Title TK - Chapter 3

[Malevolence]

For background, I refer you to the background and prologue thread located here This is Chapter 3.

A General Note: If you see anything wrong with any of my writing, please comment in the OOC Comments Thread. Be these problems plot-wise, character-wise, clarity-wise, or grammar/spelling-wise, PLEASE for the love of all that is holy (or unholy depending on your beliefs) tell me! I hate it when people are afraid to be critical. I'm posting this stuff so you read it and give me feedback. That being said, enjoy!

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Chapter Three

Taere tied up his horse outside one of the small, inconspicuous looking cottages in the north-eastern portion of Colendd. After struggling to loop the reigns around a post and crossbar sticking out of the ground to the left of the entrance, Taere gave Ether a pat on the snout and a quick neck rub, and walked inside.

As soon as he entered the dwelling, it became obvious, however, that it was anything but a normal, inconspicuous cottage. Immediately to the left of the entrance, a staircase descended into the ground about ten feet, and opened up into a large room bustling with shady looking characters dressed in hoods, cloaks, and all manners of thieves’ garb. Some toted daggers, tossing them in the air and testing them for balance, others bartered with – presumably stolen – goods and money.

Taere scanned the room, and soon found who he was looking for.

“Sherrik!” An old, coot-like man looked up at the sound of what was presumably his name, and tottered over to where Taere stood.

“Taere Flarion,” Sherrik said in a caustic tone, “you unreliable, tardy, untrustworthy bastard of a mercenary; I’ve been waiting for you for over an hour!”

“Calm your crotchety old self, Sherrik, I had trouble with my horse.”

“Get a better one then.”

“Sherrik, I just bought the horse. What do you expect me to do, go back and ask for a new one?”

“If this stable hand had any sort of class, he’d trade you for another horse.”

“How about we stop talking about my business issues, and start talking about our business?” Sherrik suddenly straightened up, and seemed less like an old man and more like the seasoned thief he was.

“Entering the tower will be the easy part. Once you walk in those two massive doors, however, your task immediately becomes much more difficult. The Cloak usually places the standard inept, greenhorn guards at the main entrance to restrict who gets into the tower as effective mindless peons and as cannon fodder if anyone particularly menacing – that’s you – tries to get in.”

“Suggestions?” Taere probed.

“Deal with them with as much brash confidence as possible. With any luck, they either won’t know the rules of who’s allowed inside, or they’ll be so confused they’ll simply let you in.”

“And if they don’t?”

Sherrik’s eyes glistened with the slightest twinge of iniquity. “Kill them.”

“So once I either get past them or, maybe, kill them, where do I go to find this thing?”

“It’s probably in a vault.”

“That’s great. That’s really, really great. What am I supposed to do about that? Those vaults are magically locked. I don’t have the kind of equipment you need to get into one of those locks, let alone the standard five that the Cloak uses on all their high-security vaults.”

“I’m sure you’re resourceful,” Sherrik replied. He then got himself up with the knotted stick he used as a cane, and began to totter back to his other business, but turned back quickly.

“Oh, and Taere?”

“Mmm?” Taere grunted back.

“Don’t get killed.”

“Wait,” he said, “was that concern?”

“No, you just do good jobs for Ctrelli. We like you.”

“Make all the excuses you want, Sherrik, you know you actually care whether I live or die.”

“Go do your job.”

Taere walked back up the stairs out of the thieves’ den and back out the door. Unsurprisingly, he found that Ether had unhitched himself and wandered off into town.

“Hell’s bells…” Taere muttered, and stalked off to find his missing roan.

* * *

The cell door opened and Alexia’s interrogator walked in. Alexia looked up through the blood-crusted locks of her brown hair, now stained permanently red by the ichor that covered them daily.

“Good morning sunshine.” He grinned menacingly, “And how are you today?”
She spat at his feet.

“Fine, thank you.” She smiled sweetly. “And what is it to be today my Lord Tariq? The whip? Or perhaps the hot irons?” and took a quick glance behind him at the guards, they were watching uneasily. “Tell me my Lord. Where is my sister?”

“You don’t need to know that.”

“I think I do.”

“Well then, you’re not going to know. It doesn’t matter now anyway.” He leaned in to whisper in her ear: “She didn’t last as long as you.”

Alexia hesitated perhaps a second before head-butting him. He staggered backwards, and rubbed his head gingerly. He then straightened up and became more business like. Alexia saw one of the guards grin a little bit. She laughed inwardly.

“Tell us what you know. Why are They after you?” he said quickly, hoping to shock an answer out of her.

“I don’t know anything, as I’ve told you many times before, but you seem to take no notice.” She paused and cocked her head to one side. “I don’t even know who ‘They’ are.”

“I know you’re lying.” He spat.

“How? I don’t think mages have come across truth magic yet have they?”
Without warning he hit her hard across the jaw. She barely felt any pain before passing out.

A torrent of water flowed over her and jerked her awake.

“You don’t think I’d let you get away that easily do you? Strip her.”

Tariq’s two accompanying guards pulled off her tattered shirt, and chained her arms to a pair of old, bloody shackles hanging from an indefinitely long set of chains attached to the iron bars above her cell. Tariq unrolled a three-tailed bullwhip from behind his back. The spaces between the stitches gleamed as the dim light reflected off the shards of glass woven in with the leather cord of the whip’s tails.

Again and again the whip cracked across Alexia’s back. With every blow surges of pain washed over her like fire. She could feel the welts beginning to swell up on her back, and just barely started to be aware of the blood trickling down the grooves of her spine.

After an hour or so, they stopped. They released her from her chains as they usually did and left her sobbing on the ground.

“Tomorrow, my dear; there’s always tomorrow,” Tariq said as she almost pranced out of her cell. The iron-reinforced oak door clanged behind him and ground with a screech as the magical locks engaged.

She had to get out.