How To Hire A Villain

[Stare]

contains some mature language.

With the thick scent of death and decay in the air, Stare strode though the kingdom of destruction. Her clawed feet clacked against broken stone and charred metal and soft grey ash spiralled around like rain. The remains of furniture and structure could be seen - from the truncated half of a table to the shattered remains of heavy-duty machinery. Machinery expensively bought and installed from the newest Aleraran engineers. This broken world lay around her as the aftermath of a great sorrow, blasting out in concentric circles like the rings of a tree. And at the epicentre of this mighty horror lay the remnants of the small incendary firework that had started this all - the mixture of saltpeter, sulphur and charcoal.

Shit, was her thoughts.

Seeing a small collection of ashy snow fall on her shoulder she swept up a hand to wipe the flakes away. The deep grey colour streaked across her black feathers like chalk on a slate, rubbing into the organic material with haste. Huffing through the high nostrils on her beak she darkly grumbled to herself, looking up again at the empire of smouldering terror that surrounded her, and she knew that there was only one man who could have done this.

Thesus Heysan. A merchant who had troubled Stare and her employer ever since he had cheated them out of payment ... then tried to kill them.

I see, came a quiet voice from in her head, and she knew he had been watching this entire time.

Him, Vitruvion Ellsmith, noble of Beinost and owner of this once mighty working mill and warehouse.

Also, he was a god, but very few people knew that.

Slowly Stare blinked, coming to a stop in her pacing. She turned, moving to peer now at the edge of the destruction where groups of people were standing and staring. Most of them were the remnants of the survivors - those who had been chased out by the desecrators before they set off the explosion.

Head back now, he ordered, with a sigh in his voice, Organise for the survivors to come directly to the Guard House.

Kicking at a small upended wall, all rubble and soot, Stare took a last moment to mourn this place. Then, with a ruffle of her feathers and a clack of her huge beak that took up the majority of her face, she twisted back to the people and made her way out of the wreckage.

As she strode forth questions silence fell. She was a kenky - the bipedal form of a crow, all black feathers and avian features - and thus a rare sight even in the grand scheme of the continent. Even rarer was it that she was the steward of these people's employer, tasked after six months of being his plaything and personal experiment to run the administrative side of his thirteen projects.

One of which was now lying in ruins.

Her eyes drifted around those who had made it out. Some who comforted the ones who had had it worse. Apparently they had been held up in there as hostages for over half a day before the final explosion had been set off. Some had been raped in that time - and not just women, but children and men the same. Some of them had been forced to stay behind - including the Manager, a one Bergen Holt, who had been a proud elf and a kind boss.A great man, now dead. He, along with other randomly chosen individuals, were now declared missing and likely dead, their charred remains very likely somewhere under wood and brick and ash.

Quietly she made her way to one of those who seemed to be organising things. Speaking in a low voice she told him of Vitruvion's plans, to have everyone taken to the Guard House - a once grand and now discarded pub that served as a base of operations on the outskirts of the city. In one of the more unpopular areas, where the proudest would never deign to go.

"There will be medical supplies there," she murmured to him, a tall Raiaeran with raggedy brown locks, "And safety at least for a time."

The man thanked her and smiled briefly to begin talking to his close friends, before sending them out to the general people. When this warehouse and cotton mill were rebuilt Stare was sure he would be a good and popular choice for the new manager. This day would perhaps change his life. Lucky him for having her chosen him.

And you, Vitruvion said, and Stare could simply hear the pain at the edge of his voice. The agony of loss, that only she and a rare few others seemed to glimpse in the strong-willed noble. She imagined him in his study at his mansion, standing at the window. His long white hair would be pulled back into a ponytail, and his eyes half closed as he focused on her. I want you to head into the city, Stare.

I want you to head into the main pubs and brothels and all the other places you might find a villain. Find someone new to this city, rare and unknown. Someone who is not you, or I. Find out when Thesus Heysan was last seen, and send this villain to him, to end him, to make him pay for what he did here.

We will end this. Now.