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A Lethal Symphony [Closed] - DAISHI - 06-28-2010
(Note: Though my stories are never entirely too gory, this story is to set up a murderer Sin will later encounter. There is an appropriate amount of violence. Readers who do not enjoy stories whose focus is this may want to move on)
It was one of the few days of the year when it had decided to rain in Ul'Dah.
Maestro couldn't have asked for anything better.
His thin frame stood against the black of the skies, the single scar running down his eye, hands relaxed and at his side, and all his chest and waist strapped down with knives. His fingers went twitchy a second as he paused, looking to his side. Ah, good ol' Mr. Satan himself, The Leader. Maestro couldn't help but note the man's impeccable wardrobe, second only to his own, though Satan there didn't carry knives... just a skinny sword that could skewer three men like a kabob.
Maestro licked his lips. Kabobs. Delicious.
Opposite side of him, Goobbue was standing like Goobbue always stood, looking like the idiot he was and yet forming a shape so high and large against the lightning infused clouds that he might as well have been a small house. He had two maces... TWO! One in each hand, each a weapon so heavy it would take a normal man both hands to carry. Goobbue wasn't any ordinary man though, of that you would know if you only looked at him once. At eight feet high and almost seven hundred pounds, there were boulders that weighed less.
Maestro's fingers were starting to twitch again. He was getting that madness, that... bloodlust. He couldn't control it, he just felt the mania coursing through very blood pumping inch of his veinous system. The Leader took a look at him, arching an eyebrow.
"Can you hold it together until we're inside, sir?"
Maestro turned aside, lips curling in a look of mock insult. "You shame me sir. Mania can wait when it means murder on the horizon." He smiled, flashing that charismatic, almost handsome smile, but the vacancy in his eyes betrayed the acute lack of a soul. "Let's get started, shall we?"
He stepped forward, past them, snapping his fingers as he did. The duo fell into step behind, Goobbue suddenly starting to happily grunt like some fat child ready to consume his next piece of cake. You never knew with Goobbue, men disappeared when fighting him and judging by his size of his belly, he could down several. Best not to mess with a seven-hundred pound cannibal.
Maestro threw open the door and walked deep enough into the tavern that his two companions could step in behind him, Goobbue closing it as they did and then taking up position in front of it. Nobody would be leaving. As Maestro took a step further, there was a sudden ruckus as men jumped up from their tables, drawing swords, the sounds of metal unsheathed ringing throughout the tavern. Maestro glanced about, from man to man, almost a dozen there. A few were guards, but most were mid-level racketeers or enforcers. He threw his arms open wide, one pointing to the western wall, one to the eastern.
"Lucy, I'm hooome!" he shouted, followed by a flick of his wrists that sent ballistic daggers propelling from his hands, flying with speed into chests of two approaching guards. They collapsed to the floor as he howled, pulling out a Bowie knife the size of a man's forearm as he rushed into the nearest of them. As the bar collapsed on his position, Goobbue let out a bellowing roar, slamming his maces into the ground with such force that it threw several of the men aside. As he closed off the eastern end of the tavern, The Leader rushed up to the bar on the western end, unleashing his blade with such tremendous speed and precision that the closest of the guards did not have time to pull his blade before collapsing onto the ground. He proceeded to the bartender who, in midst of grabbing his sword, found himself pinned through the stomach onto the wall beyond.
Not that Maestro wasn't having his own fun as he gutted his way through the small crowd of guards, enforcers and racketeers. His knife cut slish-slash and up-down, leaving men falling onto the floor in a sparkle of ruby color that painted the walls red and put a giggle on his lips.
A nearby rushing guard thrust out his blade, but Maestro only leaned back, flipping his blade in his hand as the sword passed his face, then thrust the sharp edge of the knife into the man's belly. The man collapsed, Maestro chuckling ever more as he looked over to Goobbue, who stood there with a likewise grin on his face.
"Well you can't spell slaughter without laughter, can you?" Maestro asked, looking gleeful until he looked around. "Wait. What? Are we done?"
Footsteps from the opposite end of the tavern caught his attention. The Leader, looking as ever polished with his slickly combed blonde hair and his spectacles, nodded. "Yes, sir. It seems they weren't prepared for us." His eyes drifted to Goobbue, noticing the red stain on the man's lips. "Have... have you already started eating?"
The hulking figure's face fell downwards, ashamed. "Yes..." he mumbled in that deep, stupid voice.
Maestro looked from The Leader to Goobbue, then down to the floor, disgusted, alarmed, enraged, outraged. His arms started to tremble at his side, a tremor which began to shake his entire body until finally he looked upwards, turning a fist towards the wall and striking so hard that an audible crack could be heard in the small tavern, Maestro suddenly falling forward, head striking the wall as he slid down to the ground, a guttural roar burbling up from his lungs, rising up to his throat and then piercing the air as thunder roared around in the skies above.
TOO EASY! he screamed, suddenly pounding the wall with his other first. ALWAYS TOO EASY!!!
The Leader walked up beside him, glancing calmly at the hysterical figure, reaching a hand down to trembling man. "Sir, you're right. These men weren't suitable to be your opponent. Let's go home." He paused, leaning in just a bit closer, his voice quiet and soothing. "We could play a game of chess."
Maestro's face shot aside, looking up at The Leader, a sudden gleam in his eye and a smile on his face. "Chess?" His scream was gone, replaced now by a low chuckle. "Yes, you've always been a worthy opponent, Tervanian. Chess it is."
Re: A Lethal Symphony ch.2 - The Hire - DAISHI - 06-28-2010
"Five men sat at a table, five men sat in shadows. Five men sat at a table, in empty halls once hallowed."
It had been, once, a shrine to a god. Who that once was they couldn't say, couldn't know, so dilapidated was the facility. All that was left of what it had been were the arches that rose a respectable length into the air, the columns and the pews that lined the length of the church. All the windows that had lined the walls were shattered, tiny bits and shards of mosaic glass lining the floors at the edges of the room, sunlight spilling in from the outside. Any carvings or paintings, anything that would have indicated to what god this place had once been committed, were now gone.
They were five, all lesser members of that group that rules the city of Ul'dah, the Syndicate. Behind the mask of the caliphate, they operated from the shadows, running the city's government, its civil and military actions. They protected their public wealth through aggressive and shrewd business decisions, and their illicit wealth through any means necessary... including murder and extortion. The wealth of these men had not been built entirely on good business practices alone. Yet, for all their success, they were under a shadow, a pall that had been cast upon them some ten years before. The shadow of the Maestro.
"We recently had a wholesale slaughter of some of our enforcers and lower managers," said the fat, engorged man named Paulio the Ruby. "The Maestro came on his own this time, instead of sending his men. I suppose he was looking to send a personal message."
The thin, intellectual Adarack nodded. "Yes. If he were anyone else I'd say we strike back, but... I believe we're all aware that, should he make public what he knows of our underground affairs, we'd be lost men in this city. We don't have the weight in the Syndicate to sway them to protect us, and we'd be left to the dogs."
Paulio pointed aside, to the richest of them, Viktor Korenza, a man who had been around for some time. His hair was gray, and of them all, he was the only to have any significant pull in the Syndicate's upper echelons. "Viktor, here, brought up an interesting point. An unexpected twist, you might say. Viktor?"
"Of course," he replied, his accent thick though romantic. "It seems that recently there has been a sighting, of an old friend. You may not know him, as I was only a young man myself when he was an enforcer of the Syndicate. He was the best, you might say."
Carpaza the Grim, a worried and tired looking man, shook his head. "We've sent the best for Maestro. They've all been left hanging upside down in the streets, their intestines stinking to high heaven."
"Not like this man, not like this. This man was a fighter, a gladiator before he ever became one of the Syndicate's enforcers. He'd lived years surviving in the desert and fighting far more vicious creatures than men. When he departed we lost track of him for decades, until we heard rumor he was in the employ of the empire. He later came to our attention with the come of the Primals. Now, once again, he has appeared, this time in Limsa Lominsa. However, we have reason to believe he's coming here, and it is my belief that it is to settle out his debt with us. I think we can make an arrangement with him, so long as he agrees to track down the Maestro."
Carpaza again did not look convinced, his long face breaking downwards in a frown. "Forty years ago? You say you were a boy when he was fighting in our arenas, and now you want to tell us that this man, who must be... what, fifty? Sixty? Now you want to convince us that he is the one we should invest in bringing down a monster like the Maestro?" He scoffed, his arms folding as he tilted back in his chair. "I think not."
"I understand your reluctance, Carpaza," Viktor said with a nod, pointing to the light coming in from the windows. "Many suns have come and gone since those days. However, my spies have tracked him, have seen him in the rare moments when he has removed his mask. The man looks not a day older than when he left from this city." He stopped, a thin smirk sliding across his face. "I think that should be intriguing of its own. Of importance to us, though, is that he may be the one we need to finally end the Maestro's madness."
The brooding, black skinned Othello the Bright grunted, eyes looking downwards onto the surface of the table. "If you decide to utilize him, it is your investment, not ours."
Viktor's eyes slowly crossed the table, turning onto Othello, though the man did not return the gaze. "I see Othello. Then, I put up the money, and take the risk. After that, if my agent is victorious, you reap the spoils as well? How is that a wise deal for me?"
"I pledge up front money to compensate you should he win," Othello said, voice still low, eyes still on the wooden table before him. "However, I shall have it set aside with the Syndicate's brokers, to be paid when the deed is done. How does that work for you?"
"Quite well, actually," Viktor said, a wide grin spreading on his face. "Do the rest of you men agree?"
He paused only a minute as the others nodded their consent. "Well then, gentlemen," Viktor said after receiving their approval, "I shall contact him first thing when he arrives in the city."
Paulio raised a hand, glancing at his friend. "Viktor, you've not actually told us the man's name?"
"Ah, of course," Viktor said, returning Paulio's stare. "In my time, he went by the name Amal Shachat. Today, he calls himself Sin."