Your vices are in order

[Breaker]

Closed. All bunnying approved.

Underwood was a transient town. A place where hungry travellers could grab a meal and a night's rest on their way from just about anywhere on Corone to anywhere else. Joshua had departed from Radsanth that afternoon, travelling as the tone of his enchanted metal boots on the city's cobblestones echoed in his mind. By the time the sun went to rest and the moon peeked through foreboding fingers of cloud, he'd arrived at the sparsely wooded fringe where Concordia gave way to Underwood.

The bed-and-breakfast town represented chaos to Joshua. Last time he'd leased a room at the Peaceful Promenade he'd ended up in an argument with a young girl and a fist fight with a pair of scholarly ogres. The girl, Lillian Sesthal, had later been instrumental in his defeat during the great battle in the adamantine-walled Cell. He could have thanked her, for his soul had chosen enlightenment over death that day and risen from his broken body to explore the wonders of the Eternal Tap.

The streets of Underwood were mostly silent, intriguing the Ascended. He had heard whispers from informants in Radsanth that agents of the Rangers and resistance for freedom could be found in that sleepy forest town. Yet Joshua did not see a single Watch patrol, nor any of the elves and men who moved with the wolflike confidence so common in Corone Rangers. Many of the villagers carried staves and wore long daggers on their belts, yet the buzz of their conversation was peaceful to the extent of naivety. Underwood smelled right, though. Radasanth reeked of corruption and wickedness, as did all villages touched by the taint of the Coaltion and their Wraiths from the former Scarlet Brigade. The districts where the Empire showed dominance were no better; the stench of fear gushed from the masses like a ruptured sulphuric geyser. He found little of interest in the darkened streets of Underwood, and eventually the roar of the crowd at the Promenade drew him to it.

Ever since Joshua re-embodied physical form on Althanas, memories seeped into his mind like rainwater finding cracks in the ceiling. Only some of them came from his life; others originated in his time spent as a being of pure energy, sensations and perceptions he could barely decipher now. At times those ethereal moments gave him a sense of purpose or direction, of destiny, but mostly they felt like reading a book written in a foreign language and unknown alphabet.

The stream of consciousness expanding his memory was a blessing after having the demonic Breaker-persona in the back of his mind for so long. It seemed the more he remembered and the more he learned, the more his capacity to learn increased. And his desire. Perhaps that desire for stimuli was what put his hand on the door and pushed his body to the raucous interior. He was no longer a man of preservation. He had become a being of purpose.

If only I could figure out that purpose...

His six senses snapped to work like hyperactive hunting dogs. Scented candles and oily incense couldn't cover the odour of alcoholic sweat. Josh found a current moving through the crowd and slid into it unnoticed. People pressed close but didn't come in contact with him as his penetrating eyes and direct walk carried him to the bar. Over the laughter and screams of the crowd, through the twangy pub music, he heard the bartender utter something to one of the serving crew about the Dwarven whisky.

"... the finest I've ever tasted..."

Joshua's tongue wet his lips. A long time since he'd felt the pleasure of a good scotch on his palate. His eyes, sharp as any falcon's, picked out the bottle, hidden where only customers who knew to ask for it would see. Well conditioned vocal chords ordered two glasses of the fine whisky, using its Aleraran name. The barman's pupils dilated, but any notion of deception vanished when he saw the weight of the gold coin those callused hands left on the counter.

Aside from his wardrobe which consisted of a black collared shirt, black pants, and the black Breaker Boots, Josh blended with the crowd well enough. He could feel the energies of the people all around him, and detected no malevolence. Even so his eyes roamed the tangle of arms and legs diligently, looking for body language cues of violence.

Guided by something more than his will, Josh smiled at a nearby woman who had long dark hair. Not quite handsome enough that she'd have asked me to dance, he thought as he handed the woman the second whisky and sipped his own. But just enough that she won't say no. He leaned in close and whispered in her ear, caught the aroma of roses from her hair and a recent pressing from her pleated dress.

The raven-haired woman pulled Josh onto the dance floor and pressed herself close. As they swayed to the music and sipped their drinks, he guided her on a path between the other couples that kept everyone out of eavesdropping range. And as the minutes slipped away she told him everything she knew about the constantly changing population of Underwood.

[Les Misérables]

Phyr Sa'resh trudged towards the Peaceful Promenade, tedium infecting his gait. The scraping thumps of his footfalls and monotonous tapping of his cane echoed down Underwood's back alleys. The ancient drow clutched the smooth black handle of his walking stick in his single gnarled hand and leaned heavily upon it so he could glance up at the stars. A wind far above the towering tops of the oaks in Concordia pushed the clouds aside, revealing a sky glassy as a delyn sword. A clean night of new things, or so his childhood friends would have said.

The former soldier stuffed remembrances from two lifetimes past down into the bottom of his soul as the wall of noise coming from the Promenade hit him. Like a barn cat caught in the rain he slunk along parallel to the tavern but as far away as the road would allow, crossing only when he spotted his mark.

The fellow looked like a scarecrow, with straw-coloured hair poking from his cap at all angles and wool clothing that hung on him as if he were made of sticks. He was a member of the security crew, and took his breaks outside the Promenade's side staff door. The wiry man was drawing on a half-smoked cigarette when Phyr limped up and stood silently beside him.

"How's the night granpa'?" the human scarecrow asked, showing yellowed teeth in a familiar grin. Phyr stifled any reaction. He was on payroll at several local inns as an outdoor night watchman, having snared the jobs using his surprising elocution and years of military experience. As a result he got paid a tidy sum to stump from tavern to inn, telling security guards everything was safe and secure. In return he received (aside from his fee) first hand information and gossip from all the most knowledgeable individuals.

"Strangled a few land-locked pirates earlier, you owe me double for that." Phyr quipped, knowing the man had a soft-spot for epic seafaring stories. He got a long belly laugh for his effort, which ended in a bout of coughing and spitting as a little tar found its way back out of the scarecrow's lungs.

"That quiet outside? It's never been louder in here!" The straw-haired fellow said, indicating the Promenade and tossing his cigarette away with one gesture. "No excitement though. Same old faces and fresh shiny gold." Phyr inclined his head in thanks and the man disappeared back into the chaos and noise, rubbing his palms to warm them.

[Breaker]

As the clamour of the crowd swelled between songs Josh managed to trade his dancing partner for a three-pointed leather cap. The brunette seemed pleased enough; the benevolent barterer was so well dressed he might have been a tailor. They melted back onto the dance floor as Josh moved in the opposite direction. His hazel eyes looked ice blue, glazed over, drunk and happy. He staggered on occasion and grinned loosely at everyone, chatting carelessly when the press of people forced him to stand still. He personified a part of the group, and as a part of it he knew the proper etiquette. The ebb and flow of the other patrons pushed him gently towards the band, where he left a friendly contribution for the artists.

As he passed a quiet table he swept his new hat off, tussled his shaggy hair and then made way for the poncho his left had found draped over a chair. The coarse wool garment hung well down his shoulders and chest, completing the look of another local out for a round of drinks. He chose a quiet nook near the back of the pub and leaned on the cool wooden wall. Found a half-full pack of cigarettes in a denim pocket inside the poncho and lit one with a match proffered by a nearby patron. Tobacco stung his tongue and nicotine doped his head with a pleasant buzzing, like he was flying again, an entity of energy observing the universe.

He exhaled a plume of smoke and scanned the room through its ghostly tendrils. Behind the fake drunken haze he compartmentalised each face and applied what little useful information he had gleaned from the brunette. There wasn't anyone of particular status or value in the whole place, at least not that she knew of. But she had pointed him towards the drug dealer with the best product. As he moved towards the target, he ran through the list of faces in his head to see if any of them sparked recognition.

Suddenly wanting to sit down, he staggered to a nearby table and sprawled out in a chair next to the only other occupant, a reedy man in a hooded cloak. The fellow appeared to either be asleep, or simply failed to notice Joshua's arrival due to his contemplation of the ceiling.

Josh stretched and leaned closer to the hooded patron. Muttered something, and the not-so-unconscious pusher inclined his head in return. A small sack of gold emerged from beneath the poncho then vanished into the depths of the cloak. Seconds later a smaller parcel repeated the journey in reverse.

As Josh stood up he leaned over to shake the seated man's hand. In the instant his torso shielded his hands from the rest of the room, he dealt the dealer a stunning blow to the point of his chin. The cloaked figure slumped back in his chair. Josh roared with laughter at something the man hadn't said, and picked his pockets while jesting about straightening up the other's attire.

Moving through the crowd again, he had to step carefully. Fitting in with the crowd meant people were not shy to bump up against him, and the pockets of his borrowed poncho were crammed full of... whatever the best pusher in Underwood usually carried. He stopped at the end of the bar nearest the exit and appeared to examine its varnished surface while he addressed the approaching barmaid in a coarse, covert voice.

"Hey, Miss, what's the place next door called?" He gave her a half smile and she sniffed in return, angling her body away. He could only ask so many questions before he'd need to pay for her attention.
"Last Night's Maiden, not that any of our patrons would attend that shack." Josh shook his head and tipped her a half bow with a flare of his cap.
"No matter, I'm meeting a business partner in a private room there for drinks and work. Thought I'd have a little fun here first." The barmaid sniffed again and started to move away. Josh rapped his knuckles on the counter top.
"That dwarven whisky, what's it called? I'll take a bottle to go with me. Probably wouldn't find that kind of quality next door, am I right?"

The hen-like woman still frowned at him but accepted some of the dealer's gold in exchange for a corked bottle of whisky. Josh angled it to catch the light from a lantern and read the label. Yurik's Firewhisky, it said in Dwarven scrawl. A description covered the back, but he could not comprehend the sentence structure. Best of all, the bottle was sealed by a square of wax at the top.

"Not likely to find this kind of scotch anywhere else this side of Radasanth sir; the boss just got a big shipment in special from Alerar, and as ye' surely noticed from the price-" the barmaid looked up from wiping a spill to see a young couple had replaced the man in the three pointed cap and voluminous poncho.

A zephyr of cool air tickled her incredulous face as a nearby side door slammed shut.

[Les Misérables]

The atmosphere inside Last Night's Maiden embraced Phyr's battered body like a dream of a lover long gone. Warmth from the hearth licked life back into fingers that felt frozen to the cane. Phyr kept his eyes downcast and moved slowly so as not to alarm the few pub patrons. Since most of the Maiden's coin came from its live musical entertainment, off nights like this one lent the space a mellow feel that kneaded Phyr's gnarled muscles just right.

Leaning his cane against the front corner of the tavern allowed him to shrug out of the ratty overcoat and sit gratefully in an oaken chair. Forearm rested on the teak tabletop, the drow lapsed temporarily into blissful reverie. His matted grey mane rustled as he rotated his neck, squeezing several loud pops from the overused tendons. A long story of pain and loss was etched in the lines on his face and accentuated by the cauliflower-like knots in his ears. But behind his azure eyelids he was a young Aleraran junior officer with sleek black hair and smooth pointed ears.

The familiar tapdance of a willowy serving woman's high-heeled shoes caused Phyr to become alert. There she was, Elena, sweet brunette wisp of a girl bringing him a neat glass of house rye. Out of habit the old drow scanned the room behind her, his ancient blue eyes picking up details even in the darkened hall beyond the tavern proper.

In the space of a moment a figure crossed through his field of vision, and Phyr's heart and lungs seemed to stop working.

"Mister Sa'resh, what's wrong? You look like a demon had a-hold of your soul!" Elena was at his elbow, the anticipated drink hovering on her tray mere inches away. She examined the mauve flush that appeared along his neck and cheeks and reached out a hand as if to test the temperature of his brow.

"Just the cold air, my lady fair. You do these old bones a favour with your concern. My thanks." Phyr used a seated bow to bob his head away from her fingertips and managed to wrench his hand off the hilt of the bayonet beneath his rags long enough to grab the drink and take a deep pull. It made him feel and look better almost instantly, an alcoholic elixir. The girl would have protested but a patron signalled and she darted away, leaving the old elf with a generous smile.

It took several minutes and three fingers of whisky before Phyr felt ready to contemplate what he had seen. A life time ago as part of an elite team defending Ettermire harbour against an incursion by the Scarlet Brigade, Phyr had learned to spot the smooth stride of a man trained to kill. Back then, his own casual stroll reflected the poise of a jaguar. He knew the tells, the arm positions and rolling flicks of feet and hips that made each innocent step a calculated potential for violence.

These days I move more like a three legged pack mule, he thought ruefully.

But he had never seen anyone other than the deadliest Aleraran assassins flow like the shadow in the hall.

[Breaker]

The walls in the Maiden's smaller private dining room had been panelled with mahogany slats recently, the wood grain providing a hypnotic background for a plethora of different sized oil paintings hanging from pegs cleverly wedged between slats. Josh ran a rough palm over the polished woodwork, admiring the craftsmanship even as he reverse engineered it and watched how the job had been done in his mind. This would look great on the walls of a dojo, he mused, moving on to consider the first painting. Heat from the room's compact hearth touched his leg like a friendly dog's tongue.

Bold brush strokes depicted the familiar Battle of Teria, which seemed like a popular piece of subject matter for Coronian artists. Perhaps they like the versatility of the armies, he thought. The creator of the painting on the wall had been very creative with his approach to the demon hordes. Or maybe he was there. Some of the grotesque faces seemed hauntingly familiar, stirring shadows of memories deep within Cronen's mind. Or... perhaps I'm just jaded. Josh was used to looking at a truly masterful depiction of the same battle displayed in his friend's office. The man who had lost his legs in Alerar, who could drink almost as much scotch as Breaker, who had silver hair and...

Leonard Silverton. He recalled the name with lightning suddenness. The lapse lasted less than a second, but Joshua's memory was almost eidetic. What distracted me? He closed his eyes for a moment and focused on his other senses, willing himself to become aware of any powerful magic nearby, but nothing...

It came again. The faintest scuff of a boot settling gently on the floor. Even Breaker's superhuman hearing could barely catch it over the crackle of leaping flames and the muted roar issuing from the Promenade. Someone who truly knew how was attempting to sneak up on him.

Not breathing, Josh pushed off from the panelled wall and glided soundlessly across the hardwood floor, the soles of his enchanted boots abandoning all friction then gradually finding it again so he coasted to a stop with his shoulder pressed against the top hinge of the heavy oaken door. Then it opened a crack and a single azure hand poked into sight, empty, with gnarled fingers. A coarse voice whispered something in Aleraran, then after a brief pause spoke in common, presumably repeating the previous message.

"My lord, I am your servant, please let me live!"

Baffled but ever-cautious, Breaker grabbed the azure arm at the wrist and used an escort lock to drag its owner into the room.

[Les Misérables]

Phyr contemplated his approach as he stood and stooped to the blazing brick hearth, swirling the contents of his glass like vintage scotch and gulping it like penny-ale. The combination of sudden proximity to heat and the introduction of coarse grain alcohol had his bloodstream running like spring thaw in Salvar. In Devil's Keep, the maximum security prison north of Sulgoran's Axe, springtime had brought disease and decay to the prisoners worse than any other season. Perhaps that is why I don't mind the cold so much. Bubbles in his mind.

An iron pot sat half-into the bed of coals, burbling merrily into the steel still cape which fanned across the pot and over the bricks of the hearth. The cape collected moisture and dropped it on the hot bricks, keeping the air in the tavern moist through winter. Phyr had made a mild ceremony out of "gifting" a piece of Aleraran technology to the humans, and Elena diligently kept it full of aromatic rosewater. In reality the humidifier was a crude device he had thrown together using scavenged scraps. It served the purpose of comforting his old lungs, though.

Setting the empty glass on a nearby table, he fingered his broad leather belt. It was a good belt, if made by and for humans. He had poked the hole it used himself with the tip of his bayonet, so it fit snugly but not quite tight. That won't do at all. With a long-practised gesture he removed the belt and placed it on the table. Deftly producing his dagger and stacking it squarely on top, he looked up and found Elena's eyes across the room. She was by his side in seconds.

"May I help you with something Phyr?" Earnest goodwill emanated from the angelic creature. How can one of such a crude race be so sweet? Having to mislead her felt exactly like a flaming plynt sickle in the gut.

"Nothing more than a moment of your time, child. Could you take that brutish dagger and poke a new hole in my belt for me? Just the length of your thumb tip from the other there. I've lost a little weight but..." try as he might to finish his sentence, the woman still cut in.

"But! But of course yer' wastin' away under my very eyes! I'll fix you some dinner straight away. Master Sa'resh, if my Mother saw you she'd-" he cut her off roughly, shoving away the pangs in his belly and following his instinct at all cost.

"But I must finish my rounds, my child, and I cannot do that with my pants at my knees. If you please?" He picked up the bayonet and pressed it's hilt covertly against her abdomen. She flinched as if scalded but took it and cautiously did as he'd asked.

"Well, when you return I'll have a warm plate waitin' for ye', an' I'll watch ye' eat it too!" She returned his blade and marched away as if that settled an agreement between them somehow. Is it merely the abysmal structure of the language, or did she just recommend I ingest heated armour? The drow mused as he turned back to the fire and set about the task of putting on his belt. By the time it was secured too-tightly around his waist he had chosen an appropriate piece of fire wood from the crate beside the hearth. Snatching the small sturdy plank, he donned his coat and exited the tavern, leaving his walking stick leaning in the corner.

The outside air bit his skin but he hustled around back of the Last Night's Maiden, ignoring both the cold and the high-decibel vibrations coming from the Promenade.

Fire wood was stacked high and deep against the back wall of the Maiden, protected from the elements by an extension of the thatch roof and a long canvas tarpaulin that hung to the ground like a seer's robe. Hooking the tarp behind one of the structure's supports to keep it out of his way, Phyr jammed the plank he had taken from inside at an angle between two large heavy logs, and hunted about the wood pile for the steel hatchet which was always kept there. Finally spotting the tool, he gripped it firmly in his single hand and faced the angled oaken plank.

Phyr raised the axe-head so it stood intimidating the plank for several seconds, rehearsing the exact movement he needed to make in his mind. Although it had many years of training, his left hand still wasn't as reliable as his right had been, and unless he executed the chop perfectly he would need to start again.

Thunk.

The hatchet split the middle of the plank's crown, sinking half the length of the axe-head into the wood. Perfect.

Abandoning the axe, Phyr unsheathed his bayonet and, by pinning the canvas curtain to the wall with his right hip, managed to cut a long thick strip of the heavy material. Next he placed the lobotomised piece of lumber on the ground and stood on it, and then brought the hilt of his dagger down firmly just where the hatchet had split the wood grain. It took several swift attempts and some clever manoeuvring, but he managed to wedge the knife into the plank so it's lethal blade stood up at a ninety-degree angle.

Flipping the crude spike-hammer on its side, the old drow stood on it once more and applied all of his weight, then stooped and looped the canvas strap over the split end in an effective slipknot. He reefed on it, tightening its hold to the maximum, and then repeated the process twice and wrapped the rest of the canvas in a criss-cross around the makeshift haft and the dagger's hilt. Hefting the kama-like weapon, he swung it hard against the wood pile three times to test its solidity, then concealed it and hurried back inside the Inn.

In the dark corridor, he retraced the shadow-killer's steps, following its projected path past the raucous laughter behind the door of the first private dining room and all the way to the end of the hall.

Phyr had tucked the plank bearing the bayonet behind the buckle of his too-tight belt. It caused him considerable discomfort, and the long blade ballooned the front of his coat as if he were one of those doddering fat humans. But it lurked behind the ratty burlap, ready to bite into the flesh of anyone who Phyr smashed his torso against. Or anyone who tries to grab ahold of me.

Although he took his time approaching the door and moved as silently as possible, he did not expect to reach the room unheard. And so he twisted the knob and pushed his single hand through, fingers splayed in innocence. Best case scenario is its a drow and he lets me live, he thought as he called out in his native tongue. Getting no response, he repeated his message in the common dialect of Coronian humans Next best case scenario is it's a human and I get to kill him.

Phyr anticipated most of what happened next. He expected hands much stronger than his own to drag him into the room, and when it happened he followed the energy to its source, driving his torso forwards to impale whomever had grabbed him on the hidden bayonet. But before the blade could pierce cloth or flesh he found himself sailing through the air and slammed into the ground, an incredible force crushing life from his lungs.

[Breaker]

Most security enforcement instructors would teach their students to be wary of an enemy's hands. Watch the hands, find the weapons. But as a martial artist Joshua instinctively checked the drow's hips as he heaved the smaller being into the room, and caught a flash of the blade beneath the beggar's rags in the firelight.

He released the skeletal wrist and grabbed Phyr's collar instead, falling backwards away from the bayonet as the dark elf lunged. Joshua's body rolled onto the ground soundlessly as he guided his azure-skinned attacker over him in a textbook Sacrifice throw. The drow hit the floorboards with a harsh thump as Josh pinned him, one knee trapping the being's single wasted wrist, the other pressed harshly on his diaphragm. Tearing the bayonet out of its makeshift handle, Cronen threw the blade with such force it slammed the door shut and stuck in the frame, effectively barring them inside.

With lethal calm the martial artist reached to the back of his belt and unsheathed a similar bayonet made from prevaldia as azure as the drow's skin. When he pressed its razor edge against the would-be assassin's throat it nearly blended with the skin.

"Who sent you? And why?"

Memories of whisky-drenched conversations with Silverton flooded his mind as he added more weight to the dagger and heard the drow gurgle. Everything seemed to point to the only other dark elf Cronen knew. The killer with the sword blacker than death and a reason for vengeance. Josh plunged through the kaleidoscope of violent memories and seized that wicked assassin's name.

"You work for Kron Sha'keth, don't you?" Rock hard knees sank into torturous pressure points on the drow's arm and sternum as the bayonet's edge creased his bobbing throat.

[Les Misérables]

Pain threatened to sunder the muscles in Phyr's back and shoulder. The initial impact of the throw rattled his brain and and wracked his spine so severely he barely noticed he couldn't breathe. Oxygen seemed inconsequential to lungs that felt like they'd fallen between hammer and anvil in an Orcish smithy. But as the darkness faded from his vision and proper sensory function returned the drow realised he could barely move. With one heavy knee punching his guts through his spine and into the floorboards, his hips felt paralysed. Trapping his wrist was unnecessary; Phyr was certain the impact of the throw had jarred his arm out of the shoulder socket.

As a keen blade pressed harder into his throat, the drow did the only thing he could. Giving in to the welling desire in his lungs and throat, he coughed violently, again and again. His head jerked with the motion as mucus sprayed across the floorboards. His skin moved hard and fast against the blade and blood seeped from a shallow gash on his neck. Uttering a sound of anger or surprise, the human snatched the blade away and lifted Phyr by the collar like a child then swung him one-handed so he crashed onto the table. Rough hands tore a strip from his own rags and applied expert pressure to staunch the blood flow.

As the human stopped him from bleeding to death, Phyr examined his hard hazel eyes and stubbled face impassively, noticing a Y-shaped scar half a hand width beneath the left celestial iris. Aside from that the man looked fit and groomed, hair cut almost like a soldier, but without any military bearing. Curious.

"I am an enemy of Kron Sha'keth." His glare challenged Cronen to make the next move.

[Breaker]

The pitiful display of coughing and the fountain of phlegm did little to dissuade Cronen, but when the old drow nicked his neck on the blade he sheathed it and slammed the decrepit ragamuffin onto the table, working to close the wound. With a satisfactory makeshift bandage in place, Josh forced Phyr's hand up and onto the compress.

"Keep pressure on this," he commanded. The drow shuddered involuntarily, and the way the arm hung slackly across his chest told Josh it was dislocated.

At least that way he can't feed himself poisonous herbs or something. What the hell does Sha'keth teach his minions? Knowing the creature could do little with his single arm dislocated and his lungs gasping for air, Josh turned away and paced across the room, retrieving the bottle of Yurik's Firewhisky from where it had rolled. Finding a foursome of clean crystal glasses on the mantle, he poured a small measure and swished it around his mouth before swallowing. Turned to face the drow who had not moved, but stared back at him like a lame bobcat, absolutely still and unafraid but ready to give or embrace death in a heartbeat.

Josh tilted his head to one side and picked up a second glass, poured three fingers of the rich scotch into each and left the bottle there. Moved to the table side to inspect the compress of filthy rags. The laceration was shallow, and the flow of blood had all but stopped under the weight of the elf's wasted hand. Removing the crimson-soaked rag Josh let a few drops of whisky fall into the wound, cleansing it. The drow's nostrils flared at this, and he shifted as if wishing he could catch the droplets with his mouth. Josh left that glass on the table and turned away to hide the smirk which stole onto his face.

"Have a seat," he said, using the same expressionless commanding tone as previously. Heard the scrape and shuffle as the drow sat up awkwardly, slithered off the table and took the chair facing the door. There would be no second attempt on his life; both of them knew that Cronen was in absolute control.

"I should make one thing absolutely clear to you," Josh said to the door, letting his words bounce back to elf's withered ears. "If you are an enemy of Kron Sha'keth you must know what he is capable of. He used to have a younger brother every bit as deadly as he. The two of them attacked me together, and only Kron escaped." Josh turned suddenly and caught Phyr staring morosely between the shimmering glass of scotch and his disabled arm. Expression under control, Josh sipped his own drink and set his mouth in a grim line. "That was more than a half year ago, and the remaining Sha'keth has made it his life's goal since then to destroy me." The corners of his mouth quirked as his hazel eyes locked with Phyr's blue ones. "Evidently he hasn't succeeded, and unless you are in fact one of his agents, that bastard still doesn't know where I am." Sipping contentedly he wandered behind the drow's chair.

"The only reason I'm telling you this is to demonstrate just who I am. No one here has recognised me, but if I introduced myself their knees would tremble. I could make you disappear forever and never be asked about it. Because I'm wherever I want to be whenever I want - I was reborn in the swell of the Eternal Tap. I don't know how many seasons you've seen, but I promise you never met anyone like me. A hundred years ago when your mama told you stories about a monster that gave you bad dreams... I'm that monster's worst nightmare."

Josh stopped suddenly, staring at the drow's pockmarked skin and matted grey hair. Why am I telling him this? The monologue had poured out as surely as if he were a professional orator. Shaking his head and taking another shot, he stepped closer to Phyr's back and watched the drow tense up in response.

"And I will absolutely know if you're lying. But you won't lie, because if you're actually an enemy of Sha'keth, it's in your best interests to tell me everything you know about him. And you're also going to tell how and why you're here. Because I don't like it when someone tries to kill me, even an enemy of my nemesis. But first..." placing his glass on the table, he dropped both callused hands onto Phyr's dislocated shoulder and dug into the muscle, found the rotator socket and eased the arm back into its natural position. The drow sighed in relief as tension drained from the shoulder.

"But first, you should whet your whistle."

[Les Misérables]

Phyr sat in the chair like a stuffed mannequin except for eyes which darted to and fro. The glass of whisky, the rack of iron pokers by the hearth. The crystal vessel, the insufferable human. The glass, the doorway. Twin azure minnows that were always drawn back to the...

Yurik's Firewhisky. Phyr hadn't seen the bottle. The smell rising from the glass tickled his nose like a lover's perfume. That smell had accompanied him through more hardships than any living being. For eleven years the Aleraran Army had supplied Yurik's as standard ration. When the military experienced a dry spell under idealistic management, Phyr started a tab at the nearest still. When the army (under newer management) brought liquor back two years later it was a government vodka and he waived the ration and kept the tab. The aroma's beckoning and the hopeless slack pain in his shoulder dragged him back in time to prison, where he'd added scavenged granules of nutmeg to forge-grog to give it a tinge of the Firewhisky finish. Then the human set his shoulder, breaking the shackles.

Phyr did not move, except for to breathe deeply and rotate life into his ailing limb. The fighter with good taste in grog walked around and sat in the chair facing his captive. There was a twinkle in those hard hazel eyes, like polished flint, that held Phyr's gaze and made him want to look away at the same time.

His eyes are the least off-putting thing about him. The human made almost no noise when he moved. Even the aged chair refused to squeak as it accepted his weight. Over his broad shoulder, in spite of the low light Phyr could see that his simple iron bayonet was buried to three-quarters of its length, through the door and into the jam at an angle. Only other time I've seen that was shrapnel from cannon fire. And yet the man had made the precision throw so casually.

Most uncanny of all was the connection to Kron Sha'keth. True, the assassin was the only other drow Phyr had met in Corone, but being the exact opposite of a socialite, he expected that. The human's intuitive and deductive powers were as confusing as the panic which had pushed Phyr to attack him in the first place.

Phyr looked up from dancing angels of firelight and sniffed his whisky. The patience of the youthful man across the table completed the aura of a force of nature in human form. Curiosity wrapped its bushy tail around Phyr's ankles. He had been a fool many times in the past but he would not be one again. If he picked up that glass, he was subjecting himself not only to answer Cronen's questions but somehow, to join the Breaker on his path of spears.

So be it. I'd have to answer his questions in order to ask mine anyway. And if his path leads through Sha'keth I'll gladly follow it.

"Ulu dosst afya," he uttered as he picked up the tumbler and tipped its wondrous contents past his lips. The firewhisky burned all the way down and built a fire to match the hearth in his belly.

To your health.

[CaitieGirl]

Rose's eyes must have looked like saucers as the South Road led her into the largest city she had ever seen. If only Jacob could see this place.

She thought back to her brother's face as she had left The Hollow Oak, her father's inn. He had looked so lost. They had never been apart for more than a few days. She thought about Angela wiping tears from her usually hawk-like eyes, all the while looking disgusted at herself for being so sentimental.

“It's not as though you're not coming back”, she'd said gruffly.

Her father had also seen her off, but like always he had been quiet and thoughtful.

The trip here to Underwood had been the longest she'd ever made since the time she stowed away with a shipment of lumber headed for Radasanth years ago. The men had discovered her when, after two days with nothing to eat, she had fainted and simply rolled off onto the road. This time, she had remembered to bring food. Besides, as long as I have my bow I'll always be able to eat, she thought. She may not be much in the way of a swordswoman but if there was one thing Rose could to, it was hit a target.

Snapping out of her self-satisfied reverie Rose consciously shut her gaping mouth, repositioned her pack on her thin cotton clad shoulders and continued walking into the heart of Underwood.

Alright, now what genius? You made it to the city but it's getting dark. You know nothing about this place, and if anyone notices that you're in for it.

She made her way through the streets keeping her face in what she hoped was the expression of a hardened traveller. She didn't realize that from the way she looked anyone with a lick of experience could tell that she was exactly the naive young woman she pretended not to be. She was strong for her size, but by no means a warrior. It was partly the clothes that gave her away. She had a well made pair of leather boots but she was wearing the pants and white cotton shirt that she always wore out in the forest for freedom of movement. With the look of an innocent she would have blended in better in a dress.

Going by the tell-tale sounds of a crowd Rose steered her steps knowing that where there was whiskey there were places to lie down. She found herself looking between two buildings, The Peaceful Promenade and Last Night's Maiden. With a sigh Rose weighed her options. Peaceful? Yea, right. That place is practically bursting at the seams. I wouldn't get any sleep. But then again if everyone's there what does that say about the Maiden? I don't know what to do.

Unfortunately she never got to make the choice.

[Breaker]

Watching the one-armed drow sip his favourite whisky felt like watching an old man reunite with his wife. Cronen scraped back his chair and paced to the hearth. He swirled the amber contents of his glass and watched the dance of the flames, and waited for Phyr Sa'resh to speak.

It took some minutes but eventually the azure-skinned ragamuffin spoke, in a much smoother tenor register than before. He outlined his escape from a Salvic prison and a harrowing journey by sea to Radasanth. There he had encountered Kron Sha'keth, stolen information, killed some of the assassin's underlings and somehow escaped from his life. As Phyr described his subsequent covert journey to Underwood and his employment at various Inns, a ball of molten lead formed gradually in Cronen's gut. His mind coursed down several paths as Phyr paused to take a drink.

I can feel something dark and powerful... this is all just too convenient...

Slamming his glass down on the stone mantle, Josh whirled to face Sa'resh. The drow nearly dropped his tumbler in surprise, but recovered its balance as the Ascended spoke.

"Sha'keth is here." Phyr tried to stand up and opened his mouth in protest. Cronen reacted like chain lighting, snatching the tumbler and shoving the drow back into his seat. With a flick of his wrist he pitched Phyr's glass into the fire where it burst in a wave of combustible fluid.

"Don't try to tell me otherwise. I can sense him. Think about what you know, drow. Look at the facts. The two people Kron Sha'keth wants to kill most in all of Corone are in this room. He followed you from Radasanth - there's no way you shook him by more than a couple days." Cronen glided to the window and leaned his cheek past linen curtains, gazing out at the frosty night as if he might see Kron staring back. "You stay here," he commanded, taking a heavy iron poker from the stand beside the hearth. He strode to the doorway, wrenched Phyr's bayonet out of the wood, and tossed it back to him. "The only advantage we have right now is he doesn't know I'm here." The drow caught his weapon awkwardly and hid it beneath his rags as the Ascended vanished down the hall, calm voice echoing behind him.

The excruciating ball of darkness in Cronen's stomach pulsated opposite his heartbeat as he raced outside, breath steaming in the night's chill.

It took him all of two breaths to spot Kron Shak'eth. The smell of death hung on the assassin, pulled Joshua's eyes to him like iron bearings to a magnet. The black drow wore a deep grey hood which covered his eyes and tribal markings, but the way he prowled the streets like a panther on a riverbank betrayed his identity as quickly as the stench. Cronen felt Sha'keth's vengeful eyes drink his presence and heard a sharp intake of breath from beneath the hood.

The Ascended and the assassin seemed to disappear as they both bolted. A gasp issued from a crowd of astonished onlookers as Joshua skidded to a stop where Kron had vanished, digging his boots into the earthen road and turning as the drow's own burst of speed ended. But Sha'keth was not running away. He drew his sword and seized a chestnut haired girl as she turned toward the gasp of the crowd. His black diamond blade severed the straps of her backpack and his forearm strangled her scream of terror.

"This one's blood is on your hands if you can't save her Cronen!" Kron cackled in his thick Aleraran accent. The crowd rippled and grew, swarming behind Joshua as he advanced on the intruder. Kron backed away as his captive fell unconscious from the pressure of his chokehold. Even with adrenaline singing in his bloodstream, having the people of Underwood gather behind him to drive out an enemy elated the Ascended.

Dark energy lanced from the hilt of Kron's ninjato, building a shadowy staircase against a brick haberdashery. The assassin threw the girl over his shoulder and sprinted up those dark steps as if running unladen on flat ground.

Angry shouts from the helpless onlookers followed Cronen as he raced to the base of the building and straight up its side, the magical Breaker Boots sticking like a spider's feet. He vaulted onto the rooftop in time to see Kron crest its thatch peak and vanish down the opposite slope. His steps were silent, but the girl's legs dragged noisily across the rain grooves.

Gauging their path by the coarse sound Cronen adjusted his trajectory and launched off the peak of the roof just as Kron leaped from the edge. They crossed the alley in line, one above the other, an eagle hunting an osprey. They landed in a scattered thudding of metal and leather boots, accented by an involuntary cough from the girl's jolted diaphragm. Amongst the screaming figures far below Josh spotted several archers waiting with arrows notched on bowstrings. They cried out in frustration; they could not fire for fear of slaying the innocent girl.

"Let her go or I'll kill you before you take another breath." Cronen uttered as he spun the iron poker to a throwing grip and lashed his arm back, body coiled like an adamantine spring. Sha'keth snarled like a beast in response, grabbed a handful of the young woman's hair and jerked her head back at an unnatural angle as his sword licked upwards. The spring uncoiled and the blade bit, and Underwood changed forever.

[Les Misérables]

Phyr Sa'resh watched the altercation from the safety of the Maiden, long crooked nose poked around the half-open door. The drow clutched the bayonet's leather-wrapped hilt beneath his ragged cloak and bit his lip in bafflement. And I thought myself a fearsome fighter in the old days... I was a guppy in the ocean. he shook his head as Sha'keth climbed his staircase of shadow and disappeared over the rooftop an instant later, hostage bouncing on his shoulder like a silken doll. Cronen followed in close proximity, passing over the building like a jaguar navigating its jungle.

A vicious wind tore at his rags as Phyr slipped out of the inn and scuttled across the empty street. The crowd of locals had dispersed, those with a fighting spirit pursuing the criminal closely as they could while the others barricaded themselves in windowless rooms. These people have received military training... they do not respond to stress like civilians. Bent almost double to examine the ground, Phyr stalked to where he had first seen Sha'keth standing, before he and Joshua had both vanished in a blur of furious speed. Finding the spot, he gave up on attempting to differentiate Kron's footprints from the mess of boot and shoe marks and straightened his spine to a triad of pops.

The killer faced north... probably came from the south. Sa'resh turned around and scanned the shadowy faces of the buildings on either side of the street. He was scouting, making the rounds... Cronen interrupted his search. But once he found me, the one armed drow strode down the frozen rode, past a candle shop and a low-income commune, he would have waited for me to come out and killed me from a distance. Easy shot, easy escape. Phyr scampered down an alley between the commune and the abandoned taxidermist's next to it. He examined the building's back door and found the lock had been picked and the door was merely latched with a chair placed against it to simulate resistance. Putting his shoulder to the oaken timbers he forced his way in, and found a long rectangular crate concealed in the corner of the shadowy back room. Looks like bad luck for the taxidermist meant storage space for Kron Sha'keth... and good luck for Phyr Sa'resh!

The crate was made from black eklan, a wood native to the dark forests of Alerar. Phyr's azure eyes sparkled like a starry night sky as he lifted the lid and looked upon the contents.


*

Jaliss Evenkeel bared his teeth and growled at the other elves and humans in the streets until they parted to let him pass. The Captain of the Watch beat the frigid earthen road in double time with his wolfskin boots, marching past the Peaceful Promenade and turning a sharp ninety degree corner. He broke into a run as he saw the black-cloaked assassin leap onto the shale shingled roof of Edmund Tanner's leatherworking shop. Jaliss swore as he saw Joshua Cronen pursuing the drow. Let the Tap sap me dry if some famous warrior gets himself killed on my watch!

"A ladder, make haste!" Jaliss commanded, and several men nearby snapped to, one elf throwing down his bow in frustration and helping to carry a heavy ladder to the tannery. Jaliss scanned the square with experienced elven eyes as he followed them, pawing at the pommel of his longsword. The people cried out for action, but so far no one other than that young gun known as the Breaker had been foolish enough to join the battle. Evenkeel gnawed at the inside of his cheek and spat on the ground. He had no real desire to fight on the frosted shingles of that building, but responsibility drove him up the ladder as fast as his hands and feet would work.

The sudden violence of the scene seemed to freeze time. Cronen faced the assassin, who held the girl between them. Cronen's arm a dark blur matched by the tip of Sha'keth's blade. The iron poker turned a full rotation then struck Kron's elbow a fearsome blow, but too late! Blood from the innocent's neck fanned the air and spattered the rooftop as the poker deflected downwards, shattering a shingle and sticking fast in the timber beneath. Shak'eth's sword fell from nerveless fingers, clattered off the shale and tumbled to the ground. The assassin sneered and threw the lifeless girl away, but the Breaker followed her in a blur of dark clothing.

Jaliss Evenkeel drew his serpentine mythril sword as formally as the day he'd passed the testing to become a master of the blade. His green eyes shone catlike in the night and his pointed ears quivered beneath straight grey hair as he advanced on the enemy. Kron Sha'keth threw back his hood and cackled, revealing the angular tribal tattoos and crisscrossing scars from his youth spent in the dark forests of Alerar. He drew a curved black skinning knife from a sheathe on his shin and raced to engage the Captain of the Watch. Evenkeel's blood pounded in his ears as he stabbed at the evil one's throat, giving honour to his homeland with a battle cry that echoed throughout the rooftops of the town.

"Raiaera and Underwood! 'Sssdeath!" Sparks flared as the two elves fenced the length of the rooftop, Jaliss driving Kron back with a staggering flurry of precise thrusts. Even as they fought shadowy tendrils gathered and wrapped around and around Sha'keth's shattered arm, binding it tightly as he defended himself with only his curved black diamond dagger.

[Breaker]

No.

A scream sounded from the crowd of citizens as blood fountained from Rose's jugular, steaming as it spattered the frosted shingles and frigid ground below. Breaker's feet propelled him faster than eyes could follow. She can't die. The chestnut-haired girl tumbled away from Kron in a corkscrewed arc, and Josh dove after her like a seal finding a hole in the ice. He snagged the embedded iron poker as he sailed past and caught the girl by the collar of her jacket. Not like this, not poisoned by trash I forgot to dispose of. The jacket tore and the roof timber splintered, freeing the poker. The girl's head lolled at a horrific angle as they fell. Josh dropped the poker and clapped a long, thick forearm roughly over the length of the gushing laceration. He manoeuvred beneath her and absorbed the impact of the fall with a tactical roll, cradling her body within the ball of his own.

The artery isn't completely severed, blood soaked both their clothes. She lives, she will live. He tore his shirt to shreds and wrapped them around and around. Thick crimson fluid still seeped through so he tore her jacket as well, adding layer after layer. Voices in the crowd called for a healer. If they hurry... why isn't she breathing? Rose's wound was fully immobilized but her face was too pale, lips turning blue. Her eyes hung open, shockingly violet but gazing at nothing, like frosted flowers. Breathe. He sealed her mouth with his and exhaled softly. Her heart still beat, if weakly. His hand went beneath the bandages, touching, healing, doing what he could. Pressure on the wound. He breathed into her again and she coughed and gasped. Soft soled shoes, running on the road. He looked up as a healer knelt beside him, a bearded elf in pristine white garb. The druid let his robes stain crimson as he cupped Rose's chestnut crown.

"Go warrior. You are needed!" The old elf barked as he stuffed a pellet of sacred herbs beneath the girls tongue and bowed over her pale form, closing his eyes and uttering ancient words in his native tongue. Lithe, spindly fingers traced the length of the gash, willing torn flesh to knit.

Breaker rose like a reanimated corpse, bare to the waist and baptised in blood. Wildfire blazed in his eyes as he picked up the iron poker and leaped to the rooftop, following the sounds of battle.

[Les Misérables]

The familiar smell of gun oil seeped into Phyr's nostrils. Packed in a nest of cotton wadding, the Aleraran technology seemed to have come from the ancient drow's dreams. He dipped into a ragged pocket and found a book of matches, struck one between his fingers and cast its flickering light across the weapon. It was a short heavy musket, perhaps as long as his arm from shoulder to fingertip. The mechanism was a new model of the flintlock, complete with a ramrod, bayonet bay and canvas shoulder strap. He searched throughout the wadding and came up with a book-like box full of paper cartridges and a small leather tool pouch. Pocketing the pouch and a handful of cartridges, he checked the gun's firing pin and barrel then shouldered it and stole out of the building.

He felt like a fugitive again as he scurried to the Maiden and along its side wall, to the sheltered stack of wood at the back. Phyr tore away the tarp with a series of frantic jerks, and then stopped to rest. Won't get to shoot anyone if I burn out my arm out now. He paced in frustration as the cramping in his shoulder eased, hearing screams and shouts and the roar of Joshua Cronen from blocks away. To Haidia with sore muscles. The stacked firewood provided more hand and footholds than Phyr could possibly use, and he powered himself upwards with surprisingly strong legs. The musket hung on his shoulder like an anvil and splinters gouged the soft skin between his fingers, but finally he hauled himself atop the two story inn and lay there panting, and watching. Tired fingers readjusted the dirty rags around his neck wound, which had begun leaking with the effort of the climb.

Kron Sha'keth and Jaliss Evenkeel circled on the rooftop of the tannery as if caught in a vortex. The Captain of the Watch had shed his heavy cloak, and his delyn half-plate shone in the moonlight as his sword drew intricate glowing patterns in the night. Sha'keth's cloak fluttered and snapped as he slithered and struck like a hunting viper, curved black diamond dagger gouging his opponent's armour on several occasions. Evenkeel used each shrieking strike on his platemail as an opportunity to stomp at Kron's legs, but the assassin only cackled and showed no signs of slowing.

Phyr managed to catch his breath and sat up, propped the musket vertically and held it between his knees. As he cracked a paper cartridge and reached up to pour black powder down the barrel, Breaker gained the roof and raced towards the duelling elves. Phyr fumbled the steel ball into the musket as Sha'keth caught one of Evenkeel's kicks with the tendrils of shadow binding around his broken arm.

"Watch your balance..." Phyr muttered helplessly as he shifted his back against the nearest chimney. The brickwork warmed him and the smell of woodsmoke crept up the passage of his old sinuses. He levelled the musket awkwardly in his left arm as Kron jerked Jaliss off balance and stabbed him at the same, finding a home for his razorlike knife beneath the Captain's ribcage. An instant later Joshua bowled into Sha'keth, breaking the assassin's grip on his knife. All three of the tall, broad shouldered warriors tumbled off the tannery together. Even with a knife through his midsection Jaliss clawed at Sha'keth's throat as they vanished from sight.

A noble fighter that one. A good elf, Phyr noted with a sour look on his face, boosting himself to his feet. He pulled the ramrod from its sheathe and packed the shot down the barrel, then slung the musket over his shoulder and padded carefully along the thatch roof. I'll set up at the front chimney... perhaps Kron Sha'keth will come around the corner and get a ball of steel as a final meal. The poetry of the thought brought a smile to his chapped lips as he set about finding the best way to operate a two-handed firearm.

[Breaker]

For the second time that night Cronen curled into a ball and tumbled across the frozen ground of Underwood. He heard Sha'keth do the same as he came to rest next to the twisted form of Jaliss Evenkeel. The elf had fallen on his enemy's dagger, and blood gushed out of mirrored wounds in his stomach and back. Cronen grabbed the Captain of the Watch and leaned over him in time to catch the elf's last words as they rattled in his throat.

"Stop him..." the Captain's eyes glazed over as his life made a steaming river in the road. Joshua looked up and saw Kron Sha'keth surrounded by villagers, would-be warriors armed with bows and swords. The assassin's purple tattoos lit up his face in the moonlight as empty black eyes surveyed the circle of prey. Three archers bent their bows and took aim while three stout men with broadswords advanced. The chain of shadow on Kron's right arm lashed the air like a horsewhip, taunting them as the crazed drow cackled his rage to the night.

"Stay back!" Cronen called, but they would not stop. He sprinted towards Sha'keth. "Get away from him!"

The shadow whip split the first archer's belly before he could loose, arrow dropping harmlessly as he fell with a cry of anguish. Like an enraged viper the whip struck the next archer's face as he fired, the arrow veering and burying itself in a swordsman's back. The last archer's aim was true but Kron caught the arrow casually as a thrown twig with his uninjured hand. The shadow chain lashed out again and wrapped around the archer's neck as the remaining swordsmen attacked Sha'keth together. Their tactic made little difference. The assassin skipped and ducked, jerked the whip and stabbed twice. The last three men fell simultaneously. Two bled from holes torn in femoral arteries by the barbed arrow, the third with his neck brutally broken.

Sha'keth turned toward the sound of metal pounding earth as Cronen struck like a meteor. He wrapped both legs around the assassin and pummelled him with both elbows, knocking the blood drenched arrow away and driving the drow flat on his back. A stiffened hand chopped down like an executioner's axe, aiming a finishing blow at the cartilage of Kron's throat. Sha'keth thrashed and squirmed like an electric eel and managed to roll away, leaving his midnight cloak in Cronen's deadly embrace.

The mortal enemies stood and faced one another, a moment of stillness as they each hoped the other would make a mistake. The road was deserted except for them, corpses and wounded alike dragged to safety by concerned citizens. At last, they've understood they can't fight him. But hundreds of eyes watched through windows and between cracks in boards as the titans sized each other up.

Kron flexed the fingers of his empty hand and licked the air like a lizard. The smell of blood must excite him. The assassin's damaged arm was immobilised by overlapping tendrils of shadow, and seemed not to bother him as he whirled the lash about in a lethal figure eight. He wore black scaled clothing that seemed to shimmer even as it devoured light as hungrily as his shadow magic.

"That armour looks like it used to belong to a dragon," Joshua commented, his face and voice expressionless as when he'd questioned Phyr. He glued his boots to the ground for traction and tensed his legs. Blood from the innocent woman and the slain captain dripped down his chest and stained his waistband, pooled in the hollows of his hips. The Ascended lifted both hands as if to wipe himself clean, "good thing I don't intend to stab you."

As Cronen streaked forward Sha'keth dodged sideways and brought the lash about. Rather than change direction as the tip of the whip hissed towards his face, Josh planted both hands on the ground and cartwheeled twice, smoother than a rolling wagon. The lash stung the air behind him as his metal boot collided with Kron's skull at the end of the wheel-chain. The assassin staggered backwards as the whip gathered to him and then snaked out in a different direction, forming a cable to a nearby rooftop which Kron ran up nimbly as any circus balancer. Cronen pursued as he had previously, but was forced to sprawl flat as he vaulted to the rooftop, avoiding a snap kick from Kron's leather boot.

Prone on the frigid thatch, Josh caught his enemy's heels and heaved but the drow backflipped away, gashing Cronen's chest with the whip as he went. The Ascended's blood joined that of others on his flesh and garments, and he rushed the assassin with a wordless roar.

Cronen fired lethal strikes faster than a repeating crossbow, short direct punches and kicks that battered Sha'keth backwards, each turned away by the drow's swinging forearms and pedalling legs. Finally he smashed the drow's sternum with a palm-strike which pushed Kron's heels to the splintering edge of the roof. Rather than knock him backwards Josh grabbed a handful of thick oily black hair and drove knee after knee into the enemy's midriff. Kron gasped for air and sagged to his sideways, then shoved his thumbs at Cronen's eyes and turned his hips suddenly, attempting to flip the Ascended off the roof. Joshua seized the opportunity like a starving wolf taking a rabbit. He leapt on the assassin's back and bore him down on the rooftop, long legs constricting that lithe body like twin anacondas. Blood made his chest and arms slippery so he knotted his hands in Kron's hair and shirt and sank into a murderous stranglehold. Sha'keth shook and snarled but could not escape the merciless power threatening to separate his head from shoulders. As his movements slowed the evil smell of him grew stronger, seeping into Cronen’s sinuses until it tormented him.

Blast you, why won't you die?

[Les Misérables]

Phyr had braced his aching back against the foremost chimney of the Last Night's Maiden. It was the largest, the one which vented the hearth in the common room. It was built from sturdy grey brick which blended with his layers of dishevelled rags well enough, and the warm smoke billowing from within smelled of flowers. Elena's rosewater... Phyr's mind drifted below, praying the serving girl was safe inside as he jammed the musket in the crook of his right armpit. It felt comforting there, worth the anguish of not having fingers for the trigger. He reached across with his left hand and manoeuvred the barrel as best he could to a steady angle. His bare stump, severed and healed just above the elbow, braced the eklan stock.

Couldn't ask for a better musketeer nest. You'd have to be a one armed old fool to miss a shot like this.

The wry thought shrouded images of Elena's rosy cheeks as he removed his right foot from the friction of the thatch roof and extended it unsteadily away from him. Compromising the seated firing position. Only as necessary... the old ankle crackled as it rotated through the gun's canvas strap. Phyr tugged with his foot, then curled his knee to his chest, pushing the stock snugly into his armpit. With his left hand on top of the barrel he touched cheek to breech and lined his eyes up with the dot-and-points sight.

Along the titanium barrel of the musket he saw an empty dirt road running to the east. Not a soul occupied it. Seems they finally decided to leave this one to the Breaker. Gives me a long clear shot so long as Sha'keth decides to dance in the street. Phyr snorted and spat off the edge of the roof.

When he turned his head back, they appeared.

First Sha'keth like a monkey on a vine, and Cronen the panther gnashing at his heels. They clashed on the rooftop three winding blocks away, each seeming too swift and canny to absorb a deadly blow. I've never seen two killers so deadly, or well matched... Phyr longed to upset that balance with a well placed steel ball, but had no chance of hitting his mark at such a range. Out of habit he re-checked his weapon, and found to his dismay he'd left the ramrod lodged in the barrel. By the towers of Kachuk, could have painted the chimney with my innards. He fumbled the ramrod into its home beneath the muzzle.

And then Josh had him! The hooks set deep, that tattooed head twisted back, bulging muscles smothering bloodflow to the brain... Cronen tightened around Sha'keth like a pair of well-oiled vices.

"Unh!"

The choked, pathetic sound was all that came out when Phyr Sa'resh tried to shriek a warning. The shadowy tendrils on Kron's arm had oozed onto Joshua's face like living bile and slithered into his ears, his nose, his mouth, his eyes. Phyr coughed and gagged just watching as the Ascended released his enemy and staggered away, falling to his side in the middle of the roof.

Sha'keth tottered, looking semi-conscious, but reached beneath his right sleeve with his left hand, the battered and now bare limb swinging limply. Phyr squinted, his elven eyes not quite sharp enough to see. What's he got there- Sha'keth answered the question when a compact flintlock pistol popped out of his right bracer and clattered to he rooftop. Neat mechanism, that. Would have put the pistol straight into his hand if it weren't broken. Kron knelt and snatched the gun with his left hand, turning with tangible relish to face his downed nemesis. Three blocks away, Phyr cleared his throat.

"Sha'keth!" He roared in their native tongue. Phyr always swore by the medicinal properties of Yurik's, and it seemed as if the half-tumbler he'd consumed earlier had zapped a lifetime of sickness from his sore throat. "Fancy toy, wish I'd stolen that from you in Radasanth!" His voice rang clearly across the rooftops, and Kron whirled at the sound, turning his back on Josh for a moment.

It took those dead black eyes a few seconds to find him, but when the assassin's gaze settled on his hiding spot Phyr felt his blood turn to frost.

[Breaker]

The shadow matter consumed Cronen's senses with the horror of knives in his eyes and fire in his throat. The foul, oily links of magic blocked out the light of the moon and the smell of the night, deafened him as he retched on the rooftop. Nothing could compare with the soul-searing agony, nothing but when he'd fallen into that pit of lava in the Cell. In the moments before death and Ascension, the magma had taught him a thousand lifetimes of lessons in pain. The current of the Eternal Tap tugged at him, urging him to relinquish physical form.

No! Sha'keth is mine, mine to finish. I choose life. Out vile matter, release me!

He could not see or hear, smelled and tasted nothing but bile and soot. But he tore one hand away from the dark element and splayed a callused palm flat on shale shingles. Felt the tiles cease vibrating as Sha'keth stopped nearby. He could still sense the assassin, like a ball of grease in his stomach to match the one wrapped around his head. Cronen embraced the pain and released the memories, rolled over and kicked Sha'keth in the back of the knee.

He sensed the assassin's fall from the rooftop. As if proximity reduced control over the dark matter, Joshua suddenly felt it pushed back by his adamantine will. He clapped both palms to his ears and drew the matter out like pulling a double handful from a writhing nest of snakes. The pain fled and he cackled to match Kron's laugh as he pulled the last of the dark matter out and held it like a ball before him.

His head swam and his vision shifted but his feet never wavered, remaining rooted to the shale as he tracked Sha'keth along the frosted roads of Underwood. The assassin was sprinting toward the nearest intersection. Cronen pitched the ball of energy, which had turned pure white as he cupped it, on an arcing collision course with his enemy. Kron seemed to sense the projectile and stopped short, spun, dropped to one knee and fired his pistol in response. The shot went high and wide and the ball of energy erupted in the roadway with enough concussion to knock Sha'keth off balance. Joshua lunged like an arrow arrow from a bow, enchanted boots beating the ground as he chased his nemesis around the corner and towards the Promenade.

As he ran Cronen realised Kron's destination; he spotted Phyr, concealed in the lee of the Maiden's largest chimney, and put on a burst of speed. His muscles flared and his lungs clenched but he pushed his legs to greater haste, until he caught his quarry ten yards from Sa'resh's nest.

Sha'keth spun, screaming like a cornered bobcat as Cronen snared a handful of his dragonscale shirt. The pistol in his left hand swung for Joshua's skull, but the Ascended drew a prevaldia bayonet from the back of his belt and dropped into a crouch. The razor tip of the bayonet tore a swath in Kron's lightweight armour as he ducked, and his other hand heaved on the garment with all of his weight and might.

Ssschrip!

The front of Sha'keth's shirt tore away and Cronen exploded out of his crouch, back-flipping to the eaves of a nearby building and leaving the assassin alone in the road.

[Les Misérables]

The lock snapped back with a well-lubricated click that echoed down to the streets. Phyr gripped the top of the musket till his knuckles paled and lined the sights up with Kron's center mass as the assassin whirled once more.

Those eyes! An eviler obsidian could not exist. Sha'keth cursed in Aleraran and tossed his head like an enraged stallion. Sa'resh tugged the strap with his foot, leaned to the left and coiled his good arm around the barrel until his thumb reached the trigger. He could only see a fraction of his target under his arm but aimed low, allowing for the kick, and squeezed the trigger.

The musket roared and spat a gout of flame. Sha'keth's fingers fluttered like the wings of a black moth on the wind, and then the assassin went down. Blood seeped from a hole in his left hand and where the ball lodged itself in his bare shoulder. Like some cursed insect he scuttled to the side of the road and vanished amongst the shadows.

The recoil jerked Phyr off balance and he fell sideways, sliding, the the rough thatch grating his rags like a fresh nail on the forge stones. He cried out and rolled frantically, long gun tangled beneath him as he clawed his descent to a stop just shy of the gutter. Face pasted to the frigid roof, Phyr Sa'resh found himself laughing softly at first, and then a hysterical tirade of shattered nerves which nearly rocked him off the rooftop anew.

[Breaker]

The swell of relief and victory never came. Sha'keth nearly caught the musket ball before it pinned his hand to his shoulder, and went down but disappeared into the shadows of a nearby alley.

Cronen sensed a sudden fade in the assassin's presence - as if Kron had jumped three blocks eastward in a single step. The lingering taste of bile diminished as well but the Ascended launched himself back to the road and sprinted east towards the shadowy depths of Concordia.

The wind drifted lazily westward, rattling the needles and leaves of the trees on the fringe of the great forest. Joshua arrived along the middle of the beaten road so fast the the nearest branches stirred against the breeze, buffeted as if caught in a gale. The storm subsided as suddenly as it began. Cronen lost track of Sha'keth as the assassin fled into the forest, flitting from shadow to shadow like a ghostly wraith.

Josh breathed in, and for the first time let the cold bite him. It fought to freeze the blood and sweat which glazed his torso, and he allowed its needled teeth to drain the rage he'd used against Sha'keth. He breathed out, and let go of the angry and hopeless feelings, abandoned the urge to track an uncatchable quarry through the night. But somernthing stuck in his soul like an arrow through the chest. Guilt turned him around like a whirlwind and drove him back along the beaten roads of Underwood, through slanting alleys and over frosted rooftops until he stood outside the infirmary.

The sprawling three story building had become more of a hospital in recent times, a wooden top floor and expansion adorning the original limestone walls. He strode to the door but it opened before he could enter the wash of lantern light from within. An ancient elf with long flowing white hair and a beard to match stepped out and barred his path.

"Let me pass, please," he said quickly and continued moving until the last possible moment. He halted a pine needle's width from colliding with the elf, who did not flinch. The druid was several inches taller than the Ascended yet their eyes seemed to meet at level, forest green facing stony hazel.

"Only healers and those in need are welcome here, warrior. If you require healing I can-" the elf crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow as Cronen twitched away from his reaching hand. The gash in his chest clotted well, and he preferred not to have unknown magics used on him. "I see. You may not disrupt the proceedings herein." The druid stepped back onto the threshold of his territory but paused as Cronen held up a questioning hand.

"Is she well? When can I see her?" he asked, tone level and respectful as he compartmentalised searing frustration and fed it to the cold bit by bit. There was no question of whom he inquired about - the infirmary received only one female patient that night.

"She is alive and she will be well enough to leave in a fortnight. Please do not attempt to enter the premises again unless you require healing." The elf's smile and kind tone offset the harsh words, and his eyes shone as he stroked his long beard thoughtfully. "If not for your action, basic as it was, she surely would have died. Her name is Rose Vasston, and her gratitude to you will match this city's, I am certain." The door whisked shut, leaving Breaker bare chested and alone with the wind.

Rose Vasston.

Regardless of what anyone said, he owed her a debt, not of gratitude but of blood, almost more than could be spared. Her name burned in his mind, and no nighttime chill could snuff out the surrounding inferno of guilt.

[Les Misérables]

Underwood's town hall had once been a warehouse, by the shape of the the boxlike wooden walled rooms. Benjamin Aldebrand, Mayor of thirty years, stood on a small brown and green painted platform affixed with a wide podium. Aldebrand's cheeks and forehead were pale, his eyes crinkled and reddened reflecting the wee hours of the morning.

The mayor licked his lips as he addressed the members of Town Council, a round dozen men and women, all of whom had been permanent residents in Underwood for at least forty years. Grey showed through in all their hair, except those vain enough to use herbal dyes, and Ormeath Zhainguinth who was as bald as a riverstone. They sat on cushioned seats behind stout desks, some shuffling parchment, some sipping tea or spiced wine. A few even had secretaries or assistants in attendance, as if it were an official Council meeting, as if they thought themselves lords and ladies who needed servants.

Well, mayhap we do have a need for lords and ladies at that. Leadership and organisation. Aldebrand thought as he scrubbed a hand through his own thinning grey hair. It was far from a closed council meeting. A group of at least fifty citizens crowded the back of the hall, chatting in clusters or watching in sleepy-eyed silence. Aldebrand clasped capable worker's hands over his respectable politician's paunch and took in a breath. He had spent the past hour discussing the night's violent events with the council members, fielding questions from citizens, and wishing he were back in bed.

"I believe," he said in a tired voice which nonetheless carried to the back corners of the rectangular room, "that he have come to an agreement. Following the murder of Jaliss Evenkeel," a moment of sombre silence followed the deceased elf's name, and even the buzz of whispers from the commoners quieted. After bowing his head for a moment, Aldebrand continued, "we are resolved to employ a new Captain of the Watch immediately. The votes are tallied, and as such I will approach Joshua Breaker Cronen at first light and offer him the position. As to the issues of safety and overpopulation in Underwood, the council will be meet again in--" the Mayor cut off as a barrel-chested dwarf stormed through one of the hall's side doorways, having come from the chamber where Evenkeel's corpse lay, shrouded in linen with his sword at his side.

"May I address the council, Benjamin?" The dwarf's voice was as thunderous as his footfalls as he stepped up on the corner of the stage.

"Of course, Terech, my friend." Aldebrand replied, sidestepping to make room for the dwarf behind the podium. Since standing behind it would have concealed most of his thick body and shaggy beard, Terech Bodorson opted instead to remain at the edge of the stage. An unshielded brazier full of perfumed coals blazed just beside him, throwing flickering light across his craggy, hardened features and causing perspiration to seep from the deep lines on his forehead. Wiping the sweat away with one sleeve of his brown cloak, the dwarf cleared his throat.

"Fellow citizens of Underwood... I feel doubly responsible for the death of my close friend, and for the those wounded and killed among your loved ones. Firstly because I was teaching lessons in the forest when I should have been helping Jaliss fight the assassin, and secondly because I have not stepped in sooner to correct the development of this town into a city."

Bodorson held up both wide palms to quell the wave of murmurs and turning heads which washed from the back to the front of the room. As the men and women in attendance quieted down he curled one hand into a fist the size of a hammerhead and crashed it into his opposite palm.

"We are a part of a nation divided, a nation at war with itself. Thus far we have been content to shelter refugees, feed the hungry and cure the ill, and let the Rangers protect us from the forces of the Empire. But this cannot last! In these times of conflict I hope you will listen to my counsel. I have seen many wars, fought many battles, and I know that before we can have peace in Concordia and all of Corone, we must defeat the oppressors, not hide from them!"

This time the murmurs were louder and more positive, the gleam of action replacing the sleepy glaze in the eyes of many.

"I propose," the head of Ravenheart Academy said, pressing his callused hands together before him, "that you leave the task of appointing a new Captain of the Watch to me. I will find someone who can not only recruit and train more warriors, but who can turn the Watch into a proper fighting force, and army of our own to support the Rangers."

The tinkling of quills dipped rapidly in inkwells and the scratch of nubs over parchment swelled beneath the excited murmurs as secretaries notated what their employers whispered. One member of the council, a woman with a long grey braid wrapped over her shoulder and clutched between both hands, stood up suddenly.

"But if the Watch becomes an army, who will protect our homes by night? The dark assassin could return, and theft is on the rise with the population." Terech Bodorson nodded to her appreciatively and she sat down. He had anticipated the concern, but rather than attempt to explain to the civilians how the presence of a military force could clean up crime in a city on its own, he had something prepared to satiate their worries.

"That is why," he said kindly, losing some of the harshness in his voice, "I also propose we name Joshua Cronen Sheriff and Guardian of Underwood, providing of course that he accepts the position."

The murmurs were quiet and scattered this time, as one by one all twelve of the council members stood and voiced their support of the proposal. Finally the floor fell back to Mayor Aldebrand, who had been near to dozing while leaning against the heavy podium.

Terech stepped off the platform and nodded politely to those he knew, offering brief condolences to any who had lost family as short, stout legs carried him to the back corner of the room. Leaning against the wall in a pool of shadows next to the exit was a silver-haired drow. He was sickly gaunt and had only one arm, bu the eyes of an officer, icy blue eyes that had seen as much death as the winter sky. The barrel of a short musket peered over the drow's shoulder, the long gun lashed to that wasted torso by a heavy canvas strap.

"You speak common?" Terech asked the drow in Aleraran, and got a nod in response.

"My name is Phyr Sa'resh," the old elf said in an immaculate accent, and extended his single arm for an awkward handshake.

"Terech Bodorson, Master of the Ravenheart Academy," the dwarf said, and gestured to the outdoors, where a faint glow of morning had appeared over the tops of Concordia's tallest trees. "Walk with me, Master Sa'resh. I have a proposal for you."

[Les Misérables]

A tired sun gazed upon the dwarf and the drow as they walked in thoughtful silence towards the outskirts of Underwood. Its crimson glare stained the dirt roads and rooftops where Kron Sha'keth's blade had spilled the blood of many. The wind picked sluggishly at tumbleweeds and branches on the fringe of the forest. Oak, poplar, and trakym leaves rattled suspiciously as the needles of pines and yews whispered to one another in their rounded glades. The sound of a bellows belching air onto the forge's coals reached the withered ears of Phyr Sa'resh as he passed a smithy and turned onto the a curving road bordering on the forest.

The drow's entire being ached. He had not slept at all the previous night. After shooting the assassin Phyr had climbed half-way down his makeshift ladder and then lost his footing, pitching the rest of the distance and landing in a painful heap. Some minutes later he'd roused himself to check on Elena and the other occupants of the Last Night's Maiden and, ignoring the willowy brunette's stern-faced demand that he get himself to bed this instant, followed the trails of concerned citizens to the open council meeting.

Remembering Elena's flushed concern for his well-being, and knowing she was curled up safely in the Maiden's staff dormitory steeped Phyr's heart in quiet comfort. He longed to put down the musket and rest his weary shoulder, to sink onto a soft mattress of fresh straw and relinquish his hold on reality. The dwarf's voice split his reverie like a hatchet halving a piece of kindling.

"Y'know Master Sa'resh, I'm not rightly sure which part of this is most preposterous. The fact that a dark elven assassin entered Underwood and killed several good men, or the fact that an older one-armed drow somehow managed to shoot him from wenty paces - with a bloody musket." Terech Bodorson had both bulbous forearms folded across his barrel chest. He moved with a drive and purpose that matched Phyr's long strides easily. They passed a bakery and the scent of sourdough rising in the windows and cranberry scones piping in the oven made the ancient elf's stomach bubble. He licked his lips and glanced forlornly over his shoulder, noting that Bodorson did not react to the enticing aromas.

Curious.

Phyr stopped suddenly and clapped his hand to the eklan butt of his musket, pivoting ninety degrees to face the dwarf. Terech gave a start and jumped back a half pace, right hand going to the belt beneath his heavy brown tabard, before he realised the drow represented no threat and hastily withdrew his arm, ruddy face getting ruddier beneath his thick, dark beard.

I see.

Heaving a long sigh, Phyr wandered into a recently cleared section of forest and sat upon a stump the woodsmen had not uprooted for fuel. The dwarf followed but stayed a respectful distance away, bulging arms once more crossed over his chest.

"I am certain it is clear to you the kind of hardships the years have visited upon me," Phyr said, waggling his stump of an arm and shrugging in such a way that his entire spine popped, one vertebrae at a time. "I can see in your eyes and your step that you have been subject to your own. As a fellow wise leader, I can only imagine my experience affords me some respect in your eyes." Phyr's eyelids felt heavy but he enunciated each syllable to perfection.

"It does at that," Terech Bodorson said with a curt nod. "The state you're in, just gettin' yourself atop that inn would be enough to graduate my tactical combative class." The dwarf clicked his tongue, as if to say that he had already given his opinion on Sa'resh's incredible accuracy with a firearm designed for two hands.

"My thanks," Phyr said, inclining his head lower in return, "Then I would ask, respectfully, that we avoid the inevitable part of this conversation where you accuse me of being in league with the assassin who attacked last night. I fear my frail bones might not survive the interrogation."

Bodorson snorted at frail bones but seemed taken aback. Phyr wondered if the dwarf really had been planning to question him, then banished the thought and ploughed onward.

"I will of course reciprocate this respect in confessing all I know. The assassin's name is Kron Sha'keth, and he is in the employ of the Empire's Coalition, although he was trained in Alerar. He is responsible for smuggling technology into Radasanth and killing secretly in the name of the Empire, but I fear he came to Underwood last night seeking vengeance... seeking me."

A boiling rage flashed through Bodorson's eyes as he realised the drow sitting before him was responsible for death of Jaliss Evenkeel. Whatever the dwarf felt though, he suppressed as rapidly as it appeared. Phyr inhaled, realising he had stopped breathing for a moment, and continued.

"I was the only one, aside from Sha'keth and his underlings, who witnessed the smuggling operation and lived to tell of it. I covered my tracks and fled here, but it seems it is... difficult to go about unnoticed in this nation." Phyr's legs felt as though a welder had begun filling them with liquid steel the moment he sat down. Rising, he shook the numbness out and resumed their original path along the beaten road. Terech, who actually seemed amused at the last comment, kept pace easily.

"I would surely be dead," Phyr said as they made a large loop around a bustling open air market, "had I not met Joshua Cronen moments before Sha'keth arrived. He has fought the assassin on numerous occasions, and quite apart from saving my life, his actions may have lessened the butcher's bill considerably. Sha'keth cares not for preventing collateral damage, and left to his own devices he might have set the inn afire just to see if I ran out." Quite abruptly, Phyr realised they had arrived on the exact spot where Kron had taken the girl Rose Vasston - on the road between the Promenade and the Maiden.

Wondering arbitrarily if it was a result of his own subconscious or subtle influence from the dwarf that guided them there, Phyr stopped and faced Bodorson once more, fingering the bandage-wrapped laceration on his throat..

"But I do not wish to sidestep the heart of the issue. I owe a great debt to the people of Underwood for bringing Sha'keth's wrath upon them, and I will not rest until it is repaid."

Phyr leaned his back against the sturdy wooden siding of the Maiden and closed his eyes. Well, I may rest for just a moment

"I believe we can come to an arrangement." Terech's voice seemed distorted and far away...

[Breaker]

The sun rose and set six times, beaming down not on a transient forest town, but a small City under the watch of a growing free militia. By day refugees from towns conquered by the Empire flowed in, red eyed and bloodstained often as not. Some were starving and wore smallclothes or less, trembling tongues pushing stories of Imperials stripping and exiling those who refused their rule past cyanotic lips. The feet of those without boots were mangled by their harrowing flight through the woods, blackened by the ashes of torched livelihood. In the eyes of all a fire raged, a fire ignited by the Coalition's greed and fed by the Empire's might. It consumed them to the man, woman, elf and dwarf, and like iron on the anvil of a master blacksmith it melded them into something more. A force that could strike like a viper from its den, the last bastion of freedom in Corone.

Joshua Cronen could smell their determination as he strode the beaten soil streets of Underwood. The little city pulsed with activity, every inhabitant going about their work with fierce determination, driving towards a time when they could return to their homes and live as they pleased. The number of new recruits to the Watch seemed to grow exponentially, dozens of able-bodied beings arriving each day, followed by a smaller trickle each night. Cronen passed the limits of Underwood proper, smelling stone dust on the air as he skirted the foundations of a wall commissioned by the Council. Even in the early hours of the morning masons worked diligently as labourers wheeled massive chunks of rock in from nearby quarries. One of the Watch's regular patrols made way for Joshua, a group of young men who saluted him by holding their long pikes at the ready and touching the symbol emblazoned on their tunics. It was a crossed sword and halberd sheltered beneath intricately designed trees. Josh acknowledged their respect with a nod and moved on, past the ring of tents and outbuildings that encircled the town like a halo of life. These made up the barracks and training yard of the militarised Watch, and had been tactically arranged according to Captain Sa'resh's orders. Any force attacking the city would first have to find their way through the haphazard arrangement of lightweight structures. Arrow slits and hidden doors abounded on those shelters like the latest architectural fashion from Akashima. The sounds of wooden practice weapons clacking together and officers bellowing orders swirled throughout the area as Cronen navigated the confusing scatterplot of tents and outbuildings.

He vaulted over an outward-facing rack of long cyper tree trunks carved into stakes and set at a forty-five degree angle. Similar stands surrounded the outer ring of Underwood so the city bristled like a hedgehog. Designed to repel a cavalry charge, the fire hardened points looked sharp and hard, dangerous. They would not hold off a full-scale invasion, but could prevent an Imperial army from crushing the outbuildings in a single sweeping manoeuvre. Satisfied with his survey of the defences, Cronen continued along a root-strewn forest path that led to a wide clearing.

A granite slab taller than a horse identified the cemetery as the final resting place of those who fell protecting Underwood. It bore a ledger, letters chiselled into the rock and dyed crimson, spelling the names of every body that lay in Althanas' final embrace. The most recent names, headed by Jaliss Evenkeel, still looked damp like the cheeks of a mourning maiden. Looking out over the rows of tombstones and grave markers, the guilt Cronen had borne like a penance for six days finally waned. The memories of men dying in the streets, of Rose Vasston's head lolling back above a spray of sickly sweet blood, faded as nausea gripped the Ascended. For an instant he could see the ghostly images of more gravestones, dozens, hundreds more, filling the cemetery to capacity and beyond. In his mind's eye trees were felled and hauled away to make space for more markers, a second and third ledger added to the front of the clearing. For the space of a blissful moment, the pain of what would be veiled the guilt of what was. Kneeling in the loam with a palm pressed to the tomb of Jaliss Evenkeel, Cronen found a moment of peace, like the swell between a wave and its back-drag.

"Hoped I could find you here." The wind carried Phyr's surprisingly smooth voice across the clearing. Josh glanced up, then rose. He saw the irregular shapes of men camouflaged in the forest either side of Sa'resh, who stood at the mouth of clearing next to the ledger-stone. Josh strained his ears and picked up the sounds of their breathing, the slightest creak of leather armour. He smelled their sweat through the freshness and decay of the forest. As the sun sprang from behind a cloud he spotted a red armband on one of the hiders. They called themselves the Crimson Guard, a grouping of officers who acted as their Captain's bodyguard. "I have something for you." The ancient drow said as he paced along a row of marble markers, a cloth bundle cradled beneath his stump, hardwood cane clutched in his hand. It made more noise than all the members of the Crimson Guard combined, thumping along repeatedly in the loam. Josh smiled as he pressed his palms together and offered Phyr a nod of respect. The drow had done amazing things in his six day reign as Captain of the Watch.

He could be the one that leads these people to freedom. Phyr's previously tangled silver hair was combed and held back by a fine velvet beret. He wore no rags, but a black woolen cloak over a fine sifan cloth shirt and breeches. His cloak bore the crest of the Watch on one breast and the sword-crossed-rifle of the Rangers on the other, displaying his rank. The thick-barrelled musket still peered over his good shoulder, its canvas strap replaced by braided black vlince. Cronen inhaled and smelled the gunpowder and oil from the musket, and the soap from Sa'resh's recent wash.

"I've patrolled the forest these past few days," he said by way of explanation, "I can move faster than a Ranger with two good horses. Luckily no one else has seen or heard of Kron Sha'keth this side of Radsanth. That's where he went, I'd guess. Found a bit of his blood six leagues north of here. Bastard probably shadow-skipped until he got back to his masters." Josh shrugged and simply stood expectantly, hands relaxed at his sides.

"Good riddance," Phyr mumbled as he brought his cane to the ground mightily. The tip stuck, and the gnarled azure hand separated a garment from the bundle between his stump and slim chest. "Elena found this in the dining room, after you ran outside to save our lives," Phyr said, handing over the poncho, and following it with a leather hat. "This, too."

"Elena? That the pretty-eyed wisp of a woman who badgers you to eat more soup?" Josh stared at the poncho and three-pointed hat for a moment, then donned them. They made him fit in, for he was the only man in Underwood who went about in shirtsleeves so late in the season. As the top of the poncho cleared his head he saw the last item Phyr offered; a curved dagger in a midnight sheathe.

Cronen accepted the weapon and bared an inch of its black diamond edge. He had only seen that blade twice before; embedded in Evenkeel's gut six nights prior, and another time months before. Shynt Sha'keth, the brother of Kron, had wielded that dagger the night Cronen bested both assassins and slew Shynt in the northern quarter of Radasanth. The dagger, it seemed, had travelled all the way from the mines of Kachuk to insist upon being his.

"Some of the villagers brought it to Elena, and she gave it to me last night," Phyr explained, "seems they thought you should have it by way of thanks-"
"Thanks?" Cronen said, so forcefully that the hiders rustled the trees with barely bridled aggression. The Ascended quieted his voice 'till it reached only Sa'resh's pointed ears. "I brought them devastation and the death of a leader. And they'd thank me for-"
"It was I Kron followed to this place-" Phyr interjected, but Cronen spoke through his words in a stinging whisper.
"Yes, Sa'resh. He followed you, and if not for me he would have killed you and left this place in peace. And that's beside the fact I should have finished him when I had the chance." Cronen re-sheathed the blade, and as he added it to his belt noticed for the first time a golden star pinned on the shoulder of his poncho. So be it. The star would remind him of the people he was indebted to, the dagger of his past failings.

Phyr Sa'resh closed the space between them with long, confident strides, and gripped Cronen's biceps in his gnarled hand. The drow's azure eyes met the Ascended's hazel ones, colours like a calm evening at sea.

"We must forget the matter of fault and shame," Sa'resh said, and the spirit of a much younger Captain crackled in his voice. "Instead of steeping in our guilt, we must do all we can to make this right. We must set this nation free. Sheriff. I will find a way to defeat their armies, so long as you protect us from their spies and assassins." Energy swirled and danced in Cronen's eyes, and then he clapped Phyr on the shoulder hard enough that the old drow shuddered and winced.

"Agreed."

The wind changed, leaves cackling throughout the great forest Concordia.


Spoils:

Phyr Sa'resh gains a heavy Aleraran musket made from titanium and black eklan, complete with an iron ramrod and braided vlince shoulder strap. Also gains 6 steel musket balls wrapped in paper cartridges with enough gunpowder for one shot each and a small leather kit of gun maintenance tools.

Joshua Cronen gains a masterwork black diamond skinning knife in a vlince sheathe. It is stiletto shaped and slightly curved, designed for deep incisions and stripping the hide off of flesh.

The story of Josh and Rose continues in Baby This Night. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?22478-Baby-This-Night-(for-CaitieGirl))

[Yari Rafanas]

Your vices are in order

When I was first assigned this thread, I was feeling a bit cautious on how to approach it. I can only describe Numbers' style as 'thick' and precise. I knew I was in for a long read, and I wanted to make sure it got my full attention, so I unfortunately had to split my reading into two chunks. After my first night with the thread, I was hooked, and found myself wanting to come back and finish it the next day. Great read, and a great start to my weekend.

Story: 8.5
I wanted to score this category higher but I had a few problems with how things got started at the beginning of the thread. I get that Josh was there doing whatever he could to blend in and get a feel for the crowd/gather information, but I still felt as though it was missing something. One of the most interesting portions of the incognito bit was the exchange with the drug dealer, but had some problems with Joshua as a character during this section (which I'll address later.)

However, the rest of the thread was real quality stuff. The action in the middle was great and the Underwood growth at the end gave purpose to the bloodshed. I probably would have just written the battle and left Underwood in the same sorry lumbertown state, but you did more with it.

Continuity: 9
This type of development of Althanas lore and extreme attention to detail is what more threads need. Constant references to common Althanian places, some obscure history, and the development of Concordia's most famous town really skyrocketed your score and connected me to the thread. This is not a stab against your solo efforts, but I would have given 10 in this category had more than 1 player helped play out this important development in Underwood's description and status. The wonderfuly described birth of a 'new' Underwood is not going to be read by everybody, and will now only be detailed as a small blurb in a forum description. Nobody will quite have the same idea of just what caused Underwood to jump up in arms without reading this, and sadly that will lead to most players ignoring it.

Setting: 10
Aww yeah, Underwood perfection.

Creativity: 7
It was an interesting idea to have the 1-post cameo and hope that it can blossom into a bit more in the future, but ultimately I felt it fell kinda flat with me. Very, very nice imagery in your writing though.

Character: 7
I kept my notepad up while reading and was so interested in the thread that the only note I managed to write down it seems was “Batman exit.” Josh's character is consistent, stealthy, and hardcore, and I really enjoy learning just a bit more about how he works, but I'm still waiting to see what's under that demigod exterior. I am also not too sure what his overall goal is, and just where he stands on issues. I mentioned the drug dealer earlier, and the part that bugged me was “Why did he have knock out the drug dealer?” Does he have a vendetta against narcotics or something?

Phyr on the other hand is probably one of the cooler drow I've seen on Althanas. Even though you describe him as this frail, beaten, and old warrior he still comes off as very accomplished. It seems you may have become comfortable with describing Josh's exploits as some of the descriptions and methodical behavior of Phyr seemed a bit too similar.

Interaction: 9
All I can say here is that I felt and heard almost every moment of the thread. You pay an almost excruciating amount of attention to the little things which give the world its weight.

Strategy: 7

Clarity: 8
Had to read through some parts twice, sometimes a whole paragraph to get the full picture. Sometimes you would slip in a juicy tidbit that was lost in the flow of your writing and I wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything important. All the combat was fast-paced and easy to follow, though.

Mechanics: 9
There were parts that seemed a bit rushed, a couple missing letters, but nothing major.

Wildcard: 7
Two times I got goosebumps.

Total: 81.5

EXP
016573 gains 2,385 EXP
Les Misérables gains 1200 EXP
CaitieGirl gains 80 EXP

Loot
Joshua keeps the nasty knife - a masterwork black diamond skinning knife in a vlince sheathe. It is stiletto shaped and slightly curved, designed for deep incisions and stripping the hide off of flesh.

However, regardless of the goosebump-inducing read and the fact that Phyr only has one arm, I cannot approve of a firearm spoil for a level 0 character—especially a high quality, titanium firearm that was able to cause such a fearsome opponent to run for his life. I realize that it's tied rather closely to the story of the thread, so I would hate to void its existence, so I suggest that the weapon be stored away in the Underwood Watch's armory, where it will rest until it is needed again.

edit: Rewards added.