(A/N): The relationship between me and Dishonoured is a... Peculiar one, that's for sure O_o
When I first got the game, I really had trouble getting into it. I wasn't enjoying the story, the gameplay felt stiff, and overall I just didn't like it. With that in mind, after my first session of playing it I decided to stop and move on to other games.
Two months later, late July, I returned to it to give it another chance... And I really enjoyed it! xD
Going around with the intention of keeping low chaos, I purposefully tried to kill as few people as possible - or knock them out. The game is far more interesting under these rules, as you can't just take guards out of the equations. I've since finished it, and despite the abruptness of the low chaos ending all in all it was a fun experience :P
Let's see how this story idea goes! This was literally a concept that came to mind whilst I was packing my bags to go somewhere one night, so expectations are low ._.
WARNING: Spelling errors, poorly written angst, non-canon events, an OC whose name was changed at the last minute when I realised that his name was already being used by a semi-important character (*Cough* Martin *Cough*), no sense of flow, nothing happening, and general tedium!
Heartfelt
He was as bright as day, even in the blackest of nights.
"Assassin, help!" a guardsman howled, frantically gesturing to his hiding spot as he announced his ills. The assassin growled with frustration, and with a restrained utterance of black magicks he vanished from sight. The guard of the City Watch blinked with confusion, yet such tricks wouldn't throw him off. As fellow soldiers turned their heads with concern, he drew his blade. "To arms, brothers!"
"What's the matter?" an officer yelled, a look of contempt filling his visage. The youthful sergeant clearly wanted a peaceful night watch, and wasn't too keen on a wild goose chase. "You see him, Keith?" he asked, fumbling for his chest to draw his flintlock.
Keith glanced at the rising walls of the numerous terraces that littered the Boulevard, cocking his pistol and presenting his arms. A puff of smoke burst into life, a masked face mimicking a grinning skull scampering across a balcony railing and diving for another foothold. "There!" he fired, causing a vase by the assassin's feet to shatter into a thousand fragments. The target teetered for balance, yet quickly regained his footing. He kept running, unfretted.
Just who was he?
What was he?
The stench of sulphur filled the dank air as Keith hastily began to reload. "God damn." his sergeant muttered, aiming his own weapon to take a pot shot. Before he could test his marksmanship on a live target, the same familiar smoke burst around the runner once again as his lips uttered a silent incantation - he'd vanished without a trace. "... Fan out, I want this bastard brought down!"
"I think he's making his way for Clavering, sir." Keith theorised, tossing a spare round to his commanding officer. The sergeant caught it with ease, tending to his empty weapon. They'd been on patrols together for months now: There was a degree of trust and camaraderie between them. "That's where I'd go; lots of hiding spots. We should focus there."
He nodded, gesturing to the Watch of his squadron to circle around him. "Right, let's get to it." he pointed to some rookies to stick to their patrols, just in case this infiltrator hadn't left. After a moment he enthusiastically began a half-jog towards Clavering, not even needing to call Keith - he knew the veteran soldier would follow him to the bitter end regardless. "Trebor, Kyle; you two as well. We'll need all the guns we can muster. Double time, move!"
Within moments several uniformed lines poured out from the terrace, like navy-blue rivers flowing through the city's sewage runways. The sergeant kept his weapon on hand, clutching onto it tightly for comfort and security as he exited through a wall of light - he was just a noble, barely tickling his twenties; he'd learnt everything about the job from Keith.
The veteran tugged at his blade hilt, checking the gleam of his shining weapon. "Eyes on the skies, boys." Keith advised, shielding his gaze from the impeding rain - that'd be a blessing and a curse in the near future, he felt. "Looks like that prowler likes to stick to the rooftops."
A gunshot sent his spine shooting out of his arse, fog oozing from the barrel of Trebor's weapon. "Visual!" he called, prompting his companions to follow his stare and take aim. The assassin flinched from an overhang, vanishing into smoke once more. For a fraction of a second he was mere metres away from them, before he sprinted with inhuman agility for cover. "He's just off the Boulevard, he's got nowhere else to run!"
Instantly it was as if a relay race had begun, as the four city watchmen launched theirselves full-pelt down the road. The ground was slippery, and Keith struggled to keep his footing as he barreled down the dirtied, cobbled streets. "Surround him!" the sergeant commanded, taking aim and firing another shot in the name of the Reagent. The runner fell to a roll, dodging the stampeding bullet yet slowing to a halt. "Get behind him, Keith!"
Trebor on his tail, Keith skidded in the rain and cut the assassin off. The criminal rose to a kneel, scanning the threats that surrounded him. Kyle grinned smugly, tilting his oversized militia helmet and twirling his blade impressively as he paced. "Where d'ya think you're going, hagfish?" he snickered, the confidence in his voice far too forced for comfort. Soon enough the four men had formed the corners of a square around the masked stranger, the flyover leading to Clavering above shielding them from the raging deluge.
His mask's visage was cruel and threatening, as he rose to his feet and glared at the veteran. Keith offered a placating hand, keeping his blade sheathed - always the diplomat. "Easy there." he advanced a singular step, provoking no reaction from the prowler. His weapon sat in his hand, a peculiar mark glowing upon his torn and muddied knuckles. "Drop the sword and come cleanly." Keith advised calmly, sounding like a weary father negotiating with his unruly children. The sergeant glanced at him in confusion, yet remained stationary - the corporal was far more experienced than him, and it only made sense to give the runner a chance to get out of this unbloodied. "We can talk about this."
Keith wondered why the silent man suddenly turned his head, yet quickly spotted Kyle through the pouring rain charging right at him; a bloody-curdling cry let loose from his chapped lips. The sergeant gritted his teeth in rage, rising his weapon and pointing it towards the mutinous soldier, "Kyle, hold up!" he spat.
But he was too late.
Kyle swung at the assassin heavily, throwing his weight into the clumsy movement. With the blink of an eye the ethereal mist exploded into existence once more, the surrounded man dodging the falling weapon all together. Kyle stumbled in confusion, slipping on the damp cobble and falling face-first to the floor. The commanding officer quickly changed his targets, marked it, and took the shot.
He dodged it.
Flipping forward the runner completely ignored the path of the bullet, turning to the veteran and staring at him with hostility concealed by his mask. Another burst of dust, and suddenly he was mere feet away - his pale blue eyes like daggers in their keenness. "Keith!" Trebor gasped with concern, desperately trying to tug his rusted sword from his sheath.
Not quite quick enough.
Keith felt a heavy weight pushing against him, the spreading warmth of blood like a strong wine staining his uniform. Shaken by these feelings, his eyes spun downwards with childlike curiosity - he was surprised, that's for certain. "... Why...?"
The assassin was impaled on his blade, the long shaft of metal piercing through his stomach and peeking out from his back like a rat emerging from a corpse pile. He stared at him blankly, the drained sapphires of his mask's eyepieces almost appearing innocent in the way they twinkled within the wavy film of rain drops. His weight grew heavier, and Keith began to stumble back. Letting him go autonomously, the criminal crumpled to the floor on his front, the veteran's blade still dangling from his wound.
His sergeant looked shocked to say the least, quietly walking past his injured subordinate to observe the felled man. "... Is he dead?" he asked. Keith awkwardly crouched by the body's side, feeling for a pulse - he nodded his head a moment later. The sergeant exhaled regretfully, folding his ceremonially cuffed arms and raising his voice above the roaring rain and wind. "... At least it's over now, corporal."
Veteran or not, he just didn't get it. "He did it on purpose." he noted, heaving the body over onto its back. The mask has been cracked by the impact, the assassin's clothing drenched in mud and dirt. With a sick crunch he tugged the claret-stained blade from the corpse's stomach. "He could've... Why?"
A shrug of the shoulders came from the sergeant. "Sensitive information?" the young officer suggested, prompting Keith to echo his uncertain signal. "Maybe he knew he couldn't beat us, and didn't want to be captured? Hell, knowing what they'd do to you up at the Overseer's, I'd probably do just the same."
Mere theories, and nothing more.
Trebor grudgingly heaved his fallen brother to his feet, ignoring his grumbles and growls as he rubbed his reddened nose. "Kyle's bleeding sir," he called out, grabbing the sergeant's attention yet not tearing his gaze from the assassin killer before him. "Orders?"
He snickered dryly, "Bah, the choffer's own fault." he sheathed his blade, at last turning from the veteran for the briefest of moments. "Get him back to the barracks Trebor, I'll have a word with him later." he glared at the insubordinate soldier, who bowed his head with regret. Nodding in confirmation, the two soldiers gradually limped away through the polluted Clavering streets for home. The sergeant turned back - his friend hadn't moved an inch. "... Keith?"
Keith glared at the assassin's corpse, the image of the man vanishing from place to place at the blink of an eye burnt into his retinas. He pressed a hand against his still chest, a collection of bone-charms that littered his front feeling stiff against his finger-tips; no doubt the magick's source.
The fellow had met his demise.
Yet thump, thump, thump.
A rocketing, racing heart-beat.
The veteran froze with confusion, the throbs of the heart growing quicker and deadlier. Dubiously he slipped his palm under the man's coat, brushing his fingers against the source of these pulsations - it was dry, crusted, and metallic. He clenched it tightly, and the rhythm almost seemed to calm."... I'll deal with the body sergeant."
He was concerned to say the least; death may've been a common thing in Dunwall nowadays - what with the plague and all - but he knew it did things to men. His elder brother had experienced enough death in war to quit the job, and it was the only reason his father forced him to become an officer in the first place. The sergeant scratched his chin in contemplation, feeling a tad bit awkward. "I've got some uhh... Papers..." he settled on, back stepping from the veteran. "Take a day on leave Keith. See you tomorrow."
The experienced guardsman didn't speak his response - it simply escaped his throat. "Yeah."
Echoing steps chimed off the imprisoning walls of the Boulevard, punctuating the officer's departure from the bloody scene. Keith, confident that he was truly alone, tugged on the beating item and removed it from the assassin's ragged, stinking clothes. To be honest, he didn't expect what he procured.
A human heart, aged and augmented with rusted clockwork.
Keith held it dubiously, the organ slowly calming as he drew it away from the carcass before him. He'd heard stories of trinkets, odds and ends, and more being found across the isles, yet never truly encountered any of these mythical wonders. What sat in his palm was the sort of thing that would grace a fantasy story - that, or a painting from the great Sokolov himself.
It was a strange sensation, yet bearing the heart filled him with a feeling of realisation and awareness. The deluge thickened and drenched his greasy scalp, yet curiosity and wonder was all that it took to tear him from such realities. Autonomously his fist squeezed, gently prompting the heart to thump.
"Corvo Attano is a perfect example of actions speaking louder than words."
To be brutally honest, he should've panicked then. He should've gasped in shock and fear, discarded the peculiar curio and left the corpse for the dead counters. Yet he didn't fear, nor did he waver - even if he'd just heard a disembodied voice whispering into his ear like the reagent's right hand man by his shoulder at the throne.
He recognised the name it had uttered - "Corvo Attano"; it rang a bell, albeit a cracked and dusty one neglected by his mind's eye. No doubt Corvo was that fellow accused of killing the Empress that bitter day ages ago, but what was he to know? He was just a commoner after all. In Keith's eyes there was little point in even caring about the politics of Dunwall, because regardless of his views he'd never be able to change anything.
Even if just now, inadvertently, he'd plunged the world three feet deeper into a pool of its own blood.
Face first.
It had to be the heart speaking - articulating, communicating, whatever word fit your fancy. Many a legend of witches and hags littered the streets of Gristol, and while he wasn't the sort to believe in the phony stories of Granny Rags and her cauldron, that didn't mean he was entirely ignorant of such magicks. Sometimes it was difficult to draw a line between mysticism and technology in such a dark age; and with that in mind, the heart he bore in his damp hand could've been either.
It was shocking to consider - and terrifying to set the pieces together - but if the trinket was truthful, that meant he'd just dispatched Dunwall's most wanted. Dear Corvo made Slackjaw's operation look like a boy scout's movement, providing the stories of his exploits from Serkonos were to be believed. Keith bit his lip in thought, crooning over his motionless body and moving the heart closer to his whale-bone ornaments; a generic grunt plucked from the plague-infested streets such as himself could never kill a Lord Protector.
Could he?
The veteran could hear a distinct whistle and whine in the air; it deafened and drowned out the usual noise of bustle and announcements that filled Clavering Boulevard and a thousand other streets in similar conditions. Robberies of families, rapes in progress, murderers vacating homes, the forty-second reminder that loitering was a punishable offence; all of that was dampened by this peculiar tone. The heart rumbled in his palm, a set of gears within it clicking in articulation.
"Of common stock, Corvo was once an unassuming child - another runt in the litter."
Like that was new. If he had a tuppence for every murderer with such a background, he'd certainly have a fortune in his hands. Hell if he remembered, but part of him recalled that being quite a big deal when the Lord Protector earned his spurs. A peasant boy from overseas becoming the bodyguard of an Empress? Well, it wasn't his place to talk, but maybe that had something to do with her untimely demise. Nobles were always eager to remind others of "family purity" and "strength in blood" - it was just another excuse for why rich blokes liked to shag their mothers in Keith's eyes. The veteran flicked one of Corvo's triad of bone charms, the trinket ringing like an alien instrument for a mere moment.
He'd never been to Serkonos himself. He'd never really left Gristol to be honest, save for that one time he'd signed up for a cargo ship running from Tyvia - somebody had to get the whale oil through, and it certainly paid well enough to fill the boredom of his teens. Had Corvo sailed from Serkonos for the same reasons? Looking at the man now, motionless and festering, Keith couldn't help but wonder: Just how different was life across the empire?
He doubted there'd be much to say in the end.
Everywhere, anywhen, had its castes. 'twas a bitter truth, all the more acceptable in times of plague.
Corvo could've been like him: A working-class son who scurried the rooftops for release from the tedium of life. He could've been a bent-nosed noble son, who out of wanderlust pursued bigger deeds far from the lap of luxury. He could've been worse off than him; digging through dirt to find jewels within filth.
But that would be farfetched, for sure.
For what reason would an Empress go to such lengths?
Why pledge your life to a rat among rats?
The rain let up - at last - leaving behind that heavy, stagnant stench of soaked mud and cloth. Keith rose to his feet on shaking knees, droplets surfing through his hairline and hovering by the tip of his nose as if spying the surrounding streets for a place to call home. Corvo was still dead - that wasn't going to change any time soon. The veteran gave the thumping heart another squeeze, covering the monotone of another City Watch announcement with its prattle.
"This man could've killed you on multiple occasions. He refrained from the urge, and its convenience."
That made Keith snicker; a snarling snicker; the sort you'd get from a threatened man ignorant to the logic of fear. A man that could flash from location to location, bearing a mask honed like a skull, armed to the teeth with gadgets and gizmos, could've easily been watching him for days. He'd likely been sneaking around the whole of the Boulevard, trying to find a good way to slip through the net and cause some trouble.
It was probably he who murdered the High Overseer.
And the Pendleton brothers.
Not that he'd miss them, no sir: the filthy, inbred, kiddy-fiddling slimeballs.
So if he was such a godly, awe-inspiring, brutal bad-arse as the papers often made him out to be, why didn't he do it? Why didn't he just slice and dice his way through the guards like a gardener cutting and gutting the grass? He could've made jellied eels of Keith's unit within moments, that's for sure.
There was only one logical explanation.
"He didn't want this. He didn't want any of this."
The heart spoke without Keith's consent that time, as if responding to his thoughts before he'd even finished mulling them over. Corvo Attano didn't kill a single man today - even though he could have done so with nothing more than a motion - because he didn't want to cause any more bloodshed. He didn't want to stand over any more piles of corpses, like towers set alight upon the funeral pyre.
Then who put him up to this? Whose sad excuse for humour involved sending a man fed up with killing onto the slaying fields once more? Was there a purpose to what they did, or did they do it for the sheer amusement of cracking a man further?
To think such a foolish blunder was behind his demise.
Corvo Attano, killed by his desire to stop killing.
The voice was right: He didn't want any of this, did he?
How naive to believe, let alone conceive.
"What have they done to me... What did you do to him?"
A disembodied voice can convey all the emotion in the world with a mere raised tone, and rest assured the heart sounded sickened. Keith flexed his stiff jaw, autonomously stepping back from the frozen body that lay by his feet. He hadn't done the deed on purpose, gods be damned - he didn't want him to die, regardless of his standing. Corvo had thrown himself upon his blade, and with that condemned himself to the dead counters.
So why in the name of the reagent did he feel so guilty, when it was the Lord Protector's own damned fault?
It wasn't murder.
It was suicide.
"When last we spoke, he was calm. He was always calm."
Something told him that this was the plan. What had happened today - being caught by the Watch, fleeing to a spot where he could be cornered, lunging straight for the tip of a sword with eagerness in his mind - was all planned.
The assassin had to be connected to another group - rebels perhaps, issuing commands; who to kill, why to kill, when to kill. He was a speechless man, so would anyone ask for his view? In his own personal opinion, separate from his benefactors, did he believe it was right to exact revenge?
Did he think revenge would solve everything?
"He was motivated by love. Aren't we all?"
Emily Kaldwin. That was his motivation, wasn't it? The Empress apparent, plucked from hiding and smuggled to a location unknown. Keith had gone for a drink with a member of the guard detail some years ago who often oversaw Corvo and the young girl, like a father and a daughter with goofy smiles plastered upon their lips - brighter times, worthy of shining grins. The girl always looked up to him - figuratively, and literally.
He didn't want the girl to see a bloodied, dirtied opportunist in him. With her future ahead, Corvo Attano dreamed for the blooming lady to bear a moral compass of benevolence and acceptance, and ignorance to the rank and status of a man. If the guillotine rose, it would never drop again; be it to the neck of a noble or a cock-fighting scoundrel.
Because life, in itself, was sacred.
Wasn't it?
Well, in those glory days at least.
"He was glad. You, Keith, cured him of all his ills. He thanks you."
Keith flinched at the ethereal voice, its ghostly chime bearing a sharper chill than the winter air that surrounded him. Inadvertently, beyond his intentions, he had granted the deceased man before him peace. It was unsettling to believe, yet so much of his agony, pain and fear had been cured by the zip and pierce of a forged, carved point of metal. Keith wasn't a father - blessed that be - yet he could see wisdom within the thick veil of the Lord Protector's desperation.
He wasn't a man that had given in.
He was a man who had dedicated himself to the greater good.
Sometimes he wished he had a gift of foresight - so he could see the result; the consequences and side-effects of such an action. Brash as it seemed, he hoped that the man had done what was right. Who knew what the horizon had to bring, in times so uncertain?
Did hope ever disappoint?
For once, he had no answer.
"Corvo Attano."
The heart murmured lowly, as always speaking as if to a spirit hovering within the echoing alleyways of Clavering Boulevard. Keith gently slipped the peculiar trinket within the corpse's pocket, leaving the odd curios to waste away alongside its old master with great urgency in his step. He could still hear the bitter contempt of its voice as he took his leave, the body but another for the overflowing gutters.
"This is not the world's end. But we can see it from here."
X
(A/N): Have to admit - another circumstance of having a decent concept, yet not knowing how to lay it out!
Funnily enough I actually started writing this when I had only just started the game, and finished it weeks after finishing it xD
Oh well, hopefully some weird person enjoyed this. I'm nervously awaiting the results for my first year in A-Level, so if I disappear you'll probably be able to make the connections :P