When things go from bad to worse ---&RPaward

...for in character discussions, contributions and Wheel of Time themed stories.
Kordin
Posts: 712
Joined: Wed Feb 18, 2015 5:17 pm

When things go from bad to worse ---&RPaward

Post by Kordin » Sun Jan 16, 2022 4:33 pm

Continuing from this - viewtopic.php?f=79&t=12809
Shelves of the shop are covered with a variety of jewelry and similar precious items. Some commonplace and others of a little more exotic variety, now that half of the city was under the heavy thumb of the Seanchan Empire. Necklaces bracelets, rings and earrings in various shapes and sizes placed on velvet cloth and locked in polished wooden cases with glass tops. Silver and gold, a bit of cuendillar for the wealthy, and a selection of copper and brass for the less fortunate.

A man wandered the shop, smiling and fondly touching the cases, his clothes bright but his visage scarred. He chuckles to himself, running a hand across his thin scars covering his face. Turning towards Kordin he frowns for a moment, but then shakes his head, clearing his expression.

'Would there be anything else Master Illuminator?'

Kordin pinched the bridge of his nose in apparent irritation. ‘How can it be that none of you jewelers are buying these smaller gems?!'

The jeweler fought another frown appearing on his face, resulting in a twitch and apparently forced smile. ‘As I’ve explained, we are not gemologists nor do we craft...’

The conversation was cut as Teben, an avid young Illuminator, burst into the shop. ‘Master Kordin! Another caravan going out from the Chapter House towards Amador was attacked and robbed!’

Glass broke as Kordin threw a pouch full of small gems into the case in front of him and began storming out of the shop. ‘Follow me Teben....now!’

The duo escorted out with a barrage of curses from the shopkeeper until he saw the gems left behind.

*****


The Civil Watch commander's gaze flicked over to Kordin briefly before returning to the new recruits gathered in front of her.

'If this is about patrols, they're already stretched to their limit, the veterans are at the barricades towards the occupied peninsula, and what rest I can spare are at the King’s Palace and the Panarch. Between the refugees, the occupation and the rest of the mess, I simply do not have any guards to spare.'

After a pause she looked at Kordin again. 'Was I not clear? Is there something else?!'


*****


Two buildings lean towards each other, making the alley even more confining that it already was. Shards of wood cover the ground in the alley, fallen from the rotten wooden walls that enclosed it. A heavy smell of mud and waste lingered.

Kordin wiped the blood from his throwing knife as Teben shakily held his staff, blood also dripping from both its ends over the avid Illuminators hands and the ground. Corpse of a burly man, dressed in sturdy but now beaten armor lay in front of Kordin. Still wearing the same look of smug disregard, only now with a wound from the knife, on his forehead.

‘M-m-master K-Kor...’ Teben stuttered.

‘Did not ask you to speak.’ Kordin snapped as he finished wiping the knife with a piece of cloth torn from the burly bandits shirt. ‘We move on...’

‘But that is the Seanchan side!’ Teben yelped.

‘For all I care it can be the Dark One’s own arse....Move!’


*****

Filth and muck covered most of the street, and not much difference to the north and east as it bends between the houses. Tanchico’s Calpene peninsula may be occupied by the Seanchan Empire, but it this part was still looking and smelling like typical Tanchico. No sign of any soldiers, no sign of a decent citizen. No sign of anyone now. Perhaps there was one difference now, laying in front of the two Illuminators, filling the street with the smell of burnt flesh. The dark-haired bandit’s corpse smoking, with few parts of his olive skin only dirty.

‘Master Kordin please...this is not what nightflowers were intended for! Mistress Aludra....’ Again, Teben pleaded, only infuriating Kordin even more.

He dropped the extinguished simple firework and got up close to the young avid Teben. ‘Do you think Aludra has no blood on her hands?! Do you think the Guild has kept its secrets, its artifice, safe for so long with peace alone?! Perhaps I should’ve asked them if they’d care for a show?! A bit of demonstration of the work we do, hmmm?! Mayhap they would finally stop robbing from the Guild? Hurting, maiming and killing our own?!’

The young Illuminator winced and stepped back, visibly shaking. If he could, he would’ve become smaller than a tiny chunk of sulphur.

‘There is one more lesson. Walk.’ Kordin said coldly. ‘These two gave us the location.’

*****


A thick wall of bushes borders this part of the road to Almoth, just outside the city. A few members of the Panarch's Legion passed them by, not even nodding towards the duo of Illuminators. An old drunkard was trying to stand up, incoherently talking about some tavern nearby, unknown to his nagging wife.

They walked for a while longer, Kordin scanning the bushes to the west until finally stopping.

‘This looks like it.’ He said and moved a few, thick, bush branches aside with one hand, and some creepers with his staff in the other. He would barely see a small clearing and what appeared to be a building.

The house appears to be abandoned. Thick layers of dust covered the inside, and vine creepers the outside. Window frames were somewhat intact, but glass was broken. Some driftwood covered one side of the floor, looking fairly out of place in this house, high on the cliffs, behind thick bushes, so far from the shore. Kordin kicked the driftwood aside, revealing a hatch in the floor. He took a tarnished copper key from his pouch. Some blood still on it, almost dry by now. He unlocked the hatch and opened it, revealing stairs that led down into some kind of basement.

*****

As they descended the stairs into a basement looking even older and dustier than the miserable hovel above it, they saw the man Kordin was looking for, Jaq Arenhald, flanked by two of his bandits on either side at a makeshift desk made out of two barrels and what seemed like was the door to this room.

Rough facial features partially obscured by a sheer veil that hangs underneath a dark, cylindrical cap. Ends of his thick, dark moustache appear to be chewed on with some regularity. 'Well now, a new face! Welcome to my humble abode, and place of business...'

'And you best be here to do some business, otherwise you’re certainly not leaving this basement.' He finishes, glancing at the nearby bandit guard who simply grunts, others smirking.

'A lot of armed men here...you must be quite the popular fellow...' Kordin said bluntly, not hiding the sarcastic tone of voice.

Jaq raises a brow. 'Oh, how perceptive of you.... Master Illuminator! Yes, my business attracts some less pleasant types, and the clientele does get a bit pushy.' He paused to grin, revealing teeth not even a mad hermit would appreciate. 'Sometimes, someone even turns out to be placing their bloody nose into things they shouldn’t, and well...bloody noses ensue at the very least...lessons have to be taught, after all.' He calps his hands together. 'Now, it’s simple. What’ll it be?'

'I would’ve swallowed as a sign of fear, but I seem to have ran out of spit.' Kordin replied bluntly.

Jaq smirked. 'Baz, Glorn, will you, for his own good, disarm the good Master Illuminator?'

Two guards made moves towards Kordin, who lit a small flame in his palm with a snap of his fingers. The small contraption in his gloves still held some accelerant. He produced a small firework with a short fuse from his coat. The bandit duo stopped dead in their tracks, and exchanged worried looks between them.

'I don’t know you Jaq, but I know people like you. Desperate, begging to be a part of something. Begging to feel big and important. Willing to cross all sorts of lines to get that. Here is the catch…outside of these walls, nobody gives a dung about you. You kept coming after the Guild. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times and it is enemy action....'

Jaq scowled. 'What are you insinuating Illuminator?'

'Oh, I’m sorry if I insinuated that, I meant to be very clear.' Kordin took one step forward and everyone in the room flinched. Even Teben but for once he kept his mouth shut.

'I hear, see, feel, smell, or even bloody flaming imagine that you came close to the Chapter House here again, or anyone from it...I will hunt you down to the next shithole of a house you hide in, with your family…and when I get there, I will arrive violently. I will bring all the hells and more with me.' Kordin growled, slowly bringing the fuse of the firework towards the open flame on his palm. 'But you will not feel it, you will not face it…you will watch. You will stand by and just watch as everything you build is being torn down piece by piece, as everyone you ever cared for is pulled apart limb by limb. And when all that is done and over, I will watch as you slowly rot and devour yourself from the inside out, helpless, pathetic, on your knees.'

Just as he finished his overly dramatic, threatening monologue, the flame burnt out. There was no more accelerant in his glove's contraption. Most was spent during his last demonstration of the Guild’s artifice.

'Dogshit...' he muttered, and thew the fireworks towards the group of bandits, raising his staff and charging them.

The closest bandit fell quickly, smacked right on the head with one end of the sungwood staff, falling back on one of the other bandit guards. Jaq cursed and scrambled to stand up and grab a flail resting on the back wall.

As Kordin prepared to parry an attack from both of the bandits, he heard Teben make a noise from, as if being gaged. Before he could complete his parry move, something hit him on the back of his head, knocking him unconscious....

Siro
Posts: 501
Joined: Tue Jan 29, 2019 3:38 pm

Re: When things go from bad to worse

Post by Siro » Mon Jan 17, 2022 1:42 am

Awarded 6 Qps.

Kordin
Posts: 712
Joined: Wed Feb 18, 2015 5:17 pm

Re: When things go from bad to worse

Post by Kordin » Sat Feb 05, 2022 8:48 am

Ely edit 19 February 2022:

1-6 qps, depending on length and quality.

Potential +1 qp: if part of a series: x

Total: 3 qps

*****************************************
Cold, stone walls surrounded him. Braziers held the torches with flames that never seemed to cease dancing wildly to the tune of the blaze. Shadows moved, not as if fighting the light but teasing it, moving to one place then quickly shifting when the torches cast their light on it. Various shapes appeared in the shadows; cackling, grinning faces.

At first he thought it was just his mind, his imagination, but the laughter, cackles, smirks and snickers that followed the shifting of shadows, they were real. He walked, not running like the last time, yet barely restraining himself from doing so.

This is all just a seed of my imagination, he kept telling himself. But was it really? The more he wandered through this labyrinth, the more he doubted himself.

A small breeze blew in the courtyard. The green garden was surrounded by a square column of archways. Various floras grew in the garden, although he could not recognize any of them. A stone bench sat in each of the four corners, something was carved on each of them. Some kind of a text, but he couldn’t make out exactly what.

A faint odor of sulphur in the air made his nose twitch and body growl violently. His mind projected images - fresh graves, flames everywhere, soot stained bodies, burnt so badly they're barely recognizable.

Sweat ran down his forehead and neck. Cold sweat. Weakness and dizziness made his knees tremble and bend. He tried to focus on one thought and push all others away. His body trembled. His mind trembled.

Suddenly calmness took over his mind. The images were gone. Sweat was still running down his trembling body and weariness overwhelmed him. He barely kept himself from falling flat on the grass and flowers.

A well-tanned, muscular man stood before him. He wore a featureless, metallic mask, which seemed to be reflecting everything around it, bending it slightly in a blurry motion. Although tall and broad-shouldered, he stood as a sleek lissome figure, his hands in gauntlets, clasped together in front of him as if in prayer.

There was a faint odor in the air again. His eyelids closed and he tried to control his thoughts. Emptiness. There were no flames, no bodies. There were no flames. He opened his eyes as a strong emotion overwhelmed him.

She smiled at him. Tousled locks escaped a simple hairpin, framing the face of this small woman. Her shining, blue eyes gazed at him, face ready with a smile that’s warm and inviting, a sharp contrast to her ageless features. He wanted to say something, do something. Tears gathered in her eyes as she threw her arms around him before he could have done anything. Her skin was so soft. She wept on his shoulder. He could feel her tears running down her face.

The odor was stronger now. He shivered and she shivered with him. The man with the featureless mask stood beside them. He unwrapped her arms, gently moving her away from him. She was bleeding. Tears mixed with the blood which ran down her face. Her eyes were wide with horror. He stepped towards her, expecting the featureless man to move, but he didn’t. As he placed her hands in his, a cry of pain left her.

She took a few steps back, away from him, staring at him wide-eyed and crying. He wanted to hold her, needed to hold her, to comfort her, but as soon as he reached out his hand, she cried out in pain again. Blood covered her face. Lines of it ran down her face and body, bathing her clothes in red.

Nothing made sense. He looked at the masked man, not knowing why he did. His reflection was blurry and bending in the steel mask.

The smell of the garden suddenly cleared his nostrils of the odor. Memories of the past few moments were all blurry in his mind. He was dimly aware of what had just occurred, but he knew there was a great deal of pain, even though he felt none.

Intangible sounds echoed through his mind, becoming louder and louder, turning into a scream and from a scream into a violent cry of pain. Colors appeared before his eyes, small dots of various colors. The dots blurred into a vortex engulfed by black smoke which eventually covered his eyes. A dull pain caught his chest, leaving him breathless. Staggering for air he realized he was lying on his back, trying to find the strength to rise. Each time he fell down, and each time the fall took out what was left of the air in his lungs.

Then, he felt like he was falling, and it was dark.

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