Kasoria suddenly reached down and yanked up a begging, bleeding man, pulling him up-

-into the path of a crossbow bolt fired by a man determined enough to load, aim, and fire even with one of his feet missing all its toes. Spitting curses, the marksman starts to pull back the string as Kasoria throws his dead shield aside-

-then flicks his arm out, throwing knife slamming into the crossbowman's throat from a dozen feet away. He coughs up blood and slumps over, deluge of crimson soon becoming a waterfall pattering down onto the floor. Joining all the rest of it...

Nick swallowed, and felt the fear start to grow in him anew. Start to challenge and then eclipse the anger, the outrage. He saw Kasoria look straight at the burly bastard swinging an ax for his head, then just snap his free hand into a fist-

CRACK

-Shield stopping the blow dead and the Axman with it, leaving him open to a savage slice across the stomach that saw his cuts spill over his feet, intestines' looping around and under them, tripping him, dragging him down even as the huge man shrieked and screamed like a girl-

-until Kasoria's boot knocked out half his teeth and he threw up his gladius again, blocking another blow, spinning as he parried it, a dark and silver blur that ended with the gladius rammed hilt-deep through the swordsman's chest. He didn't try to get it back, just let go of the sword... and drew the ax from his back.

He watched. All his power forgotten. All his pride and arrogance burned to nothing in the light of this cold fury. With a snarl more beast than human, Kasoria flung out his hand and the lucky man who'd got on top of a table rose into the air. Shackles of ether bound him tight, crackling around him at odd moment, until Kasoria snapped his hand so tight that Nick could even hear it above the screaming-

-the cracking, the breaking, the gushing-

-as the air around a man's body shrank so quickly and savagely that half the bones in his body broke in midair-

-and Kasoria let the ruined, screaming man with bone shards thrusting from his skin drop wetly, messily to the ground, and now, now was when the rest of the scum started to break and run and-

"No."

Then they heard him speak. Heard his voice like stones scraping together in a crypt. As the first couple reached the doors... and found they could not touch them. Energy, power, ether, magic was in their way. Held in place by power ineffable and unknown... until Kasoria spoke again. Looking Nick dead in the eye as he spoke, as he pulled the ax from the head of the latest victim. Lamps on the walls hanging from the ceiling, and the moon itself through the roof window bathing him and all and the cleaved and ruined and doomed in silver and red and black.

"Yer all gunna die in here."

[Kasoria]

He'd planned to leave one alive. To spread the tale of terror. To babble and rave with eyes that had seen in person and lips that had tasted the the blood in the air. A half-mad and credible witness. But then it had started, and he remembered all he had seen.

He remembered returning to find his city, his home, no more free of the taint than when he left. He remembered Ruven, lost and trapped inside his own body, grateful for the release of death. He remembered leaflets and posters, proclaiming a monster's glory in Etzos, Etzos, of all places! He remembered the countless men he'd seen slaughtered in Rhakros, in the countryside, by armies of plague-worshipping monsters.

And where were you?

He raged at them as he hacked them apart. He screamed and yelled and snarled and yelped and whooped, lips curled back from his teeth so far he looked more like an enraged ape than a man. Where they fought, he cut them down. Where they begged, he butchered them. And when they ran for the door-

-he summoned his Spark again, Abrogative Shields springing up in front of the doors and keeping them untouchable to those desperate, clawing hands. They started to break utterly in that moment. A handful still fighting, grim or resigned or just insane with fear, he did not know. But when they turned on him one final time, it was with a despair he could have bottled and corked and drank for arcs to come.

This is justice.

This is what you deserve.

He roared as another man dove at him with a spear. He sidestepped the thrust, knocked it away and the wielder off-balance, then slashed open the spearman's throat with his riposte. The sound exploded out of him without words, without coherence. Just a blast of hate and rage that made the next man pause for a terrified trill-

-that killed him, as Kasoria's ax flashed out, light and swift and blinding-

-carving his chest open diagonally, making him stagger back and try to keep the gaping red maw together, pushing the flaps of skin closed again-

-until Kasoria's fist shattered his jaw and sent him into the dark, to die peacefully as his rent torso bled out. Another crossbowman raised his trembling weapon and Kasoria pulse a thought into the air. With a trill or two to spare, the Shield flashed into life and the bolt pinged off it, sounding like a metal spoon crashing into the bottom of a saucepan. The bowman hurled the weapon at the Raggedy Man in terror, making him jump swiftly out of the way, but as he came back up-

-his arm snapped out, and a throwing knife went into the man's back. The bowman gasped as he felt the pain, then the numbness, as the poison-coated blade worked its way into his blood, terrified heart making the infection all the easier. He slumped down to his knees, limbs no longer obeying him, and Kasoria ignored him. He was already dead; the poison would finish him, and until then he had-

-more butchery to finish. More bodies came after him, more and more and yet he did not tire. He would not, could not exhaust himself when so much Good Work was left to be done. Traitors and defilers all, were these men. Their faces blended together, as did the way they died. The ax rose and fell, ending lives and becoming covered in gore and chunks of flesh and hair and skin. But still, men came to die at his hands. Nowhere left to run, even as their ranks grew thin. And kind among their fetid number... was the fat bastard trying to hobble-crawl away. Falling every few moments, clinging to a pair of underlings for dear life, dragging them down whenever his massive bulk shifted.

"Sir, we have to-"

"Boss, c'mon, fuck's sake, gotta stay up-"

"Shut up the fuckin' both of yah and just get-"

"N-No, please-!"

SHUNK

The man on the left stopped begging as an ax split his head in two as if it were a log. Nick felt the vomit dribble and spurt out of him as he saw the shining red blade crunch its way through the man's skull, not stopping until brain and skull were cleaved equally. Then Kasoria kicked the man in the back and yanked backwards at the same time, ripping the weapon free-

"Fuck, just have 'im!" The last man shoved Nick towards Kasoria, who merely stepped around the falling, cursing gangster. "He's why yer-"

SHUNK-SHUNK-SHUNK

Kasoria ended him with three short, sweeping blows. One to crush his chest and bring him low. Another splitting the hole wider and severing a quavering hand that tried to resist. The third burying itself in his heart and ripping it into chunk as he withdrew it. Nick saw all of this. Just like he saw all the rest. Just like he knew the sticky, warm, wetness his hands and arse were sliding through as he tried to back away were living matter moments before. Now the cause of all this agony turned back to him, face dripping and lank with gore, and stalked closer.

"P-Please, K-Kas, I-I-I can help yeh! I-I-I know things, y'know? Y-You've always known! S-S'why y-y-y-you don't k-kill a man like me!" There was hammering at the door. His men outside trying to get in. Hope flared in Nick for a moment, then died as the shadow fell over him... and the ax rested on his shoulder. "K-K-Kas... please, I don't-"

"Y'get one chance," Kasoria said, voice impossible low and calm after the shrieking fiend he'd been moments before. "Play dumb. Play the cunt. An' yer dead. Clear?"

Nick's eyes darted around, and took in a room where no speck or surface was clean anymore. Where the floors was as hidden by corpses as it was buckets of blood. He gulped... and nodded.

"Commader Yusef. Black Guard. Where is he?"

[Kasoria]

"Right, fuck this, I'm offski."

"Wah-ey?! Y'can't jus' fuck off outta it!"

"Fuckin' well watch me!"

Hamish was set to do just that when the light from behind the door suddenly vanished. Just popped out of existence, as if with a thought. Curious despite himself, Efrid paused with one foot already in the air. The double doors trembled for a moment. There was whimpering beyond it. Hushed voices. One high and wounded and broken with weeping and pain. The other low, steady, a growl more than speech, like a wolf mangling Common.

And the stink... Fates and Gods, the smell was unbelievable. Like a thousand privies all voided at once into one room. Both men knew they should bolt, flee, just run and not look back. They knew without looking that everyone but those two voices was dead. But they couldn't help themselves. They clutched their weapons like talismans against evil, and slowly pushed the door open...

"-I know... Kas... please... s'all... I know..."

Hamish gasped at the sight. Nick the Pig. Wide Nick. Mister Brodir, as they called him. A clever and frightening man, but a decent enough boss. Wasn't much work around Etzos at the moment, not until the city's economy grew its guts back. So for now? Lookout and watchman for some a rich man with shady businesses would have to do. Always he loomed large over them, and not just physically. His cunning, his ruthlessness, his nature to strut and brag... it was overpowering them.

"Kas... I'm beggin'..."

Seeing him on his knees in front of that little nightmare was almost as shocking as the bodies and parts strewn about the place. The floor now painted red or brown or black or yellow in every corner. The little man in front of Nick held his head up by the hair with one hand, and rested the edge of an ax against his neck with the other. Black, black eyes bored down into those brown piggy ones. Ignoring the tears, seeming to seek the truth.

"Dat's all yeh know?"

"Y... Yes... I swear... dat's what I... heard..."

Kasoria let go of the man's hair. Nick's head bobbed down an inch and relief started to pool over his face like piss was doing in his breeches. Kasoria even smiled down at him, but Hamish felt the need to yell out a warning when he saw that expression. The way those black eyes glittered as they drank in Nick's pathetic, eager, desperate new hope. But as he opened his mouth-

-Kasoria's smile turned into a snarl and he slammed his hand into the back of the ax-

-shoving, forcing, pressing rather than swinging the razor edge into Nick's neck.

"I'll bet that fuckin' hurts."

A noise comes from Nick that makes Hamish retch. Not language; barely even human. Some wet and gargled noise that speaks of pain too choked with bile and blood to have a voice. He could see the little man baring his teeth at his master as he slowly died, drowning on his own blood. He didn't even give the ax another smack or pull it loose. No, he just let go. Denied Nick the quick release of his arteries emptying with the ax yanked free.

Then he turned to them.

"Shit!"

By the time the echo of the word had faded, Kasoria had them. He threw up his hand and before they'd even turned around, the air hardened around them sure and solid as chains. He tried to yell, to curse, to struggle, but all around him the air touching his skin was suddenly aglow and crackling and thick as metal. He felt his feet leave the ground and the air... moved.

That's what it felt like, anyway.

Kasoria left Nick to his spluttering, pitiful end and focused on the two boys. He walked around a floor ankle-deep in blood and reclaimed his gladius. He stood before them both. Looking from one to the other with eyes as uncaring as a wolf's. Flickering his gaze back... and forth... until-

"You."

SHUNK

The gladius flashed in his hand and Efrid died. Hamish voided his bowels and it dipped out his breeches and onto the floor. Much like blood did from his friend, as Kasoria pulled the gladius out of his throat. A twitch, a gurgle, and he was gone. Problem dealt with, Kasoria sent a mental command, half his Shackles evaporating as he "dropped" the boy.

"Only need one t'send a message-" he hissed, grabbing Hamish by the hair and yanking his gaze over towards Nick "-y'see it?"

"Y-Y-P-Pluh-"

"Look, boy."

Hamish looked. Too afraid, too awestruck, too stunned and shit-scared to do anything else. He daren't even blink, lest that tiny loss of focus would invite the monster's anger. He watched and wept as Nick died. Not for grief, but fear for himself. There were men all around that he knew, hard and vicious men they'd both joked and talked and argued with. Now they were all dead. All but him, spared for one reason.

"Youse live, even though yeh yoked yer will to a fuckin' Morty-lover, t'spread the word." The rest of the Abrogation died and Kasoria grabbed the boy by the collar. "Dis'll be the price uv' treason frum now on. One mouth t'tell what happened... an' all else die screaming. Now fuck off."

Hamish ran as if every monster of the 'Neath were after him. He stumbled over a corpse and caught himself with his hands buried in blood and guts and puked up his lunch when he realized what they were. He staggered and collapsed outside the double door, panting and heaving, and when he looked back-

The little man was gone. No sight nor glimpse. Just his last words, hanging on the air.

"Tell them the Raggedy Man said so, boy..."

Concluded here

[Doran]

Kasoria:

Knowledge:
Abrogation - Shield (Master): Casting at a Distance, to Cut Off an Escape Route
Abrogation - Shield (Master): Casting Without Words, Just a Thought
Abrogation - Shackle (Master): Crushing a Victim by Rapidly Shrinking the "Chains"
Ranged (Shortbow): An Arrow in the Throat is a (relatively) Quiet Kill
Tactics: Hobbling Your Enemies Before the Fight Even Begins (sometimes quite literally)
Transmutation - Shapecraft: Restoring the Shaped Surface

Loot: -
Lost: -
Wealth: -
Injuries: Light Overstepping: Dizziness for the next 24 breaks.
Renown: 10, for sending a message.
Magic XP: Yes, for Abrogation and Transmutation.
Skill Review: Appropriate to level.
Points: 10

- - -

Comments: The way that you write violence never ceases to impress me, but Kasoria’s motivations and his thoughts about the Immortals were just as fascinating to read. It is probably true that an Immortal has little to fear from a man, but sending her followers a message might have some sort of effect, and who would be a better messenger than the Raggedy Man?

I think I’ve already told you so a couple of times before, but I like that you frequently add a post or two from the point of view of an NPC. In my opinion, that’s quite an effectful technique. I like that you let your readers experience the other side as well.

After reading the description of Nick the Pig with his multiple chins and his layers of fat and fab, I can’t help but wonder if that’s where his name comes from. Your description of him was great!

The combat was written very well. I’m impressed by how incorporated magic into it, and how natural that felt. Abrogation and Transmutation is a truly frightening and powerful combination, and as far as I am concerned, the fact that Kasoria is not particularly tall makes him even scarier. He’s one of the few PCs I’d be afraid of fighting against!

That being said, enjoy your rewards!