Slight Repairs

[Revenant]

The awkwardly pleasant smile faded from William's face, replaced by a slight, snarling scowl. It was for the best, really, as the polite, jovial facade was beginning to wear thinly over the boiling cauldron that existed at all times just beneath the Revenant's surface.

"Pardon if I heard that incorrectly," William said, a low growl rumbling in the back of his throat. "But I think you just said that 1350 pieces of gold was a reasonable price to merely tighten and patch up this breastplate while you would only charge 450 more pieces to fashion the entire thing from scratch." A wave of heat rolled off of William's stocky frame, washing over the merchant and plucking beads of sweat from his thickened, calloused hide.

"Your complete lack of willingness to reconsider your price in the least, especially given what I must have clearly misheard, tells me one of three things." A spark burst to life in the depths of William's eyes, the fire within him rising to life like a whisper fanning the fledgling licks of a campfire.

"One, that you're incompetent," William gestured to the wide array of armors lining the wall. "I see that as unlikely."

"Two, you think I'm an idiot," William shrugged, a strikingly genuine gesture. "That's understandable, and there are a lot of people who've made that mistake." William's gaze bored into the shopkeeper, "But it's a mistake few people make twice." William rapped his knuckles on the breastplate's cold titanium shell, filling the shop with a hollow, empty ringing.

"The final option is that you're trying to bilk me," William issued a menacing chuckle, like hunks of coal being scratched on one another. "Honestly, I can't fault you for that one either. You're a merchant, and that means you're supposed to try to squeeze every coin that you can out of me, right?"

Having finished, William swung an arm out to gesture at the Solder Joint's product, hanging like watchers keeping a silent vigil over the negotiations. "Now I'm sure this is the point where you expect me to threaten you and your store. 'I'll teach you if you don't do what I want' and all that nonsense." Somehow, in some disturbing way, William's face became even more dour. "I'm not going to do that, because frankly that's a waste of your talents. What I am going to do is mention that vapid little thing that greeted me on my way in, and what a shame it would be for her and her entire family to meet a rather violent and painful end."

And then, as if it had all been a figment of the shopkeeper's imagination, William's demonic rage and it's tell-signs were gone and there was a pseudo-pleasant smile once more tacked to the Revenant's countenance. "Now, since you were so gracious in refusing to change your price, I'll counter with an offer that's in the same vein. I offered 1350 for the breastplate and the straps last time, and that's what I'll give you for them now."

[Jasmine]

The older man didn't flinch at his customer's display. He had faced numerous dangers in his youth and this did not frighten him.

"If you think threats to my family are going to change my mind, it you who are mistaken. I'm not so desperate for work that I can't turn you away. I do not bilk my customers, either. Such practices eventually wind up costing a man more than he gained. Now, 1350 for the whole thing is not going to work. If you're only going to give me 1350, then I can't put the sifan cloth in the straps. Sifan is just too damned expensive for me to throw it in as an aside. However, I might be able to manage to get the sifan for only 50 extra, rounding the total off to 1400."

[Revenant]

“Huh,” William said, shrugging. If he felt any disappointment at his defeat he didn’t show it. Rather he quietly slipped the breastplate back into its sack, hefted the load, and departed. He didn’t need to look behind him to know that the stoic armorer was just as emotionless and wooden as the revenant himself. It was an uncharacteristically calm response from the warrior, but it didn’t bother him to be so restrained. He had, after all, laid the consequences for unreasonable stubbornness out in front of the man and had put the option in the armorer’s hands.

Within half an hour William had found a secure location to stash the wobbly breastplate and had returned to the Solder Joint, tucking himself securely into a difficult to notice recess. He waited there, unseen and observing, for several hours, until the sun burned low enough to be eclipsed by Radasanth’s taller and more impressive structures. It was then, in the dim haze of twilight, that the shopkeeper’s youthful assistant made her way out of the shop.

“Remember what I said,” the armorer called out to her, his monotone voice blaring from the Solder Joint’s open doorway. “Hurry home tonight and give my note to your father.”

“I know Uncle,” the girl called back, bored and exasperated. She was so ready to be done with this job the woman and the odd customers that it drew. She was of the opinion, after all, that no rational, stable individual would shop at an armory with a pun for a name. It just wasn’t cool.

Not that it would matter in a couple of weeks, she thought as she tossed her Uncle’s note into a handy rubbish pile. Joshua was only weeks away from proposing and once she was married she wouldn’t ever have to worry about cranky customers with an aversion to being bilked out of their gold by her stodgy uncle. She could settle for letting Joshua pull in the money to keep them afloat while she focused on her real passion, play-acting. She’d already gotten several offers from two notable theaters down in the entertainment district that she’d had to turn down because of the almost slavish hours that her Uncle forced on her. But she was done with that, and things were looking up.

Absorbed as she was in her plans for the future, the girl never noticed William maintaining an easy pace behind her.

It was only a short walk of ten minutes from the Solder Joint back to the girl’s modest apartment, and she remained oblivious of her follower the entire time. Far too preoccupied with her own world to have a clue about what was about to happen to her and her family. It started suddenly, a quiet rush of steps as she opened the front door. Her call of arrival cut off with a strangled gasp as William’s claws suddenly emerged from her chest. On the other side of the room the girl’s mother shrieked, eliciting a savage grin of pleasure from William.

The revenant tossed the lifeless girl to one side like a sack of moldy potatoes, advancing upon the remainder of the family with grasping claws. He was halfway across the room when the girl’s father ambushed him, leaping out of a shadowy side hallway with heavy combat knife poised to strike. Steel flashing, the man cried out in mourning agony as he slashed at the intruding man of char and flame, only to watch in horror as the knife slid uselessly across William’s thick demonic hide. Delighting in the horror, William reached out with inhuman speed and plucked the man’s larynx like a summer harvester plucking fruit from a low-hanging tree branch.

Without their primary defender, the rest of the family fell quickly in a flurry of blood, screams, and tears. The girl’s mother went the easiest, but finding the hiding places of her two younger brothers took a bit longer. Even several of the over-curious neighbors got in on the action, their bloodied corpses adding to the ever growing pile of meat and bone. His work done, William was happily preparing to leave when the sound of a crying baby snatched his attention from the exit door. Grinning, William sought out the source of the sound, finding the girl’s youngest family member rolling around in a terrified panic in her room. She couldn’t have been older than eight months, and couldn’t understand what was going on around her.

William raised a bloody talon until the shadow of it caressed the infant girl but then paused. The spark of an idea flared to life in the revenant’s mind as the child’s screams washed over him. Rather than rend the baby into a slurry of visceral soup William instead brought his claws down upon his own flesh, splitting the thickened hide with only a slight effort. Glowing, molten fluid spilled forth, hot and steaming, and it was this that William flung into the child’s crib with a negligent flick of the wrist. The wound was slight, and his regenerative capabilities closed it quickly, but not quickly enough to keep the sanguine fluid from igniting the child’s blankets. Satisfied with his handiwork, William departed the building, trailed by the pained squeals of the infant burning to death behind him.

Having finished, William slipped out a side window. He didn’t fear the confrontation that would have come with departing the main entrance, but for expediency’s sake he didn’t want to have to slaughter an entire platoon of Radasanth’s guard. Besides they had other things to worry about, he thought as the fire he set in the child’s crib flared to brilliant life, roaring through the apartment behind him.

Two days later, William slipped once more into the Solder Joint, his eyes meeting the red-rimmed ones of the armorer. Keeping his face a mask of stony emotionlessness, despite the overwhelming joy he felt, William nodded once to the horrified, grief-stricken man, and left.

[Jasmine]

(Done. No sale.)

[Skie and Avery]

Plot 8/30
Story 4/10
Setting 1/10
Pacing 3/10

Character 16/30
Communication 8/10
Action 4/10
Persona 4/10

Prose 20/30
Mechanics 7/10
Clarity 9/10
Technique 4/10

Wildcard 7/10

Total 51/100

Spoils
Jasmine receives 711 EXP and 57 GP
Revenant receives 854 EXP and 107 GP

[Letho]

EXP/GP added.