Hey guys, sorry I missed last week, school got in the way. Good news is, this means everyone gets four chapters this week instead of two.
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Stepping out of the Rose was like stepping into a different world, from the celebratory realms of hedonism ruled by Sanguine to the frigid prison realm of Coldharbour. The Rose was surrounded on almost all sides by tenements, massive multistory apartment buildings, each stuffed to the gills with a few hundred members of the bottom tier of Imperial society, laborers, washerwomen, and other landless poor barely keeping their heads above the poverty line.
And they were kept in line by the knowledge that even in their impoverished state, there were those who had it worse. One merely had to look outside the tenements to see beggars panhandling on the sidewalks. Emaciated, dead-eyed, husks dressed in rags represented those who'd been trapped and starved by their lot in life for decades, long enough to have given up. Men, women, and children in the tattered remains of the clothing of their former lives made up the newly impoverished.
There were a lot of the latter, the Emperor had launched massive tax increases to pay off the debts incurred by the Great War and the tribute required by the White-Gold Concordant. The effects had been put off for a decade while Titus Mede II tried to get his house in order. Thus, the effects were still being felt even now, a quarter century later. Of course, he wouldn't dare take more from the coffers of the powerful than was customary. The surrender, and it was seen as a surrender, had left the nobles feeling angry and dissatisfied, meaning that the Emperor couldn't afford to push his powerbase any further than he already had. This meant that the weight of the debt fell squarely on the shoulders of the middle class, creating a national economic depression that the Empire was still struggling through.
The nobility's pride had been badly bruised, the middle class was being crushed, and the number of impoverished was exploding. And nowhere was it more apparent than here in the cold grey dreariness that was the Waterfront. The only splotches of color came from the whores, to the trained eye, their outfits and makeup marked their origins as clearly as military uniforms. The lowest echelons were the unaffiliated newcomers, women who walked around completely naked or in old dresses torn in deliberate places to be more revealing. Above them were the independent veterans, those who walked around in second hand lingerie or specially tailored dresses. And above them were the brothel girls, those representing establishments such as the Rose. They wore two half-transparent bolts of silk, one around their chests, one around their waists, the colors marking their allegiances.
There was the pink of the Sanguine Carnation, the bright green of the Seashore, the blood red of the Legion's Crossing, and of course, the gentle white sashes with a single lily embroidered on the hip that signaled a courtesan of the Flaming Rose. The same uniform that I myself had worn during my trial, the same uniform that still rested in my wardrobe.
I took all of this in as I made my way down the street, passing the occasional ground floor apartment-turned-shop or tavern. There wasn't a guardsman in sight, the Imperial City Guard had stopped sending patrols in long ago, now they merely held the border of the district to keep the undesirables from spreading outside of the confines of the slums. The inhabitants were expected to police themselves.
Something they did quite well for the most part, a number of eyes fell on me as I continued my stroll, appraising my expensive clothing and wondering how much pleasure my body could bring them. These thoughts were quickly discouraged by dark looks from other, more experienced, eyes. Rolling the occasional drunk noble as he left a brothel at midnight was one thing, but attacking a woman of my status in broad daylight would undoubtedly bring retaliation down on the district in the form of the Legion.
After a few minutes' strolling, I arrived at my destination. A shop, a true shop rather than a converted apartment. A single story affair with glass in the front window, and a sign hanging above the door declaring the name to all, Israbur's Exotic Encyclopedic Tome Emporium. I held back a snort at the name, Isabur's tomes were exotic alright, you could only find them in his shop, because he wrote the nonsense right there in his shop and bound them in leather scraps.
The inside of the shop was eerily quiet, no one sat behind the store counter, all of the candles were doused. Dust covered the shelves, even here in the Waterfront, the people weren't gullible enough to believe that Isabur's bullshit was actual wisdom and academia. I locked the door behind me and made my way through the shelves. I found what I was looking for in the backroom.
Isabur was a Redguard of diminuitive stature, born with a predisposition for growing massive amounts of body hair. He also lacked a predisposition for bathing, turning the hair that grew all over his body a dirty blackish grey. That, in combination with his big eyes, rodent nose, and line of work earned him the name he was more commonly known by, The Rat of the Pier.
The Rat was currently bound to a chair in the middle of his storeroom. He'd been stripped down to his dirty grey fur, fur that was now clotted with blood. The room stunk of sweat and urine. It would have probably been rather loud as well, were it not for the fact that Cassie's great skill in regards to gagging people, otherwise I'm quite certain the Rat's screams would have been earsplitting.
Speaking of Cassie, she was bent over him, slowly working a small knife along the curve of the Rat's brow, looking very much like an artist applying careful brushstrokes to a masterpiece. Telain sitting next to her, using a small set of pliers to slowly remove one of the Rat's toenails. The nine-year-old did this with the same expression another child might have while working on particularly difficult jigsaw puzzle.
The resemblance between the girl and her mother was astonishing when you saw them next to each other.
The Rat was struggling uselessly against his bonds, he was blindfolded and his gag reduced his screams to persistent grunts. Personally, I don't consider physical torture on its own to be very effective, something my father taught me, but when combined with mental manipulation…
"Hello Isabur." Cassie ripped off the blindfold at my signal, the rat's eyes darted around the room, briefly pausing in agonized confusion when they fell on Telain pulling his toenails, then turning to terror when they fell on me, then turning to abject horror when they met Cassie's dark grin. He looked back to me, then screamed into the gag as Telain finally worked the toenail out.
"Sweetie, can you hold off a minute?" I laid a hand on Telain's shoulder, "Mommy and I need to talk to this rat." I hid the wince that inevitably came from that acknowledgement. "Of course, if he doesn't want to talk, you and mommy can go back to enjoying some quality time." I looked up at the rat, matching Cassie's dark grin with a predatory smile of my own. "Do you want to talk to me Isabur?"
Isabur nodded vigorously, "Good." I motioned for Cassie to take the gag off, "No screaming though, if you scream, it's back to mommy-daughter bonding time." Another vigorous nod, then the gag came off.
The rat looked like he was about to scream any way, but one look at Telaine's angelic face as she twirled the pliers in her hands took the air right out of his throat. I turned away from him, clasping my hands behind my back, pretending to examine the room. "Tell me Isabur, what was it that made a rat like you choose today to die?"
"I don't know what you-aghh," Cassie cut him off by ramming one of her knives through his hand and forcing his jaw shut before he could really scream.
"You just lied Isabur," I turned back to him, reaching under my skirt, holding my hand there just long enough for him to imagine what I was doing before pulling one of my knives out. "That hurts me Isabut," I sashayed forward and straddled his lap, bringing my face inches from his ratty grey beard. "That hurts me just… like…" I pressed the blade deep into my thumb, "this."
Isabur's eyes went even wider at my self-harm, I held my hand above his head and squeezed the wound, raining hot droplets of blood all over his face. The little rat thrashed at his bonds, screaming "What the hell do you want from me?"
I put a little more madness into my grin and leaned right next to his ear, "I want to hear you squeak as Cassie clips your tail." Cassie took her cue and put the tip of her blade against the base of his spine.
Isabur was sobbing now, assured that the only thing left for him was a slow and painful death at the hands of madwomen.
I leaned back and licked my lips like a wolf in front of a hare. He was just where I wanted him. "I want to pull those little rat eyes out of your head, then I want to cut out your balls, and then I want to switch them." I let out a long melodious laugh, then abruptly cut it short for effect, "Or…"
The rat saw my expression shift from madness to business, and in it he saw a way out. "Or?" he said, suddenly very eager to give me whatever I pleased.
"Or," I spoke slowly, "You can tell me everything you know about who hired you to tattoo those runes on the man who tried to kill Livia Cerona. And how you know it," the last part was necessary to ensure he didn't lie.
The man paused for a moment, clearly scared of whoever had employed him, but with Cassie, myself, and even little Telain around him, blades shining in the candlelight, he seemed to decide we were the greater threat. After that, the secrets spilled out of him like water out of a bucket run through with a sword.
I'd known it was him of course, he was the only arcane tattoo artist in the city. I'd worked with him before, the enchanting of flesh was an incredibly rare skill to possess these days, that made him quite useful. Still, even with that knowledge, it shocked me how much he knew. Enchantment of flesh required an exchange of energies, the recipient must be open to receive the runes in order to gain their power, I had known that. What I hadn't known was that the openness allowed the artist access to the recipient's mind, not useful for something as overt as control or manipulation, but their intellect, their thoughts, their memories, all of that could be accessed during the procedure.
As such, the rat had plenty of secrets to spill, he wasn't even focusing on the question, he was merely blurting out every bit of knowledge that he'd picked up in his procedures. I just sat there and listened, some of it was scandalous, some of it criminal, some of it arcane, and some of it trivial. Cassie, in her usual perceptiveness, had seen fit to acquire a quill and paper and was writing things down that could prove useful in later endeavors. Telain merely followed my example, staring up at Isabur with those brown eyes of hers.
It took a few minutes before he actually got around to more recent events, and when he did, he said the last possible thing that I wanted to hear.
Pulling myself off of him, I got to my feet and smoothed out my dress, restoring the dagger to its sheathe. Fixing him with a glacial glare, I spoke in a tone as hard as steel, "You owe me your life Isabur, I can and should kill you, but I won't, so long as your prove useful."
I enunciated each word, throwing them at him like they were daggers. "Remember Isabur, you owe me."
I whispered a healing spell for my injured hand and reached down to take Telain's hand, it wasn't something I did often and you could tell by the confusion on her face. That confusion would have shattered my heart had I not been so focused on the situation at hand. With her in tow, we left the store, leaving Cassie to tend to the rat. Making our way up the street my mind was racing. I wasn't thinking about what I was doing, I was thinking about what Isabur had said. I blame that for what I did when we got back to the Flaming Rose.
In front of the brothel doorway, I dropped to one knee to bring myself to Telain's level. I took her hand in both of mine, "Cassie and I have to go handle things sweetie, but I promise that we'll visit again as soon as possible." I gathered her into a tight embrace and kissed her on the forehead. "I love you sweetheart."
If taking her hand was something rare, this was downright strange for her, still she slowly returned the embrace, "I love you too mommy."
I pulled away and stood up, a cold hand curled around my innards, and for a brief and ludicrous second, I couldn't understand why I wasn't bringing her with me. The memories forced themselves to the surface.
The priestess in the temple, an invader, grinning from ear to ear and laughing with her fellow Devout.
The curse and the gift, the dark look intensifying in Cassie's eyes.
The priestess and her fellow devout, hanging from a lamp pole, throat's open with wide bloody grins. Their ovaries removed and stuffed down their throats. The message sent and received.
Reality reared its ugly head as Telain was ushered inside by one of the working girls and Cassie appeared behind me, her hand on my shoulder. She knew the look on my face, but the hardness in my eyes told her all she needed to know. This could wait, now it was time for work.
...
This chapter set up things that will be revealed long into the future, if I even get that far.
I'll be honest, I've got so many stories bouncing around in my head right now, it's hard to focus. I've got a Ghost Recon Wildlands story idea, a Mass Effect Andromeda idea, an old idea for Mafia 3 has picked up some steam in my head. So many stories, and I've still got to finish this story and the Skyrim Story it's setting up for.
So I don't know, what do you guys think, where should I put my focus. I seek input my friends.
And as always, tell me what you think of the chapter.
R&R people.