So here's the real Chapter 1. I'm gonna be putting these about once a week. No guarantees that I will stick to that schedule, but I'm trying my best to keep to some type of schedule. These first chapters will likely average around 2k words, but I have no idea if that will remain true for future chapters or not, because I'm gonna try to end chapters where it feels natural instead of trying to make all the chapters the same average length.
She awoke to voices.
"-you think I would keep you on? I'm not gonna keep pouring gold into a sinking ship."
"Please, I… I think I've found someone, I just need more time-!"
A slap echoed out. She hurried to dress, tightening the straps of her leather armor.
"You think I haven't heard that a thousand times, you dumb bitch? Before me, you were just another duster. Now, you've actually got something, but if you don't show results soon-"
She stepped out of her room.
"I'll thank you not to talk to my sister like that, Beraht."
Beraht turned towards her. "Ah, and the great Mora Brosca awakens," he sneered. "You want me to stop talking to Rica like that, then make her get results. I've made a significant investment into her, and one way or another, I'm gonna get my money's worth."
"I- give me at least a week, please!" Rica begged. "I swear, I'm not lying! I really did find an interested noble, I- I just need time to convince him!"
Mora stared down Beraht, rage hidden behind icy eyes. "You heard her. Give her the time, she'll have her noble wrapped around her finger and you get to play uncle to the brat she eventually pops out."
The man gave a short, dour laugh. "Fine. She gets her week. But both of you pay for it if she doesn't have anything to show by then."
"Deal."
Beraht narrowed his eyes.
"And don't think you're getting off easy, duster," he sneered. "Leske's outside. Your ass is out there in five, or you won't like the consequences. Got it?"
"Aye aye, boss," she drawled. Beraht snorted.
"And to think, no one ever asks why I didn't try to make you a noble hunter."
With a final sneer, Beraht turned and stalked out of the house.
Rica turned to Mora, her face cast towards the floor. "I'm sorry you had to see that."
Mora gave a bark of laughter. "Like it's nothing I haven't seen before. Beraht's been an ass, is an ass, and will be an ass for the rest of his sodding life."
Despite herself, Rica giggled, but then the brief smile gave way to worry. "Be careful, Mora. Beraht's not happy with me, and I wouldn't put it past him to take it out on you."
Mora raised an eyebrow. "Wouldn't be different than normal then, would it? Beraht doesn't exactly take kindly to me." With a wild grin, she added, "Besides, there ain't any job he can put me on that I'll fail."
"If you say so," Rica murmured. "You should get going – Beraht won't be happy if you're late."
"Yeah, yeah." Mora walked through their front room, and a woman sitting at the table there stirred.
"Rica, is that you?" Mora barely looked at the woman.
"Go back to sleep, mother." Without waiting for a response, the woman walked out of the house.
There to greet her was her partner in crime – literally.
"You finally ready?" Leske asked her. "I was thinking I might have to bust in there. It'd be a chance to take a look at that spicy sister of yours."
Mora just stared at him with an expression of stone. The man coughed. "Right, well, we better get to our job. Wouldn't want to give Beraht reason to think we're not useful."
"What's the job?"
Leske snorted. "Ah, she speaks." He winced at the glare Mora gave him. "Right, the job. There's some surface merchant, Oskias. He's been holding out on Beraht – selling shipments topside that aren't making it down to Beraht. He wants us to see what goods the rotter is holding back."
When Leske just looked at Mora after he finished, she sighed. "We got a location, or is that our job to find out?"
"All I got outta him was 'find him,' so it's up to us."
"Wonderful," she deadpanned.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Hello, Oskias."
It hadn't been too hard for the pair to figure out where the merchant was. Mora had simply walked up to a beggar and held a dagger to his throat. Unsurprisingly, the man was forthcoming with the information he had, which helpfully included exactly where they would likely find Oskias at this time of day.
Leske and Mora had made their way to Tapster's Tavern, and the latter had taken up a chair opposite their target.
"Hey, I was saving that seat!" The man responded, then stopped. "Wait, h-how do you know my name?"
"Oh, we know a lot more than your name, duster." Leske spoke up from his position behind the man. Oskias started, snapping his neck around to get a glimpse of the dark-haired dwarf behind him.
"W-what do you want? I don't want any trouble!"
"You're cheating Beraht." Mora didn't dance around the subject.
"I don't know what you're talking about. You probably have the wrong Oskias – I just got here, see, I'm usually on the surface-"
Leske cut in. "So you're not the turncoat, two-faced swindling duster Beraht told us about?"
"I never did anything. Beraht's got no reason to send you after me!"
"Leske. Bags."
The man chuckled. "With pleasure."
Oskias paled. "Wait! I- I do have some ore, a side deal with one of the mining families, but I swear I was going to bring Beraht his cut. I'd be crazy not to!"
"Suicidal, some would say." Leske seemed to be enjoying their job.
Mora cut off her partner's taunts. "Let's get this over with."
Leske turned and raised his voice. "Could everyone who isn't about to die turn around for a moment? This may be unpleasant. Thank you."
Their target was pale with fear, and his voice shook. "You- you can't do this. This is murder! Somebody, call the guardsmen! Help!"
No one helped. All the patrons and employees turned away, and the bartender just gave Oskias a sad look before he turned and went into the back of the tavern.
"It's just a bunch of rocks, are you really-?"
His sentence cut off, and he gave a wet cough. Oskias looked down to see a dagger in his throat and another in his chest.
Mora, for her part, drew back from leaning across the table. As she did, she grabbed the mug of ale in front of Oskias and downed it.
"Sorry, salroka," Leske said to the dying merchant. To Mora, he shook his head.
"You know, for all you complain about your mother being drunk all the time, you're really not that much better. Weren't you the one to say she shouldn't lose herself in the drink?" The woman scoffed.
"My mother does nothing but drink. I drink to not think about all the shit I do for Beraht, and I still get said shit done."
"Fair point," Leske responded. "Now let's go report back to Beraht that we got this taken care of."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"…Prince Bhelen seems far more sympathetic to our interests than Trian." Jarvia, Beraht's right-hand in the Carta, was speaking to him when the pair arrived.
"Bhelen has-" Beraht cut off his response to Jarvia when he saw Mora and Leske enter. "We'll finish this later." He turned to the pair.
"It's about time you two showed up. What happened with Oskias?"
"Cheating you. And dead." Mora waved a hand at Leske, and her partner handed over the two nuggets of lyrium they had found searching Oskias and his belongings.
Beraht frowned. "The duster must have been smart enough to keep his main stash topside. Ah well. I'll send someone out to handle the clean-up – someone else, rather, since you two did a decent job taking care of this."
What a reward, Mora thought. She knew better than to react outwardly around Beraht, of course.
"Now, I've got another job for you two."
Leske grinned. "Do we get to make some other duster cry?"
"Not if you know what's good for you," Beraht growled. "This one's invisible.
"There's a Proving tomorrow, big deal for the warriors and nobles. Almost every name fighter in Orzammar is gonna be lined up for this, and I have certain acquaintances who… take an interest in this sort of thing."
"Betting," Mora said.
"There's a lot of coin to be made with so many people interested," Beraht confirmed. "Now, we don't know everyone who's going to be in this thing, but there are two names you need to know. The favored officer is named Mainar: veteran of four darkspawn campaigns, knows his stuff. More importantly, there's Everd. He's a long-shot, just got back from a Deep Roads offensive. Some young buck who has all the ladies drooling." Unnoticed by Beraht, Mora rolled her eyes and next to him, Jarvia made a face of disgust.
"I've got a lot of money riding on him. Mine and other people's. I expect to see that eight-to-one pay off, understand?"
"Aye."
"Good," Beraht smirked. "Now, the fights only get announced to the contestants themselves… in order to prevent illegal gambling. Ha! So when you get in tomorrow, find Everd and see who he's fighting when. When he's up against Mainar, you'll use this." He held up a glass vial.
"Poisoning an upper-caste. Can't say I've never imagined it." Leske rubbed his hands in glee.
"It'll only slow his reflexes, just enough to take the edge off but not enough to show. It wears off quickly, so don't use it until just before the fight," Beraht warned them.
"Anything beyond just dump it in his water?" The Carta boss grinned at the question from Mora.
"Nope. Just figure out when Mainar is fighting Everd, put the drug in his water, and hightail it out of there. Come see me nice and early tomorrow, and I'll give you two passes to get onto the Proving Grounds. As a… let's call it a pre-emptive reward, both of you dusters have the rest of the day off. Spend it wisely."
Leske and Mora both nodded in acknowledgement.
Outside, Leske turned to Mora. "Well, this should be interesting. A chance to finally go see a Proving! I've always wanted to go to one."
Mora scoffed. "Provings are just the official version of fighting rings. Stay focused on the mission tomorrow."
Leske looked at her in surprise. "What, you've never wanted to go to a Proving?"
"Why watch people who are worse fighters than me?"
With that, in Leske's opinion, rather arrogant statement, Mora stalked off to Tapster's.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The next morning, Mora and Leske made their way to the exit of Dust Town after getting the passes from Beraht, along with another warning to not screw up.
"Let's be off to a Proving!" Leske grinned, obviously still just as excited as he'd been the day before.
Mora grunted in agreement, and the two made their way to the Proving Grounds. As they approached, however, they noticed a large contingent of armed dwarves making their way to the Proving as well. Oddly enough, there was also a human with them, but Mora didn't get a good look at them.
Abruptly, Leske pulled Mora to the side and turned them away from the approaching group. She glared at him, but he looked almost terrified.
"That's a noble," he hissed. "Even with passes, who knows what he would do to us if he saw two casteless slumming it around the Proving Grounds!"
They waited until the noble and his guards were well inside, then followed. The guard outside the grounds attempted to stop them.
"Turn around, brands. No casteless on the grounds," he sneered.
Leske grinned. "But we have our passes right here!" Both he and Mora held them up.
The guard went to swipe their passes to inspect them, but Mora and Leske knew better than to let go. Instead, he looked as closely as he could, and ended up pulling away with a look of disgust on his face.
"They look legitimate," the guard admitted. "Go on through, but stay to the trenches. No one, including the Grey Wardens, needs some eyesore getting between them and the fighters."
Mora threw a glance at Leske. Beraht hadn't mentioned Grey Wardens. He looked back at her, just as surprised as she was.
Grey Wardens were an order of warriors that fought against darkspawn. It was their sole directive, and as a kingdom that was threatened by darkspawn regularly, Orzammar had good relations with the Grey Wardens.
Putting it out of mind, they both walked past the guard, keeping their heads down. It didn't take them long to find Everd's room, but when they did…
"He's unconscious." Leske stared in disbelief. "He drank until he passed out."
Mora looked around at the bottles. "Probably started to keep himself from getting nervous. Kept going when it didn't help, lost sight of how much he'd drunk." Her mother did the same thing every day. It was what kept her from doing the same – she drank, and often, but Mora wasn't going to be her mother.
In a sudden bout of fury, Leske kicked the chest laying in the corner and knocked it over. "Now what the hell are we supposed to do? It's our heads on the chopping block if Everd doesn't win, but he could draw a dead man for his bout and still lose!"
Mora just shut her eyes. Of course this would happen when she and Rica were on loose ground with Beraht.
"Wait a minute. Wait one sodding minute, I've got an idea!" She opened her eyes and looked at Leske, who was slowly getting a shit-eating grin on his face. He elaborated quickly.
"Look, you were just saying the other day that you're better than all the idiots in the Proving, right?"
Mora hated it when she could figure out where Leske was going with an idea. "You want me to pass for Everd."
"It'll work!" He insisted. "You're about the same size, and you shouldn't have any trouble with his armor!"
Mora thought about it. On one hand, impersonating an upper-caste meant death.
On the other hand, if Everd, or rather 'Everd', didn't win the Proving today, Beraht was going to kill her, and do Stone-knows-what with Rica.
"Fine. Help me get the armor on, we don't have much time."
"Oh, what a glorious day. I get to see the body of the wonderful Mora!"
He suddenly found a dagger below his waist. "Touch anything besides the armor and you won't have anything to work with."
Leske swallowed. "Yes ma'am."
And that's our first protagonist. Let me know what you think of her!